Brother Hagin said many times that he hadn’t had a sick day since 1934. One critic claims that
“Kenneth Hagin might say that he hasn’t had a sick day in nearly sixty years, but the truth is he has had several heart attacks and a complete heart stoppage”.
The obvious point that he is making is that the claim of no sick days in sixty years is not true, and then he lists his evidence to support the point – four heart incidents. His source for his claim? Kenneth Hagin himself. Odd, huh? He attacks Brother Hagin’s truthfulness and then cites him as a presumably reliable source. What he didn’t tell you though, is that Brother Hagin also provides his definition of a sick day. He defines it as a day where he is attacked and doesn’t receive healing.
“I have not had one sick day in 45 years. I did not say that the devil hadn’t attacked me.
But before the day is out, I am healed. ” (The Name of Jesus)
He used similar wording in discussing headaches.
“That’s how I’ve been able to live for nearly sixty years without having a headache. I didn’t say headache symptoms never tried to attack me. I said I haven’t had a headache in nearly sixty years because when a symptom came, I demanded that it leave in Jesus’ Name, and it left!” (Classic Sermons – The Name of Jesus and You)
In the footnotes in the back of the book he includes the full quote, knowing that most people aren’t going to go to the trouble of looking it up to see what he omitted. And of course when he makes the same claim in audio format the full quote isn’t provided. It’s things like this that chip away at the credibility of these critics. If they can’t be honest about this, what else are they going to be dishonest about?
Brother Hagin was 76 years old when the critic made this comment in 1993, and the incidents he was talking about were from 1939, 1942, 1949, and 1973. This is a man who was born with a deformed heart, and after he received healing for that heart he had a few attacks but stood his ground and prevailed. He lived to be 86 despite having been told that he wouldn’t make it to 17. In recounting these stories He was providing the reader with examples of how he had managed to retain his health despite the attacks of the enemy, and yet the critic decides to use these stories to attack his integrity.