While serving in the U.S. Navy in 1952, at the age of 23, Ollen Hardin committed his life to Christ through a Christian ministry to people in military service. Soon after he experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit and spoke in an unknown tongue, a very personal and wonderful spiritual experience. After being honorably discharged from the Navy, he met and married his wife, Flora, and began a family. Gradually Ollen realized that the Holy Spirit had given him the gift of interpretation of tongues and the prophetic gift but he was hesitant to use it.
About 1986, they felt a longing to become even closer to the Lord and began seeking him much more diligently, attending church services and revival meetings almost every night for a while. They met a local pastor who was especially eloquent in the way he expressed the oral gifts of the Spirit and began attending his church. He encouraged Ollen to open up and use his gift of prophecy and interpretation of tongues. Consequently, from the pastor’s own example as well as the comfort level to the moving of the Holy Spirit in his church, Mr. Hardin’s spiritual gift began to blossom.
By the fall of 1986, Ollen and Flora started to meet weekly with others from their church in a home setting for more in-depth prayer and worship. Here Mr. Hardin continued to fine-tune his gift, and he brought forth a wellspring of uplifting and down-to-earth monologues from the Holy Spirit. After a while, the Hardins were amazed to discover that this gift would also activate within their normal devotional or prayer time at home, with the Lord talking to just the two of them. Because they felt this was so unusual, they were uneasy about sharing this with others, except for those who attended a small home group. It was like their own special treasure. They were reassured, however, by the verse in Matthew 18:20 which says, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
In the spring of 1987, Mr. & Mrs. Hardin moved back to California to be closer to their two sons and their growing families, but the intimate fellowship and spiritual liberty they had enjoyed in Arkansas was difficult to replace. However, they continued with their frequent home devotional times of prayer and Bible studying, having learned to keep a tape recorder handy to preserve whatever the Lord would say to them. Before long they revealed to their sons, Ken and Keith, how the Lord was speaking to them and invited them to be a part of their devotional time anytime they wanted to. After some initial surprise and contemplation, they embraced what the Lord was doing in their lives, and when duties permitted, did join in on these sessions.
The Lord continued to speak to them for many years thereafter. However, about 1992, the messages started becoming shorter, more fragmented, and less frequent. There were no recordings in the second half of the 1990s except for a lone message on 11-14-1999. In the spring of 2000, Ollen had a minor stroke which left him unable to speak for several months. However, when his speech did return his ability to prophesy had gone strangely dormant.
Perhaps this was part of the Lord’s timing. For it was only then that the Hardins started seriously feeling that perhaps these utterances weren't just for them alone. So with prayerful earnestness, Ken began to transcribe the hundreds of audio tapes that had accumulated over the years. He finally finished in 2009 and then he took another year to create a book using excerpts from the messages. Ollen's health continued to slowly decline, yet Flora managed to care for him at home. But the time eventually came for his departure from this world and on August 22, 2008 he passed on to meet his Lord and heaven's rewards.