About the Book
"The Callused Knees" is a heartwarming story about a young boy named Tommy who learns the value of hard work, determination, and perseverance from his grandfather. Through their special bond and shared experiences, Tommy discovers the power of resilience and the importance of maintaining faith in oneself. This inspirational tale explores the themes of family, wisdom, and the transformative power of a strong mentorship.
Kenneth E. Hagin
Rev. Kenneth Erwin Hagin was born on Aug. 20, 1917, in McKinney, Texas. Rev. Hagin was sickly as a child, suffering from a deformed heart and an incurable blood disease. He was not expected to live and became bedfast at age 15. In April 1933 during a dramatic conversion experience, he reported dying three times in 10 minutes, each time seeing the horrors of hell and then returning to life.
In August 1934, Rev. Hagin was miraculously healed, raised off a deathbed by the power of God and the revelation of faith in God’s Word. Jesus appeared to Rev. Hagin eight times over the next several years in visions that changed the course of his ministry. In 1967, he began a regular radio broadcast that continues today as Rhema for Today.
In 1968 Rev. Hagin published the first issues of The Word of Faith. That magazine, now produced nine times a year, has a circulation of over 200,000. The publishing outreach he founded, Faith Library Publications, has circulated worldwide more than 75 million copies of books by Rev. Hagin, Kenneth W. Hagin, Lynette Hagin, Craig W. Hagin, and several other authors. Faith Library Publications also has produced millions of audio and video teachings.
Other outreaches of Kenneth Hagin Ministries include Rhema Praise, a weekly television broadcast hosted by Revs. Kenneth and Lynette Hagin; Rhema Correspondence Bible School; Rhema Alumni Association; Rhema Ministerial Association International; the Rhema Prayer and Healing Center; and the Rhema prison ministry.
In 1974 Rev. Hagin founded what is now Rhema Bible Training College. The school has campuses all over the world and continues to expand.
Until shortly before his death, Rev. Hagin continued to travel and teach throughout the United States and into Canada conducting All Faiths’ Crusades and other special meetings. 
Known as the “father of the modern faith movement,” Rev. Hagin was a dynamic preacher, teacher, and prophet. His teachings and books are filled with vivid stories that show God’s power and truth working in his life and the lives of others. He will be remembered not only as a great minister but as a great family man—for his family was his heart. He was there at every milestone ready to talk, to answer, to pray. He was a man whose belly laugh filled the room at the sight of one of his grandchildren or great-grandchildren.
"which thief"
"Oh, of course, I intend to be saved sometime; but there is no use being in a hurry about it. There is always a chance, even at the eleventh hour. Remember the dying thief!" carelessly said a young man at the close of a meeting, when spoken to about his soul. "Which thief?" pointedly asked his questioner. "Why, I had really forgotten there were two. I mean the saved one," was the reply, as an anxious expression came over his face. "Yes, one was saved, and is in heaven now. The other, who had an equal opportunity for salvation, is wailing in hell. What warrant have you that you will not spend eternity as he will, rather than as the other?" It was a word fitly spoken, an arrow that pierced the joints of his harness; and the young man was led to see the folly of further procrastination, and that night was saved for eternity, through receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal Saviour. Thousands, like him, forget there were "two thieves." They remember the mercy of God that saved the one, while forgetting the judgment of God meted out to the other. Carelessly they wander on, hoping to be saved at last; but, alas, how many are cut off in sin and damned forever, to whom the gospel was often presented, but who, presuming on the patience of God, rejected it until "there was no remedy." Which thief, reader, we affectionately ask, would you be like? We recollect speaking once to a very refined and elegant lady on a steamer, who asked, indignantly, "You do not mean to say I have got to go to heaven like the dying thief, do you?" "No, madam," we replied, "you do not have to. If you reject Christ, you will have to go to hell with the other." And so we would remind the reader; The saved thief believed on the Son of God, and is with Christ now. The lost thief scorned a Saviour, and is in the depths of woe. You must be with one or the other for eternity. "Because there is wrath, beware lest He take thee away with His stroke: then a great ransom cannot deliver thee." From The Only Two Religions and Other Gospel Papers by H. A. Ironside. New York: Loizeaux Brothers, Publishers, [n.d.].