Fingertips on Glory by Pastor Kenneth W. Hagin
Fingertips on Glory Pastor Kenneth W. Hagin
Kenneth W. Hagin, President of Kenneth Hagin Ministries and pastor of RHEMA Bible Church ministers around the world. Rev. Hagin began preparing for his call to ministry—a ministry that now spans 50 years—at Southwestern Assemblies of God University. He graduated from Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and holds an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Faith Theological Seminary in Tampa, Florida.
Having organized and developed RHEMA Bible Training Center, Kenneth W. Hagin’s array of responsibilities also includes being the International Director of RHEMA Ministerial Association International. He also hosts the annual “A Call to Arms” Men’s Conference, and with his wife, Lynette, co-hosts RHEMA Praise, a weekly television program, and Rhema for Today, a weekday radio program broadcast throughout the United States. They also conduct Living Faith Crusades. You can learn more about Pastor Kenneth W. Hagin and the ministries of RHEMA at www.rhema.org.
John 3:16-17 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”
God has made a way of escape for us. He has given unto us a way out of the mess that this world is in. The world today is in a horrible condition. We do not know what will happen in the years to come because we are in uncharted waters! We are facing perplexing problems that cannot be overcome with just a few antidotes.
In the world today, people are grabbing what little happiness they can find anywhere they can find it. It doesn’t make any difference what it is as long as it can relieve the pressure and give them a thrill for the moment. They’re grabbing for it because they have come to a position in life where there seems to be no hope. Everything seems to be downhill, and what you get out of life is what you can grab as you go by.
You find this kind of theme in our television commercials and periodicals and even in listening to commentators on the radio and television. It is the underlying theme behind most of our commercials – especially in the area of beer and wine advertisements. It is that “grab what you can get out of life right now, because you don’t know what tomorrow is going to be” mentality. And if you grab for that happiness, you sure don’t know what tomorrow’s going to be because it’s going to bring untold misery.
People are reaching for a high on drugs and sex, and are living in a pleasure-seeking world! They will do anything to get out of the pressure-cooker of the moment. The world that you and I live in has become the most complex society that has ever existed on the face of the earth. We have become the most complex, and the most educated. We have become the society that has known more earthly pleasures and benefits than any other society that’s ever lived on this earth and breathed the air of our atmosphere.
In all of our education, in all of our psychology, in all of our great medical discoveries (and thank God for them), in all of our great statesmen, and in all of the great kingdoms and governments of the world, we have found ourselves in the position of being at a holocaust rather than at a utopia. Today, we are smarter, have higher IQ’s and are more intelligent than any generation that has lived before us, and yet, with our intelligence, our inventions, and our greatness, we still see society headed toward ruin!
Satisfaction only lasts for a season and people are dissatisfied. You hear this statement over and over again from young people, “I’m bored!” Some of you find yourself in the same position. We’re bored! We have vacuum cleaners for our rugs. We have washing machines and driers; we have garbage disposals and compactors. We don’t even have to take the garbage out anymore! We sit in our house and become bored with life. We have become a nation and a world of pleasure-seekers!
The pages of history tell us about the great Empires that existed centuries ago. The Egyptian Empire, the Babylonian Empire, the Persian Empire, the Medo-Persian Empire, the Grecian Empire, andthe Roman Empire, and. If you study these in world history, you’ll find that they also reached to great heights. However, the downfall of every one of these Empires was the fact that they became pleasure-seeking! They indulged in their own lustful pleasure until they destroyed the very utopia that they had built. They became aloof to the problems around them, and they became selfish individuals thinking only of their selves. This has become the pattern of the age that you and I live in. We think only of ourselves and what we can get.
Solomon, a man of wisdom, said in the Book of Ecclesiastes, “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.” He’d had everything and was the wisest man in the world at that time. He had the greatest kingdom. More gold, more silver, more of this, more of that, more of everything than anybody else had ever had, and he came to the conclusion at the end of his life that, “All is vanity!” There’s nothing to it. After you’ve had wisdom, after you’ve had everything in the world and you make that final statement, it becomes the epitaph on your gravestone. Vanity of vanities! Nothing is important. Nothing lasts.
When we begin to look at that statement from the human side, with our humanity, he is correct. But that is a picture of a world without God. Their god has become their pleasure. Their god has become their stomach. Their god has become the luxuries of life!
We have all upped our station in life. We’re better off today than we were a few years ago. The history of our own country would tell us that each generation, as we have evolved for over 200 years, has been better trained educationally. Each generation is better off physically. Each generation is better off financially. We have progressed! There’s not a parent reading this that hasn’t worked hard so that their children can have a better position in life than they had. And we that are older, our parents worked and helped us for one reason – so that we could be better off in life than they were. And their parents helped them, and their parents helped them, and it’s just a progression all the way through. Thank God for that!
Some would say, “I could be happy if I just had enough money.” No you wouldn’t. The only difference between the problems of those that seemingly don’t have enough money and those that you think have all the money in the world, is the fact that the one that’s got the money just has more of the same problem. If houses and lands, if money and cars, if fame and fortune brought happiness then why is the highest rate of suicide in the world among the middle and upper class? The highest rate of people taking their life is in the class of people that are supposed to have it made; not in those that are in the ghetto or those that are down and out. This tells me that monetary things do not bring happiness.
What brings happiness? Happiness is a condition found within the inside of man. The Apostle Paul very aptly understood this when he had accepted Christ as his personal Savior, and he said, “I am content in whatever state I’m in.” Now, he didn’t mean Iowa, Oklahoma, or Ohio. He meant that he was content in whatever situation he was in because his happiness did not depend on his environment or his circumstances. His happiness came from Jesus Christ Who dwelt within his heart.
Many people have had their fingertips on happiness, or their fingertips on glory, if you want to say it in that manner. King Agrippa, in Acts 26:28, after Paul had been talking to him for a number of hours, said, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.” Paul said in verse 29, “I would to God, [I pray to God] that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, [in other words, would accept Jesus Christ or be born again] except these bonds.”
Judas had fingertips on happiness. He was one of the twelve disciples who walked and talked with Jesus. King Agrippa, that I just mentioned, had his fingertips on the greatest thing that the world had to offer – the greatest life insurance policy that anybody can ever purchase. The rich young ruler, the scribe that came to Jesus, all of these people had their fingertips on glory.
Those mentioned in the Word of God are not the only ones found in this condition. Not just those in the Word of God were weighed in the balance and found wanting, as old King Nebuchadnezzar was. Daniel, the great prophet, talked to him and yet he would not listen. The handwriting was on the wall. His greatness came to nothing as he became a raving maniac living in the field when once his head was pillowed in the palace. This day in which you and I live, right now at this very moment, there are people all around the world who have their fingertips on glory, and that glory is slipping away.
A preacher’s son that I knew grew up in the church and knew all about the things of God. He said, “Aw, I’ve got plenty of time. I’m young. I want to have a good time.” He married one of the girls in the church and they had children. He would bring them to the church but wouldn’t come inside himself. If I remember correctly, one day after he had let his family out to go to church and was just a few blocks from the church, his life was taken from him in an auto accident. He never intended to let it slip away. He was just going to have fun for a season. Instead, he went out into eternity. Nobody knows for sure whether he ever tightened that grip on glory or if he let it slip away.
Another preacher’s son I know, while his dad was standing in the pulpit on Sunday morning, slipped out and got in the car and began to drive around the city to have a big time. Authorities later interrupted the service to get his parents to go to the hospital to identify the remains of what was a young, handsome 16-year-old. He had his fingertips on glory. His dad was a preacher! There are many people today that laugh and mock and say, “I’ve got plenty of time to accept Jesus.”
Another man I knew would say, “Oh that’s good for the women and kids, but we tough Texas-men, we don’t need anybody but ourselves.” That was this man’s gospel; that is what he preached. He’d come to church with his cowboy boots and his western clothes on maybe Mother’s Day, Easter and Christmas. He was a friendly guy. He’d shake hands with the pastor and say, “How are you doing, Brother? I’m fixing to kill a couple of cows; my wife will bring you some steaks.”
He liked the pastor well enough, and even liked the church. But real men didn’t need the church. Real men didn’t need God. But that night when he sat in the hospital emergency waiting room with his boy that he’d taught, “Real men don’t need God; they take care of themselves. They fight. They drink! They do all the carousing they want to do.” The tears were rolling down his face. There was no mocking. There was no laughing. “Why didn’t he listen to his momma instead of listening to me? He’d be alive,” he said.
You see, that kid had been in Sunday School and church with his momma as long as he was a little kid. As soon as he got old enough, his dad started preaching his own “gospel.” His dad took him out of church and took him with him to the rodeos, the bars, or to this or that. He was very proud when he was able to set him up with his first beer, yet there wasn’t any of that macho-image left when the devil had gotten through with his life. Thankfully, this dad found God, but nobody knows whether that boy had an opportunity or not to make things right with the Lord. Oh yeah, he knew how to pray. He’d been in church, but all we can believe for is that in those last few breaths, he was able to ask for forgiveness.
There are too many people, such as Judas, who get disappointed and lose out. The rich young ruler, who hung onto the possessions of this world, gave up Jesus. Many people today are like the people I mentioned – the two preacher’s kids and the man that I described as the “macho man.” They are holding on to something that’ll never last.
Many years ago in England, there were many, many urchins and little orphan boys and girls running the streets. You can read the history of it. Their nation was a mess until hundreds of orphanages were built. One day one of the bobbies heard one of the little boys in the trash can. He went around to see him, and saw nothing but feet sticking out of the trash can as this kid was digging for food. He pulled him out, dirty and ragged, and fighting. The bobby couldn’t understand why the boy was fighting him. He took him over to the orphanage and started cleaning him up. He gave him a bath to get the dirt off of him, and he put him in clean clothes. However, there was one hand that was still black and filthy; clenched in a fist. He said to the boy, “Come on. Let us wash your hand and go downstairs. There’s food on the table.”
Now the meal might not have been what we would consider a banquet, but for this hungry orphan boy, it was a banquet indeed. A banquet was prepared, but he kept his fist clenched as they tried to pry his little fingers open. “It’s mine! It’s mine! You can’t have it! You can’t have it!” he cried as he held on to his possession with that dirty hand. Finally they pried the fingers open and in the palm of the little boy’s hand was a round ball of molded old bread. That small boy was hanging onto something that was rotten in his hand. All he had to do was be washed clean and walk down the stairs, put his feet under the table, and have all the bread, soup, beans, and food that he wanted.
This world is like that little orphan boy. People have been made dirty by the world. They need to be cleaned up by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are many in congregations all across the country who need to be cleansed. There are individuals who have been washed, but are still playing the church game. They’re hanging on with one hand to a few of the possessions that they don’t want to give up. And yet they’ve got their fingertips on glory! They even come to the house of God, but they’re like that rich, young ruler. They’d rather hang on to a few possessions of pleasure than to dedicate themselves wholly to God.
Though millions have come, there’s still room for one. Like that old rugged cross, the blood flowed from His hands and His feet and His sides. He died that you might have life, and have it more abundantly. He died that so that you could be set free from bondage and addictions. He died that you could have real happiness and not just a moment of pleasure – a sexual act in the back seat of a car in a cheap motel somewhere.
That same Jesus is still washing people clean with the blood that He shed at Calvary. There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel’s veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood, lose all their guilty shame. There’s room at the Cross for you. Though millions have come, there’s still room for you!
