Published in the Pentecostal Evangel, March 11, 1944.

Let us read together the 11th chapter of Hebrews. This is a wonderful passage. In fact, all the Word of God is wonderful. It is not only wonderful, but it has power to change conditions. Any natural condition can be changed by the Word of God, which contains supernatural power. In the Word of God there is the breath and the very nature and power of the living God, and His power works in every person who dares to believe His Word. It is as we lay hold of God’s promises in simple faith, that we become partakers of the divine nature. As we receive the Word of God we come in touch with the living force that makes dead things live.

In Hebrews 12.2 we read, “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.” As we look unto Him we receive life, and faith springs up in our hearts. And as we continue to look unto Him, He will perfect our faith. He Himself will become the very power of our lives.

We see that when the disciples were let out of prison, the angel of the Lord said to them, “Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life.” The message of the gospel, that Christ died for our sins, that He was buried, and that He rose again, is the word of life. There is only one Book that has life. In his Word we find Him who came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly. By faith this life is imparted to us. Drink, my beloved, drink deeply of this Source of life.

“Faith is the substance of things hoped for.” Someone said to me one day, “I wouldn’t believe in anything I couldn’t handle and see.” Everything you can handle and see is temporal and will perish with the using; but the things not seen are eternal and will not fade away. Are you taken up merely with tangible things? or have you set your affections on things that are eternal, the things that are made real to faith? I thank God that through the knowledge of the truth of the Son of God, I have within me a greater power, a mightier working, an inward power, a vision of the truth more real than anyone can know who lives entirely in the realm of the tangible. God manifests Himself to the person who dares to believe.

As we receive life in the new birth, and the more abundant life that Christ delights to give in the fullness of the Spirit, we receive a nature that delights to do the will of God. As we continue to believe the Word of God, a well of water springs up within our hearts, an overwhelming spring that issues out in rivers of living water. A spring is always better than a pump. It was a well of water, springing up, to the woman at the well, but to the person who has the Holy Ghost it is flowing rivers. Have you these flowing rivers? To be filled with the Holy Ghost is to be filled with the executive of the Godhead, who brings to us all the unlimited resources of the Father and all that the Son of God desires that we should have. As we are filled with the Spirit God will cause us to move in His authority and reign by His divine ability.

“God ... hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds.” By the Son of God, the Word of God, all things were created. The things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. The Son of God created everything that is seen out of things that were not there when He spoke. I want you to see that as you receive the Son of God, as Christ dwells in your heart by faith, there is the incoming of divine force, the power of limitless possibilities within you, and that as a result of this incoming Christ, God wants to do great things through you. If we receive and accept His Son, God brings us into sonship; and not only sonship, but joint heirship, into sharing together with Him all that the Son possesses.

Every day I live I am more and more convinced that very few who are saved by the grace of God have the right conception of how great is their authority over darkness, demons, death and every power of the enemy. It is a real joy when we realize our inheritance on this line.

I was speaking like this one day, and someone said, “I have never heard anything like this before. How many months did it take you to get up that sermon?” I said, “Brother, God pressed my wife from time to time to get me to preach, and I promised her I would. I used to labor hard for a week to get something up. I would give out my text and then sit down and say, ‘I am done.’ O brother, I have given up getting things up. They all come down, and the sermons that come down stop down as long as He wants them. Then they go back to God, with fruitage, for the Word of God declares that His Word shall not return unto Him void. If you get anything up, it will not stay up very long. But when it comes down from above, it takes you down with it.”

The Son of God was manifested in this world to destroy the works of the devil; and it is His purpose that the sons of God should also be manifested on this present earth to destroy the works of the devil.

Do you remember the day when the Lord laid His hand on you? You say, “I couldn’t do anything but praise the Lord.” Well, that was only the beginning. Where are you today? The divine plan is that you increase until you receive the measureless fullness of God. You do not have to say, “It was wonderful when I was baptized with the Holy Ghost!” If you have to look back to the past to make me know that you are baptized, then I fear you are back-slidden. If the beginning was good, it ought to be better day by day, until everyone is fully cohvinced that you are filled with the fullness of God! I don’t want anything less than being full, and to be fuller and fuller until I am overflowing day by day. Do you realize that if you have been created anew and begotten again by the Word of God, that there is within you the same word of power, the same light and life that the Son of God Himself had?

God wants to flow through you in marvelous power and divine utterance and grace, until your whole body is a flame of fire. God intends each soul in Pentecost to be a live wire. So many people who have been baptized with the Holy Ghost came in because there was a movement, but so many of them have become monuments, and you cannot move them. The Baptism in the Spirit should be an ever-increasing enlargement of grace. Jump in, stop in, and never come out; for this is the Baptism—to be lost in it, where you only know one thing, and that is the desire of God at all times. O Father, grant unto us a real look into the glorious liberty Thou hast designed for the children of God who are delivered from this present evil world, separated, sanctified, and made meet for Thy use; whom Thou hast designed to be filled with all Thy fullness!

Nothing has hurt me so much as this: to see so-called believers have so much unbelief in them that it is hard to move them. Everything is possible to them that believe. God will not fail to fulfill His Word, wherever you are. Suppose that all the people in the world did not believe, that would make no difference to God’s Word. It would be the same. You cannot alter God’’s Word. It is from everlasting to everlasting, and they who believe in it shall be like Mount Zion which cannot be moved.

God heals by the power of His Word. But the most important thing is this: Are you saved? Do you know the Lord? Are you prepared to meet God? You may be an invalid as long as you live, but you may be saved by the power of God. You may have a strong, healthy body, but may go straight to hell because you know nothing of the grace of God and salvation. Thank God, I was saved in a moment, the moment I believed. And God will do the same for you.

The Spirit of God would have us understand there is nothing that can interfere with our getting into perfect blessing except our unbelief. Unbelief is a terrible hindrance. As soon as we are willing to allow the Holy Ghost to have His way, we shall find great things will happen all the time. But oh, how much of our own human reason we have to get rid of! How much human planning we have to become divorced from! What would happen right now if everyone believed God? I love the thought that God the Holy Ghost wants to emphasize truth. If we will only yield ourselves to the divine plan, He is right here to do great things, and to fulfill the promise in Joel 2.21, “Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice: for the Lord will do great things.”

How many of us believe the Word? It is easy to quote it, but it is more important to believe it than to quote it. It is very easy for me to quote, “Now are we the sons of God,” but it is more important for me to know whether I am a son of God, When the Son of God was on the earth He was recognized by the people who heard Him. “Never man spake like this man.” His word was with power, and that word came to pass. Sometimes you have quoted, “Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world,” and you could not tell just where to find it. But, brother, is it so? Can demons remain in your presence? You have to be greater than demons. Can disease lodge in a body which you touch? You have to be greater than the disease. Can anything in the world stand against you and hold its place, if it is a fact that greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world? Dare we to stand on the line of the Word of God and face the facts?

Have faith in the fact that Christ indwells you, and dare to act in harmony with that glorious truth. Christ said, “Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith.”

If you have been begotten of the Word and the Word is in you, the life of the Son is in you, and God wants you to fully believe. He says to you, “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.”

Labels: 1944, Pentecostal Evangel

Published in the Pentecostal Evangel, August 4, 1923.
Ever Increasing Faith, chapter 15. (Published 1924.)

God has given us much in these last days, and where much is given much will be required. The Lord has said to us, “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.” We see a thought on the same line when our Lord Jesus says, “If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.” On the other hand He tells us, “If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” If we do not move on with the Lord these days, and do not walk in the light of revealed truth, we shall become as the savorless salt, as a withered branch. This one thing we must do, forgetting those things that are behind, the past failures and the past blessings, we must reach forth for those things which are before, and press toward the mark for the prize of our high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

For many years the Lord has been moving me on and keeping me from spiritual stagnation. When I was in the Wesleyan Methodist Church I was sure I was saved and was sure I was all right. The Lord said to me, “Come out,” and I came out. When I was with the people known as the Brethren I was sure I was all right now. But the Lord said, “Come out.” Then I went into the Salvation Army. At that time it was full of life and there mere revivals everywhere. But the Salvation Army went into natural things and the great revivals that they had in those early days ceased. The Lord said to me, “Come out,” and I came out. I have had to come out three times since. I believe that this Pentecostal revival that we are now in is the best thing that the Lord has on the earth today, and yet I believe that God has something out of this that is going to be still better. God has no use for any man who is not hungering and thirsting for yet more of Himself and His righteousness.

The Lord has told us to covet earnestly the best gifts, and we need to be covetous for those that will bring Him most glory. We need to see the gifts of healing and the working of miracles in operation today. Some say that it is necessary for us to have the gift of discernment in operation with the gifts of healing, but even apart from this gift I believe the Holy Ghost will have a divine revelation for us as we deal with the sick. Most people seem to have discernment, or think they have, and if they would turn it on themselves for twelve months they would never want to discern again. The gift of discernment is not criticism. I am satisfied that in Pentecostal circles today that our paramount need is more perfect love.

Perfect love will never want the preeminence in everything. it will never want to take the place of another, it will always be willing to take the back seat. If you go to a convention there is always someone who wants to give a message, who wants to he heard. If you have a desire to go to a convention you should have three things settled in your mind. Do I want to be heard? Do I want to be seen? Do I want anything on the line of finances? If I have these things in my heart I hare no right to be there. The one thing that must move us must be the constraining love of God to minister for Him. A preacher always loses out when he gets his mind on finances. It is well for Pentecostal preachers to avoid making much of finances except to stir up people to help our missionaries on financial lines. A preacher who gets big collections for the missionaries need never fear, the Lord will take care of his finances. A preacher should not land at a place and say that God had sent him. I am always fearful when I hear a man advertising this. If he is sent of God, the saints will know it. God has His plans for His servants and we must so live in His plans that He will place us where He wants us. If you seek nothing but the will of God, He will always put you in the right place at the right time. I want you to see that the gifts of healing and the working of miracles are part of the Spirit’s plan and will come forth in operation as we are working along that plan. I must know the movement of the Spirit and the voice of God. I must understand the will of God if I am to see the gifts of the Spirit in operation.

The gifts of healing are so varied. You may go and see ten people and every case is different. I am never happier in the Lord than when I am in a bedroom with a sick person. I have had more revelations of the Lord’s presence when I have ministered to the sick at their bedsides than at any other time. It is as your heart goes out to the needy ones in deep compassion that the Lord manifests His presence. You are able to locate their position. It is then that you know that you must be filled with the Spirit to deal with the conditions before you.

Where people are in sickness you find frequently that they are dense about Scripture. They usually know three scriptures though. They know about Paul’s thorn in the flesh, and that Paul told Timothy to take a little wine for his stomach’s sake, and that Paul left someone sick somewhere; they forget his name, and don’t remember the name of the place, and don’t know where the chapter is. Most people think they have a thorn in the flesh. The chief thing in dealing with a person who is sick is to locate their exact position. As you are ministering under the Spirit’s power the Lord will let you see just that which will he most helpful and most faith-inspiring to them.

When I was in the plumbing business I enjoyed praying for the sick. Urgent calls would come and I would have no time to wash, and with my hands all black I would preach to these sick ones, my heart all aglow with love. Ah, you must have your heart in the thing when you pray for the sick. You have to get right to the bottom of the cancer with a divine compassion and then you will see the gifts of the Spirit in operation.

I was called at 10 o’clock one night to pray for a young person given up by the doctor who was dying of consumption. As I looked, I saw that unless God undertook it was impossible for her to live. I turned to the mother and said, “Well, mother, you will have to go to bed.” She said, “Oh, I have not had my clothes off for three weeks.” I said to the daughters, “You will have to go to bed,” but they did not want to go. It was the same with the son. I put on my overcoat and said, “Good-bye, I’m off.” They said, “Oh, don’t leave us.” I said, “I can do nothing here.” They said, “Oh, if you will stop, we will all go to bed.” I knew that God would move nothing in an atmosphere of mere natural sympathy and unbelief.

They all went to bed and I stayed, and that was surely a time as I knelt by that bed face to face with death and with the devil. But God can change the hardest situation and make you know that He is almighty.

Then the fight came. It seemed as though the heavens were brass. I prayed from 11 to 3:30 in the morning. I saw the glimmering light on the face of the sufferer and saw her pass away. The devil said, “Now you are done for. You have come from Bradford and the girl has died on your hands.” I said, “It can’t be. God did not send me here for nothing. This is a time to change strength.” I remembered that passage which said, “Men ought always to pray and not to faint.” Death had taken place but I knew that my God was all powerful, and He that had split the Red Sea is just the same today. It was a time when I would not have “No,” and God said “Yes.” I looked at the window and at that moment the face of Jesus appeared. It seemed as though a million rays of light were coming from His face. As He looked at the one who had just passed away, the color came back to the face. She rolled over and fell asleep. Then I had a glorious time. In the morning she woke early, put on a dressing gown and walked to the piano. She started to play and to sing a wonderful song. The mother and the sister and the brother had all come down to listen. The Lord had undertaken. A miracle had been wrought.

The Lord is calling us along this way. I am thanking God for difficult cases. The Lord has called us into heart union with Himself; He wants His bride to have one heart and one Spirit with Him and to do what He Himself loved to do. That case had to be a miracle. The lungs were gone, they were just in shreds, but the Lord restored lungs that were perfectly sound.

There is a fruit of the Spirit that must accompany the gift of healing and that is longsuffering. The man who is going through with God to be used in healing must he a man of longsuffering. He must be always ready with a word of comfort. If the sick one is in distress and helpless and does not see everything eye to eye with you, you must bear with them. Our Lord Jesus Christ was filled with compassion and lived and moved in a place of longsuffering, and we will have to get into this place if we are to help needy ones.

There are some times when you pray for the sick and you apparently rough. But you are not dealing with a person, you are dealing with the Satanic forces that are binding the person. Your heart is full of love and compassion to all, but you are moved to a holy anger as you see the place the devil has taken in the body of the sick one, and you deal with his position with a real forcefulness. One day a pet dog followed a lady out of her house and ran all around her feet. She said to the dog, “My dear, I cannot have you with me today.” The dog wagged its tail and made a big fuss. She said, “Go home, my dear.” But the dog did not go. At last she shouted roughly, “Go home,” and off it went. Some people deal with the devil like that. The devil can stand all the comfort you like to give him. Cast him out! You are dealing not with the person, you are dealing with the devil. Demon power must be dislodged in the name of the Lord: You are always right when you dare to deal with sickness as with the devil. Much sickness is caused by some misconduct, there is something wrong, there is some neglect somewhere, and Satan has had a chance to get in. It is necessary to repent and confess where you have given place to the devil, and then he can be dealt with.

When you deal with a cancer case, recognize that it is a living evil spirit that is destroying the body. I had to pray for a woman in Los Angeles one time who was suffering with cancer, and as soon as it was cursed it stopped bleeding. It was dead. The next thing that happened was that the natural body pressed it out, because the natural body had no room for dead matter. It came out like a great big ball with tens of thousands of fibers. All these fibers had been pressing into the flesh. These evil powers move to get further hold of the system, but the moment they are destroyed their hold is gone. Jesus said to His disciples that He gave them power to loose and power to bind. It is our privilege in the power of the Holy Ghost to loose the prisoners of Satan and to let the oppressed go free.

Take your position in the first epistle of John and declare, “Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world.” Then recognize that it is not yourself that has to deal with the power of the devil, but the Greater One that is in you. Oh, what it means to be filled with Him. You can do nothing of yourself, but He that is in you will win the victory. Your being has become the temple of the Spirit. Your mouth, your mind. your whole being becomes exercised and worked upon by the Spirit of God.

I was called to a certain town in Norway. The hall seated about 1500 people. When I got to the place it was packed, and hundreds were trying to get in. There were some policemen there. The first thing I did was to preach to the people outside the building. Then I said to the policemen. “It hurts me very much that there are more people outside than inside and I feel I must preach to the people. I would like you to get me the market place to preach in.” They secured for me a great park and a big stand was erected and I was able to preach to thousands. After the preaching we had some wonderful cases of healing. One man came a hundred miles bringing his food with him. He had not been passing anything through his stomach for over a month as he had a great cancer on his stomach. He was healed at that meeting. and opening his parcel, he began eating before all the people. There was a young woman there with a stiff hand. Instead of the mother making the child use her arm she had allowed the child to keep the arm dormant until it was stiff, and she had grown up to be a young woman and was like the woman that was bowed down with the spirit of infirmity. As she stood before me I cursed the spirit of infirmity in the name of Jesus. It was instantly cast out and the arm was free. Then she waved it all over. At the close of the meeting the devil laid out two people with fits. When the devil is manifesting himself, then is the time to deal with him. Both of these people were delivered, and when they stood up and thanked and praised the Lord what a wonderful time we had.

We need to wake up and be on the stretch to believe God. Before God could bring me to this place He has broken me a thousand times. I have wept, I have groaned. I have travailed many a night until God broke me. It seems to me that until God has mowed you down you never can have this longsuffering for others. We can never have the gifts of healing and the working of miracles in operation only as we stand in the divine power that God gives us and we stand believing God. and having done all we still stand believing.

We have been seeing wonderful miracles these last days and they are only a little of what we are going to see. I believe that we are right on the threshold of wonderful things, but I want to emphasize that all these things will be through the power of the Holy Ghost. You must not think that these gifts will fall upon you like ripe cherries. There is a sense in which you have to pay the price for everything you get. We must be covetous for God’s best gifts, and say Amen to any preparation the Lord takes us through, in order that we may be humble, useable vessels through whom He Himself can operate by means of the Spirit’s power.

Labels: 1923, Ever Increasing Faith, Pentecostal Evangel

Published in the Pentecostal Evangel, July 14, 1923;
and in Confidence, January-March 1924.
Ever Increasing Faith, chapter 14. (Published 1924.)

“To another the word of knowledge, by the same Spirit; to another faith, by the same Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12.8-9).

We have not passed this way hitherto. I believe that Satan has many devices and that they are worse today than ever before; but I also believe that there is to be a full manifestation on the earth of the power and glory of God to defeat every device of Satan.

In Ephesians 4 we are told to endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, for there is one body, and one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all. The Baptism of the Spirit is to make us all one. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 12.13 that by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. It is God’s thought that we speak the same thing. If we all have the full revelation of the Spirit of God we shall all see the same thing. Paul asked these Corinthians, “Is Christ divided?” When the Holy Ghost has full control, Christ is never divided, His body is not divided, there is no division. Schism and division are the products of the carnal mind.

How important it is that we shall have the manifestation of “the word of knowledge” in our midst. It is the same Spirit who brings forth the word of wisdom that brings forth the word of knowledge. The revelation of the mysteries of God comes by the Spirit, and we must have a supernatural word of knowledge in order to convey to others the things which the Spirit of God has revealed. The Spirit of God reveals Christ in all His wonderful fullness, and He shows Him to us from the beginning to the end of the Scriptures. It is the Scriptures that make us wise unto salvation, that open to us the depths of the kingdom of heaven, which reveal all the divine mind to us.

There are thousands of people who read and study the Word of God. But it is not quickened to them. The Bible is a dead letter except by the Spirit. The Word of God can never be vital and powerful in us except by the Spirit. The words that Christ spoke were not just dead words but they were spirit and life. And so it is the thought of God that a living word, a word of truth, the word of God, a supernatural word of knowledge, shall come forth from us through the power of the Spirit of God. It is the Holy Ghost who will bring forth utterances from our lips and a divine revelation of all the mind of God.

The child of God ought to thirst for the Word. He should know nothing else but the Word, and should know nothing among men save Jesus. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” It is as we feed on the Word and meditate on the message it contains, that the Spirit of God can vitalize that which we have received, and bring forth through us the word of knowledge that will be as full of power and life, as when He, the Spirit of God, moved upon holy men of old and gave them these inspired Scriptures. They were all inbreathed of God as they came forth at the beginning, and through the same Spirit they should come forth from us vitalized, living, powerful and sharper than any two~edged sword.

With the gifts of the Spirit should come the fruit of the Spirit. With wisdom we should have love, with knowledge we should have joy, and with the third gift, faith, we should have the fruit of peace. Faith is always accompanied by peace. Faith always rests. Faith laughs at impossibilities. Salvation is by faith, through grace, and it is the gift of God. We are kept by the power of God through faith. God gives faith and nothing can take it away. By faith we have power to enter into the wondedul things of God. There are three positions of faith; saving faith, which is the gift of God; the faith of the Lord Jesus; and the gift of faith. You will remember the word of the Lord Jesus Christ given to Paul, to which he refers in the 26th of Acts, where the Lord commissioned him to go to the Gentiles, “to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness unto light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them WHICH ARE SANCTIFIED BY FAITH THAT IS IN ME.”

Oh, this wonderful faith of the Lord Jesus. Your faith comes to an end. How many times I have been to the place where I have had to tell the Lord, “I have used all the faith I have,” and then He has placed His own faith within me.

One of our workers said to me at Christmas time, “Wigglesworth, I never was so near the end of my purse in my life.” I replied, “Thank God, you are just at the opening of God’s treasures.” It is when we are at the end of our own, that we can enter into the riches of God's resources. It is when we possess nothing, that we can possess all things.

The Lord will always meet you when you are on the line of living faith. I was in Ireland at one time and went to a house and said to the lady who came to the door, “Is Brother Wallace here?” She replied, “Oh, he has gone to Bangor, but God has sent you here for me. I need you. Come in.” She told me her husband was a deacon of the Presbyterian Church. She had herself received the Baptism while she was a member of the Presbyterian Church, but they did not accept it as from God. The people of the church said to her husband, “This thing cannot go on. We don’t want you to be deacon any longer, and your wife is not wanted in the church.” The man was very enraged and he became incensed against his wife. It seemed as though an evil spirit possessed him, and the home that had once been peaceful became very terrible. At last he left home and left no money behind him, and the woman asked me what should she do.

We went to prayer and before we had prayed five minutes the woman was mightily filled with the Holy Ghost. I said to her, “Sit down and let me talk to you. Are you often in the Spirit like this?” She said, “Yes, and what could I do without the Holy Ghost now?” I said to her, “The situation is yours. The Word of God says that you have power to sanctify your husband. Dare to believe the Word bf God. Now the first thing we must do is to pray that your husband come back tonight.” She said, “I know he won’t.” I said, “If we agree together, it is done.” She said, “I will agree.” I said to her, “When he comes home show him all possible love, lavish everything upon him. If he won’t hear what you have to say, let him go to bed. The situation is yours. Get down before God and claim him for the Lord. Get into the glory just as you have got in today, and as the Spirit of God prays through you, you will find that God will grant all the desires of your heart.”

A month later I saw this sister at a convention. She told how her husband came home that night and that he went to bed, but she prayed right through to victory and then laid her hands upon him. The moment she laid hands upon him he cried out for mercy. The Lord saved him and baptized him in the Holy Spirit. The power of God is beyond all our conception. The trouble is that we do not have the power of God in a full manifestation because of our finite thoughts, but as we go on and let God have His way, there is no limit to what our limitless God will do in response to a limitless faith. But you will never get anywhere except you are in constant pursuit of all the power of God.

One day when I came home from our open-air meeting at eleven o’clock I found that my wife was out. I asked, “Where is she?” I was told that she was down at Mitchell’s. I had seen Mitchell that day and knew that he was at the point of death. I knew that it was impossible for him to survive the day unless the Lord undertook.

There are many who let down in sickness and do not take hold of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ that is provided for them. I was taken to see a woman who was dying and said to her, “How are things with you?” She answered, “I have faith, I believe.” I said, “You know that you have not faith, you know that you are dying. It is not faith that you have, it is language.” There is a difference between language and faith. I saw that she was in the hands of the devil. There was no possibility of life until he was removed from the premises. I hate the devil, and I laid hold of the woman and shouted, “Come out, you devil of death. I command you to come out in the name of Jesus.” In one minute she stood on her feet in victory.

But to return to the case of Brother Mitchell, I hurried down to the house, and as I got near I heard terrible screams. I knew that something had happened. I passed Mrs. Mitchell on the staircase and asked, “What is up?” She replied, “He is gone! He is gone!” I just passed her and went into the room, and immediately I saw that Mitchell had gone. I could not understand it, but I began to pray. My wife was always afraid that I would go too far, and she laid hold of me and said, “Don’t, Dad! Don’t you see that he is dead?” I continued to pray and my wife continued to cry out to me, ”Don’t, Dad. Don’t you see that he is dead?” But I continued praying. I got as far as I could with mv own faith, and then God laid hold of me. Oh, it was such a laying hold that I could believe for anything. The faith of the Lord Jesus laid hold of me and a solid peace came into my heart. I shouted. “He lives! He lives! He lives!” And he is living today. There is a difference between our faith and the faith of the Lord Jesus. The faith of the Lord Jesus is needed. We must change faith from time to time. Your faith may get to a place where it wavers. The faith of Christ never wavers. When you have that faith the thing is finished. When you have that faith you will never look at things as they are, you will see the things of nature give way to the things of the Spirit, you will see the temporal swallowed up in the eternal.

I was at a camp meeting in Cazadero, California, about eight years ago, and a remarkable thing happened. A man came there who was stone deaf. I prayed for him and I knew that God had healed him. Then came the test. He would always move his chair up to the platform, and every time I got up to speak he would get up as close as he could and strain his ears to catch what I had to say. The devil said, “It isn’t done.” I declared, “It is done.” This went on for three weeks, and then the manifestation came and he could hear distinctly sixty yards away. When his ears were opened he thought it was so great that he had to stop the meeting and tell everybody about it. I met him in Oakland recently and he was hearing perfectly. As we remain stedfast and unmoveable on the ground of faith, we shall see what we believe for in perfect manifestation.

People say to me, “Have you not the gift of faith?” I say that it is an important gift, but what is still more important is for us every moment to be making an advancement in God. Looking at the Word of God today I find that its realities are greater to me today than they were yesterday. It is the most sublime, joyful truth that God brings an enlargement. Always an enlargement. There is nothing dead, dry or barren in this life of the Spirit; God is always moving us on to something higher, and as we move on in the Spirit our faith will always rise to the occasion as different circumstances arise.

This is how the gift of faith is manifested. You see an object and you know that your own faith is nothing in the case. The other day I was in San Francisco. I sat on a car and saw a boy in great agonies on the street. I said, “Let me get out.” I rushed to where the boy was. He was in agony through cramp of the stomach. I put my hands on his stomach in the name of Jesus. The boy jumped, and stared at me with astonishment. He found himself instantly free. The gift of faith dared in the face of everything. It is as we are in the Spirit that the Spirit of God will operate this gift anywhere and at any time.

When the Spirit of God is operating this gift within a man, He causes him to know what God is going to do. When the man with the withered hand was in the synagogue, Jesus got all the people to look to see what would happen. The gift of faith always knows the results. He said to the man, “Stretch forth thine hand.” His word had creative force. He was not living on the line of speculation. He spoke and something happened. He spake at the beginning and the world came into being. He speaks today and these things haye to come to pass. He is the Son of God and came to bring us into sonship. He was the firstfruit of the resurrection and He calls us to be first fruits, to be the same kind of fruit like to Himself.

There is an important point here. You cannot have the gifts by mere human desire. The Spirit of God distributes them severally as He will. God cannot trust some with the gift, but some who have a lowly, broken, contrite heart He can trust. One day I was in a meeting where there were a lot of doctors and eminent men, and many ministers. It was at a convention, and the power of God fell on the meeting. One humble little girl that waited at table opened her being to the Lord and was immediately filled with the Holy Ghost and hegan to speak in tongues. All these big men stretched their necks and looked up to see what was happening and were saying, “Who is it?” Then they learned it was “the servant!” Nobody received but “the servant!” These things are hidden and kept back from the wise and prudent, but the little children, the lowly ones, are the ones that receive. We cannot have faith if we have honor one of another. A man who is going on with God won’t accept honor from his fellow beings. God honors the man of a broken, contrite spirit. How shall I get there? So many people want to do great things, and to be seen doing them, but the one that God will use is the one that is willing to be hidden. My Lord Jesus never said He could do things, but He did them. When that funeral procession was coming up from Nain with the widow's son carried upon the bier, He made them lay it down. He spoke the word, “Arise!” and gave the son back to the widow. He had compassion for her. And you and I will never do anything except on the line of compassion. We will never be able to remove the cancer until we are immersed so deeply into the power of the Holy Ghost, that the compassion of Christ is moving through us.

I find that, in all my Lord did, He said that He did not do it, but that another in Him did the work. What a holy submission! He was just an instrument for the glory of God. Have we reached a place where we dare to be trusted with the gift? I see in 1 Corinthians 13 that if I have faith to remove mountains and have not charity, all is a failure. When my love is so deepened in God that I only move for the glory of God, that I only seek the glory of God, then the gifts can be made manifest. God wants to be manifested, and to manifest His glory to humble spirits.

A faint heart can never have a gift. There are two things essential; first, love, and second, determination, a boldness of faith that will cause God to fulfill His word. When I was baptized I had a wonderful time and had utterances in the Spirit, but for some time afterwards I did not again speak in tongues. But one day as I was helping another, the Lord again gave me utterances in the Spirit. I was one day going down the road and speaking in tongues a long while. There were some gardeners doing their work, and they stuck their heads out to see what was going on. I said, “Lord, You have something new for me. You said that when a man speaks in tongues, he should ask for the interpretation. I ask for the interpretation, and I’ll stay right here till I get it.” And from that hour the Lord gave me interpretation.

At one time I was in Lincolnshire in England and came in touch with the old pastor of an Episcopalian Church. He became very interested and asked me into his library. I never heard anything sweeter than the prayer the old man uttered as he got down to pray. He began to pray, “Lord, make me holy. Lord, sanctify me.” I called out, “Wake up! Wake up now! Get up and sit in your chair.” He sat up and looked at me. I said to him, “I thought you were holy.” He answered, “Yes.” “Then what makes you ask God to do what He has done for you?” He began to laugh and then to speak in tongues. Let us move into the realm of faith, and live in the realm of faith, and let God have His way.

Labels: 1923, 1924, Confidence, Ever Increasing Faith, Pentecostal Evangel

Published in the Pentecostal Evangel, March 19, 1921.

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 Neuchatel God worked marvelously and the devil worked in between, but God is greater than all. At my second visit to Neuchatel 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 bas 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 bottle 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 Eph. 3 for 3½ 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 Yevey 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 have 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 wheel chair. 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 wheel chair 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 Zurie 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: 1921, Pentecostal Evangel