Healing and Revival

 

"Healing, Deliverance, and World-Wide Revival"

 

Theodore Murray "Tommy" Hicks was born July 21, 1908 to Henry Harrison and Pearl Alice (Webb) Hicks. Hicks was the second of four children born into a farming family in Hunt County, Texas near the small town of Sikes (defunct since WWII). The family was active in the local Baptist church and he grew up with an understanding of the claims of the gospel. Unfortunately, tragedy struck the family when Hicks was only nine years old. Both of his parents died of pneumonia on February 27, 1918. Their deaths were likely connected to the Spanish flu pandemic that would eventually kill 5 million people world-wide and was just breaking out in Texas. With both parents dead, the four children were taken in by their maternal aunt Lula (Webb) and her husband Dr Henry King. The children moved seven miles to Greenville, Texas and Hicks lived with his aunt and uncle for the next ten years. During those years Hicks developed an interest in healing because of his uncle. It's hard to know how the loss of his parents impacted Hicks. In his writings he never spoke of his parents, siblings, or the family that took him in. He was intensely private. Hicks attended the Baptist church in Greenville with the Kings. He always said that he had a heart to preach the gospel from a very young age.

About 1930 Hicks moved to the Los Angeles area to try and find work in the midst of the economic depression. His uncle purchased land Hicks had Inherited to give him a stake to head west. Hicks worked in construction to make ends meet. He attended the Lighthouse of International Foursquare Evangelism school in the evenings and most likely attended Angelus Temple. The school was later renamed to LIFE Bible College. Aimee Semple McPherson was leading both Angelus Temple and the Bible College. Hicks would later say he had several spiritual experiences that impacted his life during this time. He must have had some artistic abilities as he designed the class banner and class pin for his night school group known as the "Builders." Hicks graduated in June 1935 and went to Montana for missionary service. Hicks was ordained as a Foursquare pastor and spoke at Foursquare conventions in 1936. A pattern emerged of a mixture of evangelistic meetings and short-term pastoral positions. In the years 1937 to 1939 Hicks was the District Superintendent over Foursquare Churches in Montana and Wyoming. He held evangelistic meetings and started a church in Sheridan, Wyoming in 1937. In 1938 Hicks went on to hold evangelistic meetings in Billings, Montana and started a church which he pastored from October 1937 to July 1938. In 1938 Hicks helped start a Foursquare church in Riverside, Wyoming. Hicks had Gordon Lindsay hold an evangelistic meeting in Billings in April 1939, showing the men had a relationship several years before the beginning of the future healing revival. Hicks met Mildred Irene Emmack and the couple married in September 1939. Hick's friend Gordon Lindsay officiated as the pastor of the wedding and Gordon's wife was one of the two witnesses.

The newlyweds moved in 1940 to Macon, Georgia where Hicks was listed as a Foursquare Evangelist and was also the pastor of the Foursquare Gospel Church for a time as well. The couple had a son they named after Hicks. Unfortunately, before he was 2 years old the boy died. Mildred was already pregnant with their second son and the stress on the family must have been incredible. Hicks resigned as the Macon pastor in September, 1942. He then took an interim position in Shreveport, Louisiana for a couple of months. Hicks continued to minister as Foursquare evangelist until the end of 1944 throughout Georgia and also in Texas, Nebraska, Montana, and Wyoming. A 1944 advertisement for Hicks lists him as a radio evangelist, so he must have ventured into the radio arena while in Georgia. In November 1944 a Minneapolis Foursquare Church offered Hicks a short-term pastor position which lasted until March of 1945. He then took an interim position in Duluth, Minnesota for a month or two. In June 1945 Hicks was invited to take over the pastorate of the Chicago Foursquare Church. Although the family moved there, and their fourth son was born in Chicago, it didn't appear to be a good fit. The Chicago church had a history of rapid pastoral turnovers and a major church split. Hicks was an evangelist and not a pastor. His time in Chicago was limited. By September of 1946 Hicks was no longer listed as the church pastor.

In 1946 something was breaking out in Pentecostal circles. First a fasting movement was taking off due to teaching by a man named Franklin Hall. He called people to extensive times of fasting to see healings, miracles, and world-wide revival break out. Although it started in San Diego, California soon meetings were being held all over the country. Secondly in May 1946 a man named William Branham claimed he'd been visited by an angel and was told that no sickness could stand before him. He was invited to meetings in St Louis and Arkansas. By 1947 Branham meetings were being held all over the country and the "hot" topic among Pentecostal circles. Amazing miracles were taking place. In April 1948 the success of Branham's meetings was so spectacular that an organization was started by Jack Moore and Gordon Lindsay called the Voice of Healing. The magazine was sent all over the United States and the world. Healings and miracles as an evangelistic tool were certainly something Hicks was aware of through his training under Aimee Semple McPherson. He hungered to see God do the same through him.

It appears Hicks returned to California in 1948. It's hard to know how Hicks made his living from 1948 to 1949. There are no records of evangelistic meetings until late 1949, and none of interim pastorates. He was influenced by Franklin Hall's teaching on fasting. He would often fast and cry out for God to move in his life. It is said he went on three 40-day fasts. The pattern of Hicks being hard on his body, to the detriment of his health, would continue for the next decade. In 1949 Hicks had a cerebral hemorrhage, causing partial paralysis (possibly related to the extensive fasting.) This is the "incurable disease" he refers to in his writings. There also appears to have been a breakdown in his family situation in the late 1940s. Hicks built a home in Lancaster, California, but was separated from his wife and children and only visited occasionally. The couple would eventually divorce sometime in the early to mid-1950s. Hicks never pastored or married again.

In 1949 things began to change for the better. Hicks was miraculously healed of the effects of the stroke. When he was healed God told him that he was "to hate disease, sickness, and sin." He very much saw sickness as a demonic attack. Secondly Hicks attended Oral Roberts meetings in Bakersfield, California held in September 1949. What Hicks saw happening stirred him. God spoke to Hicks and said "This is it. Here is where you get organized and launch out to bring deliverance to lost and suffering humanity." Hicks had a relationship with Demos Shakarian and the Pentecostal Association in the Los Angeles area. The Shakarian family was a major influence in Pentecostal circles and helped to finance early meetings put on by Hicks after his healing. In return Hicks would eventually be a supporter and evangelist for the Full Gospel Businessmen's International (FGBMI) group started by Demos Shakarian. Hicks helped start several chapters across the country. FGBMI support was critical in the first years of his ministry.

Hicks began his new ministry by holding healing and deliverance meetings in churches in the Fall of 1949. Initial meetings were in Foursquare Churches, but he began expanding beyond his denomination fairly quickly. He also started reporting on his meetings to the Voice of Healing magazine. The first report appeared in the August 1950 edition. The meetings were not large, but their publication gave Hicks a platform to be recognized as a healing evangelist to a much larger audience. The next big push was in the Long Beach, California area where Hicks preached six weeks at the Long Beach Revival Center at the end of 1950. He then moved into a large 2500-person tent where 20 churches worked with him. Hicks began to be viewed as one of the "up and coming" healing revivalists. From 1950 to 1954 Hicks hit the evangelistic circuit. He held meetings in churches and tents across the US. His largest meetings were in the Los Angeles area, where Hicks resided.

In 1952 an unusual event occurred. He was in prayers and saw a dramatic vision. Hicks saw waves of wheat that turned into multitudes of people. The people in the vision had their hands in the air and they were calling to Hicks "Come. Come." God showed him a map of South America. Then God told him that "before two snows would pass, he would fly to South America to preach." God also told him that he would "witness to people he could not number" and "he would stand before leaders of great governments and testify for His name and for His glory," God assured Hicks that He would give him "the desires of his heart." He was stunned as he had no connections in South America, but Hicks believed that God would do something truly miraculous to fulfill the vision. He continued with evangelistic meetings and was encouraged a few months later when a pastor's wife gave him a prophetic word that told him that "two snows would not pass before God would have him go by plane to the land that God had called him to preach in." He continued to pray about the words and ask God about the timing. In January 1954 Hicks knew God was telling him it was time to step into his vision.

Hicks decided to head to South America. His finances were extremely limited, but when he arrived at the Los Angeles airport members of the Pentecostal Association met him and handed him money for his trip. One man handed him $200 dollars and told him it was for 50,000 souls. They believed the vision Hicks had been given and wanted to support him. He headed to Chile initially, possibly because T.L. Osborn was holding successful meetings there and had opened the country to the Pentecostal message. His first meetings were in Temuco, Chile in an open Plaza for 18 days. Initial attendance was about 6,000 but would later swell to 15 - 20,000. He then travelled to Lima, Peru seeking an opening to hold meetings. Due to T.L. Osborn's success in Chile Pentecostal ministers in Buenos Aires, Argentina had been trying to get Osborn come there and hold meetings. Osborn felt he was not the right person and knowing that Hicks was in the area recommended him to the committee. They saw that he had been reported on in the Voice of Healing Magazine and so invited him to come. God spoke to Hicks to go to Buenos Aires. On the train to Buenos Aires God told to him that he should seek out someone with the name Peron. When he asked who the President of Argentina was, he was told it was Peron and Hicks knew he had to see him. (see Note 1)

It is important to recognize the political and spiritual atmosphere of Argentina in 1954. Juan Peron was a fascist and had supported the Nazi cause through most of WWII. After WWII. Peron and his wife Evita actively invited displaced Nazi war criminals, with their looted finances, to move to Argentina. Those criminals included the highest echelons of the Nazi war machine, such as Joseph Mengele and Adolph Eichmann. Although Peron was initially popular, due to short term economic policies, by 1954 the economy was in free fall and there were riots in the streets. Peron had been backed by the Catholic church, but was losing their support as the nation crumbled. Peron amassed great personal wealth from the Nazis he invited into the country. The fascist spirit established by Peron moved throughout many areas of South America, along with the Nazis he imported, over the coming years. Hicks came into this complex situation in an extremely naive way. He would later tell stories of Peron accepting Christ, although there was no sign of actual change. Hicks would call Peron "a gentleman", "a fine Christian man", and "a friend" when in reality Peron was a ruthless fascist dictator who controlled the media, the police, and destroyed any who opposed him. Peron used the religious system when it worked in his favor and fought it when it was no longer convenient.

Hicks told the Argentine missions committee that was supporting him that he wanted to rent a stadium to hold meetings. They were shocked and told him it could not be done. Juan Peron was a repressive leader who controlled the media and public venues. Any attempt to hold meetings larger than 200 was against the law because they were seen as potentially anti-government. The committee believed it an impossible request. Hicks called his interpreter and went to visit government offices to make his request in writing. While there, Hicks prayed for one of the guards who was healed. He was given an appointment to meet with Peron the next day. When Hicks met with Peron, he said Peron spoke with him "with great kindness." Hicks believed that God had opened the door in a miraculous way. It is true, but likely not as simply as Hicks believed. Pentecostals in Argentina were an extremely small percentage of the primarily Catholic population. Peron was in a battle with the US over financial pressure they were putting on Argentina. It would have been surprising if Peron had expected anything beyond a few local meetings. He may have hoped for some positive coverage in the US and a few pokes at the existing religious leaders. Peron gave Hicks permission to preach as long as he only preached the Bible and stayed out of politics. Hicks was happy to agree. What happened after Hicks began to preach took everyone by surprise, including Juan Peron.

The committee rented the Atlanta Football Stadium and Hicks began to hold meetings. The first meeting was April 14, 1954. The stadium held 45,000 people but the first meetings only had a few thousand people in attendance. Word quickly spread of miracles. Within a few weeks the stadium was crammed with people inside and outside. Estimates vary, but approximately 85,000 - 100,000 people crammed into the stadium nightly by the time Hicks knew he needed to move to a bigger facility. Every night Hicks preached the gospel and then did mass prayers for healing, deliverance, and miracles. Hicks saw his emphasis as being not only evangelistic but primarily spiritual warfare. Hicks called his meetings "Deliverance Meetings" and would often cry out "Satan get out of them, let them go!" Not only were people being healed, saved, and delivered, but as Jesus said of his disciples in Luke 10, He must have seen "Satan fall like lightning" over the entire region. As Hicks fame grew logistical issues quickly arose. People crammed into Hicks' hotel and filled the lobby and hallways. He had constant requests from officials for special prayer for important visitors. The sister of the Bolivian Vice President brought her son with an incurable disease to Hicks and her son was instantly healed. Since Hicks had no outside team with him to moderate his schedule, he often only got 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night. Hicks sacrificed his physical health in order to pray for as many people as possible. It was said it would take up to two hours to get Hicks from the hotel to the stadium to preach. Sometimes he needed to be taken out in disguise because those inside and outside the hotel would try to stop him in order to receive prayer. People laid their hands on his car hoping to be healed.

On May 22 the team moved services to the Huracan stadium which had seating for 100,000 people. Estimates vary but Hicks believed that 200,000 people would cram into the stadium and outside the stadium for several blocks around it. People were coming not only from all over Argentina, but throughout South America as well. One man flew his ill son in from Italy and saw his son healed. When Hicks would cry out for Satan to let people go the presence of God would sweep across the stadium. People would spontaneously yell that they were healed. The first few weeks of the campaign 300,000 people filled out decision cards and Bibles were sold out all over the country. Teams of people would have to clear the stadium of wheelchairs and other medical devices that people would leave as a testimony of their healing. The meetings were shaking the people into the awareness of God and shaking the principalities over the region. By the time Hicks left after June 13, 1954 it is said that over 3 million (consecutive) attendees had heard the gospel and approximately 50,000 people were healed. It was totally astounding for a man barely known in his own country.

Hicks returned to the United States and was called upon to give his testimony. Hicks was quickly recognized as one of the premier healing evangelists and was regularly included in Voice of Healing conventions. He developed a strong relationship with William Branham, whom he would contact during personal crises over the next several years. He needed to recover from the stress of the two months in Argentina. He also needed to consider his next move. Hicks returned to Argentina in early 1955. The political situation had radically changed. Peron was losing his grip on the country. The Catholic Church, now forewarned, strongly opposed the meetings. Hicks started meetings at the Atlanta stadium for ten days, but then the meetings were shut down. In February 1955 he was even held under "house arrest" in his hotel for two weeks and then told he could not hold meetings in Buenos Aires. Peron claimed that this was for Hicks' personal safety. It is likely, however, that Peron did not want a repeat of the 1954 meetings. By September 1955 Peron's government fell and Peron barely escaped the country with his life. Although there were strong economic forces that caused Peron's downfall, it must be considered that Hicks 1954 deliverance meetings directly took on spiritual forces that had been holding the country hostage for decades.

Most of the well-known evangelists, during this time period, started organizations to financially support them and provide prayer for their ministries. It was the height of the healing revival movement and the Pentecostal and healing messages were becoming a world-wide phenomenon. Tommy Hicks did not follow that pattern. He ministered with other evangelists but never started a magazine or newsletter, did not have associate evangelists, had no staff, never had a mailing list, and did not bring his family into the ministry. Hicks' pattern of intense personal privacy from his childhood continued. Those choices kept him from the worst of the later excesses of other ministries, but also left him without counsel to moderate his life choices and care for his health.

When the meetings in Argentina were closed to Hicks he set his sights on the Soviet Union. It was at the height of the cold war and a bold move on Hicks' part. Hicks requested permission to enter Soviet countries, including Poland. He flew to Zurich, Switzerland while awaiting the necessary paperwork. He held meetings in the largest auditorium from April 29th to May 4th, 1955. It was believed 3-4,000 people gave their lives to Christ. It was the largest evangelical meeting held in Switzerland since Smith Wigglesworth had been there in the 1920s. Hicks then flew to Germany and England to continue his wait. At the end of June 1955 Hicks was given permission to enter the Soviet Union. He started in Warsaw, Poland and went on to the Rostov Oblast Region, Russia, and just over the border into southern Ukraine. He pushed himself and preached 3 to 5 services a day for 28 days. He would stay in one city for 2 or 3 days and then move on to the next. No pictures were allowed in the meetings and the only reference to the turnout was from Hicks himself. He would say that thousands attended the meetings. He did not have Christian interpreters and in Rostov, Russia one of his interpreters stopped and began cursing him and shouted that she did not believe a thing he was saying and spat in his face. He turned to the attendees and asked if anyone would receive Christ. Enough people understood what was said that half the people responded and as Hicks went to his knees so did many people.

Once Hicks left the Soviet Union he returned to Finland and held meetings in Kaiseniem Park in Helsinki from August 26 to September 6, 1955. Four large tents were set up and healings occurred. A local newspaper reported on a lame boy being healed and a deaf boy healed and hearing restored. After one of the meetings Hicks became overwhelmed with the presence of God. The Lord spoke to him "I have given you Finland as an inheritance because you have been obedient to follow my path. I love you with an everlasting love." When Hicks asked for a confirmation, there was a knock at the door and two men arrived to invite him to hold meetings all over Finland on a return trip. The Russian trip did not come without great cost, however. Once again Hicks had pushed himself physically and taken on major spiritual forces. Hicks disappeared off the evangelical scene for the next few months. In April of 1956 William Branham reported that Hicks "was off the field due to a breakdown."

Hicks flew to Finland in July 1956. He started in the city of Turku on July 20th where 20,000 were seated in tents. Hicks went on to visit ten cities over the next month. His final stop was in Helsinki on August 31, 1956. Hicks reported that crowds in Helsinki and Mikkelia reached 30,000 each. He estimated that over the 30 days in Finland he had addressed 400,000 (consecutive) attendees. This revival was only eclipsed by the numbers he had seen in Argentina in 1954. Truly God had given him Finland! Hicks returned to the United States stopping in Hawaii to hold meetings from November 30th to December 5th 1, 1956. Barely giving himself time to recover, Hicks turned around and went back to Germany in December 1956, once more attempting to go behind the iron curtain.

Just as happened in Argentina, Hicks returned to the Soviet Union hoping to repeat his earlier meetings. The government, however, made sure that there would not be a repeat of what had occurred the first time around. He held several meetings, but where attendance in 1956 could be counted in the thousands, the attendance at these meetings were just small handfuls. Clearly people had been warned to stay away from the meetings. Hicks was disappointed and returned to the United States.

Hicks took on a new challenge and held meetings for ten days in Karlsruhe, Germany in July 1957. His tent accommodated 22,000 people. It was estimated that over those 10 days that 180,000 (consecutive) attendees came to the meetings from 18 countries. The emphasis was on salvation, healing, and being baptized in the Holy Spirit. There were hundreds of testimonies of healings. Blind eyes were opened, heart disease was healed, and cancers disappeared. The final day event was a water baptism where Hicks personally baptized 247 attendees.

Hicks flew to New Zealand and held meetings for two weeks starting October 29, 1957. He held meetings in Wellington at the Wellington Winter Show Building. His main supports were local Pentecostal Churches who provided both the funds and the prayer support. This was a much smaller event than his previous meetings, with attendance being in the hundreds rather than thousands.

In 1958, as the healing revival was beginning to wind down Hicks held meetings across the US. He also went to Germany to hold evangelistic meetings. One biographer claims Hicks was in a car accident while in Germany, although that has not been reported elsewhere. December 1958 changed Hicks' life forever. He had a major heart attack while living in Los Angelese, California. Although he survived his ministry changed from that time forward. He stopped almost all international trips. He stopped reporting on evangelistic meetings in the Full Gospel Businessman's and the Voice of Healing magazines. The meetings he did attend were single evening sessions or Voice of Healing meetings where he was one of many speakers and had a light itinerary. Over the next few years Hicks' presence as a speaker dropped until in the 1960's he was primarily speaking at local meetings or with a few close associates.

Hicks seemed to be focusing more on his personal life and one man who attended church with him believed he was considering being remarried. Then in 1962 Hicks was once again hit by tragedy. His brother and family were in Mexico and were all killed in an auto accident. Hicks took it extremely personally as he had been trying to convince his brother to accept Christ. His friend from church described a black cloud that seemed to descend on Hicks calling it "the great grief."

For the next several years Hicks primarily ministered locally, and then not that often. By the end of the 1960s he rarely held meetings at all. The final blow came when Hicks was diagnosed with ALS (often referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease) in the late 1960s. His health continued to fail until his death on January 6, 1973. Hicks' cause of his death was listed as both ALS and heart disease. Hicks was a man who gave his all for seeing the lost saved and delivered. Although the cost was high only God knows the thousands of people touched by the gospel and freed from sickness and oppression through his meetings.

 

Notes:

(1) There are several differnt versions, between both Hicks and Argentinians who reported on it, of how Hicks came to Buenos Airies, There are conflicts within Hicks own testimonies of the events over the years. There are also multiple versions of what happened in his meetings with Peron as well. We have tried to make a cohesive picture, but some things cannot be reconciled and we have tended to pick the earliest reports from Hicks himself as being the clearest memories of the events. The Argentine perspective may not have been understood by Hicks, even while happening.

 

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