[Chapter 3] UNDERSTANDING THE ANOINTING BY KENNETH HAGIN

Chapter 3

How the Anointing Led Me
The text we just studied from First John says, “the anointing which ye have received o f him abideth IN you… [and] teacheth you of all things.” What is that anointing for? It’s to teach you all things!
I remember the night I was born again: I was born again the 22nd day of April 1933. I know that an unction or anointing came into me that very night. I am just as conscious of it on the
inside of me as I am of my two ears on the outside of me. The Holy Spirit began to try to teach me a lot of things, but my head wouldn’t go along with it. I didn’t know to listen to Him. So often we have been religiously brainwashed. Our heads
are all cluttered up with religious things, and we have not been trained to listen to and follow our spirits.
But it was there on that bed of sickness as a 15- and 16-year- old invalid that I got into the Word, and the Spirit of God taught
me about divine healing.
Five doctors had told me, “You’re going to die—that’s all there is to it. You can’t live. There’s not one chance in a million
for you to live.” But something inside me—that anointing that teaches you
all things—that inward “something”—said, “You don’t have to die. Not now. Not at this age. Not as a teenager. You can live.
You can be healed!”
I said, “Can I?”
Something inside me said, “It’s all in the Book. Get in the Book. The Bible—that’s where it is!” And thank God I got in
there, and He taught me. I didn’t have an earthly teacher. It was difficult, however. It’s easier to learn spiritual things

if you have a human teacher, because you can see the teacher, listen to him or her, and the witness of the Holy Spirit on the inside of you will let you know whether or not they’re teaching what is right. Thank God, He taught me. I listened to Him, and He led me right into the Word, right into faith—and right into healing.
What if I never had listened? I never would have been taught; I would have died and gone on to glory and missed doing what God called me to do; and we wouldn’t have any RHEMA Bible Training Center. I’m so glad I learned to listen!
I saw after my healing that if I had listened to what that “something” on the inside of me had been trying to tell me, I would have been out of that bed a lot sooner. I was an invalid 16 long months before I was healed.
I’ll challenge anybody anywhere that if they’ve got the Holy Spirit living inside them—the One who is the Author of the
Bible—He’ll lead them right into divine healing. If it’s the same Holy Spirit who authored this Book, He’s going to teach you what’s in there.
When He opened the Word to me, I acted upon the Word. I didn’t know anybody who believed in divine healing, so I didn’t
have anybody to pray for me. I learned to listen, thank God, to my spirit.
On the inside of me was this voice teaching me. It said,
“You believe all right as far as you know, but that last clause of Mark 11:24—”and ye shall have them”—goes with the
preceding clause, “believe that ye receive them.”
MARK 11:24
24 Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. Like a flash, I saw it. What I’d been trying to do was get healed first—have it first—and then I was going to believe it. He said, “Believe it first, and then you’ll have it.” So I began to say, right out loud in my room, “I believe. I

believe. I believe I receive healing for the deformed heart. I believe I receive healing for the paralysis. I believe I receive healing for the incurable blood disease.” And while I was saying that and praising God for it, that anointing in me—IN me—said, “Arise. People who are well ought to be up at 10:30 in the morning.”
I thought for a moment, How am I going to get up? I’m paralyzed. But when I made the effort and acted upon the Word, the power of God came down on me and went through me like a bolt of electricity! I stood upright on my feet and was healed—and I have been healed ever since. I say this to the glory of God: I’ve had half a century of divine health.
The last headache I had was in August 1933, but don’t misunderstand me: I’m not opposed to doctors. Thank God for
them. Medical science will help people as much as it can. If I’d have needed to go to a doctor in the past half century, I would
have gone—but I haven’t needed to. I’ve sent other people to the doctor, however, paid their bills, and bought their medicine. (Doctors often can keep people alive until we can get enough
Word in them to get them healed.)
My healing came about by my listening to that inward anointing that teaches you all things. I listened, obeyed, and off
the bed I came. I would challenge anybody who is born again (because
you’re born of the Holy Spirit): The Spirit will lead you into the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It was that same Spirit—that same
anointing that teaches—who led me into the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
After my healing, I began to seek out the fellowship of those who believed like I did.
Some Full Gospel people had come to our town. Even though there were a lot of things about them that I didn’t
understand and didn’t agree with, I didn’t criticize them. I welcomed them with open arms. I was glad to find somebody

who believed in faith and healing that I could fellowship with.
We need fellowship.
Now, you don’t have to go to Full Gospel services too long until people start preaching and testifying about the baptism in the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues. When they did, I closed my ears, because I didn’t know whether it was right or wrong. I thought, I ‘ l l just put up with a little fanaticism to have a little fellowship around faith and healing. I was about to enroll in a Baptist seminary.
Yes, you can be thoroughly saved, get people saved and healed every Sunday, see miracles performed, and still close your ears to other things of the Word. God will bless you all He can, because He’s out to bless you. He’s not out to “get” you, praise the Lord.
He’ll confirm His Word. If you preach about salvation, people will get saved. If you preach about healing, people will
get healed. I preached water baptism, and people got baptized in water. I preached prayer, and people prayed. I preached living right, and people lived right. But none of them got baptized with the Holy Spirit, because I never said anything about it!
‘This Holy Ghost Business’
Walking down the street one day in April 1937 in my hometown, I said to the Lord, “Now, Lord, who’s right about this
Holy Ghost business?
“My church says that if you’re born again, you’re born of the Spirit [and that’s true, but a half truth does more damage than an untruth]. They say that’s all there is to it; it ends right there.”
And I began to quote Dr. So-and-so and another renowned Baptist minister.
Then I said, “Now, these Pentecostal people say that they’re baptized with the Holy Spirit according to Acts 2:4. But one or two other Baptist fellows whom I like real well tell me there is an experience subsequent to salvation called the baptism in the

Holy Spirit—it is an enduement of power from on High—but you don’t have to speak with tongues. I’m prone to follow them.
Who’s right about this?”
I didn’t have the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but I did have Him in me, because I’m born of the Spirit and His Spirit bears
witness with my spirit that I’m a child of God. The minute I asked “Who’s right?” that anointing in me began to teach me. No, there was no thundering voice on the outside; it was just that still, small voice, as we call it, that every believer has.
On the inside of me, He spoke up so plainly. He knew that I knew the Word, for I read it constantly. (Before I ever started preaching, I had read the New Testament 150 times and portions
of it more than that.)
He said, “What does Acts 2:38 say?”
“Oh,” I said, “Acts 2:38 says, ‘Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name o f Jesus Christ for the remission o f
sins, and ye shall receive the gift o f the Holy Ghost.'” That inward voice said, “What was that last statement you
just said?” I said, ” ‘And ye shall receive the gift o f the Holy Ghost.'”
“Well, what does the next verse say?”
I answered, “Acts 2:39 says, ‘For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar o f f , even as many as the Lord our God shall call.’ “
“What promise is that?” the inward voice asked. As I hesitated, that inward voice said, “Quote that last clause
of verse 38.”
I said, ” ‘And ye shall receive the gift o f the Holy Ghost.’ Yes, Lord,” I continued, “I believe that all right. I believe in the
Holy Spirit now. It’s those tongues that I don’t believe in and don’t know about.”
And that inward voice said, “What did Acts 2:4 say?”

Very glibly, I said, “Acts 2:4 says, And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to … ‘ Oh, I see it. I see it! I see
it! ‘… and BEGAN TO SPEAK WITH OTHER TONGUES, as the Spirit gave them utterance.’ “
The same Spirit I was born of and became acquainted with on the bed of sickness taught me about divine healing and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The same Spirit led me, for the unction abides in me. Receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit is receiving the
same Spirit. It’s a deeper dimension. It’s entering into the fullness of what God has for us. So walking down the street in my hometown, I immediately said, “I’m going down to the Full Gospel pastor’s house and receive the Holy Spirit right now.” (That’s pretty good for a Baptist boy pastor.) It was the custom among Full Gospel people in those days to
have tarrying services to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I think it’s fine to wait on God, but don’t tarry to be filled with the Holy
Spirit. Get filled first and then tarry. I think that’s one place we’ve missed it. We ought to have tarrying meetings—waiting meetings.
When I told the pastor, “I came down here to receive the Holy Spirit,” the first thing he said was, “Wait.” I said, “It won’t take me long to receive.” If you’ve heard my story, you know it wasn’t eight minutes until I was talking in
tongues.
I prayed, “Lord, I came down here to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I know I have the Holy Spirit in me in the New Birth.”
I quoted to the Lord what the Scripture said in Acts 2:38.
Then I said, “Lord, I received my salvation—my New Birth—by faith. I received my healing by faith. Now I receive this
experience by faith. I want to declare by faith that I am filled with the Holy Spirit. Glory to God, I have it. And now I expect
to speak with tongues. Hallelujah!”

We didn’t say “hallelujah” in my church, but I said it half a dozen times. It felt like somebody had built a bonfire inside me.
It began to burn and it blazed up. It seemed like I could “see” strange words coming up, and it seemed like I knew what they would sound like if they were spoken. I started speaking them out.
I talked in tongues for an hour and a half and sang three songs in tongues, glory to God.
That anointing—the same Spirit—the same voice—that led me into divine healing of a deformed heart and almost total paralysis led me right into this experience. He’ll teach you, too, if you’ll listen to Him.
Every believer has that anointing.
Notice I didn’t say every Spirit-filled believer. Every believer has that anointing in him.