Published in the Pentecostal Evangel, March 19, 1923.

The remarkable healings herein cited occurred under the ministry of Bro. Smith Wigglesworth of Bradford, England, in Switzerland recently, who says:

Everything I have seen in Switzerland has taken me down in brokenness before God. At Bern I have stood in a place which has been packed with people, and I have had to get a cleansing by weeping as I have seen the people and then God gave us victory. Hundreds have been saved by the power of God. At Neuchâtel God worked marvelously and the devil worked in between, but God is greater than all. At my second visit to Neuchâtel the largest theater was hired and it was packed, and God moved upon the people, and on an average 100 souls were saved each night, and many healed through God's touch, yet many would not have Pentecostal teaching, and one man actually had meetings in opposition at places, but who is the man who dares to put his hand on the child of God? This man also had prayer meetings to try to prevent people from going to the meetings, but they all turned to confusion. People came to be ministered unto. In all places it has been the same.

At one of the places a policeman was sent to ascertain what was going on and it resulted in his coming under the power of God, and he commenced to seek for the healing of his own body. Some of the opposers stated that the oil botlle I used was electrically charged and that I kept putting it into my pocket to get it recharged.

The Holy Ghost is preparing us for some wonderful event. I feel a burning in my bones. I preached one night on Ephesians 3 for 2½ hours, and so powerful was the Word that the people did not seem inclined to move. I preached and prayed with the sick until 11:30 P.M. Four people brought a man who was paralyzed and blind; the power of God fell upon him and us and he now walks and sees and is praising God. I have not been to one meeting where the power of God has not been upon us. I say this to His glory.

In French Switzerland, where Pentecost was not known, seven different meeting places have been opened, and the work is prospering. At Bern there is a band of praying people. Truly we have seen wonderful things. A girl was brought to me sitting in a chair. I would not minister at first, but told her she must wait and hear the Word of God. Her mother who had come with her was greatly moved as she listened to God's Word being expounded. I then laid hands on the girl, who had never walked. The power of God worked and she now walks. Another case, where a man had had a cancer taken out of his neck, after which he could no longer eat, not being able to swallow. He told me he could not even swallow the juice of a cherry. He had a pipe inserted in his neck so that food could be poured through it into his stomach. I said to him, "You will eat tonight." I prayed with him. He came the next day. I saw that the color had come back into his face, and he told me he had been eating, and could swallow comfortably. He had looked for the hole where the pipe had been inserted but could not find it. God had completely healed him. He was well known; he was a tea grower and people said he had come to life again. When the Son of God touches a man he does come to life.

God has put His hand upon this work in Switzerland. Every afternoon people were baptized in the Holy Ghost, brought down into the dust for the power of God lays a man low. In Lausanne the power was mighty, also at Vevey and Geneva, and God has raised up Spirit-filled leaders in these towns.

A man came to me suffering from diabetes. The power of God was upon me and I realized that God was working upon him. I said, "God has healed you." His address was taken and the case was followed up. He went to the doctor to be examined because he knew he was healed and asked him to examine him. He did so and stated that he was unable to find any trace of the disease whatever. He asked the doctor to give him a certificate which he did and I saw it.

A young woman was dying of consumption, and her doctor had given her up. I laid hands on her in the name of Jesus and she knew that the disease had passed away. This girl went to the doctor, who examined her and said, "Whatever has taken place, you haye no consumption now." She replied, "Doctor I have been prayed over; can I tell the people I am healed?" And he said, "Yes; and that I could not heal you." "If I am to tell will you put it in black and white?" And he gave her a certificate which I saw. God had healed her.

A man was brought into one of the meetings in a wheelchair. He could not walk except by the aid of two sticks, and even then his locomotion was very slow. I saw him in that helpless condition, and told him about Jesus. Oh, that wonderful name! Glory to God! "They shall call His name Jesus." I placed my hands upon his head and said, "In the name of Jesus thou art made whole." This helpless man cried out, "It is done, it is done. Glory to God, it is done!" And he walked out of the building perfectly healed. The man who brought him in the wheelchair and the children said that father so-and-so is walking. Praise the Lord He is the same yesterday, today and forever.

The Lord made me a great blessing at Zurich last time, and I have promised to be there again on the 30th of October. Seven new places are glorifying God in tongues. I ministered last Sunday in a great theater which was filled, and there was a crying out to God for healing, and when they were healed they shouted for joy.

Labels: 1923, Pentecostal Evangel

An address given in Springfield, Mo.
Published in the Pentecostal Evangel, November 25, 1922.
Ever Increasing Faith, chapter 10. (Published 1924.)

Read 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 the 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 of 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 had 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 up 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 grow, 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 every one 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."

[At this point in the service someone (possibly Wigglesworth) spoke in prophetic tongues. The interpretation was: "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 covers 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 can not 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 fleshy 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 a purity and holiness there, so that out of its depths, praises 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 years 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 that is stronger than every power; Christ, the power of God, formed within me. I can see why we need to be clothed upon from above, for the life within 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 our salvation.

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, and 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 (Philippians 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 hath 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 will be 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 men 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 would be like torches, purifying the very atmosphere wherever we go, moving back the forces of wickedness.

[Again, prophetic tongues. The interpretation was: "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 He gives us atterance. Would that we all had the simplicity of the babes.

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*The Adventists that Wigglesworth was familiar with tended to be very legalistic.

Labels: 1922, Ever Increasing Faith, Pentecostal Evangel

Preached at Springfield Assembly, Springfield, Mo.
Published in the Pentecostal Evangel, December 23, 1922.
Ever Increasing Faith, chapter 9. (Published 1924.)

Read Acts 5.1-20.

Notice this expression that the Lord gives of the Gospel message—"the words of this life." 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 and how small a devil. 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 John Stephenson made his first engine he took his sister Mary to see it. She looked at it and said to her brother; "John, 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, "John, 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.

[At this point in the service someone (possibly Wigglesworth) spoke in prophetic tongues. The interpretation was: "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 every one. Do not doubt. Hear with the ear of faith. God is in the midst. See that it is God who hath 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 of those who see the same.

It seems a small thing for Ananias and Sapphira to want to have a little to fall back on, but I want to tell you that you can please God, and you can get things from God only on 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 hath laid upon Jesus the iniquity of us all, and 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 cried out, "Here's the woman with the nose." I asked her to come forward and 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 comething 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 had 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 that we read of 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." Beloved, the tide is rising, the fields are white unto harvest. God gave us a wonderful revival. I want to be in a mighty revival. I was in one mighty revival in Wales and I long to be in a great revival that will eclipse anything we have ever thought of. I have faith to believe it is coming.

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 everyone, "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. Every one 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 would 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 healing virtue of the blessed Son of God is right here for you, but so few will touch Him. The Bible is so 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. This same Jesus is in our midst to touch and to loose thee.

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 he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, 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, got to know 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 that young man's 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 is fullness of joy, at His right hand there are pleasures for evermore. There is full redemption for all through the precious blood of the Son of God.

Labels: 1922, Ever Increasing Faith, Pentecostal Evangel

Published in the Pentecostal Evangel, February 9, 1924.
Ever Increasing Faith, chapter 8. (Published 1924.)

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 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. This 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 gloriously 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 hath sent His angel, and hath 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 hath 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 establish our faith so that we will 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 coming 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, an 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.

Labels: 1924, Ever Increasing Faith, Pentecostal Evangel