PRAISING GOD BRINGS GOD’S MANIFESTED PRESENCE

A young Pentecostal evangelist did something striking when he was dying of tuberculosis back in the early 1930s. He told me his story firsthand. He had become bedfast and was hemorrhaging from both lungs. He had had to take his family to live on his father-in- law's farm. One day his father-in-law was out in the fields plowing and his wife and mother-in-law were behind the house doing the wash. This young evangelist begged God for enough strength to get out of bed and make it to a clump of trees and bushes a quarter of a mile down the road. He purposed in his heart, I'm going to pray until I pray through and God heals me, or until they find me dead.

He reached the thicket and fell down exhausted. He couldn't have cried for help if he had wanted to. No one knew where he was. "They'll never find you until the buzzards lead them to you," the devil assured him. "Well," he said, "that's all right, devil. That's what I came out here to do. Just as soon as I can regain a little strength, I'm going to pray until I'm healed or die on the spot." "Then, as I was lying there," he told me, "trying to muster enough strength to start praying, I got to thinking about it: Everywhere I had been, I had turned in prayer requests for my healing. Hundreds of people had prayed. Thousands of people had prayed. Every healing evangelist in America had laid hands on me.

Everybody had prayed ....” "My, my. If you put all of those prayers together, it would be hundreds of hours of prayer. All these great men of faith had laid hands on me—and God uses healing evangelists.” "I decided: My God, I've missed it! I'm not going to pray at all. There is no use in my praying. I see where I've missed it. I shouldn't even have turned in those prayer requests. I've been trying to get somebody else to pray. I've been trying to get God to give me what He says is already mine!”

"The Bible says I'm healed. Lord, I'm going to lie here flat on my back and praise You. I'm going to praise You until my healing is manifested." He told me, "I just started whispering, 'Praise the Lord. Glory to God. Hallelujah. Thank You, Jesus.' After about 10 minutes of whispering 'Thank You, Jesus,' I got enough strength to lift my arms up by propping my elbows on the ground, and I praised God another 10 minutes or so. Then I got enough strength to lift my hands, and my voice got louder.” "And at the end of two hours, I was on my feet hollering 'Praise God' so loud somebody heard me several miles away." You see—when he began to agree with what the Word of God said and acted on God's Word, he got results! (Kenneth Hagin)