What It Means to Be Full of the Spirit

What It Means to Be Full of the Spirit by Smith Wigglesworth

Bible Reading-Acts 6.

In the days when the number of disciples began to be multiplied there developed a situation which caused the twelve to make a definite decision not to occupy themselves with serving tables, but to give themselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. How important it is for all God’s ministers to be continually in prayer, and constantly feeding on the Scriptures of Truth. I often offer a reward to anyone who can catch me anywhere without my Bible or my Testament.

None of you can be strong in God unless you are diligently and constantly hearkening to what God has to say to you through His Word. You cannot know the power and the nature of God unless you partake of His inbreathed Word. Read it at morn and at night, and at every opportunity you get. After every meal, instead of indulging in unprofitable conversation round the table, read a chapter from the Word and then have a season of prayer. I endeavour to make a point of doing this no matter where or with whom I am staying.

The Psalmist said that he had hid God’s Word in his heart, that he might not sin against Him; and you will find that the more of God’s Word you hide in your heart, the easier it is to live a holy life. He also testified that God’s Word lead quickened him; and, as you receive God’s Word into your being, your whole physical being will be quickened and you will be made strong. As you receive with meekness the Word, you will find faith upspringing within. And you will have life through the Word.

The twelve told the rest to look out seven men to look after the business end of things. They were to be men of honest report and filled with the Holy Ghost. These were just ordinary men who were chosen, but they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and this infilling always lifts a man to a plane above the ordinary. It does not take a cultured or a learned man to fill a position in God’s church; what God requires is a yielded, consecrated, holy life, and He can make of such a flame of fire. Baptized with the Holy Ghost and fire!

The multitude chose out seven men to serve tables. They were doubtless faithful in their appointed tasks, but we see that God soon had a better choice for two of them. Philip was so full of the Holy Ghost that he could have a revival wherever God put him down. Man chose him to serve tables, but God chose him to win souls. O, if I could only stir you up to see that as you are faithful in performing the humblest office, God can fill you with His Spirit and make you a chosen vessel for Himself, and promote you to a place of mighty ministry in the salvation of souls and in the healing of the sick. There is nothing impossible to a man filled with the Holy Ghost. It is beyond all human comprehension. When you are filled with the power of the Holy Ghost, God will wonderfully work wherever you go.

When you are filled with the Spirit you will know the voice of God. I want to give you one illustration of this. When I was going out to Australia recently, our boat stopped at Aden and at Bombay. In the first place the people came round the ship selling their wares, beautiful carpets and all sorts of oriental things. There was one man selling some ostrich feathers. As I was looking over the side of the ship watching the trading, a gentleman said to me, “Would you go shares with me in buying that bunch of feathers?” What did I want with feathers? I had no use for such things and no room for them either. But the gentleman put the question to me again, “Will you go shares with me in buying that bunch?” The Spirit of God said to me, “Do it.”

The feathers were sold to us for three pounds, and the gentleman said, “I have no money on me, but if you will pay the man for them, I will send the cash down to you by the purser.” I paid for the feathers and gave the gentleman his share. He was travelling first, and I was travelling second class. I said to him, “No, please don’t give that money to the purser, I want you to bring it to me personally to my cabin.” I said to the Lord, “What about these feathers?” He showed me that He had a purpose in my purchasing them.

At about 10 o’clock the gentleman came to my cabin and said, “I’ve brought the money.” I said to him, “It is not your money that I want, it is your soul that I am seeking for God.” Right there he opened up the whole plan of his life and began to seek God; and that morning he wept his way through to God’s salvation.

You have no conception what God can do through you when you are filled with His Spirit. Every day and every hour you can have the divine leading of God. To be filled with the Holy Ghost means much in every way. I have seen some who have been suffering for years, and when they have been filled with the Holy Ghost everything of their sickness has passed away. The Spirit of God has made real to them the life of Jesus and they have been completely liberated of every sickness and infirmity.

Look at Stephen. He was just an ordinary man chosen to serve tables. But the Holy Ghost was in him and he was full of faith and power, and did great wonders and miracles among the people. There was no resisting the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake. How important it is that every man shall be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Tongues and Interpretation: “The divine will is that you should be filled with God; for the power of the Spirit to fill you with the mightiness of God. There is nothing God will withhold from a man filled with the Holy Ghost.”

I want to impress the importance of this upon you. It is not healing that I am presenting to you-it is the living Christ. It is a glorious fact that the Son of God came down to bring liberty to the captives.

How is it that the moment you are filled with the Holy Ghost persecution starts? It was so with the Lord Jesus Himself. We do not read of any persecutions before the Holy Spirit came down like a dove upon Him. Shortly after this we find that, after preaching in His home town, they wanted to throw Him over the brow of a hill. It was the same with the twelve disciples. They had no persecution before the day of Pentecost; but after they were filled with the Spirit, they were soon in prison. The devil and the priests of religion will always get stirred when a man is filled with the Spirit and does things in the power of the Spirit. And persecution is the greatest blessing to a church. When we have persecution we will have purity. If you desire to be filled with the Spirit you can count on one thing, and that is persecution. The Lord came to bring division, and even in your own household you may find three against two.

The Lord Jesus came to bring peace; and soon after you get peace within, you get persecution without. If you remain stationary, the devil and his agents will not disturb you much. But when you press on and go the whole length with God the enemy has you as a target. But God will vindicate you in the midst of the whole thing.

At a meeting I was holding, the Lord was working and many were being healed. A man saw what was taking place and remarked, “I’d like to try this thing.” He came up for prayer and told me that his body was broken in two places. I laid my hands on him in the name of the Lord, and said to him, “Now, you believe God.” The next night he was at meeting and he got up like a lion. He said, “I want to tell you people that this man here is deceiving you. He laid his hands on me last night for rupture in two places, but I’m not a bit better.” I stopped him and said, “You are healed, your trouble is that you won’t believe it.”

He was at meeting the next night and when there was opportunity for testimony this man arose. He said, “I’m a mason by trade. Today I was working with a labourer and he had to put a big stone in place. I helped him and did not feel any pain. I said to myself, `How have I done it?’ I went away to a place where I could strip, and found that I was healed.” I told the people, “Last night this man was against the Word of God, but now he believes it. It is true that these signs shall follow them that believe, they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. And all through the power that is in the name of Christ.” It is the Spirit who has come to reveal the Word of God, and to make it spirit and life to us.

You people who are seeking the Baptism are entering a place where you will have persecution. Your best friends will leave you-or those you may esteem your best friends. No good friend will ever leave you. But it is worth while. You enter into a realm of illumination, or revelation by the power of the Holy Ghost. He reveals the preciousness and the power of the blood of Christ. I find by the revelation of the Spirit that there is not one thing in me that the blood does not cleanse. I find that God sanctifies me by the blood and reveals that efficacy of the work by the Spirit.

Stephen was just an ordinary man clothed with the divine. He was full of faith and power, and great wonders and miracles were wrought by him. Oh, this life in the Holy Ghost! this life of deep, inward revelation, of transformation from one state to another, of growing in grace and in all knowledge and in the power of the Spirit, the life and the mind of Christ being renewed in you, and of constant revelations of the might of His power. It is the only kind of thing that will enable us to stand.

In this life, the Lord puts you in all sorts of places, and then reveals His power. I had been preaching in New York, and sailed one day for England on the Lusitania. As soon as I got on board I went down to my cabin. Two men were there, and one of them said, “Well, will I do for company?” He took out a bottle and poured out a glass of whiskey and drank it, and then he filled it up for me. “I never touch that stuff,” I said. “How can you live without it?” he asked. “How could I live with it?” I asked. He admitted, “I have been under the influence of this stuff for months, and they say my `inside is all shrivelled up,’ and I know that I am dying. I wish I could be delivered, but I just have to keep on drinking. Oh, if I could only be delivered! My father died in England and has given me his fortune, but what will the good of it be to me except to hasten me to my grave?”

I said to this man, “Say the word, and you will be delivered.” He enquired, “What do you mean?” I said, “Say the word, show that you are willing to be delivered and God will deliver you.” But it was just as if I was talking to this platform for all the comprehension he showed. I said to him, “Stand still,” and I laid my hands on his head in the name of Jesus and cursed that drink demon that was taking his life. He cried out, “I’m free! I’m free! I know I’m free!” He took two bottles of whiskey and threw them overboard, and God saved, sobered and healed him. I was preaching all the way across. He sat beside me at the table. Previous to this he had not been able to eat; but at every meal he went right through the menu. You only have to have a touch from Jesus to have a good time. The power of God is just the same today. To me, He’s lovely. To me, He’s saving health. To me, He’s the lily of the valley. O this blessed Nazarene, this King of kings! Hallelujah! Will you let Him have your will? Will you let Him have you? If you will, all His power is at your disposal.

They were not able to resist the wisdom and spirit by which Stephen spake, and so, full of rage, they brought him to the council. And God filled his face with a ray of heaven’s light. It is worth being filled with the Spirit, no matter what it costs. Read the seventh chapter, the mighty prophetic utterance by this holy man. Without fear he tells them, “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost.” And when they heard these things they were cut to the heart. There are two ways of being affected at the heart. Here they gnashed their teeth and cast him out of the city and stoned him. On the day of Pentecost, when they were pricked at the heart they cried out, “What shall we do?” They took the opposite way. The devil, if he can have his way, will cause you to commit murder. If Jesus has His way, you will repent.

And Stephen, full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. O, this being full of the Holy Ghost! How much it means. I was riding for sixty miles one summer day and as I looked up in the heavens I had an open vision of Jesus all the way. It takes the Holy Ghost to give this.

Stephen cried out, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.” As he was full of the Spirit he was full of love, and he manifested the very same compassion for his enemies that Jesus did at Calvary. This being filled with the Holy Ghost means much in every way. It means constant filling, quickening, and a new life continually. Oh, it’s lovely! We have a wonderful gospel and a great Saviour! If you will but be filled with the Holy Ghost you will have a constant spring within, yea, as your faith centres in the Lord Jesus, from within you shall flow rivers of living water.

Life in the Spirit

Life in the Spirit by Smith Wigglesworth

Bible Reading, 2 Corinthians 3

We are told that we are to leave the first principles of the doctrine of Christ and go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and the doctrine of baptisms and other first principles (Hebrews 6). What would you think of a builder who was everlastingly pulling down his house and putting in fresh foundations? Never look back if you want the power o f God in your life. You will find out that in the measure you have allowed yourself to look back you have missed that which God has for you.

The Holy Ghost shows us that we must never look back to the law of sin and death from which we have been delivered. God has brought us into a new order of things, a life of love and liberty in Christ Jesus that is beyond all human comprehension. Many are brought into this new life through the power of the Spirit of God, and then, like the Galatians, who ran well at the beginning, they try to perfect themselves on the lines of legalism. They go back from the life in the Spirit to a life on natural lines. God is not pleased with this, for He has no place for the man who has lost the vision. The only thing to do is to repent. Don’t try to cover up anything. If you have been tripped tip on any line, confess it out, and then look to God to bring you to a place of stability of faith where your whole walk will be in the Spirit.

We all ought to have a clear conviction that salvation is of the Lord. It is more than a human order of things. If the enemy can move you from a place of faith, he can get you outside the plan of God. The moment a man falls into sin, divine life ceases to flow, and his life becomes one of helplessness. But this is not God’s thought for any of His children. Read the third chapter of John’s first epistle and take your place as a son of God. Take the place of knowing that you are a son of God, and remember that, as your hope is set in Christ, it should have a purifying effect on your life. The Holy Spirit says, “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for His seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” There is life and power in the seed of the Word that is implanted within. God is in that “cannot,” and there is more power in that word of His than in any human objections. God’s thought for everyone of us is that we shall reign in life by Jesus Christ. You must come to see how wonderful you are in God and how helpless you are in yourself.

God declared Himself more mighty than every opposing power when He cast out the powers of darkness from heaven. I want you to know that the same power that cast Satan out of heaven dwells in every man that is born of God. If you would but realize this, you would reign in life. When you see people laid out under an evil power, when you see the powers of evil manifesting themselves, always put the question, “Did Jesus come in the flesh?” I have never seen an evil power answer in the affirmative. When you know you have an evil spirit to deal with you have power to cast it out. Believe it and act on it, for greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4). God means you to be in a place of overcoming, and has put a force within you whereby you may defeat the devil.

Temptations will come to all. If you are not worth tempting you are not worth powder and shot. Job said: “When He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.” In every temptation that comes, the Lord lets you be tempted up to the very hilt, but will never allow you to be defeated if you walk in obedience; for right in the midst of the temptation He will always “make a way of escape.”

Tongues and Interpretation: “God comes forth and with His power sweeps away the refuge of lies and all the powers of darkness, and causes you always to triumph in Christ Jesus. The Lord loveth His saints and covereth them with His almighty wings.”

May God help us to see it. We cannot be to the praise of His glory until we are ready for trials, and are able to triumph in them. We cannot get away from the fact that sin came in by nature, but God comes into our nature and puts it into the place of death, that the Spirit of God may come into the temple in all His power and liberty, that right here in this present evil world Satan may be dethroned by the believer.

Satan is always endeavoring to bring the saints of God into disrepute, bringing against them railing accusations, but the Holy Ghost never comes with condemnation. He always reveals the blood of Christ. He always brings us help. The Lord Jesus referred to Him as the Comforter who would come. He is always on hand to help in the seasons of trial and test. The Holy Ghost is the lifting power of the church of Christ. And Paul tells us that we “are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ, . . . written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart.” The Holy Ghost begins in the heart, right in the depths of human affections. He brings into the heart the riches of the revelation of Christ, implanting purity and holiness there, so that, out of its depths, praises may well up continually.

The Holy Ghost will make us epistles of Christ, ever telling out that Jesus our Lord is our Redeemer and God has never put away that revelation. And because of the perfect atonement of that slain Lamb, there is salvation, healing and deliverance for all. Some people think that they have only to be cleansed once, but as we walk in the light the blood of Jesus Christ is ever cleansing.

The very life of Christ has been put within us, and is moving within us-a perfect life. May the Lord help us to see the power of this life. The years of a man’s life are threescore and ten, and so in the natural order of things, my life will be finished in seven years, but I have begun a new life that will never end. “From everlasting to everlasting Thou art God.” This is the life I have come into, and there is no end to this life. In me is working a power stronger than every other power; Christ, the power of God, formed within me. I can see why we need to be clothed upon from above, for the life that is in me is a thousand times bigger than I am outside. There must be a tremendous expansion. I see, and cannot help seeing, that this thing cannot be understood on natural lines; no natural reason can comprehend the divine plan.

“We are not sufficient to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God.” If you go back, you miss the plan. We leave the old order of things. We can never have confidence in the flesh; we cannot touch that. We are in a new order, a spiritual order. It is a new life of absolute faith in the sufficiency of our God in everything that pertains to life and godliness.

You could never come into this place and be a Seventh-day Adventist. The law has no place in you. You are set free from everything. At the same time, like Paul, you are “bound in the Spirit” so that you would not do anything to grieve the Lord.

Paul further tells us that He has made us “able ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” It is one thing to read this, and another to have the revelation of it and to see the spiritual force of it. Any man can live in the letter and become dry and wordy, limited in knowledge of spiritual verities, and spend his time everlastingly in splitting hairs; but as soon as he touches the realm of the Spirit, all the dryness goes, all the spirit of criticism leaves. There can be no divisions in a life in the Spirit. The Spirit of God brings such pliability and such love! There is no love like the love in the Spirit. It is a pure, a holy, a divine love that is shed in our hearts by the Spirit. It loves to serve and to honor the Lord.

I can never estimate what the Baptism of the Holy Ghost has been to me these past fifteen years. It seems that every year has had three years packed into it, so that I have had forty-five years of happy service since 1907. And it is getting better all the time. It is a luxury to be filled with the Spirit, and at the same time it is a divine command for us, not to be filled with wine wherein is excess, but to be filled with the Spirit. No Pentecostal person ought to get out of bed without being lost in the Spirit and speaking in tongues as the Spirit gives utterance. No one should come into the door of an assembly without speaking in tongues or having a psalm, or a note of praise. We emphasize that at the incoming of the Spirit He should so fill us that the last member in the body is yielded to Him, and that no one is baptized in the Spirit without speaking in tongues as the Spirit gives utterance; and I maintain that, with a constant filling, you will speak in tongues morning, noon and night. As you live in the Spirit, when you walk down the steps of the house where you live, the devil will have to go before you. You will be more than a conqueror over the devil.

I see everything a failure except that which is done in the Spirit. But as you live in the Spirit, you move, act, eat, drink, and do everything to the glory of God. Our message is always this, “Be filled with the Spirit. This is God’s place for you, and it is as far above the natural life as the heavens are above the earth. Yield yourselves for God to fill.

Moses had a tremendous trial with the people. They were always in trouble. But as he went up into the mount, and God unfolded to him the ten commandments, the glory fell. He rejoiced to bring those two tables of stone down from the mount, and his very countenance shone with the glory. He was bringing to Israel that which, if obeyed, would bring life.

I think of my Lord coming from heaven. I think all heaven was moved by the sight. The law of the letter was brought by Moses and it was made glorious, but all its glory was dimmed before the excelling glory which Jesus brought to us in the Spirit of life. The glory of Sinai paled before the glory of Pentecost. Those tables of stone with their “Thou shalt not, thou shalt not,” are done away; for they never brought life to anyone, and the Lord has brought in a new covenant, putting His law in our minds and writing it in our hearts, this new law of the Spirit of life. As the Holy Ghost comes in, He fills us with such love and liberty that we shout for joy these words of this 11th verse, “Done away! Done away!” Henceforth there is a new cry in our hearts, “I delight to do Thy will, O God.” He taketh away the first, the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, that He might establish the second, this ministration of righteousness, this life in the Spirit.

You ask, “Does a man who is filled with the Spirit cease to keep the commandments?” I simply repeat what the Spirit of God has told us here, that this ministration of death, written and engraven in stones (and you know that the ten commandments were written on stones) is “DONE AWAY.” The man who becomes a living epistle of Christ, written with the Spirit of the living God, has ceased to be an adulterer, or a murderer or a covetous man; the will of God is his delight. I love to do the will of God; there is no irksomeness to it; it is no trial to pray; no trouble to read the Word of God; it is not a hard thing to go to the place of worship. With the psalmist you say, “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.”

How does this new life work out? The thing works out because God works in you to will and to do of His own good pleasure (Phil. 2:13). There is a great difference between a pump and a spring. The law is a pump, the Baptism is a spring. The old pump gets out of order, the parts perish, and the well runs dry. The letter killeth. But the spring is ever bubbling up and there is a ceaseless flow direct from the throne of God. There is life.

It is written of Christ, “Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness.” And in this new life in the Spirit, in this new covenant life, you love the things that are right and pure and holy, and shudder at all things that are wrong. Jesus was able to say, “The prince of this world cometh, and bath nothing in Me,” and the moment we are filled with the Spirit of God we are brought into like wonderful condition, and, as we continue to be filled with the Spirit, the enemy cannot have an inch of territory in us.

Do you not believe that you can be so filled with the Spirit that a man who is not living right can be judged and convicted by your presence? As we go on in the life of the Spirit, it will be said of us, “in whose eyes a vile person is contemned” (Psalm 15:4). Jesus lived there and moved in this realm, and His life was a constant reproof to the wickedness around. But He was the Son of God, you say. God, through Him has brought us into the place of sonship, and I believe that if He has a chance with the material, the Holy Ghost can make something of us, and bring us to the same place.

I don’t want to boast. If I glory in anything, it is only in the Lord who has been so gracious to me. But I remember one time stepping out of a railroad carriage to wash my hands. I had a season of prayer, and the Lord just filled me to overflowing with His love. I was going to a convention in Ireland, and I could not get there fast enough. As I returned, I believe that the Spirit of the Lord was so heavily upon me that my face must have shone. (No man can tell himself when the Spirit transforms his very countenance.) There were two clerical mere sitting together, and as I got into the carriage again, one of them cried out, “You convince me of sin.” Within three minutes every one in the carriage was crying to God for salvation. This thing has happened many times in my life. It is this ministration of the Spirit that Paul speaks of, this filling of the Spirit, that will make your life effective, so that even the people in the stores where you trade will want to leave your presence because they are brought under conviction.

We must move from everything of the letter. All that we do must be done under the anointing of the Spirit. The trouble has been that we as Pentecostal people have been living in the letter. Believe what the Holy Spirit says through Paul-that all this ministration of condemnation that has hindered your liberty in Christ is done away. The law is DONE AWAY! As far as you are concerned, all that old order of things is forever done away, and the Spirit of God has brought in a new life of purity and love. The Holy Ghost takes it for granted that you are finished with all the things of the old life when you become a new creation in Christ. In the life in the Spirit, the old allurements have lost their power. The devil will meet you at every turn, but the Spirit of God will always lift up a standard against him.

O, if God had His way, we should be like torches, purifying the very atmosphere wherever we go, moving back the forces of wickedness.

Tongues and Interpretation: “The Lord is that Spirit. He moves in your heart. He shows you that the power within you is mightier than all the powers of darkness.”

Done away! What do I mean? Will you be disloyal? You will be more than loyal. Will you grumble when you are treated badly? No, you will turn the other cheek. This is what you will always do when God lives in you. Leave yourselves in God’s hands. Enter into rest. “He that is entered into His rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from His” (Hebrews 4). O this is a lovely rest! The whole life is a Sabbath. This is the only life that can glorify God. It is a life of joy, and every day is a day of heaven on earth.

There is a continued transformation in this life. Beholding the Lord and His glory we are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even by the Spirit of the Lord. There is a continued unveiling, a constant revelation, a repeated clothing upon from above. I want you to promise God never to look back, never to go back to that which the Spirit has said is “done away.” I made this promise to the Lord that I would never allow myself to doubt His Word.

There is one thing about a baby, it takes all that comes to it. A prudent man lets his reason cheat him out of God’s best. But a baby takes all that its mother brings, and tries to swallow the bottle and all. The baby can’t walk, but the mother carries it; the baby cannot dress itself, but the mother dresses it. The baby can’t even talk. So in the life of the Spirit, God undertakes to do what we cannot do. We are carried along by Him, He clothes us, and HC gives us utterance. Would that we all had the simplicity of the babes.

The Words of This Life

The Words of This Life by Smith Wigglesworth

Bible Reading - Acts 5:1-20

Notice this expression that the Lord gives of the Gospel message - "the words of this life." (Acts 5:20) It is the most wonderful life possible - the life of faith in the Son of God. This is the life where God is all the time. He is round about and He is within. It is the life of many revelations and of many manifestations of God’s Holy Spirit, a life in which the Lord is continually seen, known, felt and heard. It is a life without death, for “we have passed from death unto life.” The very life of God has come within us. Where that life is within in its fullness, disease cannot exist. It would take me a month to tell out what there is in this wonderful life. Everyone can go in and possess and be possessed by this life.

It is possible for you to be within the vicinity of this life and yet miss it. It is possible for you to be in a place where God is pouring out His Spirit and yet miss the blessing that God is so willing to bestow. It all comes through shortness of revelation and through a misunderstanding of the infinite grace of God, and of the “God of all grace,” who is willing to give to all who will reach out the hand of faith. This life that He freely bestows is a gift. Some think they have to earn it and they miss the whole thing. Oh, for a simple faith to receive all that God so lavishly offers. You can never be ordinary from the day you receive this life from above. You become extraordinary, filled with the extraordinary power of our extraordinary God.

Ananias and Sapphira were in this thing and yet they missed it. They thought that possibly the thing might fail. So they wanted to have a reserve for themselves in case it did turn out to be a failure. They were in the wonderful revival that God gave to the early church and yet they missed it. There are many people like them today who make vows to God in times of a great crisis in their lives. But they fail to keep their vows and in the end they become spiritually bankrupt. Blessed is the man who will swear to his own hurt and change not; who keeps the vow he has made to God; who is willing to lay his all at God’s feet. The man who does this never becomes a lean soul. God has promised to “make fat his bones.” There is no dry place for such a man; he is always fat and flourishing, and he becomes stronger and stronger. It pays to trust God with all and to make no reservation.

I wish I could make you see how great a God we have. Ananias and Sapphira were really doubting God and were questioning whether this work that He had begun would go through. They wanted to get some glory for selling their property, but because of their lack of faith they kept back part of the price in reserve in case the work of God should fail.

Many are doubting whether this Pentecostal revival will go through. Do you think this Pentecostal work will stop? Never. For fifteen years I have been in constant revival and I am sure that it will never stop. When George Stephenson made his first engine he took his sister Mary to see it. She looked at it and said to her brother, “George, it’ll never go.” He said to her, “Get in, Mary.” She said again, “It’ll never go.” He said to her, “We’ll see, you get in.” Mary at last got in-the whistle blew, there was a puff and a rattle, and the engine started off. Then Mary cried out, “George, it’ll never stop! It’ll never stop!”

People are looking on at this Pentecostal revival and they are very critical and they are saying, “It’ll never go;” but when they are induced to come into the work, they one and all say, “It’ll never stop.” This revival of God is sweeping on and on and there is no stopping the current of life, of love, of inspiration, and of power.

(Interpretation; It is the living Word who has brought this. It is the Lamb in the midst, the same yesterday, today and forever.)

God has brought unlimited resources for everyone. Do not doubt. Hear with the ear of faith. God is in the midst. See that it is God who bath set forth that which you see and hear today.

I want you to see that in the early church, controlled by the power of the Holy Ghost, it was not possible for a lie to exist. The moment it came into the church, there was instant death. And as the power of the Holy Ghost increases in these days of the Latter Rain, it will be impossible for any man to remain in our midst with a lying spirit. God will purify the church; the Word of God will be in such power in healing and other spiritual manifestations, that great fear will be upon all those who see the same.

It seems to the natural mind a small thing for Ananias and Sapphira to want to have a little to fail back on; but I want to tell you that you can please God, and you can get things from God, only ova the line of a living faith. God never fails. God never can fail.

When I was in Bergen, Norway, there came to the meeting a young woman who was employed at the hospital as a nurse. A big cancer had developed on her nose, and the nose was enlarged and had become black and greatly inflamed. She came out for prayer and I said to her, “What is your condition?” She said, “I dare not touch my nose, it gives me so much pain.” I said to all the people, “I want you to look at this nurse and notice her terrible condition. I believe that our God is merciful and that He is faithful, and that He will bring to naught this condition that the devil has brought about. I am going to curse this disease in the all-powerful name of Jesus. The pain will go. I believe God will give us an exhibition of His grace and I will ask this young woman to come to the meeting tomorrow night and declare what God has done for her.”

Oh, the awfulness of sin! Oh, the awfulness of the power of sin! Oh, the awfulness of the consequences of the fall! When I see a cancer I always know it is an evil spirit. I can never believe it is otherwise. The same with tumors. Can this be the work of God? God help me to show you that this is the work of the devil, and to show you the way out.

I do not condemn people that sin. I don’t scold people. I know what is back of the sin. I know that Satan is always going about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. I always remember the patience and love of the Lord Jesus Christ. When they brought to Him a woman that they had taken in adultery, telling Him that they had caught her in the very act, He simply stooped down and wrote on the ground. Then He quietly said, “He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone.” I have never seen a man without sin. “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” But I read in this blessed Gospel message that God bath laid upon Jesus the iniquity of us all; so, when I see an evil condition, I feel that I must stand in my office and rebuke the condition.

I laid my hands on the nose of that suffering nurse and cursed the evil power that was causing her so much distress. The next night the place was packed and the people were jammed together, so that it seemed that there was not room for one more to come into that house. How God’s rain fell upon us. How good God is, so full of grace and so full of love. I saw the nurse in the audience and I asked her to come forward. She came and showed everyone what God had done. He had perfectly healed her. Oh, I tell you He is just the same Jesus. He is just the same today. All things are possible if you dare to trust God.

When the power of God came so mightily upon the early church, even in the death of Ananias and Sapphira, great fear came upon all the people. And when we are in the presence of God, when God is working mightily in our midst, there comes a great fear, a reverence, a holiness of life, a purity that fears to displease God. We read that no man durst join them, but God added to the church such as should be saved. I would rather have God add to our Pentecostal church than have all the town join it. God added daily to His own church.

The next thing that happened was that people became so assured that God was working that they knew that anything would be possible, and they brought their sick into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that at least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow them. Multitudes of sick people and those oppressed with evil spirits were brought to the apostles and God healed them every one. I do not believe that it was the shadow of Peter that healed, but the power of God was mightily present and the faith of the people was so aroused that they joined with one heart to believe God. God will always meet people on the line of faith.

God’s tide is rising all over the earth. I had been preaching at Stavanger in Norway, and was very tired and wanted a few hours rest. I went to my next appointment, arriving at about 9:30 in the morning. My first meeting was to be at night. I said to my interpreter, “After we have had something to eat, let us go down to the fjords.” We spent three or four hours down by the sea and at about 4:30 returned. We found the end of the street, which has a narrow entrance, just filled with autos, wagons, etc., containing invalids and sick people of every kind. I went up to the house and was told that the house was full of sick people. It reminded me of the scene described in the fifth chapter of Acts. I began praying for the people in the street and God began to heal the people. How wonderfully He healed those people who were in the house. We sat down for a lunch and the telephone bell rang and someone at the other end was saying, “What shall we do? The town hall is already full; the police cannot control things.”

In that little Norwegian town the people were jammed together, and oh, how the power of God fell upon us. A cry went up from every one, “Isn’t this the revival?”

Revival is coming. The breath of the Almighty is coming. The breath of God shows up every defect, and as it comes flowing in like a river, everybody will need a fresh anointing, a fresh cleansing of the blood. You can depend upon it that that breath is upon us.

At one time I was at a meeting in Ireland. There were many sick carried to that meeting and helpless ones were helped there. There were many people in that place who were seeking for the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. Some of them had been seeking for years. There were sinners there who were under mighty conviction. There came a moment when the breath of God swept through the meeting. In about ten minutes every sinner in the place was saved. Everyone who had been seeking the Holy Spirit was baptized, and every sick one was healed. God is a reality and His power can never fail. As our faith reaches out, God will meet us and the same rain will fall. It is the same blood that cleanseth, the same power, the same Holy Ghost, and the same Jesus made real through the power of the Holy Ghost! What would happen if we should believe God?

Right now the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ is efficacious to cleanse your heart and bring this life, this wonderful life of God, within you. The blood will make you every whit whole if you dare believe. The Bible is full of entreaty for you to come and partake and receive the grace, the power, the strength, the righteousness, and the full redemption of Jesus Christ. He never fails to hear when we believe.

At one place where I was, a lame man was brought to me who had been in bed for two years, with no hope of recovery. He was brought thirty miles to the meeting, and he came up on crutches to be prayed for. His boy was also afflicted in the knees and they had four crutches between the two of them. The man’s face was filled with torture. There is healing virtue in the Lord and He never fails to heal when we believe. In the name of Jesus-that name so full of virtue-I put my hand down that leg that was so diseased. The man threw down his crutches and all were astonished as they saw him walking up and down without aid. The little boy called out to his father, “Papa, me; papa, me, me, me!” The little boy who was withered in both knees wanted a like touch. And the same Jesus was there to bring a real deliverance for the little captive. He was completely healed.

These were legs that were touched. If God will stretch out His mighty power to loose afflicted legs, what mercy will He extend to that soul of yours that must exist forever? Hear the Lord say, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because be hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captive, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.” He invites you, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” God is willing in His great mercy to touch thy limbs with His mighty vital power, and if He is willing to do this, how much more anxious is He to deliver thee from the power of Satan and to make thee a child of the King. How much more necessary it is for you to be healed of your soul sickness than of your bodily ailments. And God is willing to give the double cure.

I was passing through the city of London one time, and Mr. Mundell, the secretary of the Pentecostal Missionary Union, learned that I was there. He arranged for me to meet him at a certain place at 3:30 p. m. I was to meet a certain boy whose father and mother lived in the city of Salisbury. They had sent this young man to London to take care of their business. He had been a leader in Sunday school work but he had been betrayed and had fallen. Sin is awful and the wages of sin is death. But there is another side-the gift of God is eternal life.

This young man was in great distress; he had contracted a horrible disease and feared to tell anyone. There was nothing but death ahead for him. When the father and mother got to know of his condition they suffered inexpressible grief.

When we got to the house, Brother Mundell suggested, that we get down to prayer. I said, “God does not say so, we are not going to pray yet. I want to quote a scripture, `Fools, because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted: their soul abhorreth all manner of meat; and they draw near unto the gates of death.”‘ The young man cried out, “I am that fool.” He broke down and told us the story of his fall. Oh, if men would only repent, and confess their sins, how God would stretch out His hand to heal and to save. The moment that young man repented, a great abscess burst, and God sent virtue into his life, giving him a mighty deliverance.

God is gracious and not willing that any should perish. How many are willing to make a clean breast of their sins ? I tell you that the moment you do this, God will open heaven. It is an easy thing for Him to save your soul and heal your disease if you will but come and shelter today in the secret place of the Most High. He will satisfy you with long life and show you His salvation. In His presence there is fullness of joy, at His right hand there are pleasures forevermore. There is full redemption for all through the precious blood of the Son of God.

Righteousness

Righteousness by Smith Wigglesworth

It is written of our blessed Lord, “Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.” It is the purpose of God that we, as we are indwelt by the Spirit of His Son, should likewise love righteousness and hate iniquity. I see that there is a place for us in Christ Jesus where we are no longer under condemnation but where the heavens are always open to us. I see that God has a realm of divine life opening up to us where there are boundless possibilities, where there is limitless power, where there are untold resources, where we have victory over all the power of the devil. I believe that, as we are filled with the desire to press on into this life of true holiness, desiring only the glory of God, there is nothing that can hinder our true advancement.

Peter commences his second epistle with these words, “Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” It is through faith that we realize that we have a blessed and glorious union with our risen Lord. When He was on earth Jesus told us, “I am in the Father and the Father in me.” “The Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works.” And He prayed to His Father, not only for His disciples but for those who should believe on Him through their word; “That they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.” Oh what an inheritance is ours when the very nature, the very righteousness, the very power of the Father and the Son are made real in us. That is God’s purpose, and as we by faith lay hold on the purpose we shall be ever conscious of the fact that greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world. The purpose of all Scripture is to move us on to this wonderful and blessed elevation of faith where our constant experience is the manifestation of God’s life and power through us.

Peter goes on writing to these who have obtained like precious faith, saying, “Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord.” We can have the multiplication of this grace and peace only as we live in the realm of faith. Abraham attained to the place where he became a friend of God, on no other line than that of believing God. He believed God and God counted that to him for righteousness. Righteousness was imputed to him on no other ground than that he believed God. Can this be true of anybody else? Yes, every person in the whole wide world who is saved by faith is blessed with faithful Abraham. The promise which came to him because he believed God was that in Him all the families of the earth should be blessed. When we believe God there is no knowing where the blessing of our faith will end.

Some are tied up because, when they are prayed for, the thing that they are expecting does not come off the same night. They say they believe, but you can see that they are really in turmoil of unbelief. Abraham believed God. You can hear him saying to Sarah, “Sarah, there is no life in you and there is nothing in me, but God has promised us a son and I believe God.” And that kind of faith is a joy to our Father in heaven.

One day I was having a meeting in Bury, in Lancashire, England. A young woman was present who came from a place called Ramsbottom, to be healed of goiter. Before she came she said, “I am going to be healed of this goiter, mother.” After one meeting she came forward and was prayed for. The next meeting she got up and testified that she had been wonderfully healed, and she said, “I shall be so happy to go and tell mother that I have been wonderfully healed.” She went to her home and testified how wonderfully she had been healed, and the next year when we were having the convention she came again. To the natural view it looked as though the goiter was just as big as ever; but that young woman was believing God and she was soon on her feet giving her testimony, and saying, “I was here last year and the Lord wonderfully healed me. I want to tell you that this has been the best year of my life.” She seemed to be greatly blessed in that meeting and she went home to testify more strongly than ever that the Lord had healed her. She believed God. The third year she was at the meeting again, and some people who looked at her said, “How big that goiter has become.” But when the time came for testimony she was up on her feet and testified, “Two years ago the Lord graciously healed me of goiter. Oh I had a most wonderful healing. It is grand to be healed by the power of God.” That day someone remonstrated with her and said, “People will think there is something the matter with you. Why don’t you look in the glass? You will see your goiter is bigger than ever.” That good woman went to the Lord about it and said, “Lord, you so wonderfully healed me two years ago. Won’t you show all the people that you healed me?” She went to sleep peacefully that night still believing God and when she came down the next day there was not a trace or a mark of that goiter.

God’s word is from everlasting to everlasting. His word cannot fail. God’s word is true and when we rest in the fact of its truth what mighty results we can get. Faith never looks in the glass. Faith has a glass into which it can look. It is the glass of the perfect law of liberty. “Whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.” To the man who looks into this perfect law of God all darkness is removed and he sees his completeness in Christ. There is no darkness in faith. There is only darkness in nature. Darkness only exists when the natural is put in the place of the divine.

Not only is grace multiplied to us through knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ, but peace also. As we really know our God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, we will have peace multiplied to us even in the multiplied fires of ten thousand Nebuchadnezzars. It will be multiplied to us even though we are put into the den of lions, and we will live with joy in the midst of the whole thing. What was the difference between Daniel and the king that night when Daniel was put into the den of lions? Daniel knew, but the king was experimenting. The king came around the next morning and cried, “Oh Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions?” Daniel answered, “My God bath sent His angel, and bath shut the lions’ mouths.” The thing was done. It was done when Daniel prayed with his windows open toward heaven. All our victories are won before we go into the fight. Prayer links us on to our lovely God, our abounding God, our multiplying God. Oh I love Him! He is so wonderful!

You will note, as you read these first two verses of the first chapter of the second epistle of Peter, that this grace and peace is multiplied through the knowledge of God, but that first our faith comes through the righteousness of God. Note that righteousness comes first and knowledge afterwards. It cannot be otherwise. If you expect any revelation of God apart from holiness you will have only a mixture. Holiness opens the door to all the treasures of God. He must first bring us to the place where we, like our Lord, love righteousness and hate iniquity, before He opens up to us these good treasures. When we regard iniquity in our hearts the Lord will not hear us, and it is only as we are made righteous and pure and holy through the precious blood of God’s Son that we can enter into this life of holiness and righteousness in the Son. It is the righteousness of our Lord Himself made real in us as our faith is stayed in Him.

After I was baptized with the Holy Ghost the Lord gave me a blessed revelation. I saw Adam and Eve turned out of the garden for their disobedience and unable to partake of the tree of life, for the cherubim with flaming sword kept them away from this tree. When I was baptized I saw that I had begun to eat of this tree of life and I saw that the flaming sword was all round about. It was there to keep the devil away. Oh, what privileges are ours when we are born of God. How marvelously He keeps us so that the wicked one touches us not. I see a place in God where Satan dare not come. Hidden in God. And He invites us all to come and share this wonderful hidden place where our lives are hid with Christ in God, where we dwell in the secret place of the Most High and abide under the shadow of the Almighty. God has this place for you in this blessed realm of grace.

Peter goes on to say, “According as His divine power bath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue.” God is calling us to this realm of glory and virtue where, as we feed on His exceeding great and precious promises, we are made partakers of the divine nature. Faith is the substance of things hoped for right here in this life. It is right here that God would have us partake of His divine nature. It is nothing less than the life of the Lord Himself imparted and flowing into our whole beings, so that our very body is quickened, so that every tissue and every drop of blood and our bones and joints and marrow receive this divine life. I believe that the Lord wants this divine life to flow right into our natural bodies, this law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus that makes us free from the law of sin and death. God wants to estabish our faith so that we shall lay hold on this divine life, this divine nature of the Son of God, so that our spirit and soul and body will be sanctified wholly and preserved unto the corning of the Lord Jesus Christ.

When that woman was healed of the issue of blood, Jesus perceived that power had gone out of Him. The woman’s faith laid hold and this power was imparted and immediately the woman’s being was surcharged with life and her weakness departed. The impartation of this power produces everything you need; but it comes only as our faith moves out for its impartation. Faith is the victory. If thou canst believe, it is thine.

I suffered for many years from piles, till my whole body was thoroughly weak; the blood used to gush from me. One day I got desperate and I took a bottle of oil and anointed myself. I said to the Lord, “Do what you want to, quickly.” I was healed at that very moment. God wants us to have an activity of faith that dares to believe God. There is what seems like faith, and appearance of faith, but real faith believes God right to the end.

What was the difference between Zacharias and Mary? The angel came to Zacharias and told him, “Thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son.” Zacharias was there in the holy place, but he began to question this message, saying, “I am an old man, my wife is well stricken in years.” Gabriel rebuked him for his unbelief and told him, “Thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words.” But note the contrast when the angel came to Mary. She said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.” And Elizabeth greeted Mary with the words, “Blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.” God would have us to lay hold on His word in like manner. He would have us to come with boldness of faith declaring, “You have promised it, Lord. Now do it.” God rejoices when we manifest a faith that holds Him to His word. Can we get there?

The Lord has called us to this glory and virtue; and, as our faith lays hold on Him, we shall see this in manifestation. I remember one day I was holding an open-air meeting. My uncle came to that meeting and said, “Aunt Mary would like to see Smith before she dies.” I went to see her and she was assuredly dying. I said, “Lord, can’t you do something?” All I did was this, to stretch out my hands and lay them on her. It seemed as though there was an immediate impartation of the glory and virtue of the Lord. Aunt Mary cried, “It is going all over my body.” And that day she was made perfectly whole.

One day I was preaching and a man brought a boy who was done up in bandages. The boy was in irons and it was impossible for him to walk and it was difficult for them to get him to the platform. They passed him over about six seats. The power of the Lord was present to heal and it entered right into the child as I placed my hands on him. The child cried, “Daddy, it is going all over me.” They stripped the boy and found nothing imperfect in him.

The Lord would have us to be walking epistles of His word. Jesus is the Word and is the power in us, and it is His desire to work in and through us His own good pleasure. We must believe that He is in us. There are boundless possibilities for us if we dare to act in God and dare to believe that the wonderful virtue of our living Christ shall be made manifest through us as we lay our hands on the sick in His name.

The exceeding great and precious promises of the Word are given to us that we might be partakers of the divine nature. I feel the Holy Ghost is grieved with us because, when we know these things, we do not do greater exploits for God. Does not the Holy Ghost show us wide-open doors of opportunity? Shall we not let God take us on to greater things? Shall we not believe God to take us on to greater manifestations of His power? His call for us is to forget the things that are behind, and reach forth unto the things which are before and to press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Our Risen Christ

Our Risen Christ by Smith Wigglesworth

Read the fourth chapter of Acts.

Today we praise God for the fact that our glorious Jesus is the risen Christ. Those of us who have tasted the power of the indwelling Spirit know something of the manner in which the hearts of those two disciples burned as they walked to Emmaus with their risen Lord as their companion.

Note the words of verse 30, “And when they had prayed, the place was shaken.” There are many churches where they never pray the kind of prayer that you read of here. A church that does not know how to pray and to shout will never lie shaken. If you live in a place like that you may as well write “Ichabod - the glory of the Lord has departed” - over the threshold. It is only when men have learned the secret of prayer, of power, and of praise, that God comes forth. Some people say, “Well, I praise God inwardly,” but if there is an abundance of praise in your heart, your mouth cannot help speaking it.

There was a man who had a large business in London who was a great church-goer. The church he attended was beautifully decorated, and his pew was delightfully cushioned-just about enough to make it easy to sleep through the sermons. He was a prosperous man in business, but he had no peace in his heart. But there was a boy at his business who always looked happy. He was always jumping and whistling. One day he said to this boy, “I want to see you in my office.” When the boy was in his office he asked him, “How is it that you can always whistle and be happy?” “I cannot help it,” answered the boy. “Where did you get it?” asked the master. “I got it at the Pentecostal mission.” “Where is that?” The boy told him, and the next thing was, that the man was attending. The Lord broke him up there, and in a short while he was entirely changed. One day, shortly after this, he found that, instead of being distracted by his business as he formerly had been, he was actually whistling and jumping. His whole position and his whole life had been changed.

The shout cannot come out unless it is in. There must first be the inner working of the power of God. It is He who changes the heart, and transforms the life, and before there is any real outward evidence there must be the inflow of divine life. Sometimes I say to people, “You weren’t at meeting the other night.” They reply, “Oh yes, I was there in spirit.” I say to them, “Well, come next time with your body also. We don’t want a lot of spirit here and no bodies. We want you to come and get filled with God.” When all the people will come and pray and praise as did these early disciples there will be something doing. People who come will catch fire and they will want to come again. But they will have no use for a place where everything has become formal, dry, and dead.

The power of Pentecost as it came at first came to loose men. God wants us free on every line. Men and women are tired of imitations; they want reality; they want to see people who have the living Christ within, and are filled with Holy Ghost power.

I received several letters and telegrams about a certain case, but when I arrived I was told I was too late. I said, “That cannot be. God has never sent me too late anywhere.” God showed me when I went that something different would happen to anything I had seen previously. The people I went to were all strangers. I was introduced to a young man who lay helpless, and for whom there was no hope. The doctor had been to see him that morning and had declared that he would not live through the day. He lay with his face to the wall, and when I spoke to him he whispered, “I cannot turn over.” His mother said that they had had to lift him out of bed on sheets for weeks, and that he was so weak and helpless that he had to stay in one position.

The young man said, “My heart is very weak.” I assured him, “God is the strength of thy heart and thy portion forever. If you will believe God, it shall be so today.”

Our Christ is risen. He is a living Christ who indwells us. We must not have this truth merely as a theory, Christ must be risen in us by the power of the Spirit. The power that raised Him from the dead must animate us, and as this glorious resurrection power surges through your being, you will be freed from all your weaknesses and you will become strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. There is a resurrection power that God wants you to have and to have it today. Why not? Receive your portion here and now.

I said to these people, “I believe your son will rise today.” They only laughed. People do not expect to see signs and wonders today as the disciples saw them of old. Has God changed? Or has our faith waned so that we are not expecting the greater works that Jesus promised? We must not harp on any minor key. Our message must rise to concert pitch, and there must be nothing left out of it that is in the Book.

It was winter time and I said to the parents, “Will you get the boy’s suit and bring it here?” They would not listen to the request, for they were expecting the boy to die. But I had gone to that place believing God. In Romans 4:17, we read of Abraham, “(I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.” God help us to understand this. It is time people knew how to shout in faith as they contemplate the eternal power of our God to whom it is nothing to quicken and raise the dead. I come across some who would be giants in the power of God but they have no shout of faith. I find everywhere people who go down even when they are praying simply because they are just breathing sentences without uttering speech, and you cannot get victory that way. You must learn to take the victory and shout in the face of the devil, “It is done!” There is no man who can doubt if he learns to shout. When we know how to shout properly, things will be different, and tremendous things will happen. In verse 24 we read, “They lifted up their voice with one accord.” It surely must have been a loud prayer. We must know that God means us to have life. If there is anything in the world that has life in it, it is this Pentecostal revival we are in. I believe in the Baptism of the Holy Ghost with the speaking in tongues, and I believe that every man who is baptized in the Holy Ghost will speak in other tongues as the Spirit gives him utterance. I believe in the Holy Ghost. And if you are filled with the Spirit you will be superabounding in life-living waters will flow from you.

At last I persuaded the parents to bring the boy’s clothes and lay them on the bed. From the natural viewpoint, the young man lay dying. I spoke to the afflicted one, “God has revealed to me that, as I lay my hands upon you, the place will be filled with the Holy Ghost, the bed will be shaken, you will be shaken and thrown out of bed by the power of the Holy Ghost, you will dress yourself and be strong.” I said this to him in faith. I laid hands on him in the name of Jesus and instantly the power of God fell and filled the place. I felt helpless and fell flat on the floor. I knew nothing except that a short while after the place was shaken, I heard the young man walking over me and saying, “For Thy glory, Lord! For Thy glory, Lord!”

He dressed himself and cried, “God has healed me.” The father fell, the mother fell, and another who was present fell also. God manifested His power that day in saving the whole household and healing the young man. It is the power of the risen Christ we need. That young man is today preaching the gospel.

For years we have been longing for God to come forth, and, praise Him, He is coming forth. The tide is rising everywhere. I was in Switzerland not long ago, preaching in many places where the Pentecostal message had not been heard, and today there are nine new Pentecostal assemblies in different places going on blessedly for God. All over the world it is the same, this great Pentecostal work is in motion. You can hardly get to a place now where God is not pouring out His Spirit on hungry hearts. God has promised to pour out His Spirit upon all flesh, and His promises never fail. Our Christ is risen. His salvation was not a thing done in a corner. Truly He was a man of glory who went to Calvary for us, in order that He might free us from all that would mar and hinder, that He might transform us by His grace, and bring us out from under the power of Satan into the glorious power of God. One touch of our risen Christ will raise the dead. Hallelujah!

Oh, this wonderful Jesus of ours! He comes and indwells us. He comes to abide. He it is who baptizes us with the Holy Ghost, and makes everything different. We are to be a kind of firstfruits unto God and are to be like Christ who is the firstfruit, walking in His footsteps, living in His power. What a salvation this is, having this risen Christ in us. I feel that everything else must go to nothingness, helplessness and ruin. Every thought of advantage for ourselves must be on the decrease in order that Christ may increase, that we may live in another state, where all things are under the power of the Spirit.

Dare you take your inheritance from God? Dare you believe God? Dare you stand on the record of His Word? What is the record? If thou shalt believe thou shalt see the glory of God. You will be sifted as wheat. You will be tried as though some strange thing tried you. You will be put in places where you will have to put your whole trust in God. There is no such thing as anyone being tried beyond what God will allow. There is no temptation that will come, but God will be with you right in the temptation to deliver you, and when you have been tried, He will bring you forth as gold. Every trial is to bring you to a greater position in God. The trial that tries your faith will take you on to the place where you will know that the faith of God will be forthcoming in the next test. No man is able to win any victory save through the power of the risen Christ within him. You will never be able to say, “I did this or that.” You will desire to give God the glory for everything.

If you are sure of your ground, if you are counting on the presence of the living Christ within, you can laugh when you see things getting worse. God would have you settled and grounded in Christ, and it is only as you are filled with the Holy Ghost that you become steadfast and unmoveable in Him.

The Lord Jesus said, “I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished.” He was assuredly straitened in the way, at Gethsemane, at the judgment hall, and, after that, at the cross, where He, through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God. God will take us right on in like manner, and the Holy Spirit will lead every step of the way. God led Him right through to the empty tomb, to the ascension glory, to a place on the throne; and the Son of God will never be satisfied until He has us with Himself, sharing His glory and sharing His throne.

Himself Took Our Infirmities

Himself Took Our Infirmities by Smith Wigglesworth

Bible reading, Matt. 8:1-17.

Here we have a wonderful word. All the Word is wonderful. This blessed Book brings such life and health and peace, and such an abundance that we should never be poor any more. This Book is my heavenly bank. I find everything I want in it. I want to show you how rich you may be, that in everything you can be enriched in Christ Jesus. He has abundance of grace for you and the gift of righteousness, and through His abundant grace all things are possible. I want to show you that you can be a living branch of the living Vine, Christ Jesus, and that it is your privilege to be right here in this world what He is. John tells us, “As He is, so are we in this world.” Not that we are anything in ourselves, but Christ within us is our all in all.

The Lord Jesus is always wanting to show forth His grace and love in order to draw us to Himself. God is willing to do things, to manifest His Word, and let us know in measure the mind of our God in this day and hour. There are many needy ones, many afflicted ones, but I do not think any present are half as bad as this first case that we read of in Matthew 8. This man was a leper. You may be suffering with consumption or cancers or other things, but God will show forth His perfect cleansing, His perfect healing, if you have a living faith in Christ. He is a wonderful Jesus.

This leper must have been told about Jesus. How much is missed because people are not constantly telling what Jesus will do in this our day. Probably someone had come to that leper and said, “Jesus can heal you.” And so he was filled with expectation as he saw the Lord coming down the mountain side. Lepers were not allowed to come within reach of people, they were shut out as unclean. And so in the ordinary way it would have been very difficult for him to get near because of the crowd that surrounded Jesus. But as He came down from the mount He met this poor leper. Oh, this terrible disease! There was no help for him humanly speaking, but nothing is too hard for Jesus. The man cried, “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.” Was Jesus willing? You will never find Jesus missing an opportunity of doing good. You will find that He is always more willing to work than we are to give Him an opportunity to work. The trouble is we do not come to Him, we do not ask Him for what He is more than willing to give.

And Jesus put forth His hand, and touched him, saying, “I will; be thou clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. I like that. If you are definite with Him you will never go away disappointed. The divine life will flow into you and instantaneously you will be delivered. This Jesus is just the same today, and He says to you, “I will; be thou clean.” He has an overflowing cup for thee, a fullness of life. He will meet you in your absolute helplessness. All things are possible if you will only believe. God has a real plan. It is so simple. Just come to Jesus. You will find Him just the same as He was in days of old.

The next case we have in this chapter is that of the centurion coming and beseeching Jesus on behalf of his servant who was sick of the palsy and grievously tormented. This man was so in earnest that he came seeking for Jesus. Notice this, that there is one thing certain, there is no such thing as seeking without finding. He that seeketh findeth. Listen to the gracious words of Jesus, “I will come and heal him.” Most places that we go to there are so many people that we cannot pray for. In some places there are 200 or 300 who would like us to visit them, but we are not able to do so. But I am so glad that the Lord Jesus is always willing to come and heal. He longs to meet the sick ones. He loves to heal them of their afflictions. The Lord is healing many people today by means of handkerchiefs as you read that He healed people in the days of Paul. You can read of this in Acts 19:12.

A woman came to me in the city of Liverpool and said, “I would like you to help me. I wish you would join with me in prayer. My husband is a drunkard and every night comes into the home under the influence of drink. Won’t you join me in prayer for him?” I said to the woman, “Have you a handkerchief?” She took out a handkerchief and I prayed over it and told her to lay it on the pillow of the drunken man. He came home that night and laid his head on the pillow in which this handkerchief was tucked. He laid his head on more than the pillow that night. He laid his head on the promise of God. In Mark 11 :24, we read, “What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them and ye shall have them.”

The next morning the man got up and called at the first saloon that he had to pass on his way to work and ordered some beer. He tasted it and said to the bartender, “You have put some poison in this beer.” He could not drink it, and went on to the next saloon and ordered some more beer. He tasted it and said to the man behind the counter, “You put some poison in this beer, I believe you folks have agreed to poison me.” The bartender was indignant at being thus charged. The man said, “I will go somewhere else.” He went to another saloon and the same thing happened as in the two previous saloons. He made such a fuss that they turned him out. After he came out from work he went to another saloon to get some beer, and again he thought he had been poisoned and he made so much disturbance that he was thrown out. He went to his home and told his wife what had happened and said, “It seems as though all the fellows have agreed to poison me.” His wife said to him, “Can’t you see the hand of the Lord in this, that He is making you dislike the stuff that has been your ruin?” This word brought conviction to the man’s heart and he came to the meeting and got saved. The Lord has still power to set the captives free.

When I was in Australia a lady came to me who was much troubled about her son who was so lazy. I prayed over a handkerchief which was placed on the boy’s pillow. He slept that night on the handkerchief and the next morning he got up and went out and secured a position and went to work. Oh, praise the Lord, you can’t shut God out, but if you will only believe He will shut the devil out.

Jesus was willing to go and heal the sick one but the centurion said, “Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof; but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.” Jesus was delighted with this expression and said to the man, “Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.” And his servant was healed the self-same hour.

When I was in Australia a man came up to me. He was leaning on a big stick and said, “I would like you to help me. It will take you half an hour to pray for me.” I said, “Believe God and in one moment you will be whole.” His faith was quickened to receive an immediate healing and he went away glorifying God for a miraculous healing. The word of the Lord is sufficient today. If you will dare to believe God’s Word you will see a performance of His Word that will be truly wonderful. Here we have with the centurion an audacity of faith, a faith that did not limit God. Failures come when we limit the Holy One of Israel. I want to encourage you to a living faith to believe God’s Word.

The next healing we read of here is the healing of Peter’s wife’s mother who was sick of a fever. Luke tells us that Jesus rebuked the fever. The fever could hear. The moment it could hear it went. Jesus had a new method. Today there are a lot of folks who try to sweat out a fever. You can’t sweat the devil out. He can stand all the heat that you can apply to him. But if thou canst believe, deliverance is as sure and certain for you as it was for Peter’s wife’s mother.

I received a telegram once urging me to visit a case about 200 miles from my home. As I went to this place I met the father and mother and found them broken hearted. They lead me up a staircase to a room and I saw a young woman on the floor and five people were holding her down. She was a frail young woman but the power in her was greater than all those young men. As I went into the room the evil powers looked out of her eyes and they used her lips saying, “We are many, you can’t cast us out.” I said, “Jesus can.” He is equal to every occasion. He is waiting for an opportunity to bless. He is ready for every opportunity to deliver souls. When we receive Jesus it is true of us, “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.” He is greater than all the powers of darkness. No man can meet the devil in his own strength, but any man filled with the knowledge of Jesus, filled with His presence, filled with His power, is more than a match for the powers of darkness. God has called us to be more than conquerors through Him that loved us.

The living Word is able to destroy Satanic forces. There is power in the name of Jesus. I would that every window in the street had the name of Jesus written large upon it. His name, through faith in His name. brought deliverance to this poor, bound soul, and thirty-seven demons came out giving their names as they came forth. The dear woman was completely delivered and they were able to give her back her child. That night there was heaven in that home and the father and mother and son and his wife were all united in glorifying Christ for His infinite grace. The next morning we had a gracious time in the breaking of bread. All things are wonderful with our wonderful Jesus. If you would dare rest your all upon Him, things would take place and He would change the whole situation. In a moment, through the name of Jesus, a new order of things can be brought in.

In the world they are always having new diseases and the doctors cannot locate them. A doctor said to me, “The science of medicine is in its infancy, and really we doctors have no confidence in our medicine. We are always experimenting.” But the man of God does not experiment. He knows, or ought to know, redemption in its fullness. He knows, or ought to know, the mightiness of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is not, or should not be, moved by outward observation, but should get divine revelation of the mightiness of the name of Jesus and the power of His blood. If we exercise our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ He will come forth and get glory over all the powers of darkness.

At eventide they brought unto Him many that were possessed with devils; and He cast out the spirits with His word and healed all that were sick: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, “Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.” The work is done if you only believe it. It is done. Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses. If you can only see the Lamb of God as He went to Calvary! He took our flesh that He might take upon Himself the full burden of all our sin and all the consequences of sin. There on the cross God laid upon Him the iniquities of us all. There on the cross of Calvary the results of sin were also dealt with. “As the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage.” Through His death there is deliverance for you today.

HUSBAND HEALED OF DOUBLE RUPTURE AND OTHER ILLS

One year ago my husband was instantly healed of double rupture of 3 years’ standing, dropsy (2 years), a weak heart, and tobacco chewing (47 years), and praise the Lord, it was all taken away when the shock from heaven’s battery went through him. Nine weeks ago today we went to Portland, Oregon, to hear Brother Smith Wigglesworth, and my husband was healed instantly of heavy blood-pressure and varicose veins which had broken in his ankles and for a year had to be dressed twice a day. No doctor could help him, but, praise God, Jesus was the doctor and healed him. Should anyone wish to write me, I shall be glad to hear from them and will answer all letters. - Mrs. Frank Nephews, 202 E. 1st St., Newberg, Ore.

I Am the Lord That Healeth Thee

I Am the Lord That Healeth Thee by Smith Wigglesworth

“Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him” (James 5 :14, 15) .

We have in this precious word a real basis for the truth of healing. In this scripture God gives very definite instructions to the sick. If you are sick, your part is to call for the elders of the church; it is their part to anoint and pray for you in faith, and then the whole situation rests with the Lord. When you have been anointed and prayed for, you can rest assured that the Lord will raise you up. It is the word of God.

I believe that we all can see that the church cannot play with this business. If any turn away from these clear instructions they are in a place of tremendous danger. Those who refuse to obey, do so to their unspeakable loss.

James tells us in connection with this, “if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him, let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his ways shall save a soul from death.” Many turn away from the Lord, as did King Asa, who sought the physicians in his sickness and consequently died; and I take it that this passage means that if one induces another to turn back to the Lord, he will save such from death and God will forgive a multitude of sins that they have committed. This scripture can also have a large application on the line of salvation. If you turn away from any part of God’s truth, the enemy will certainly get an advantage over you.

Does the Lord meet those who look to Him for healing and obey the instructions set forth in James? Most assuredly. Let me tell you a story to show how He will undertake for the most extreme case.

One day I had been visiting the sick, and was with a friend of mine, an architect, when I saw a young man from his office coming down the road in a car, and holding in his hand a telegram. It contained a very urgent request that we go immediately to pray for a man who was dying. We went off in an auto as fast as possible and in about an hour and a half reached a large house in the country where the man who was dying resided. There were two staircases in that house, and it was extremely convenient, for the doctors could go up and down one, and my friend and I could go up and down the other, and so we had no occasion to meet.

I found on arrival that it was a case of this sort. The man’s body had been broken, he was ruptured, and his bowels had been punctured in two places. The discharge from the bowels had formed abscesses, and blood poisoning had set in. The man’s face had turned green. Two doctors were in attendance, but they saw that the case was beyond their power. They had telegraphed to London for a great specialist, and, when we arrived, they were at the railway station awaiting his arrival.

The man was very near death and could not speak. I said to his wife, “If you desire, we will anoint and pray for him.” She said, “That is why I sent for you.” I anointed him in the name of the Lord and asked the Lord to raise him up. Apparently there was no change. (God often hides what He does. From day to day we find that God is doing wonderful things, and we receive reports of healings that have taken place that we heard nothing about at the time of our meetings. Only last night a woman came into the meeting suffering terribly. Her whole arm was filled with poison, and her blood was so poisoned that it was certain to bring her to her death. We rebuked the thing, and she was here this morning and told us that she was without pain and had slept all night, a thing she had not done for two months. To God be all the praise. You will find He will do this kind of thing all along.)

As soon as we anointed and prayed for this brother we went down the back staircase and the three doctors came up the front staircase. As we arrived downstairs, I said to my friend who had come with me, “Friend let me have hold of your hands.” We held each other’s hands, and I said to him, “Look into my face and let us agree together, according to Matthew 18:19, that this man shall be brought out of this death.” We laid the whole matter before God, and said, “Father, we believe.”

Then the conflict began. The wife came down to us and said, “The doctors have got all their instruments out and they are about to operate.” I cried, “What? Look here, he’s your husband, and I tell you this, if those men operate on him, he will die. Go back and tell them you cannot allow it.” She went back to the doctors and said, “Give me ten minutes.” They said, “We can’t afford to, the man is dying and it is your husband’s only chance.” She said, “I want ten minutes, and you don’t touch his body until I have had them.”

They went downstairs by one staircase and we went up by the other. I said to the woman, “This man is your husband, and he cannot speak for himself. It is now the time for you to put your whole trust in God and prove Him wholly true. You can save him from a thousand doctors. You must stand with God and for God in this critical hour.” After that, we came down and the doctors went up. The wife faced those three doctors and said, “You shan’t touch this man’s body. He is my husband. I am sure that if you operate on him he will die, but he will live if you don’t touch him.”

Suddenly the man in the bed spoke. “God has done it,” he said. They rolled back the bed clothes and the doctors examined him, and the abscesses were cut clear away. The nurse cleaned the place where they had been. The doctors could see the bowels still open and they said to the wife, “We know that you have great faith, and we can see that a miracle has taken place. But you must let us unite these broken parts and put in silver tubes, and we know that your husband will be all right after that, and it need not interfere with your faith at all.” She said to them, “God has done the first thing and He can do the rest. No man shall touch him now.” And God healed the whole thing. And that man is well and strong today. I can give his name and address to any who want it.

Do you ask by what power this was done? I would answer in the words of Peter, “His name, through faith in His name, made this man strong.” The anointing was done in the name of the Lord. And it is written, “The LORD shall raise him up.” And He provides the double cure; even if sin has been the cause of the sickness, His Word declares, “If he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven,”

You ask, “What is faith?” Faith is the principle of the Word of God. The Holy Spirit, who inspired the Word, is called the Spirit of Truth, and, as we receive with meekness the engrafted Word, faith springs in our heart-faith in the sacrifice of Calvary: faith in the shed blood of Jesus; faith in the fact that He took our weakness upon Himself, has borne our sicknesses and carried our pains, and that He is our life today.

God has chosen us to help one another. We dare not be independent. He brings us to a place where we submit ourselves to one another. If we refuse to do this, we get away from the Word of God and out of the place of faith. I have been in this place once and I trust I shall never be there again. I went one time to a meeting. I was very, very sick, and I got worse and worse. I knew the perfect will of God was for me to humble myself and ask the elders to pray for me. I put it off and the meeting finished. I went home without being anointed and prayed with, and everyone in the house caught the thing I was suffering with.

My boys did not know anything else but to trust the Lord as the family Physician, and my youngest boy, George, cried out from the attic, “Dadda, come.” I cried, “I cannot come. The whole thing is from me. I shall have to repent and ask the Lord to forgive me.” I made up my mind to humble myself before the whole church. Then I rushed to the attic and laid my hands on my boy in the name of Jesus. I placed my hands on his head and the pain left and went lower down; he cried again, “Put your hands still lower.” At last the pain went right down to the feet and as I placed my hand on the feet be was completely delivered. Some evil power had evidently gotten hold and as I laid my hands on the different parts of the body it left. (We have to see the difference between anointing the sick and casting out demons.) God will always be gracious when we humble ourselves before Him and come to a place of brokenness of spirit.

I was at a place one time ministering to a sick woman, and she said, “I’m very sick. I become all right for an hour, and then I have another attack.” I saw that it was an evil power that was attacking her, and I learned something in that hour that I had never learned before. As I moved my hand down her body in the name of the Lord that evil power seemed to move just ahead of my hands and as I moved them down further and further the evil power went right out of her body and never returned.

I was in Havre in France and the power of God was being mightily manifested. A Greek named Felix attended the meeting and became very zealous for God. He was very anxious to get all the Catholics he could to the meeting in order that they should see that God was graciously visiting France. He found a certain bed-ridden woman who was fixed in a certain position and could not move, and he told her about the Lord healing at the meetings and that he would get me to come if she wished. She said, “My husband is a Catholic and he would never allow anyone who was not a Catholic to see me.”

She asked her husband to allow me to come and told him what Felix had told her about the power of God working in our midst. He said, “I will have no Protestant enter my house.” She said, “You know the doctors cannot help me, and the priests cannot help, won’t you let this man of God pray for me?” He finally consented and I went to the house. The simplicity of this woman and her child-like faith were beautiful to see.

I showed her my oil bottle and said to her, “Here is oil. It is a symbol of the Holy Ghost. When that comes upon you, the Holy Ghost will begin to work, and the Lord will raise you up.” And God did something the moment the oil fell upon her. I looked toward the window and I saw Jesus. (I have seen Him often. There is no painting that is a bit like Him: no artist can ever depict the beauty of my lovely Lord.) The woman felt the power of God in her body and cried, “I’m free, my hands are free, my shoulders are free, and oh, I see Jesus! I’m free! I’m free!”

The vision vanished and the woman sat up in bed. Her legs were still bound, and I said to her, “I’ll put my hands over your legs and you will be free entirely.” And as I put my hands on those legs covered with bed clothes, I looked and saw the Lord again. She saw Him too and cried, “He’s there again. I’m free! I’m free!” She rose from her bed and walked round the room praising God, and we were all in tears as we saw His wonderful works. The Lord shall raise them up when conditions are met.

When I was a young man I always loved the fellowship of old men, and was always careful to hear what they had to say. I had a friend, an old Baptist minister who was a wonderful preacher. I spent much of my time with him. One day he came to me and said, “My wife is dying.” I said, “Brother Clark, why don’t you believe God? God can raise her up if you will only believe Him.” He asked me to come to his house, and I looked for some one to go with me.

I went to a certain rich man who was very zealous for God, and spent much money in opening up rescue missions, and I asked him to go with me. He said, “Never you mind me. You go yourself, but I don’t take to this kind of business.” Then I thought of a man who could pray by the hour. When he was on his knees he could go round the world three times and come out at the same place. I asked him to go with me and said to him, “You’ll have a real chance this time. Keep at it, and quit when you’re through.” (Some go on after they are through.)

Brother Nichols, for that was his name, went with me and started praying. He asked the Lord to comfort the husband in his great bereavement and prayed for the orphans and a lot more on this line. I cried, “O my God, stop this man.” But there was no stopping him and he went on praying and there was not a particle of faith in anything he uttered. He did stop at last, and I said, “Brother Clark, it’s now your turn to pray. He started, “Lord, answer the prayer of my brother and comfort me in this great bereavement and sorrow. Prepare me to face this great trial.” I cried out, “My God, stop this man.” The whole atmosphere was being charged with unbelief.

I had a glass bottle full of oil and I went up tea the woman and poured the whole lot on her in the name of Jesus. Suddenly Jesus appeared, standing at the foot of the bed. He smiled and vanished. The woman stood up, perfectly healed, and she is a strong woman today.

We have a big God. We have a wonderful Jesus. We have a glorious Comforter. God’s canopy is over you and will cover you at all times, preserving you from evil. Under His wings shalt thou trust. The Word of God is living and powerful and in its treasures you will find eternal life. If you dare trust this wonderful Lord, this Lord of life, you will find in Him everything you need.

So many are tampering with drugs, quacks, pills and plasters. Clear them all out and believe God. It is sufficient to believe God. You will find that if you dare trust Him, He will never fail. “The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the LORD shall raise him up.” Do you trust Him? He is worthy to be trusted.

I was one time asked to go to Weston-super-mare, a seaside resort in the West of England. I learned from a telegram that a man had lost his reason and had become a raving maniac, and they wanted me to go to pray for him. I arrived at the place, and the wife said to me, “Will you sleep with my husband?” I agreed, and in the middle of the night an evil power laid hold of him. It was awful. I put my hand on his head and his hair was like a lot of sticks. God gave deliverance-a temporary deliverance. At 6 o’clock the next morning, I felt that it was necessary that I should get out of the house for a short time.

The man saw me going and cried out, “If you leave me, there is no hope.” But I felt that I had to go. As I went out I saw a woman with a Salvation Army bonnet on and I knew that she was going to their 7 o’clock prayer meeting. I said to the Captain who was in charge of the meeting, when I saw he was about to give out a hymn, “Captain, don’t sing. Let’s get to prayer.” He agreed, and I prayed my heart out, and then I grabbed my hat and rushed out of the hall. They all thought they had a madman in their prayer meeting that morning.

I saw the man I had spent the night with, rushing down toward the sea, without a particle of clothing on, about to drown himself. I cried, “In the name of Jesus, come out of him!” The man fell full length on the ground and that evil power went out of him never to return. His wife came rushing after him, and the husband was restored to her in a perfect mental condition.

There are evil powers, but Jesus is greater than all evil powers. There are tremendous diseases, but Jesus is healer. There is no case too hard for Him. The Lion of Judah shall break every chain. He came to relieve the oppressed and to set the captive free. He came to bring redemption, to make us as perfect as man was before the fall.

People want to know how to be kept by the power of God. Every position of grace into which you are led-forgiveness, healing, deliverance of any kind, will be contested by Satan. He will contend for your body. When you are saved, Satan will come round and say, “See, you are not saved.” The devil is a liar. If he says you are not saved, it is a sure sign that you are.

You will remember the story of the man who was swept and garnished. The evil power had been swept out of him. But the man remained in a stationary position. If the Lord heals you, you dare not remain in a stationary position. The evil spirit came back to that man and found the house swept, and took seven others worse than himself, and the last state of that man was worse than the first. Be sure to get filled with God. Get the Occupier. Be filled with the Spirit.

God has a million ways of undertaking for those who go to Him for help. He has deliverance for every captive. He loves you so much that He even says, “Before they call, I will answer.” Don’t turn Him away.

“I slipped and fell on Broadway, San Diego, in February, 1921, and as was afterwards discovered, fractured the coccyx (the base of the spine), and so severely wrenched the hips and pelvic bones that I became a great sufferer. As the broken bone was not discovered and set until about two months after the accident, the constant pain and irritation caused a general inflammation of the nervous system, and the long delay in getting the bone set, made it impossible to heal, so that, my condition steadily grew worse, and I was taken to the hospital and the bone was removed about a month after it had been set. Though the wound healed rapidly, the nervous inflammation remained, and so for many months longer I was in constant pain and unable to get around without assistance. I was taken to the first service held by Mr. Wigglesworth on the 2nd of October, 1922. At the close of the service all those who were sick and in pain and had come for healing were requested to rise if possible. My husband assisted me to my feet, and as those were prayed for by the speaker I was instantly healed. How I do not know. I only know the Great Physician touched my body and I was made whole, and freed from pain.

“After I got home I showed how I could sit down and rise with my hands above my head; when before it had taken both hands to push up my feeble body, and I had to have straps on my bed to pull up by. No more use for them now! I lay down and turned over for the first time without pain. I shall never cease to praise God for the healing of my body through the precious blood of Jesus and in His name. I walked to the street car alone the next day and attended the next service and have been “on the go” ever since. Can give names of friends who can substantiate all I have written. To Jesus be all the, praise and glory.” - Mrs. Sanders, 4051 Bay View Court, San Diego, Calif.