Welcome to From the Pulpit in Classic Sermons.
Each week we bring you a different message
from some of history's greatest speakers in the
Christian faith, and powerful sermons from modern preachers
too.
This week, we have John Hagee with his
message, Great is Thy Faithfulness.
Join with me to Psalms, the 89th chapter,
as we speak on the theme, Great is
Thy Faithfulness.
This is not a sermon, it's a testimonial
to the faithfulness of God in my life
and ministry over the past 50 years.
On the first Sunday of March, 1958, I
walked into the pulpit for the very first
time to preach the gospel.
In a way, it seems like yesterday, and
then on the other hand, it seems like
an eternity.
The celebration of the accomplishments of Cornerstone Church,
with its more than 19,000 plus active
members.
The celebration of John Hagee Television Ministries that
reaches America and every nation on the face
of the earth by television almost every day.
The celebration of Cornerstone Christian Schools and the
building of the beautiful Tarpley Retreat Center.
The celebration of the accomplishments of a night
to honor Israel and Christians United for Israel
is a monument to the faithfulness of God,
not John Hagee.
I assure you, the God that we serve
is a faithful God.
I want you to read with me Psalms
89, 1 and 2.
I will sing of the mercies of the
Lord forever.
With my mouth will I make known your
faithfulness to all generations.
For I have said, mercy shall be built
up forever.
Your faithfulness you shall establish in the heavens.
And then let me read to you Lamentations
3.
Through the mercies of the Lord, we are
not consumed.
Because his compassions fail not.
They are renewed every morning.
Great is your faithfulness.
Say that with me.
Great is your faithfulness.
If you've been saved more than a week,
you know that's absolutely true.
The faithfulness of God is far, far, far
beyond our deserving.
Father, we stand here today through the blood
of Jesus Christ and the mercies of God
in your faithfulness.
Thank you for the great things that you
have done.
Thank you that the majesty of your name
can be proclaimed from this platform to the
nations of the world.
Thank you God that a foundation has been
built for which future generations can launch into
the 21st century.
And the best is yet to be for
your glory and for your honor.
We have not arrived.
We have only just begun.
In Jesus name, amen.
You may be seated.
Our God is a faithful God.
The truth is I have failed the Lord
many times, but he has never failed me
one time.
Our God is a faithful God whose mercies
are renewed every morning.
If that weren't true, God would have fired
me a long time ago.
Saint Paul said, the things that are not
seen are greater than the things that are
seen.
For the spiritual and the invisible are greater
than the physical and the visible.
Many are watching this celebration today from the
balconies of heaven, whose blood, sweat, and tears
help make Cornerstone Church and all of its
related ministries possible.
Generations of the Hagee family who have preached
the gospel all the days of their life
are gathered around the banister of the Celestial
City today, celebrating the goodness of God, celebrating
the faithfulness of God in the generations that
followed them.
I have been asked by many pastors on
many occasions, what is the secret of your
success in the ministry at Cornerstone?
And the answer is, like Joseph in Egypt,
God was with me.
He held me in the hollow of his
hand until the storm passed by.
He is Jehovah Shammah, the God who was
there in the darkest nights, showing the way
to walk.
By his sovereign grace and his eternal faithfulness,
we survived the most vicious and sustained storms.
We survived assassination attempts.
We survived criticism from all directions.
We survived the toxic tongues of Christians who
were certain I had missed the will of
God for this church.
Our God is a faithful God.
He is a faithful God.
He is a never-failing God.
And he is the Lord that has made
this church and all of its ministries possible.
Give the Lord a praise for his great
work.
The faithfulness of God placed me in a
godly home.
The child that's born into a home where
both parents are Bible-believing Christians has an
advantage over other children greater than wealth and
fame, better than apples of gold or pictures
of silver.
My father, Bythel Hagee, was an ordained minister
in the Assemblies of God for more than
50 years.
He had only one passion in life, preaching.
Preaching the gospel.
He has now been with the Lord for
20 years.
My mother, Bythel Hagee, will be 95 years
of age in another two months.
She is suffering from dementia and living in
an assisted living center for those who are
suffering with Alzheimer's.
Without my mother's prayers, I assure you, I
would never have come to know the Lord.
I was not saved by my father's preaching.
I was saved because of my mother's praying.
I certainly would never have entered the ministry.
I would never have preached one sermon.
I would never have built four churches.
Never preached the gospel to the nations of
the earth by television.
Never founded a night to honor Israel or
Christians United for Israel.
If Cornerstone Church has a founder other than
Jesus Christ, it's my mother.
She was the chisel in the hand of
God that sculptured my life.
There are no words in human speech to
describe the love I have for her.
When I go to see her, she doesn't
know me.
I have to introduce myself to her every
time.
And I go down the factory, she's got
four sons.
And she said, which one are you?
And I say, my name is John.
Do you remember me?
And she says, vaguely.
I'll tell you, that'll take the wind out
of your sails in a hurry.
Your own mother looks at you, I remember
you vaguely.
Now get this.
She's been watching me on television for 30
years.
And she knows me on television.
I'm standing right beside her.
She says, do you know my son that
preaches on the television?
I said, yes, I know him very well.
She said, I want you to sit down
here and listen to him preach.
She still says it like MacArthur.
Sit down and hear him preach.
So I sat down and listened to a
sermon.
Because of her sickness, she has been separated
from us in a way.
But through the television, she's uniquely connected to
us.
So I would like for this audience to
give my mother an ovation for the sacrifice
of her life and to the kingdom of
God.
Because without her, we wouldn't be here today.
Would you do that please?
Mom, this is for you.
Thank you.
God was faithful to save me as a
teenager.
When I was growing up, going to church
every service was not an option.
It was a command.
My father was very inflexible when it came
to the rules of the house.
We went to church early and we stayed
late.
Late was 10, 30, 11 o'clock.
We had four major revivals every year.
Some of them lasted six weeks.
We went to church on Saturday night even.
We didn't have time to sin.
We didn't have the energy to sin.
After 42 offerings, that would be seven weeks
times six.
After 42 offerings, we didn't have the money
to sin.
And that's the gospel.
I sat on the back row of my
father's church as close to the back door
as I could get with a mechanical drawing
board hung on the song book rack where
I wrote English themes, worked quadratic equations, waiting
for the preacher to shut up who was
generally my father.
In those days, the Assemblies of God considered
sports worldly, something Christians simply didn't do.
I was a four-sport letterman which made
me the devil's poster child sitting on the
back row of the church.
I didn't like sports.
I loved sports.
I told the people in my father's church,
if all of you people are going to
heaven, hell is not going to be half
bad.
They were shocked.
It was a major miracle that I ever
got saved.
I had an appointment to West Point, and
being in the ministry was not on my
radar screen.
I told my parents, when I'm 18, take
a picture of me going through the door.
That's the last time you'll see me in
a church house.
And I fully intend to keep that promise.
But God had a different plan because of
my mother's prayers.
In January of 1958, after one of those
long everlasting eternal sermons that never shut up,
sitting on the back row, waiting for the
altar call to mercifully end, it was going
now into its 20th minute.
Suddenly, like a light in a dark room,
like the Apostle Paul on the road to
Damascus, I wanted to know, who art thou,
Lord?
And what wilt thou have me to do?
I walked to the altar that night and
surrendered my life to Christ.
Ten days later, I went to Southwestern Bible
Institute, which is now Southwestern Assemblies of God
University in Waxahachie, Texas.
I took one course in high school to
graduate and took 12 hours in the Bible
college because the high school and the Bible
college and the junior college were on the
same property.
God was faithful to help me to get
a job to stay in school.
I will never forget the Sunday I left
home at the age of 17 and watched
my father write a check for $75 out
of a checkbook that only had 80.
That would pay for six weeks of school.
I had six weeks to find a job
or come home.
If I was going to stay at Southwestern,
I had to find that job and fast.
And I'm going to tell you something, Waxahachie
then and now is not downtown New York.
On the last day that I could possibly
stay at school, by the grace of God,
I found a job making church pews at
Southwestern Wood Products.
I don't know why God always waits to
the midnight hour to answer.
I don't know why he lets you hang
by the cliff, by your fingernails, knowing or
feeling you're going over the edge, but he
just seems to like that somehow.
I simply don't know.
Southwestern decided to make a movie, Life at
Southwestern.
I was chosen to make that movie.
I sang in the Harvester Choir and was
the president of my class at Bible college.
I preached my first sermon on the first
Sunday of March of 1958 at the First
Assembly of God Church in Houston, Texas.
I was 17 years and 11 months old,
and I preached that sermon out of this
Bible.
This Bible was given to me by my
father's church before I left for Bible school.
I want you to know that this grand
old book is worn out.
If I held it upside down, pages would
fly in all four directions.
But the truth that's found in this battered
old book are still greater than all of
the knowledge in the world and every book
and every library, because this is still the
eternal unshakable word of God.
This message is a consuming fire.
This is still the two-edged sword.
This is still the living water and the
bread of life.
This is still meat for men and milk
for children.
This is still a lamp unto my feet
and a light unto my pathway.
Here the gates of heaven are open and
the gates of hell are closed.
This Word rules our lives.
It guides our thoughts.
It controls our speech.
It determines our relationships.
You don't read this book.
This book reads you.
People who have a Bible that's falling apart
have a life that's not.
Thank God for His Word.
For the flower wilts and the grass withers,
but the Word of God shall endure forever.
Hallelujah for the unshakable foundation of the Word
of God.
I want to express my profound appreciation to
the pastors of the Assemblies of God who
had the raw courage to turn a teenager
loose in their pulpits.
I have to tell you that is real
courage.
You learn to preach by preaching.
And while in Bible college, I averaged preaching
about four or five times every week.
I would drive Friday to the church, preach
Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday morning, Sunday night,
and then drive all night back to the
school in time for class on Monday.
Most of those pastors that were brave enough
to let me preach those revivals that went
two or three weeks are now in heaven.
Pastors Lonnie Mullins, R.R. Taylor, Jimmy McClellan,
Elbert Smart.
Elbert Smart is a member of this church
now.
He was a child pastor, by the way.
G.Q. Manley, C.E. McNeely, J.J.
Land, J.S. McMullen, Charles Wigley, J.S.
McQueen, Pastor Eldridge, and many, many others who
courageously gave me the opportunity to preach the
gospel from their pulpits.
God was faithful to expand the borders of
my tent.
In January 1962, I came to San Antonio
to attend Trinity University after preaching for two
years, revivals across America.
I realized that I had been raised exclusively
in the church world.
You just don't know how exclusively that was.
And I knew if I was going to
reach my generation, I needed a broader intellectual
base to do so.
So I enrolled at Trinity University and was
awarded a football scholarship.
At a fabulous university, I certainly didn't have
the financial ability to attend.
Trinity University was one of the best decisions
I ever made in my life.
I was introduced to a level of scholarship
and knowledge that I knew nothing about.
I had never had to study in middle
school or high school to make the honor
roll, not in Bible school either.
At Trinity, I had to study three hours
plus every night to get ready for class
the next day and make the dean's list.
A whole new world opened up, and it
changed my life forever as a pastor and
as a writer.
Those study habits produced far better sermons.
Those sermons became chapters in the 23 books
that I have written and the 24th that
I am now writing.
The prophetic book, The Beginning of the End,
was dictated in one day to a team
of stenographers and was in the bookstores around
the world in 60 days.
They came at 8 o'clock in the
morning.
We were in the executive dining room.
We began page one, chapter one, paragraph one.
At 6 o'clock that night, the prophetic
book was dictated.
And 60 days later, that book was in
every bookstore, Christian bookstore around the world.
It sold over one million copies, and they
ran out five times.
After graduation from Trinity, I coached football for
one year in the Northeast Independent School District
to get my finances ready to go to
graduate school.
We won the district championships in three sports,
and I have to tell you, it was
one of the most enjoyable years of my
life.
It was lots of fun.
I was offered a great job right after
that, and I talked to Jesus about possibly
pastoring 60 sweaty boys wearing helmets rather than
a lot of people with lots of problems.
Heaven said no.
So I, in the fall of 1964, enrolled
in North Texas State, now North Texas University
in Denton, and completed my master's degree in
the summer of 1966.
In the summer of 66, I was preaching
a revival in Beaumont, Texas with Pastor R
.R. Taylor.
I was about to make a decision that
would change my life forever.
God was about to bring me back to
San Antonio.
Two couples drove down to Beaumont from San
Antonio, James Roy Taylor and his wife Jean,
and CB and Joanne Singleton.
And they asked me, said, would you consider
coming to San Antonio to start a church?
I said, do you have a building?
They said, no.
I said, do you have a congregation?
They said, no.
I said, do you have any financial funding?
They said, no.
I said, how many do you have?
They said, us.
I said, man, I've never seen such an
opportunity like this.
Sounds like the will of God.
And so we started.
The first Sunday in October 1966, we started
in a home because that's all we could
afford.
We leased a vacant storefront building on Loop
410 across from the Broadway Bank.
We started growing very quickly.
Every Saturday night, I would call every family
that was on my list to determine exactly
how many people were coming to church the
next Sunday morning.
And then Saturday night, I would go down
to the church and put out 10 seats
less than the people that were coming.
Why?
Because every Sunday, they would leave the church
saying, we had to have more seats.
They didn't know I had that jury rigged
from the word go.
They were absolutely certain we were broke.
We lost our lease in about six months
to the Oppenheimers.
That's where I learned the devil is in
the details.
You better read a contract with at least
two lawyers.
I asked Dr. Laurie, president of Trinity University,
if we could use the Earl Sam Center
for six months while we were working on
our church.
Dr. Laurie said yes.
God bless the Presbyterians.
Dr. Laurie was a gracious man and he's
heaven today.
We found the property we could pay for
on Nacogdoches Road, 2938 Nacogdoches Road.
We had just enough money to buy the
land.
I was 26 years of age and had
never pastored a church before.
Our church was a new congregation, a new
congregation that had no wealth, a new congregation
that had no denomination to support us.
We looked like poster children for failure.
No bank would back us and so we
went to the Security Church Finance of Houston.
We got $65,000 from them from Joe
Lee Todd who attended Reagan High School with
me and we wouldn't have gotten that money
if I hadn't have known Joe Lee Todd.
Joe Lee Todd told the president, he said,
I know that man and if he said
he'll pay you back, he will pay you
back.
We gave him the money and they took
a gamble to give us $65,000.
It wasn't a lot of money then and
it's nothing now but that helped us buy
that property and that church was built by
myself and about 8 or 10 men who
worked on that church every night except Wednesday.
We would take up money on Sunday, buy
as much material as we could on Monday
and work all week.
It was cash and carry.
That's exactly what it was.
Our first winter on Nacogdoches Road, it was
record cold.
We had poured the foundation.
We had put up the studs.
Now this is a building that's square.
It's just a little A-frame church hold
250 people and we had the naked studs
there and the rafters were overhead and that
was it.
We had the foundation under us and we
gathered for church.
It was freezing.
People were singing Amazing Grace and smoke was
coming out of their mouth like they were
smoking cigars just about that far.
But tears were running down their face because
we knew God was with us.
We knew that in the eyes of men
we didn't have a chance in this world
of surviving but God put his hand on
us and helped us get that church ready.
It took one year to finish that little
church but when it was finished it was
beautiful from front door to back and already
full on Sunday morning.
If you were a member of that first
church at Nacogdoches Road I want you to
please stand.
Most of them came this Sunday morning.
Do we have anyone here this morning who
was there?
My first major book was written here in
1971 while I was on Nacogdoches Road.
It was called Invasion of Demons.
It was published by Fleming H.
Revelle.
It was a best seller and it split
the church.
Pentecostals didn't believe that demons existed in America
and didn't believe that they could function in
the church.
I was told when I went to Bible
school that they functioned in foreign countries where
people were illiterate and they were poor.
And I couldn't understand why if there were
demons in Mexico they couldn't get across and
I said fine.
He said you're impertinent.
I said good.
One lady told me after I wrote this
book and people were starting to read and
said Pastor Hagee I don't bother the devil
and the devil doesn't bother me.
And I looked at her and responded lady
you don't have enough of God to get
a used demon to chase you.
She was offended.
She quit the church.
In December of 71 a demonized man walked
into our church with a loaded gun on
a Wednesday night and announced to the church
he had come to shoot me in front
of the congregation to prove that Satan had
more power than God.
From a distance of eight feet he emptied
every bullet in that gun.
The supernatural power of God protected me from
that man and I am here today to
say that there is more power in the
word of God than all the devils in
hell.
The church was packed to overflowing every Sunday.
We met a wonderful young missionary and in
a very short time we helped him to
build a major church in Ciudad Victoria a
Bible school to teach men and women of
Mexico how to minister to their people.
There were 52 village churches that Johnny reached
by plane.
He was a fantastic bush pilot.
And an orphanage that we bought from a
Mexican governor.
It had 200 acres.
It had orange trees, lemon trees its own
irrigation system a swimming pool and by American
standards by Mexican standards it was absolutely unbelievable.
Tragically Johnny was killed in a plane crash
and the work in Mexico was then and
now continues to be headed by Ursel Lewis
and his family.
Ursel where are you?
There you are.
Please stand.
Would you give this man 35 years in
Mexico to show you how the
fruitful vine of Cornerstone is growing.
He's a talented young man.
He's married to a very brilliant young lady
graduated from the university.
Paul came to me one day and said
Pastor I have the opportunity to get on
television in Mexico but I don't have the
money and I don't have the equipment.
I said I've been there.
I know exactly how you feel.
So I gave him the money and I
gave him the cameras and I gave him
the switchers and I gave him everything he
needed to start.
That's fine.
They don't know that you're not in a
million dollar studio.
Take off.
He has a fabulous television ministry going at
this time.
Right now he and his wife are having
marriage counseling seminars over the year to 42
Hispanic nations throughout South America.
Give the Lord praise for his faithfulness.
So we moved from Nacogdoches Road out to
Wincrest in 1972.
We bought 14 acres on I-35.
I told the architect that I'd gone to
school with to build all we could pay
for.
That was 750 seats.
When the church congregation saw those blueprints they
said with one voice we will never fill
that church.
There's just no way we're going to fill
that church.
No one in that church had ever attended
a church bigger than the church we were
in and that wouldn't hold but 250.
I was called a lot of things then
and none of them were good but by
faith they become fearful and they say things
they later regret.
By faith and bulldog grit we built that
second church and it was packed to the
back walls the first Sunday.
We went to two services and it was
still full.
The church expanded so quickly I felt like
a guest speaker at my own church.
I kept looking for that corporal's guard that
had moved in with me originally.
We started something with various trained spiritual leaders
so that everyone would have a spiritual point
of contact.
After the book Invasion of Demons I started
looking for someone that had more experience in
this area than I did because I had
none.
I finally found an Englishman by the name
of Derek Prince.
Derek Prince I called him on the phone.
How many of you remember Derek Prince?
Good.
Derek asked what denomination are you?
I said well I was raised in a
non-presidently our church is non-denominational.
Derek said very kindly Pastor Hagee if I
come to your church and present my teaching
on demonology it will tear your church apart.
I said if you can tear my church
apart preaching the word of God come down
here and we'll both tear it to the
ground and start over to have a grander
revelation of what God is trying to do.
He came and it proved to be I've
been in the church since I was two
weeks old several times a week.
Brother Prince taught the first two nights for
two hours.
He was British.
He was a British professor.
He was saved by reading the word of
God.
He was a brilliant theologian and he taught
like a college professor.
He laid a foundation down that was biblical
and undeniable.
The building was packed on the third night
the night of deliverance.
I couldn't believe no one left.
They had no idea what was about to
happen.
The New York Times was there.
They had two camera crews ready to go.
Derek started the deliverance service calmly demanding the
spirit of witchcraft to come out.
What happened next was absolutely unbelievable.
I was standing up a dozen women 12
of them instantly jumped to their feet and
started screaming teeth and tonsils.
I mean just wide open.
I mean it was blowing your wig off.
After about 30 seconds of that a 25
year old man started running up the center
aisle and he knocked the communion off the
table.
He charged up on the platform after Derek
and four big ushers took him down to
the ground and there was the wildest wrestling
match you've ever seen in your life on
the platform and it lasted for 4 or
5 minutes.
20 to 25 people at the same time
startlingly running in terror for the back door
of the church.
God was out of the box.
Too much was happening at one time.
We lost those 25 I never saw them
again.
I stood on the platform I laughed so
hard I cried.
This was wonderful.
We had the wide world of wrestling going
on right here.
We had 12 women running around the back
door it looked like a relay track meet.
The New York Times camera crew was running
all over that church taking pictures as fast
as they could take it.
The wrestling match wasn't over and Derek was
up there just calmly saying come on, come
on.
It was quite a night.
If you were a member of that church
at Windcrest please stand.
You were a member at Windcrest please stand.
You went to the Windcrest church.
Give those wonderful people They were so grateful
to lead us to the third church building
on Loop 410 of Roletto Drive.
This would be our church home from 1975
until 1988.
They built the church to seat 1200 people.
Again we heard the mantra we'll never fill
it.
We'll never fill it.
We had to fire the foundation crew first
rattle out of the box.
They underbid the contract so they could get
it.
When they got the contract because we underbid
it and I fired them on the spot.
I said get off the property.
You've broken your contract.
We'll do it.
They said you can't tie steel.
I said you're mistaken.
In the morning at 8 o'clock we're
going to start learning.
I told the men on the staff in
the church meet me in the morning with
your blue jeans on.
We're going to tie the steel for this
foundation.
We found one person and for
what that contract called for to come in
on time.
We have a job description on every employee
at Cornerstone Church that says assist the pastor
as needed because here you never really know
what you're going to get to do the
next day.
On dedication day the church that could never
be filled was packed to the back walls.
Hundreds of people were in the lobby and
standing out in the front yard.
We went to two services dedication week for
church three.
I started looking for property to build this
church.
No I didn't tell anyone I was looking.
I knew they just couldn't handle it so
I didn't tell them.
Our parking lot at Loop 410 was an
absolute nightmare.
How many of you remember that parking lot?
They haven't forgotten the church but they never
forget the parking lot.
Here's how it worked.
We let everybody park in the parking lot.
Every space was taken and parked between in
the lanes and they were just bumper to
bumper so we had a perfect gridlock and
we had two dismissals to every Sunday morning
service.
Those of you who were parked behind the
cars please get up and leave and we
let them leave and we sang a song
and when we'd sung long enough those of
you now who are legitimately parked now you
can go.
Those were the days when we had our
parking lot crew.
That actually happened.
At the third church on Loop 410 God
was faithful to give us the vision to
preach the gospel to the world by television.
I said Lord I don't know how far
this will grow but I'm asking you to
open the doors to give us the ability
to reach the city and the nation and
the nations of the world to preach the
gospel and whatever door you open I'll walk
through it.
My wife was in the other room and
I said to him do not let him
get on television.
I'm over in the next room God I
want that television.
We've got to get that done.
God's in heaven had to be laughing but
he heard two different prayers from the same
house.
So I formed something called Global Evangelism Television
Incorporated.
We hadn't telecast across the street yet but
that was a good name.
Global Evangelism.
The Bible says the power of life and
death and the power of those things that
are not as though they are.
The Bible says whatsoever you say you shall
have.
Therefore if the Bible is true you need
to start talking where you want to go
and when you talk where you want to
go God will take you there.
So as it worked out the city of
San Antonio decided that they were going to
have a cable system and they brought the
seven largest cable companies the
president of one of the companies went in
and talked to one of the members of
our church who owned the store and they
met each other got to talking to each
other found out what each other represented and
the man that owned the store my church
member said to the president of the company
said you know if you want to get
that cable franchise you need to go over
and talk to Pastor Hagee.
He says he knows the mayor and he
knows about half of those city councilmen.
They all go over to his Saturday morning
prayer meeting and they especially go over there
when it comes election time.
That hadn't stopped.
And so he came into my office like
his shirt tail was on fire.
It took him 30 minutes to say will
you lobby for me to go downtown.
I said look I'm in the kingdom of
God.
I don't do anything that God doesn't get
a benefit from it.
I said you give me a contract that
gives me the authority to preach the gospel
24 7 for absolutely free and my attorney
approves of that contract.
I said I'll go down and talk for
you.
He said you're asking a whole lot.
I said 90 percent of something is better
than 100 percent of nothing.
It's your call.
He ground his teeth for a little and
he said OK.
He left.
He came back the next day with a
contract.
I took it to my attorney.
We got all of the buzz words worked
out and believe me if you don't have
a good attorney get one.
You need one.
You may need two and they got everything
worked out.
I went down I talked to the mayor
talked enough to the city council to have
a quorum by the grace and mercy of
God.
He won out of all those other seven
people he won the cable franchise for San
Antonio.
When they got 50,000 people on that
franchise we are presenting San Antonio with a
gospel.
We're letting every gospel preacher in town preach
who wants to preach absolutely free.
I mean it was like Disneyland.
We're the most loved people in town.
We're taking TBN down.
We're taking CBN down.
We're taking the PTL club down and at
about that time I got a call from
Paul Crouch and Paul Crouch said I want
to be on your cable system.
It's one of the largest in America.
I said I want to be on TBN.
I said I'll give you Monday through Friday
three hours.
You let me on TBN national TV on
Sunday morning for free.
I could hear him sucking wind on the
other end.
We got together.
For 12 years I was on TBN nationwide
absolutely free.
Think about that.
Our television department started out in a room
8 by 12 with one lady answering the
phone.
Whenever they sold that franchise we had to
start paying for our television time and it
cost millions of dollars per year.
But God has made it impossible for us
to reach the nations of the world preaching
the uncompromising gospel of Jesus Christ in every
language that we can get it translated in.
God is a faithful God who will help
you do the impossible.
If what you're doing brings glory and honor
to his name and builds his kingdom, nothing
is impossible to you and I challenge you
to try it in every adventure of your
life.
Nothing is impossible with God.
Give him praise and glory in the house
of God.
After we built the television, we bought our
television cameras, we built TV studios in the
back of the church over in 410 and
we started to build a television tower so
we could telecast.
I want to tell you this that whenever
you start to do something for the Lord
that has real potential the devil shows up
with every devil in hell to fight you
and see if he can knock you out
in the first round.
If what you're doing doesn't have resistance, you're
not doing anything worth doing.
If it's easy, something is wrong.
An 85 year old doctor started telling neighbors
that live behind our church that that television
tower was a radiating tower and it would
give you cancer.
He had a riot started in that city
in 24 hours.
The city attorneys for the city of Castle
Hills called for a special meeting from me
and the city council at city hall.
We were in the newspaper again.
No, it was not good.
At the city hall meeting the building was
packed, people standing outside on the lawn saying
very unkind things about our church.
The mayor called for what I will call
this high tech lynching to order with the
three witnesses and they said we do not
want a mega church in Castle Hills.
We do not want a mega preacher and
we want John Hagee and Cornerstone Church to
leave Castle Hills.
I said we would be delighted to leave.
I brought a TV tower expert to that
meeting from Washington, D.C. who was the
most knowledgeable man in the world about television
towers.
He said it was a radiating tower principally,
but the fluorescent light bulb in your kitchen
put out more radiation than that tower.
You could live under that tower for 200
years and it would have not hurt you.
Everyone in the audience snarled at him and
he sat down.
The mayor said we want you to take
the tower down and I said we will
take the tower down when hell freezes over,
not coming down.
He said we are going to sue you.
I said get after it.
I have got a lawyer too.
Our lawyers met and we settled out of
court.
The settlement was to move the tower to
the front of the church property.
We had a Holy Spirit dove painted on
the dish and when we hung it up
there the newspaper called it the ruptured duck.
True story.
That television ministry has grown until it now
reaches the world.
And I want to thank those of you
who are in this room and thank our
television salt covenant partners around the world.
You have made it possible for every nation
and tribe on planet earth to hear the
glorious gospel of Jesus Christ.
God bless you and thank you.
In 1981 we birthed the night to honor
Israel.
When the IDF blew up the nuclear reactor
in Iraq I felt like it was the
thing to do to tell the world that
we felt the Jewish people had done the
world a favor by taking nuclear weapons out
of the hand of Saddam Hussein.
And we had a night to honor Israel.
And whenever we had that night to honor
Israel we called a press conference.
My picture was in the newspaper with the
rabbi.
And within an hour of that newspaper hitting
the streets the church started getting threats.
We're going to shoot your preacher by Friday.
I called the FBI and said what do
you do when someone threatens to shoot you?
I said, you know they don't have a
class in seminary what to do when someone
tries to shoot you.
And the FBI agent said well I tell
you what do you do?
You drive a different way to work every
week.
I said do you have to go to
the FBI academy to learn such wise things
like that?
But I did drive a different way to
work every week.
We got to the event.
The event was packed as the rabbi was
saying the benediction.
This is Rabbi Scheinberg.
The security came to me and said Pastor
Hagee we've got a bomb threat on this
building.
It's supposed to blow up in five minutes.
I said is it serious?
He said you might have right it's serious.
All my security team is gone and I'm
the only one here.
I said dear God don't let this rabbi
pray like Moses right now.
Let him pray like a Presbyterian late for
lunch.
God answered my prayer.
I went to the podium and I said
I hate to end this wonderful night on
a negative note but this building is now
about three minutes supposed to blow up in
three minutes.
I want to tell you the Christians vaporized.
If we would have had an Olympian coach
there with a stopwatch we would have had
a new United States 440 relay team right
there.
They broke a record getting out of that
building.
The Jewish people accustomed to that just flipped
their hands if I had said kosher hot
dogs are available in the lobby for those
of you that would like to stay another
half hour.
A night to honor Israel last year was
held in 70 major cities across America as
we have developed a national organization called Christians
United for Israel that's giving every Christian in
America every pastor and every parachurch organization who
believes the Bible is accurate when it says
I will bless those who bless you.
Who believes in Isaiah 62 and Isaiah 62
is true when it says that we should
stand up and speak up for Israel who
believes that Romans 15 27 is the truth
when it says if we as the Gentiles
have benefited from the Jewish spiritual things we
the Gentiles owe it to the Jewish people
to minister them and their material and their
spiritual things.
If you are watching this television program and
you are a Christian or a pastor and
you want to become a part of Christians
United for Israel go online to www.cufi
.org and we will contact you.
Because from coast to coast we are doing
exciting things.
In July we are going to Washington and
if you haven't been you need to go.
In 1985 we had the blizzard of 85.
How many of you remember that snow blizzard?
Fifteen inches of snow.
I had always told my congregation we will
never dismiss church whatever the weather is.
Rain, sleet, snow makes no difference.
We will have church if hell freezes over
we will be having church.
It snowed 15 inches.
The mayor everybody would say don't leave your
house.
So Sunday morning I got up an hour
early from my front door to my Dodge
van I fell down twice.
Flat on my tush.
And I will tell you the joy of
the Lord left me on that second bench
of that.
I got in my Dodge and I went
down.
You couldn't see where the roads were I
knew where they were and I just headed
to the nearest stop sign.
And I was driving that Dodge as fast
as it would go.
There was a problem.
I had never driven in snow before.
And as I was driving down the road
my car was going up in the air
like that.
Because the snow was packing up under the
wheels.
I backed up hit the snow again.
It took me 45 minutes to get to
church.
And I generally get there in 5 to
7 minutes.
I walked in the church there was only
one guy there.
Dutch Eilert.
Dutch Eilert was a German member that he
had everything his father ever gave him for
four generations.
And he had a coat.
Every coat he owned owned.
And his arms were sticking out like this.
He looked like that guy Schultz on television
if you said I know nothing he looked
just like him.
He looked at me pastor and he said
today hell froze over.
So we went out on the church side
and said church services dismissed.
Hell froze over today.
We came to this church in 1987.
We built the television studios.
We formed the government of 12.
We bought the Ursuline Academy in 1992.
We bought that academy.
Was called by a realtor and said pastor
would you like to buy this school.
I said I'd like to look at it.
We had on the blueprints.
We're actually supposed to start that morning with
a contractor.
I said I have a lunch appointment.
I really can't get there till 1 o
'clock in
the morning.
I said I'd like to look at this
school.
He said no problem.
I said let's look at it.
We looked at it.
It was in perfect condition.
Absolutely perfect condition.
I told her after the interview I said
we're going to buy this.
I'll have to get the permission from the
executive board.
I called them.
They came to my house.
We agreed to buy it.
They thought I was getting ready to resign
because that was the only time we'd ever
had an emergency executive meeting for anything but
as the pastor of this church I cannot
spend the money of this church without their
approval.
So we called them over there.
I said
I
don't want you to call the press.
I don't want you to talk to anyone
that we're talking.
I said I want to close this thing
right this deal by the close of business
Friday.
She said, we've been trying to sell this
school for two years plus, and you want
to buy it in two days.
I said, that's exactly right.
She said, our lawyers would have to work
all night.
I said, let them.
I said, it's good for them, be a
new experience.
The next day we met at 10 o
'clock, we had breakfast, my lawyers, their lawyers.
She said to her lawyer, she said, shall
we tell Pastor Hagee the problem?
I said, here it is.
We're getting ready to be thrown under the
bus.
She said, the nuns that are on the
property, what do you want to do with
them?
I said, what's the problem with the nuns?
They were seven or eight of them, age
75 to 92.
They'd been all of their life teaching at
this school.
She said, well, the archdiocese wants them to
move off.
I said, well, there's no need for them
to move.
I said, I will give them the lease
of this nine bedroom house they have.
We'll pay all the utilities and I'll give
it to them for $10 a year.
And I'll pay the first five years out
of my own pocket.
I pulled out $50.
I said, they're taking care of them for
the next five years.
What's the problem now?
She said, are you serious?
I said, absolutely, I'm serious.
She looked at her lawyer and said, get
it done.
We bought the Ursuline Academy.
Shortly thereafter, the FBI called here and said,
preacher, you're gonna get a bomb.
There's a known bomber that's going to send
a bomb to your ministry.
He sent a bomb to President Clinton and
it went off.
He sent a bomb to us and we
defused it.
He sent a bomb to you.
He has enough makings in his apartment before
we arrested him to do 12 more bombs.
Be very careful.
The bomb squad showed up out here.
We had ambulances in the parking lot, fire
trucks in the parking lot, German shepherd dogs
sniffing everything that moved.
And if you think that won't shut you
down, I'll tell you, every employee that walked
down the hall, thank God that their tennis
shoes didn't smell like cordite gunpowder.
Monday, I'm watching the television, see where the
roof of the Dallas post office blew up.
The FBI called and said, that's your bomb.
I was headed for your house.
God protected us.
A few days later, the Assistant Attorney General
of the United States, the head of the
FBI counter-terrorism and the assistant to the
Attorney General came and started talking about what
they were going to do.
And I said, I don't really care what
your legal procedures are going to be.
I'm sure you're competent.
I said, all I want to know is
why did he send me a bomb and
why did he send Bill Clinton a bomb?
What do we have in common?
They said, well, our psychologists feel this man
hates all forms of authority.
And the head of the terrorism guy, he
looked like a linebacker for the Cowboys.
He had shoulders this wide and tapered down
like that.
He pulled a note out of top of
his pocket and he read it.
He said, I knew you were going to
ask that.
And I have this note.
And the note says, I heard Pastor Hagee
preaching on the television and knew it was
the absolute truth.
And the only way to stop the absolute
truth is to kill the messenger.
And when I'm telling you that we are
in a spiritual dogfight and a spiritual war,
I'm not kidding you.
It is a spiritual war.
And the further you send the light beam,
the greater resistance you get.
And right now we are around the world.
I'm here to testify to the glory of
God.
We serve an all-sufficient God.
We serve a God who is faithful.
We serve a God who is never failing.
We serve a God who is always there.
We serve a Lord who has never failed
us.
Give him praise and glory in the house
of God.
In closing, I want to say my God
was faithful to bring into my life the
most beautiful and wonderful wife in the world
in Diana.
Diana is a Proverbs 31 woman.
She is loving.
She is gracious.
She is compassionate.
She is a master organizer.
She's a forceful leader.
She's a marvelous mother.
She's one of the best cooks on planet
earth.
And she is the sunshine of my life.
She is, where'd she go?
There she is right here.
Stand up baby, stand up.
God has been very faithful to bring into
our lives five wonderful children.
And the most beautiful thing of our children
is not that they've graduated from college, not
that they have good jobs, but is that
every one of them are serving the Lord
in a very practical way.
They have presented us with eight of the
most sensational grandchildren on planet earth.
And I thank God for every one of
them.
God is a never failing God.
As David said, the Lord is my refuge.
He is my fortress.
He is the high tower.
He is my strength.
He is my shield.
And Buckler, though a thousand may fall at
my right hand and 10,000 at my
left, I will not fear for Jehovah God
is my keeper and defender.
Had the Lord not been on our side,
we would have failed miserably and long ago.
But because of his faithfulness, because of his
amazing grace, because he is a defender of
the righteous, because of his loving kindness, because
of his mercies that are renewed every morning,
we have survived and we have served our
generation by the will of God.
Cornerstone Church is God's church.
It was built for his glory.
It was built for his kingdom.
It was built for the next generation.
Tens of thousands have come to know Christ
and the harvest field is greater than ever
before.
This is the church triumphant.
Our past is going to be far less
than our future because our future is greater
than our past.
The latter years are going to be greater
than the former years for the best is
yet to do.
You have been listening to the From the
Pulpit and Classic Sermon series.
This week you heard John Hagee with his
message, Great is Thy Faithfulness.
Tune in next week for another powerful message
from God's word on From the Pulpit and
Classic Sermons.