Benny Hinn is a man on a mission. Since God has healed his message, there’s a new twist to his ministry—praying for the healing of troubled marriages around the world. Charisma News asked Hinn about this new facet of his ministry and the fruit it’s bearing in nations around the world.
Charisma: Has your message changed at all?
Hinn: No, not really. I mean, I’ve always preached healing, but I’m focusing very much so on salvation. Well, I do three things now at the meeting. Of course, in the first part, I focus on salvation because I always want to see people saved at first before I administer, and the altar calls are always packed. I focus on family healing. In South Africa, 50 percent of the crowd came down in a church of 11,000. Think about it—that many people actually walked down whose marriages were breaking up or on the verge of breaking up.
I was stunned in Madrid. The first night, I asked those that were having marriage troubles to come down. The pastor just looked at me in shock. A stadium packed, and a third of them came down. There’s lot of people in the body of Christ suffering like this, families just broken or breaking up.
I think Suzanne’s and my healing has just had some impact. I go through my situation. My marriage was a whole lot worse than I can even talk about. And I say to people, “You think yours is bad. Mine is probably way worse than you could ever imagine. Again, God healed Sue and I. And if God healed us, He’ll heal you.”
It’s stunning. You see them come down, and they start sobbing and crying almost instantly because the pain is so deep in them. I never dealt with that part of ministry in the past with couples and homes and families. I identify with them. They identify with me. It moved me so deeply to tears.
One lady cried so bad, I think she almost fainted, that poor thing. The pain in them starts coming out. The minute they walk down the aisle, before you get the chance to even pray for them or talk to them, they’re already crying, many of them. And then you go down and comfort them and put your hand on their shoulders and minister to them. I’ve looked at many of them and said, “Now, you look at me,” and I took them by the cheeks. I lifted their faces because they were bowed with such sorrow. I said, “God did it for me. He’ll do it for you. Please believe it.” People want to believe it, but it’s something hard for them to believe, [that] God can really do it for them. And it’s been an amazing eye-opener anyway for me and Suzanne.
Charisma: What do you think is causing so much trouble in Christian families?
Hinn: That’s a great, great question. Sue and I have thought of doing a conference for people with family troubles. I want to learn more about it to help them. I don’t know what’s going on with other people. In my case, it was family and the stress of ministry and being too busy. I didn’t pay attention to Suzanne’s pain. That’s what caused our problem. And then Suzanne having to struggle with what was happening to our family—and you know that story.
In South Africa, people were just weeping everywhere because Suzanne opened up. She said, “Listen, here’s what I went through. Here’s what I was on. Here are the drugs I did. Here’s what Benny did.” And then I opened up and said, “So, here’s what I did. Here’s what I ignored. Here’s what I should have not ignored.” And at some point, people laughed and they cried. And we talked for about a good half-hour. A lot of healing took place as we were talking, as they saw we were being transparent. That made them comfortable—that we were ourselves with them and didn’t hide anything.
And finally I said to the crowd in Africa, “Now, we were honest with you. Now you have to be honest with each other and yourselves: What is it that has caused your problem?” This is so powerful because they see the love between me and Sue. We’re holding on to each other. Suzanne is kissing on me. She’s loving on me on the platform, and people see it’s real, that it’s not phony stuff, that we’re not acting. This is real up there.
Then I said, “Now, you tell each other now that you will fix it. Just like we have, you will.” And they stop crying and say, “We will fix it. We will fix it.” And it’s just powerful. Really, it makes you cry. You just stand there, you know. You just think, “Oh, my God! I can’t believe I’m seeing this.”
Click here to read part one of this interview.
