Kenneth Hagin, Ronald Reagan, and Word of Faith

“You will have what you say” – Kenneth Hagin

Pastor Kenneth Hagin

“I believed; therefore, I have spoken.” (Psalm 116: 10)

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” --- Ronald Reagan

Whatever one’s religious affiliation or spiritual inclination, there is something about the power of words.

The world’s greatest and still growing best-seller, the Bible, start out with the Creator speaking Light, earth, lesser lights, and everything into existence.

According to old-school Rabbinical commentators, God did not just breathe into man to make him alive, the original language suggests: “God made man a speaking Spirit.”

The Gospel of John begins with the Beginning:

“In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Jesus said:

 “Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” (Mark 11: 24)

The key dimension that distinguishes man from the animals, which declares that he was made in the image of God, is that he speaks!

Even deconstructionists and post-modernists cannot ignore the supernatural origins of “language”. Algerian-French Jew Jacques Derrida described speech and writing as “religious acts” because a common faith and trust must be present in order for one man to communicate with another.

Kenneth Hagin, a powerful preacher who confessed his way by faith into health and wealth, wrote an interesting text: “You Will Have What You Say.” As a young boy, he was shackled with blood disorders and a weak heart. He believed the written Word, refusing to wait till he “felt” healed. So he stood, refusing to believe the nagging voices and terrifying lies from with. So he stood, healed from the top of his head to the tip of his toe.

Other famous examples of people who believed and then received include:

Born in war-torn Serbia, Novak Djokovic imagined and spoke forth that he would win Wimbledon – and he did.

Oprah Winfrey imagined and spoke forth that she was destined for greatness. On the first day of school, Oprah wrote to her second grade teacher that she deserved to be in third grade. She was promoted on the spot, and nothing stopped her from then on.

And then there was Ronald Wilson Reagan. His example is striking and inspiring, the sense of faith that Republicans need to renew within themselves.

Ronnie started out in an alcoholic home in Tampico, Illinois. Some of his closest friends indicated that his abusive upbringing taught him to ignore reality and deny the hurt and evil that he had endured as a child. A B actor in an A-list world, he did his first-class best. While the roles dwindled, his notoriety increased, first as President of the Screen Actors Guild, then as spokesman for General Electric.  He won the Governor’s mansion in 1966. The conservative favorite in 1968, Reagan witnessed party leaders coalesce around “next-in-line” Richard Nixon. Although the 1968 convention chanted “Nixon’s the one”, conservative supporters believed that Reagan should have won.

Reagan celebrates his gubernatorial victory in 1966

The California Governor refused to acknowledge his 1968 run for President. Reagan did not live in denial; he refused to be defined by his failures. When a man believes for something, he does not wallow in the past nor dwell on his losses. He keeps speaking forth what he believes. Reagan would run again for President in 1976, the conservative favorite against the moderate incumbent Gerald R. Ford. Despite losing the nomination a second time, he wowed the GOP convention crowds, who in their hearts believed “Reagan was the one”.

1980, “I paid for this microphone”, and Reagan won the nomination. “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” And Reagan was the one who won.

He campaigned for years. The Goldwater 1964 loss became the Reagan win of 1980. Yet “Dutch” spoke forth a future deeper than his own, one in which the world would be rid of Communism. An often overlooked 1967 interview with New York Senator Robert Kennedy outlines his deeper belief:

Reagan is on record as having called for the Berlin Wall to be dismantled as early as May 1967, when as governor of California he appeared in a debate with Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, D-N.Y.

Reagan chastises Gorbachev: "Tear Down This Wall!"

"Reagan was way ahead of everyone," Kengor told Cybercast News Service in an interview. "Right from outset, he envisioned a world without the Soviet Union, when even his political allies on the right pre-supposed it would be around for a long time."  (NewsMax.com - Reagan Repeatedly Pressed Soviets to Demolish Berlin Wall )

The key word from the column’s title says it all:  repeatedly, not as a much formula, but as a matter of faith, a truth to be revealed in the proper time. Not just in 1967, not just at the GOP convention in 1968, but throughout his run until he reached the White House and beyond. Reagan enthusiasts, Cold War Historians, and anyone else alive and thriving in the 1980’s will remember Reagan’s exhortation on June 12, 1987, to the embattled yet pragmatic Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev:

 “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

February 1988, the President demanded a timetable for dismantling the wall; still the Soviet Politburo refused. Reagan stepped down from office in January 1989, making way for his successor George Herbert Walker Bush. November of 1989 arrived, and finally the wall came down. First the Germans on the East and the West danced on the wall. Chucks and the entire slabs broke away. East and West connected once again.

One of the most celebrated photographs of the era, former President Reagan, with grim determination, chiseled away a chuck of the wall. Yet long before, he had believed and spoke that the Wall would be no more.

Reagan spoke, the world listened, and the wall came down. Kenneth Hagin preached the Word. Speak it forth, and you will have what you say!