Number One: The Inward Witness
The Spirit itself [Himself] beareth witness with
our spirit....
—Romans 8:16
You will find that being led by the inward witness is the
number one way, or the primary way, that God leads all of His children.
Let me go back—I said I would in the preface of this book—to
what Jesus said to me in February 1959 in El Paso, Texas. It was 6:30 in the
evening. I was sitting up in bed studying. My eyes were wide open. (There are
three types of visions. The highest type is an open vision. In an open vision,
one's physical senses are not suspended, and his physical eyes are not closed.
He possesses all of his physical capabilities, yet sees into the realm of the
spirit.)
I heard footsteps. The door to my room was ajar twelve to
fourteen inches, so I looked to see who was coming into my room. I expected to
see some literal, physical person. But as I looked to see who it was, I saw
Jesus. It seemed as if the hair on my neck and head stood straight up on end.
Chill bumps popped out all over my body.
I saw Him. He had on a white robe. He wore Roman sandals.
(Jesus has appeared to me eight times. Every time, except this time, His feet
were bare. This time He had on sandals; that's what I had heard as He
approached my door.) He seemed to be about 5 feet 11 inches tall. He looked as
if He weighed about 180 pounds.
He came through the door and pushed it back until it was
almost shut. He walked around the foot of my bed. I followed Him with my
eyes—almost spellbound. He took ahold of a straight chair and pushed it up
close to my bed. Then He sat down on it, folded His hands, and began His
conversation with me by saying, "I told you in the automobile the other
night...."
The automobile had been full. My wife and I and others were
driving along within two blocks of where I now was, as Jesus sat by my bedside
talking to me. In the car, I had heard the Spirit of God speak to me. I thought
everyone in the car had heard it and I said, "Did you all hear that?"
They said, "No, we didn't hear anything."
In the Old Testament the prophets would say, "And the
Word of the Lord came unto me saying...." Did you ever wonder how it came?
It could not have been literally audible. If it had been audible everyone
present would have heard it—the prophet would not have had to tell the people
what the Spirit said. The Word of the Lord came to the prophet's spirit from
the Spirit of God. It is so real that it seems audible at the time. The Word of
the Lord was so real to me, I thought everyone in the car with me had heard it
too.
As Jesus sat at my bedside, He said, "I spoke to you the
night before last in the automobile and told you certain things. I told you, by
my Spirit, that later I would talk to you further. So now I have come to talk
to you about this..."
It was concerning the ministry of the prophet. Jesus sat
there in that chair and talked to me for an hour and a half. And I talked to
Him. I asked questions in reference to what He was saying. He answered them. I
will not go into all He said about the prophet's ministry; that is another
message. But I will get into some of it.
Jesus said to me, "The prophet of the New Testament is
very similar to the prophet of the Old Testament in that the prophet of the Old
Testament was called a 'seer' because he saw and knew things supernaturally.
The prophet of the New Testament also sees and knows things supernaturally. But
the prophet of the New Testament does not have the same status as the prophet
of the Old Testament, in that I did not set prophets in the Church to guide the
Church. A Christian under the New Testament need not seek guidance through
prophets. He might receive guidance through prophets, but he should not seek
it. It is unscriptural to do so. The ministry of the New Testament prophet in
this area is only to confirm what people already have in their own spirits.
"Under the Old Covenant, only the priest, the prophet,
and the king were anointed by the Holy Spirit to stand in those offices. What
you would call the laity did not have the Spirit of God upon them or in them.
Therefore, under the Old Covenant, people would seek guidance through the
prophet because he had the Spirit of God."
Under the New Testament, thanks be to God, we not only have
the Spirit of God upon us—we have Him in us!
Jesus also said to me, "Under the New Covenant, it does
not say, 'As many as are led by prophets, they are the sons of God.' The New
Testament says, 'For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons
of God'" (Rom. 8:14).
Then He said, "The number one way, the primary way, that
I lead all of My children is by the inward witness. I am going to show you how
that works so you won't make the mistakes you have made in the past."
Jesus explained to me that to stand in the office of the
prophet, one is first of all a minister of the gospel separated and called to
the ministry with the call of God upon his life. Secondly, he has at least two
of the revelation gifts—the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, the
discerning of spirits—plus the gift of prophecy, operating in his ministry.
Then He called my attention to something that had been
happening to me for the previous three days. For the past three days, I had sat
down to write a letter to a pastor confirming a date to hold a meeting for him.
Somehow, the first day, I got about half a page written, then I tore it up and
threw it into the wastebasket. The next day I did the same thing. The third day
I did the same thing. Then it was the day that the Lord was here in the room
talking to me.
Jesus said, "You see Me sitting here talking to you.
This is a manifestation of the Spirit called discerning of spirits. (Discerning
of spirits is seeing into the spirit realm.) This is the prophet's ministry in
operation. You are seeing into the realm of the spirit. You see Me. You hear Me
talking. I am bringing you, through the vision, a word of knowledge and also a
word of wisdom. I am telling you not to go to that church. The pastor would not
accept the way you would minister when you got there. But I am never going to
lead you this way again. (He never has, and that was many years ago.) From now
on, I'm going to lead you by the inward witness. You had the inward witness all
the time. You had a check in your spirit. That's the reason you tore up the
letter three times. You had something on the inside, a check, a red light, a
stop signal. It wasn't even a voice that said, 'Don't go.' It was just an
inward intuition."
Then Jesus reminded me of another invitation. I had preached
a convention for one of the Full Gospel denominations the previous year. Nearly
every pastor there asked me if I would come and hold a meeting. I had hundreds
of calls, I suppose.
One fellow came up to me and said, "Brother Hagin, do
you ever go to small churches?"
I said, "I go anywhere the Lord says to go."
"Well, we only run seventy to ninety in Sunday School.
But if God ever speaks to you, we want you to come."
I dismissed that conversation along with many others. Several
months later, however, while praying in the church one day about my services
that night, that conversation came back to me. Then every day it continued to
come back to me. Finally, after about thirty or forty days, I said, "Lord,
do You want me to go to that little church for a meeting?"
The more I would pray about it and the more I would think
about it, as we say, the better I would feel about it on the inside of me. It
wasn't a physical feeling, but it was a feeling in my spirit.
Sitting by my bedside, Jesus referred to this: "The more
you thought about it, the better you felt about it. You had a velvety-like
feeling in your spirit. That's the green light. That's the go-ahead signal
That's the witness of the Spirit to go. Now you see Me sitting here, you hear
Me talking to you, and I am telling you to go to that church. But I am never
going to lead you to go anywhere like this again. (He never has.) From now on,
I am going to lead you just like I do every other Christian—by the inward
witness."
Then the Lord said this to me, which is not just for my
benefit, but also for yours: "If you will learn to follow that inward
witness, I will make you rich. I will guide you in all the affairs of life,
financial as well as spiritual. [Some think God is only interested in their
spiritual well-being, and nothing else. But He is interested in everything we
are interested in.] I am not opposed to My children being rich; I am opposed to
their being covetous."
I have followed that inward witness and He has done just what
He said He would do. He has made me rich.
Someone asked, "Are you a millionaire?"
I didn't say that. Some people fail to realize what the Word
"rich" means. It means a full supply. It means abundant provision. I
have more than a full supply. I have more than an abundant provision. It is
because I learned to follow the leading of the Spirit by the inward witness.
What He did for me, He will do for you. It won't come
overnight, or by next Saturday night. But as you learn to develop your spirit
and follow that inward witness, He will guide you in every area of your life.
I knew a man down in Texas. He had never worn a pair of shoes
until he was 12 years old. He only had a fifth grade education. But way back
when money was money, he was a millionaire.
Two different people, one from California and the other from
Minnesota who had been frequent house guests in his home, told me that this man
told each of them the same thing.
He said to them both, "In all these years and in all these
investments [that's how he made his money], I have never lost a dime."
That beats my record. How about yours?
"Everything I have ever invested in, has made
money,"he told each of them on different occasions. Then he told them how
he did it.
"I always do this. When someone comes along with an
idea, wanting me to invest in something, my first reaction is mental. Now I
know when Jesus said, 'When you pray, enter into your closet,' that He didn't
necessarily mean you have to get into a closet to pray. I know He meant for us
to shut things out. But I have a large closet in my bedroom where I go to pray.
I pray about it. I wait long enough—until I hear what my spirit says. Sometimes
I wait three days. Now I don't mean that I stay in there 24 hours a day. I
might come out and eat one meal. Usually I miss a few. I come out and sleep a
little bit. But the majority of the time I am waiting, just by myself, until I
know inside by an inward witness what I am to do.
"Sometimes my head says, 'Boy, you would be a fool to
put your money in that. You'll lose your shirt.' But my heart says, 'Go ahead
and invest in it.' So I do. And in all these years, I have never lost a dime.
"Then again, someone comes along with a deal and my head
says, 'Boy, you had better get in on that one.' But I don't pay any attention
to my head. I get in that closet and wait. Sometimes all night long I wait.
I'll pray and read my Bible, but a lot of the time I just wait. I just get
quiet until I can hear inside what my heart says. When my heart says, 'No,
don't do it,' and my head says, 'Yes, you'd better get in on it,' I don't do
it."
What had this man done? He had learned to follow the inward
witness and God had guided him in his business, until in the late 1930's and
the early 1940's he was already worth two million dollars. That doesn't sound
big now, but it was big then.
Do you think God loved him more than He loves you? No, but
this man took time to listen to God. He took steps and means and measures to
wait upon God.
I was with a group of ministers and we were talking
personally, and conversing with one another. Someone asked a certain individual
who is a very successful minister, "Now we know that God called you and
that the anointing of God's Spirit is upon you. But from your standpoint, is
there any one thing you do that you would say has contributed more to your
success than any other one thing?"
That man said, "I always follow my deepest
premonitions."
What was he saying? He was simply saying, "I always
listen to my spirit. I do what my spirit tells me to do. I follow that inward
witness."
The inward witness is just as supernatural as guidance
through visions and so on; it is just not as spectacular. Many people are
looking for the spectacular and missing the supernatural that is right there
all the time.
