SID: Hello. Sid Roth here. Welcome. Welcome to my world where it’s naturally supernatural. I love it. When I was a brand new Jewish believer a little over 40 years ago, I had the privilege of meeting a woman by the name of Kathryn Kuhlman. I saw miracles and precise words of knowledge that in all candor I haven’t seen to that degree since. But there was a young man just recently saved. And this young man went to the meeting of Kathryn Kuhlman, and he saw something in her he had never seen before. He saw such intimacy with God, with the Holy Spirit. He wanted it desperately, and he got it. His name is Benny Hinn and he says that he has learned secrets that everyone can have that same relationship with the Spirit of the Living God that Miss Kathryn Kuhlman had. You know, what I found out is that it’s almost like, Benny, it’s almost like the devil has some sort of sense that God has a call on someone’s life and tries to sabotage them before they even get started. For instance, I never knew this, but you had a stuttering problem, and not only that, your teachers and your father said that you were a hopeless case by age [?]. But, now you were raised in a Greek Orthodox family, born in Israel. Boy, you’re provoking me to jealousy, not the stuttering but born in Israel. And at 11, you know nothing about, really, Jesus beyond religion. But you had a visitation. What happened?
PASTOR BENNY: You know, in the eastern culture to have a daughter first is a shame. So my mother had married into a very difficult family. My dad’s family were not very nice people. They’re much nicer today, but anyway. And they persecuted my mom for having a girl first. She had just married my daddy and my sister Rose was born, and shame, shame, shame on my mom. So she prayed. She had Greek, you know, Greek Orthodox woman, prayed to the Lord. Now she wasn’t saved and she said, “Lord,” she said, “If you give me a son I will give him back, I will give him back to you.” Just like Hannah. The Lord heard her, surprisingly. And so when I was just a little boy, I keep saying, 11, my mom says I was younger, but anyway, it doesn’t matter. I saw the Lord come to me. I’ll never forget that. And when He looked at me with an amazing heavenly smile, I don’t know how else to describe the smile except pure love. But when I woke up I could not move. I was just frozen. Every part of me was overpowered by this heavenly electricity.
SID: Now remember, he’s about 11 years of age. He can’t put any paradigm on what has occurred.
PASTOR BENNY: Exactly.
SID: But he felt something. He felt this electricity. And then he went to a meeting, I believe it was in high school, and he felt that same presence at the meeting, and he got saved. And you would have thought everything would be wonderful after that. But he gets home and he’s so in love with Jesus, and his parents didn’t like it. In fact, your father, what did he say to you?
PASTOR BENNY: My father sent me to a psychiatrist.
SID: I didn’t know that.
PASTOR BENNY: Oh no, he did. I still remember they plugged my head with all kinds of plugs. They thought something was wrong with me. So a few years after when we had immigrated to Canada — now remember this happened, when I saw the Lord, happened in [unintelligible]. But then in ’68, we immigrated to Canada. In Canada, I heard about the Lord for the first time. How sad I had to go to Canada to learn about Jesus. Anyway—
SID: You would think in Israel, I suppose.
PASTOR BENNY: In Israel, I thought that the Lord was Catholic. But anyway, so you go to Canada, where I discovered that the Lord was really alive. And in high school when I got saved, February 14, 1972, at 7:50 in the morning, to be exact, I felt that same electric current go through me, and then I connected it everything together. And the Lord just became very real to me in a very different way.
SID: But God used the persecution he went through. He, you know, he’s kind of withdrawn because of his stutter. His father can’t stand him because of his fanatic belief in Jesus. So he spent most of his time in his room reading the Bible, thousands of hours. He hears about Miss Kuhlman. He decides to take a bus ride to Pittsburgh. You’re standing, there’s where I want to take you, you’re standing outside in a line.
PASTOR BENNY: I was wrapped up like an Eskimo, it was so cold, and I began to tremble.
SID: It was so cold.
PASTOR BENNY: Well no, no, no. I was not cold. I was all wrapped up. I just began to tremble. I thought, at first, I was cold. But it was not a cold feeling, you know, at all. And we ran in to get a seat and then as I sat there with my coat off, hat off, gloves off, all that, I’m still trembling, and I trembled more inside than outside.
SID: It was the Spirit of God that was causing it.
PASTOR BENNY: Well I did not know that until I sat down. Yeah, I mean, because this was so new to me. When she came on the platform, it’s very hard to describe it to someone who had not been to Miss Kuhlman’s meetings, there was such a substance of the Lord, the only way I can say it, where you felt, strongly felt His person, not just the atmosphere, but His person. And as she came on, I was so taken by it, and so amazed and awed, I couldn’t even move, hardly breathe, because the overwhelming presence of the person of Jesus was there. And now I’m just weeping. I mean, how can you not weep at that amazing presence. And I felt, I had my arms up because they were singing, and I did not even know the song, “How Great Thou Art.” So I’m trying to sing it and I feel a breeze. So I looked around, I thought something over at the window. This was December. It was cold out there. No windows were open. But I felt this breeze go by, very gentle breeze. And at that point, I’ll never forget, I said, “Dear Jesus.” And that was the first time I think I ever called him Dear Jesus. I said, “Dear Jesus, have mercy on me.” I heard his voice so clear, and now it explains much of what’s happened to me in the last 40 years. He said, “My mercy is abundant on you.” And then I felt this overpowering love just go through me, and I felt a tingle go with it.
SID: I’ll tell you what, hold that thought. When we come back, I want to tell you how that same presence that was on Miss Kuhlman apprehended Benny, and even better, how it’s going to apprehend you. We’ll be right back.
