The Personal Testimony of Costi Hinn

all right well I did the first thing right I turned my mic on so now I don't know every Church is different I went to one church where the pastor's wife came up to me right off the bat and she says there's no coffee in the sanctuary of this church I said yes ma'am so I don't know if I'm committing the cardinal sin here but I'm gonna have coffee I have a five-month-old that likes to cry at night so I'm allowed well good evening thank you for having me I do want to say a special thank you to John and Dale as well thank you men both had a great time flew in around 2:00 or so today so I've got to spend a couple hours with them and I am just overjoyed at all that God is doing at the church here it is exciting I'm a churchman I love the body of Christ I love the Lord I love his word so if you take me anywhere in the world and just show me what's happening here I get so excited about all that God is doing so I praise him for that and give him glory for that session one right now is gonna be my personal testimony my assignment is to first share that and that will come with it I'm sure a bag full of questions is it often does and you're welcome to ask whatever you'd like and I am here for today and tomorrow so if John won't ask your question you can corner me somewhere and I'll answer it and then our second session is going to be focused on the Protestant Reformation and the New Apostolic Reformation and the difference in those and then final session tomorrow end of day will be reaching those caught interceptions so highly practical and what I want to start off by saying as well is that all of this is not meant to be sensationalistic do you know what I mean by that it's not to be a show I always want to start off even with my own conversion story explaining that while I might be a hen God is glorified equally by Smith Jones Jackson and whoever else is saved the same God is saving the same sheep all over so I am honored and humbled and privileged to get to go around and share because I understand that there's an element of my story that might be a little different but it is important to make sure that we're all clear on that as well this conference is a call to action it's important that you don't just take the material and think well that's good for me and I'm happy now in my Redeemer Bible bubble and I don't need to go do anything and the important thing is we leave with tools ready to go do work amen that's what we're to do as the body of Christ so growing up in the circles that I grew up in was normal for me might not seem normal to you but in the Word of Faith Movement and the prosperity gospel growing up as a nephew of any hen and a hen and my dad who also was a prosperity preacher was like being in the center of a royal family almost as a hybrid with the Mafia as well you had that inner circle mentality where there was a gag order you didn't turn your back on family doctrine was always second third fourth even off the list compared to family loyalty in addition the royal family aspect of it was about the wealth and the insulation that we experienced we were on our own Island you couldn't touch us and so complete with security details and everything under the Sun my uncle had become a kind of mainstream in many ways although unfortunate a mainstream name people knew him and we got famous all over the world so growing up in that that was the only world I ever knew it's what I thought the church world was everywhere we went people wanted to be like us and do what we did and they preached what we preached and took classes to learn what we did and it was not more than about 15 years ago that I had been working with my uncle and I stood on the rocks right at this resort called the Grand Resort labony see we're in Greece and I was standing there that day and I had my own suite and it was a prime minister's suite had my own pool it was an infinity pool and I'll never forget it cuz we landed we drove over we were a little ways from Athens and the sliding glass door is open and I'm sitting there and I'm about 19 years old and I thought oh man I have arrived I mean this is it we're flying on a Gulfstream jet we're flying all over the world where we go the best hotels celebrities and athletes and everything under the Sun enjoying all of that and I'm standing there and I remember clear as day I was even wearing a hockey shirt I'm Canadian and I was wearing a black hockey shirt wearing my sunglasses and I stood there and I literally remember thinking I've arrived like this is it I'm the guy I'm next and our family friends and other kind of self-appointed apostles had prophesied that I'm gonna be the next guy like the heir apparent to the Word of Faith Empire I'm gonna become some famous preacher like my father and my uncle and I'm gonna take on the family name the family business and it's all gonna work out perfectly and when you're standing there and you're at a hotel room that's north of 10 grand a night and you've flown on a private plane you really start to believe your own press and I remember thinking I'm doing gospel work this is John 10:10 this is the abundant life and the irony is right where that hotel is situated is a little beach and the body of water there is the Aegean Sea and if you remember Paul on his missionary journeys and even the island of Patmos where John would write the book of Revelation in the Aegean Sea and so ironic as I stood there thinking I was preaching the same gospel as Paul and as Jesus and as John right there where Paul would have sailed I'm believing preaching and serving a false Jesus and a false gospel growing up my father pastored a church in Canada Vancouver British Columbia that he had planted on kind of the opposite end of the continent so to speak my uncle had started his church Orlando Christian Center in Florida and my dad planted Vancouver Christian Center up in Vancouver British Columbia just north of Seattle and simply duplicated what we had learned to do the healing service is the anointing oil the prophetic words the holy man myth as though the guy kind of up on the stage has a special anointing in a revelation that you'll never get that you need to come and hear a word from him if you want direction for your life we had kind of a gospel Plus geology it was the gospel it was believed in Jesus but if you do his atonement has paid for your health and your wealth and is highest wish is for you to prosper in your health and in your wealth in many ways we were the prototypical Pentecostal church we played nice with the Assemblies of God only until the 90s when even the Assemblies kicked us out because it got too far and so even as we talk over the next couple of sessions this is no broad-brush of all Pentecostals we need to be careful right it's no broad-brush of every denomination it's not like ours but we were very typical in some ways and very unique in others through my teenage years I truly believe that God existed for me he was my magic Genie and if I rubbed him right and if I prayed right and had enough faith he would give me whatever I wanted and living proof was all around me my parents had built a home my father had built a home we'd built a church people came they were everywhere and they sang our praises so why wouldn't I believe that everything we're doing is blessed and touched by God we lived in a home that was just south of 10,000 square feet when the newspaper showed up with a helicopter flying our home over our home around the same time that they were doing an Inside Edition episode on my uncle I remember asking my father why are they doing this and he said clear as day this is persecution this is what it means to suffer for Christ this is what happens when you're faithful and you're blessed people can't stand it the devil comes against you and this is what it means to be persecuted for Jesus they're attacking us we must be right where God wants us to be we drove vehicles of course that were all luxury vehicles mercedes-benz and whatnot my parents I remember having meetings with donors who would donate a million dollars at a time I remember being at a home for a home visit one night in North Vancouver and a woman simply wrote a check for a million dollars and that night coming home it was as though it was just another day and another moment where we'd fill the coffers and fill our bank accounts and we'd have enough to continue to live the way we did and do ministry the way we did around that same time though what began to happen is our church went through a series of changes there were some people that started to have a disillusionment with the way we did ministry there were money issues there were integrity issues and like many churches even in the midst of all the deception there are sheep right and they know the Shepherd's voice right and they know the Shepherd's voice through his book right and so people began to speak up and they were quickly dismissed because the gag order stood tall in those days you did not speak against a man of God or touch the Lord's anointed and so people were put in fear including all of us I grew up thinking you never ever challenge the teaching of a man of God you never question what he said or if his prophecy did or didn't come true because that man is anointed by God and if you touch him you'll end up just like all the others remember what David said far be it for me to touch not the Lord's anointed remember what Psalm says touch not the Lord's anointed all the while never having an understanding than in the New Testament church we are to mark those in Romans 16 verses 17 and 18 Paul says mark those who actually are teaching contrary to what we have been taught we're to mark those who are causing divisions we are to have accountability but none of that existed in our circle we an insulated ourselves and if you said anything you were doomed in those days the church B did begin to dwindle it dwindled down to the faithful army who were essentially drinking the kool-aid and what we did was simply add in other elements so the church budget was lower the attendance was lower and around the same time my uncle said well why don't you guys travel with me come around the world with me let's do ministry obviously those small people in Vancouver are missing the anointing on your life you need to come and do some more ministry with me and so we did so my dad added one to two Crusades per month working with my uncle and those paid incredibly well the service per diems in these type of organizations and this still goes on today is you get paid per service so if you show up and you're there you may get paid $5,000 just for being there and so imagine if you're at a crusade and there's three or four services you're being paid $5,000 per service and then you're paid twenty-five hundred twenty-five hundred dollars a day for travel at the time you go home on an international trip you have twenty to thirty thousand dollars wired to your account waiting for you and so you go home to your church you clean house there and you begin to build a life that is incredibly rich except it's very poor spiritually second Peter - one two - Peter literally warns about the kind of people we had become and the type of teaching that we were propagating and at the time it was lying dormant in my Bible but I always like to insert it here so people remember that this stuff is real Peter said but false prophets also arose among the people just as there will also be false teachers among you and they'll secretly introduce destructive heresies even denying the master who bought them bringing Swift destruction upon themselves many will follow their sensuality and because of them the way of truth will be maligned in here I want you to maybe circle these words if you have your Bible open and in their greed they will exploit you with their false words it says though the Bible was written in a prophetic way our exploitation really knew no bounds we did whatever it took to make money off the people I remember different seasons when we would have holy water and I'm serious we really did that something you might see in a movie when you have a tour to Israel and you kids are selling water and saying it's holy water or one of the televangelists on late-night selling his miracle spring water this was water bottles all over the platform and we declared that it was prophetically the season of anointing through water so people would come the sick the lame the hurting and they would get water bottles and they would give their best offering and it would drink water bottles and take water bottles home and what we said is it's like a point of contact just like Paul healed people with handkerchiefs the Lord has spoken to us that it's water now and that would bring with it a flood of people to our church and a flood of money to our church and you ultimately know why people are desperate for hope they're desperate for answers they're desperate for healing their children are prodigal their body is not responding to the treatment and they're trying to hold on for dear life to everything they have it's falling apart and then some man stands up or gets on the TV and says I have the answer for you it is exploitation of biblical capacity it's exactly what the Bible says they'll do they prey upon people that's what we were doing as my teenage years carried on there were some times when kids would make fun of me or poke fun at my uncle and they would say you know your uncle's a heretic or he's a false teacher man he's crazy with the white suit waving his jacket knockin everybody over somebody had YouTubed a video and put a song to the background of him knocking everyone over with his jacket so it only got funnier and then the smartphone was invented and it got even more funny because everybody had access to this and kids would say things like you know your uncle's a heretic my dad told me is a false teacher and I would pipe back yeah well at least we have the power of God at least we have the anointing you go to a dead church and these would be Baptists Presbyterians Lutheran's any conservative denomination anybody who wasn't us even conservative biblically minded Pentecostals that we may differ on with some things but they were certain that what we were doing was wrong we would simply say oh you've lost the spirit you're dead you're a dead church because our theology held to a belief that you needed a second work of grace you were a second-class citizen if you did not speak in tongues if you did not hear the voice of God audibly if you did not wake up in the morning and receive a fresh word if you could not heal and you couldn't go wield supernatural gifts all of you at will if you couldn't do that your faith was limited and that was damaging but there would still be a time before I really knew what was so damaging about it as high school was winding down I began to set my sights on a baseball career I played baseball in high school and even as questions and swirled in my mind at times about our theology and what we did in the way we live I would quickly dismiss those things remembering that I had dreams of my own and so like a good word of faith and prosperity gospel kid I knew the best way to achieve my dream was to sow a seed into God's dream and so what I did is I decided to take about a year and a half of my life and sowed it as a seed into my uncle's ministry I worked for him instead of graduating high school like every kid with summer off and then going to college my summer was spent getting ready to go and travel the world with my uncle during that year it was a sort of rite of passage in my family family members worked for my uncle often but me is the oldest nephew and the oldest costi in a middle-eastern family it's very honorable that's what you're supposed to do as well and so I drew a lot of acceptance from the family I drew a lot of acceptance and gratitude from my uncle he was very kind and very generous and very welcoming and I was brought right into the inner circle and I became his assistant that year and my job was to wear a suit and catch people on stage when they would fall as a catcher and also on the road my job was to carry his Louie Vuitton briefcase if I did anything right just catch the old ladies that fall and don't let them get hurt and then get out of the way and don't lose the Louie briefcase that was my job that year was a whirlwind tour of luxury we stayed in $25,000 a night hotel rooms in Dubai the Royal suite at the Burj Al Arab the hotel that's shaped like a sail you might see it on the Travel Channel the Royal Suite there was gold everywhere if you do the research on it there's Gold everywhere we were picked up in luxury vehicles taken everywhere seaside resorts in Greece we toured the Swiss Alps we stayed in villas in Lake Como in Italy which is right where George Clooney has a house and everything was a suite and everything was top dollar we were staying where the presidents stayed and the Prime Minister's stayed we were on the gold coast of Australia we had shopping sprees that Harrods in London numerous trips to Israel Hawaii we would do what a lot of people do when they travel and you you have a layover right your layover might be like mine was just a few weeks ago when I flew from Missouri Ida actually had a layover in Phoenix and I had some Panda expressed a little different back then when we had a layover we had a luau and we stayed in the presidential suite at the four seasons in Maui that was resting to get ready to go do ministry and we would stop over in Fiji and refuel the plane and enjoy a little resort life there in the clear water there and that was life during that season again more prophecies that season as people said you're gonna take the anointing and mantle of your uncle and it'll go to greater heights than you'd ever dreamed I'll never forget one night after a couple of prophets so called sat around and they said caustic Amir and they laid hands on me and they said you're gonna take the church meaning everything that they oversaw because they believed that they were the authority of the church like apostles and prophets to new heights and it was all about new heights I never knew they meant but they used to always say there's gonna be more healings in your ministry then your uncles and your fathers combined and I used to think I've like never healed anyone in my life I better get started I remember one night I was in the green room and I was eating cheese it's true story and I'm back there and the services were a long four and a half hours long singing more singing entertaining more stories more stories more singing and then eventually my uncle builds it up to where I mean people are so desperate they're all fall I'll do it I'll give just let me out it's been four hours and as a staff member you learn the system pretty quick and you think I'm hungry and so I would sneak over to the greenroom and I would eat the food cuz they always had the best food for my uncle and he never ate it there would be snacks in there they'd be all left over after see them M&Ms and whatever else you wanted I would eat it on a fun and all of a sudden I'll never forget here cos T cos T cos P and I'm looking and I'm like oh no busted and my dad gets back there and he says get out here now I said what's going on and he said oral roberts is about to leave i said okay he said no get out now he's gonna lay hands on you and I remember being rushed out and thinking I'm just I'm hungry I don't want to be I don't care about Oral Roberts but to give you a sense of just how venerated the leaders are in the movement and just how dependent we were and others are on just getting a touch from one of these so-called holy men or holy women my dad was appalling as he brought me over in Oral Roberts a shell of what he once was an old man took his massive palm and laid it on my head and he mumbled something about prosperity and blessing and whatever and prayed for me and my dad was sobbing harder than I'd ever seen him cry in his life and on our way back that night as he told me getting a service don't go back to the green room he said you'll know one day what just happened but that was the greatest moment of your life because Oral Roberts had laid his hand on me and imparted whatever anointing that was believed to be imparted and now I would finally be something that's the world that I lived in our friends and our network were filled with names that you might know from TBN like Paul and Jan Crouch and friends like Paula White whose Trump's spiritual advisor now and quite famous for her prosperity preaching we would be with Joyce Meyer and Kenneth Copeland and old friends that were NFL players and celebrities and boxers and everything was this kind of celebrity culture and you thought it was okay because look who's in the room this is the who's who but ultimately after all of that I did go to school and the Lord opened the door for me to play baseball and I ended up at a school called Dallas Baptist University keyword Baptist and I remember sitting with my family the night I was telling them and they said be very careful the Baptist's will ruin you they've got a solid word but no power don't let them steal your anointing and I just said I'm there to play baseball but meanwhile God knew I was there to get Bible and soon I had a coach who begin to say things like hey guys don't worry about the scouts God is sovereign there was a scrimmage game one afternoon and a Yankee Scout had showed up because one of our teammates was very talented and ended up with the Blue Jays and the Royals another one was drafted by the Mets and made it's a big league so we were a good team and the Scout wasn't there to see me but the reality was in the baseball world a scout comes to see a teammate and then he sees more players and you get on the list and there could be some attention around your name if you're playing good when they're there to see somebody else and so there was a scout in the stands for our scrimmage and coach calls everybody up and we huddle up and he says gentlemen relax God is sovereign and I'm sitting in the back thinking whatever and he says proverbs 21 1 reminds us the heart of the king is like waters and the channels of the hand of the Lord he turns it wherever he wished his God is sovereign he controls Kings Scouts your future my future he's sovereign thinking how do I get on the good side of sovereignty how does sovereignty work for me I have no idea what that meant I I claim it I get it that's why I'm here I served my uncle God controls the scouts but my fate controlled all that so I'm good coach and in my mind I remember thinking that it's like the wires weren't firing for the first time in my life I heard something that was so outstandingly biblical that it sent me into a spiral of confusion and so kind of pushed it out of my mind and continued on my Road at DBU which was a place that was soaked in the scriptures we were in Bible studies midweek we heard about the kind of woman to aspire to marry we heard about biblical convictions and qualifications for marriage and for men and for women and for holiness and for the pursuit of God and His glory I heard about the gospel I ended up having to memorize Scripture as part of it and all of this was like a bomb maker patting it all in and compressing the Gunpowder and sealing it all off for what would one day explode in my life these were cracks in the dam of my theology because a faithful baseball coat just shared what the scripture said as I observed his life I'll never forget that there was no magic behind the curtain there was no difference who he was on the field was who he was in the home he would invite us over at different holidays for guys who didn't go back home and you would just see a man operating the same way he operated everywhere else a man of the word who loved his wife who served his family and loved his God it was faithfulness and so eventually I graduate from D bu and if there was the coach God used there was certainly the girl that God would used and now she's the mother of my three children and now she's the crown jewel and the prudent wife that God has given me as a gift from the Lord but back then she was just this blue-collar gal from Rancho Cucamonga California who did not speak in tongues and would not be accepted by my family if she had all the money in the world she didn't have the most important element which was the Holy Spirit in our theology and Christine was a new convert she took the Bible as it was she was one of those kind of literal Bible readers before she even knew what that was she would be considered a you know a very clear Christian but to us she was a very very serious threat and my parents thought this is the gal that's gonna ruin it all she's gonna pull him away her mother is a schoolteacher her father my father-in-law is a blue-collar iron worker she drove a Toyota Yaris I drove a Hummer a difference in look size gas bill all of it we were very different in fact we couldn't have been more different and I remember coming home and telling my family I met this gal I've been seeing her a little bit we've been going to dinner and they said we know I said I know I've kept her at bay but I think you should meet her and I knew better and I remember the first question just one question cost my family calls me cost if she spirit-filled and I said all guys don't do that not with this one please she's a good girl she loves God she's a Christian and I just kind of pulled out my Baptist theology as best as I could at that moment from school and I said we all have the Holy Spirit everybody at conversion work yes she has the Holy Spirit they said no no no no does she speak in tongues I said no and immediately the prophesies came they started telling me the Lord told us she's not your wife the Lord told us she's a danger the Lord told us she's a distraction and family member after family member began to try to deter me away from this gal who was very different in the way that she carried herself and very different in what she believed eventually my family realized I wasn't gonna let go of this one and so the fix was on we were gonna fix Christine and so they took her to one of my uncle's services and she was supposed to get the anointing nothing happened and so they thought well she just needs to come under my father's ministry because we have what's called the honor system or the honor code or honor culture which is that you honor the man or the woman of God and you come under them plurality is out of the question any type of system of equality or being brothers and sister in Christ that's not part of that culture honor culture is I submit under the apostle or the Prophet and I come under them and then God will give me what I want or he'll bless me or improve a marriage so even our marriage had to come under the apostolic authority of family leadership to be accepted and so she went to a service and they laid hands on her and I'll never forget I looked over cuz I was standing next to her I mean put a little hands up and they tell you to raise your hands and said you know raise your hands and you look over and everyone's babbling in tongues and all of a sudden they lay hands on her and she just tips over her body was stiff as a board and she just tips over on her little high heels and she falls down and I thought oh I don't didn't she didn't really react that much but maybe it's real maybe she finally got it I mean she fell now they'll accept her and I remember talking about it with her some time later and I said what went on she said that was the darkest most just honestly maybe even demonic feeling I've ever felt in my life and I was taken back by her statement and I thought I guess that's what happens and this was after quite some time after when a when a believer is in an environment that is not centered on Christ and not in an environment that is truly salvific and preaching a true gospel because if you think about this for a second does the Holy Spirit do roommate's does half the church get filled with him and half the church has a false or foul spirit and they're kind of often lalala does the Holy Spirit operate that way does he guide into partial truth does he get you kind of halfway there are you kind of partially saved just a little bit no he does his work all the way and that's what happens when a believer is in an environment they may appear gospel centered it may appear like it's saturated with the spirit but there was no Holy Spirit there eventually the tension grew so great and the family division began and there was so much conflict because she wasn't getting it that we were just at our wits end we would pray she would cry what's wrong with me we went to another conference where a woman got up and begin to coach the crowd on tongues and they called everyone forward and I remember looking and Christine was trying and her little mouth was saying buh-buh-buh-buh-buh and I thought well maybe she'll get it tonight I don't know and back then I would still kind of babble in my little prayer language that I didn't know what it meant but I was just used to doing what I always did and so I was doing it so I thought well maybe I get it she doesn't maybe we both get it I don't know how this works but I really love this gal I think she's the one and she didn't get it then and then I'll never forget couple weeks after that we're sitting there and we're studying the Bible trying to find answers because things aren't adding up and we stumble of course in our mind stumble all the while being led smoothly by the Holy Spirit through its to first corinthians 12:30 where paul's explaining that not everybody's gonna do these things he says not all do they rhetorically about healing and tongues and interpretation of tongues and paul's explaining it clear as day and we're sitting there thinking i think you're off the hook this is great news i can marry you you just don't have to babble all babble everybody will be fine it'll work but the lord wasn't done when you find one thing in the scriptures you find another thing in the scriptures and the lord began to knock over the dominoes one after the other and we knew it was time to go it was time to face the music and to take whatever hits we took to finally face my family and say we're out of here we don't know what we're gonna do how we're gonna pay our bills or where we're gonna go but we know that this is not where we're gonna be and the conversation was ugly and one of my parents stood and said she did this and i remember standing up and saying no way and the word was you don't hear from god we do and you are not her covering we are and you are not her authority we are you are not her husband and I said I'll be her husband in 30 days but I'm gonna start acting as if now to get ready for what God has and that moment was where it all came to a head I remember going down to this downstairs area was Christine after the conflict everybody kind of went to their corners and looking at her and thinking I don't know what we're gonna do but let's just pray and within a day a phone call came and it was from a little church in California and we had some friends over there and my friend who's now actually a biblical counsellor and Anna Mae amazing man of God in His Church said hey man how's it going it said terrible and I explained to him all the details and he said well it sounds like you need to stop trying to be your dad's hero and your dad's church's hero and everybody else's hero and start being Christine's hero because she's your first ministry bud and I was taken back I had never in my life heard the words first ministry in relation to my wife I had heard it about ministry that ministry comes first the kingdom comes first the church comes first the family gets laid aside because we have a kingdom calling that was what I was always taught ministry is the mistress she's number one meanwhile for the first time in my life a brother sits me down and says that's not how it works see the church can fail your dad can fail your marriage is your first ministry that's what God calls you to as a pastor as a leader as a man period the thing you will be judged for before much else besides your conversion and that you're in Christ is how you treated his daughter the one he gave you when you'll face the Lord at the judgment seat and he maybe pulls his daughter forward and right there as you're the one being judged he says where is she bring her up and he and he has his daughter - a little spin and he says does she look better now then when I gave you to her does she look the way I wanted her to look after you've gotten done with her is she holier is she more protected is she more sanctified is she more loved did you do your job that's what God's gonna do on Judgment Day and as a man I was cut to the core it wouldn't matter if I hung on to the family ties it wouldn't matter if I pleased everyone it would only matter if I please the Lord and I honored this woman that he had given me and so I got my first pastoral lesson from the good guys and that same church ended up offering me a job they said hey why don't you come do some youth ministry with us we can't really pay you much so we'll give you a few hundred dollars and then you've got to find a job and I thought done I'll take it I'll be a janitor I'll do anything just get me out of here and so we packed up the cars and we just drove straight shot Vancouver LA 24 hours stopped at a rest stop she stayed in her car I stayed in mine we crank the heat it was freezing and just fell asleep woke up hit her window let's go and we kept going and we rolled into California we got married that Friday we were introduced to the church Sunday and the journey began but God had kind of one more thing in mind for me and it was a pastor the pastor of that church the pastor of the church where I still him now our teaching pastor who's become a dear brother disciples me along asks me some questions I'm clueless about just about everything in the job interview he says hey some theological questions for you where do you stand on the book of Revelation literal symbolic and I was like what I don't know man we just sold the gospel and got rich I guess khatallah G what is that and he remember him just laughing and he said marilla relax calm dad don't don't worry we'll figure all that out said okay he said you're coming on board and I was like yes just show me the Bible teach me I'll do it and so we'd get here and after a few months of learning and growing the fall turns to the winter and the winter starts to turn to spring and April 30th 2013 I'm up it's my turn to preach he's got to go away and he says hey I need you to cover the pulpit we're in a series on John it'll be John 5 1 through 17 that's your text it's the healing at the Pool of Bethesda I think you'd handle that I said I guess so he said here's a commentary it'll help keep the Train on the tracks and he throws a john macarthur commentary on my desk and I remember studying and I've asked him since was that a setup it really wasn't have the hinted preach on healing okay good plan so in study I'm doing what I've been taught to do in just those first few months and you all know you've seen people get converted and you've walked this road to you get into your first kind of biblical basics course at the church and then someone teaches you maybe like the oka method or something observation you know correlation application you're learning all these things right and you're learning how to actually just ask simple interrogative questions of the text and maybe just don't look at it and go yeah wow the story of you know David I guess I'm David that seems call slay my Goliath today and you go on it's not how the Bible works and you learn some things right I took what I learned and I start just kind of asking questions of the text and Jesus so clearly sees this one man the Bible says John records it he in a multitude of people chooses one man and I'm thinking that's weird why didn't she he'll everybody Jesus we always said you'll heal everybody at all of our meetings and Jesus picks one and then a few verses later I'll never forget it and the bottom quadrant of my Bible Left column down low it says and immediately and I thought circle that immediately man Lord you healed them right away no music no jacket no weird stuff no offering no for our service no jesus you healed them immediately there's no games here this don't no process it's not hey keep on believing you just keep going the Lord will work it out you keep exercising your faith sister as she goes out the door and you keep things looking good cuz nobody got healed it was immediate and then this guy picks up his palette walks around does a lap ends up by the Pharisees Jesus isn't around and what are they saying who told you you can pick up your pallet and walk around on the Sabbath day no the guy who healed me John says because he did not know who Jesus was Jesus had gone away from that place Jesus wasn't around well you start doing some digging and you look up some Greek words I was taught to do that so I thought well I better do that and then I said well I don't really understand Greek so none of this is helping let me try the commentary so I grab the commentary and there goes MacArthur in MacArthur asked fashion off on the the lies of faith healers and he writes it right in there it's not in any uncertain terms one of the cruelest lies of contemporary faith healers is that the people they fail to heal are guilty of sinful unbelief a lack of faith or negative confession this man is a prime example of Jesus healing in a sovereign way and three things we're sticking out Lord your sovereign you healed one out of a multitude your sovereign you do what you want Lord you healed the man immediately you do it how you want and when you want and the way you want it's done nothing's gonna change and then Lord the man didn't even a doe in the Greek perceive who you were how if he didn't perceive who you were how did he know you he didn't so how did he have enough faith to get the healing from you it didn't take enough faith you just healed them out of your own sovereign will I remember just losing it in my office the same office I'm in today I was crying weeping all over the study notes as I realized that you are a sovereign God you do what you want you are in control everything we taught and we did was a lie the gospel we lived the people that we spiritually assaulted and Exploited all of that that's not what you do and I had my come to Jesus moment the scales fell from my eyes you might want to call it a grace awakening people often ask you know when were you converted when were you saved how did you know when you were saved and I've had some people who listen to my story and say yeah get that the moment happened in the office but you were already a sheep you were already hearing his voice you were already leaning towards the truth that process leading up to it was where he grabbed hold of your heart and begin to guide your steps and I understand that and it could have been before the Lord was doing a great work and he was drawing me but ultimately for me the Great Awakening moment was when I actually understood what the truth was in contrast to what I had believed I repented I told the Lord I'll do whatever you want me to do I'll serve at this church I'll do anything whatever you want I repent I'll never go back I vow to preach and teach and stand for truth I'll serve you I'll take on this thing I'll sit in the corner in my office if you tell me to whatever you want me to do Lord I'm your man whatever and it wasn't more than just a few months later that the pastor came and said hey we'd love to bring you on full-time and and do some family life ministry and so I learned family life ministry I never knew what family life ministry was and then it was hey we need you to help start some life groups so okay we'll figure out what life groups is I read sticky church by Larry Osbourne and everything else I learned what life weigh was where you find books and try to figure stuff out and then I was the children's pastor and that was interesting and along the way the Lord just kind of said here this is what you're gonna do now and the elders would come and I would assume the Lord's leading that too so they would say here here's what we need you to do here and all the while the Lord just doing whatever he wants to do in my life and finally after all those years I finally learned what it meant to just submit to a sovereign God many events followed after my conversion I got biblically baptized I had sent a thank-you letter over to grace to you and thanks dr. MacArthur for his ministry and somebody had reached out back and kind of heard a funny story about my wife and her pink MacArthur Study Bible and me saying that's not staying in our house because eventually I found out who the guy was who authored the commentary and I thought well he wrote a good commentary that helped me a bit but I don't like all of his teachings that Bible has got to go and of course a few weeks later guess who was reading the pink Study Bible me and so I remember those men lovingly from TMS saying so Kosti have you been biblically baptized since your true conversion and I thought well why would I do that in front of all the people it's supposed to be a pastor supposed to be a Christian and they encouraged me to be a little more bold about the step I had taken and so I got biblically baptized and then all of a sudden in our church more people started popping up saying yeah I was a false convert too and they started getting biblically baptized and then as a church a church that would hire a prosperity gospel kid by the way started to change to our church wasn't always the way it is now back then we were a little more loose and so that's how I got hired but eventually our church started to transform and we started to learn what biblical eldership was and what biblical baptism was and it was not just my conversion but it was many other conversions there was almost a micro revival happening in our little church and I was just one part of it as the Lord did what he wanted as a sovereign captain of his ship as the head of his church I've since been to seminary and I'm continuing in my education there and I now get the chance to share that story so I'll save the rest and you guys can ask questions at the Q&A but overall I would do want to leave you with a simple exhortation we were talking earlier about 1st Corinthians 15:58 where Paul says therefore my beloved brethren and therefore is based on a lot of indicative and he says because of all that my beloved brethren be steadfast immovable always abounding in the work of the Lord knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord let me just encourage you the work you put in to reach out to others it will matter it matters now it'll matter an eternity and every one of you here have a sphere of influence and you'll have an opportunity if you continue in faithfulness and continue to share the gospel and continue to live with open arms and open hearts and open doors God will use you in a great and mighty way so let your life be characterized by that faithfulness and let your life be characterized by a witness and let your life be characterized by a love for people always seeing them as God's next great project you got to think that way right you got a view every person in your life that that might be lost or a little too far gone as the next great monument to God's glory that's what he does he showcases his glory by showing how powerful he is to transform any life let's pray father as I share on what you've done in my life I can't help but he'd be humbled it's sobering to look back on the details and there's so many more just I'm reminded of your Providence how you are so intimately acquainted with every detail in our lives that is very infinite and sovereign God you're in the weeds you're in the details you're in the minutiae working things out for your good thank you I give you glory and honor and praise thank you for saving me thank you for saving all of us for pouring out your grace it's so undeserved my only prayer in closing is just that you would use the conference to to use us let it be something that triggers us cause a revival in this region a greater revival a continuing revival bring people out of the corners of their hiding bring churches and pastors out of insecurity or nervousness that if they stand up on these issues that there'll be some sort of backlash that will be too great for them to bear and remind us all that when we unify around the truth and we humble ourselves before you and we focused on what you have called us to do you will do great and mighty things thank you for what you've done and what you're still gonna do in Jesus mighty name we pray amen

Channel: Redeemer Bible Church

Views: 210,676

Rating: 4.8013573 out of 5

Keywords: Jesus, Bible, Redeemer Bible Church, Arizona, Gilbert, Mesa, Bible Church, Truth, Understanding, God, Costi Hinn, Benny Hinn, Testimony, Gospel, Discernment

Id: 2Ac_DJ3e9jU

Length: 51min 34sec (3094 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 30 2018