Evangelist Benny Hinn, whom I’ve known for many years, has grasped some key biblical truths that may explain a problem we’ve all observed through the years. A gifted minister fails morally or in some other way, yet continues to be used by God. How can this be? Hinn says it all has to do with the anointing, and his new book coming out with our company this spring, Mysteries of the Anointing, explains much more about it.
Hinn’s interest in this topic began with a word from the Lord the late Oral Roberts gave him in the midst of one of the hardest times of his life—a bitter divorce from his wife, Suzanne (the two have since remarried and are happy today). While working on his book, he came to our offices in Lake Mary, Florida, to share some of what he’s learned with our staff, and we’ve turned this material into two episodes of my Strang Report podcast. The material shared here comes from the first half of his message.
Many years ago, Hinn says, he had a revealing conversation with Roberts about someone he knew who was highly anointed for ministry but also had an immoral lifestyle. “I would listen to him [preach] and weep,” Hinn says. He asked Roberts, “How can somebody preach with such an anointing that moves your heart, and then go and do this?”
“The anointing,” Hinn says Roberts told him without hesitation, repeating it when Hinn, incredulous, asked what he had said.
“I was in shock as he explained that to me,” Hinn says. Roberts told him, “Well, Benny, the anointing on your life and the anointing on your office are not the same. … The anointing on an office, if a man is not walking with God, that anointing will destroy him.
“We talked for probably three more hours, and that’s how this book started,” Hinn says.
“When that anointing comes on a man to preach, do you notice they become loud?'” Hinn says Roberts asked him. “Intense? Focused?”
“That anointing that comes on them stirs up their emotions and stirs up their physical strength,” Roberts said. “And that’s all it does.”
But Roberts added another key explanation. “The anointing in your heart is the one that nourishes your being. It’s the one that keeps you walking with God. … Now, if the anointing in you—in your heart—weakens, as the Lord departs from you, if you’re living in sin, that anointing inside of you is not going to stay strong. You will weaken.”
”What happens is the anointing that comes on you is a gift,” Roberts said. “And being as it’s a gift, God will never take it back. You can lose the one in your heart; you’ll never lose the one on your office—because the one on your office is God’s gift.”
Roberts also said something that spoke straight to Hinn, who knew his own relationship with God was not where it needed to be. “Now, what happens is, if the Lord departs, that anointing stays. And because it stays, it can destroy you, without the Lord being with you. … The greatest men have fallen after their greatest moments under the anointing,” Roberts told him.
Roberts used the biblical figure of Baalam as an example, Hinn says. “That man walked with God in his heart,” Roberts said. “Later, he weakened. A mixture got in. He dealt in witchcraft, yet still anointed to prophesy.”
“Every one of us has at least one weakness,” Roberts said. “You have at least one; I have at least one. Every human being on the planet has some weakness, or maybe more than one weakness, that nobody knows about except God. … That weakness in you that only God knows, as long as you’re in the presence of the Lord, it is shriveled. It has nowhere to go. Now, if you’re not in the presence of the Lord, it’s loose. … That anointing stirs the good and the bad when it comes on that man or that woman. … The anointing on your office has nothing to do with your spirit. It only affects you physically, emotionally.”
For Benny Hinn’s full teaching on the mystery of the anointing, listen to this entire episode of the Strang Report at this link, and catch part 2 here. Watch the video above or at this link. Subscribe to the Strang Report on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform. Preorder Hinn’s book, Mysteries of the Anointing, at this link.
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