Published in the Pentecostal Evangel, April 28, 1923.
Faith that Prevails, chapter 5.

“Ye shall receive power after the Holy Ghost is come upon you.” The disciples had been asking whether the Lord would at that time restore again the kingdom to Israel. Christ told them that it was not for them to know the times and seasons which the Father had put in His own power, but He promised them that when they received the Holy Ghost they should receive power to witness for Him in all the world. To receive the Holy Ghost is to receive power with God, and power with men.

There is a power of God and there is a power which is of Satan. When the Holy Spirit fell in the early days, a number of spiritists came to our meetings. They thought we had received something like they had and they were coming to have a good time. They filled the two front rows of our mission. When the power of God fell, these imitators began their shaking and muttering under the power of the devil. The Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon me and I cried. “Now, you devils, clear out of this!” And out they went. I followed them right out into the street and then they turned round and cursed me. There was power from below, but it was no match for the power of the Holy Ghost, and they soon had to retreat.

The Lord wants all saved people to receive power from on High—power to witness, power to act, power to live, and power to show forth the divine manifestation of God within. The power of God will take you out of your own plans and put you into the plan of God. You will be unmantled and divested of that which is purely of yourself and put into a divine order. The Lord will change you and put His mind where yours was, and thus enable you to have the mind of Christ. Instead of you laboring according to your own plan, it will be God working in you and through you to do His own good pleasure through the power of the Spirit within. Someone has said that you are no good until you have your “I” knocked out. Christ must reign within, and the life in the Holy Ghost means at all times the subjection of your own will to make way for the working out of the good and acceptable and perfect will of God within.

The Lord Jesus gave commandment that the disciples should tarry until they were endued with power from on High, and in Acts 2 we read how the Spirit of God came. He comes the same way today and we don’t know of the Holy Ghost coming any other way.

I was holding a meeting, once, in London, and at the close a man came to me and said, “We are now allowed to hold meetings in this hall after 11 o’clock, and we would like you to come home with us. I am so hungry for God.” The wife said she, too, was hungry, and so I agreed to go with them. At about 12:30 we arrived at their house. The man began stirring up the fire and said, “Now we will have a good supper.” I said to them, “I did not come here for your warm fire, your supper or your bed. I came here because I thought you were hungry to get more of God.” We got down to pray and at about 3:30 the Lord baptized the wife, and she spoke in tongues as the Spirit gave utterance. At about 5 o’clock I spoke to the husband and asked how he was getting on. He replied, “God has broken my iron, stubborn will.” He had not received the Baptism, but God had wrought a mighty work within him.

The following day, at his business, everyone could tell that a great change had come to him. Before he had been a walking terror. The men who labored for him had looked upon him as a regular devil because of the way he had acted; but coming into contact with the power of God that night completely changed him. Before this he had made a religious profession, but he had never truly entered into the experience of the new birth until that night, when the power of God surged so mightily through his home. A short while afterwards I went to this man’s home, and his two sons ran to me and kissed me, saying, “We have a new father.” Previous to this these boys had often said to their mother, “Mother, we cannot stand it in the home any longer. We will have to leave.” But the Lord changed the whole situation that night as we prayed together. On the second visit the Lord baptized this man in the Holy Ghost. The Holy Spirit will reveal false positions, pull the mask off any refuge of lies and clean up and remove all false conditions. When the Holy Spirit came in, that man’s house and business and he himself were entirely changed.

When the Holy Spirit comes in He comes to empower you to be an effective witness. At one time we were holding some special meetings and I was out distributing bills. I went into a shoemaker’s store and there was a man with a green shade over his eyes and also a cloth. My heart looked up to the Lord and I had the witness within that He was ready to change any condition. The man was crying, “Oh! Oh!! Oh!!!” I asked, “What’s the trouble?” He said he was suffering with great inflammation and burning. I said, “I rebuke this condition in Jesus’ name.” Instantly the Lord healed him. He took off the shade and cloth and said, “Look, it is all gone.” I believe the Lord wants us to enter into real activity and dare to do for Him. “Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.”

At one time a lady wrote and asked if I could go and help her. She said that she was blind, having two blood clots behind her eyes. When I reached the house they brought the blind woman to me. We were together for some time and then the power of God fell. Rushing to the window she exclaimed, “I can see! Oh, I can see! The blood is gone, I can see.” She then inquired about receiving the Holy Spirit and confessed that for ten years she had been fighting our position. She said, “I could not bear these tongues, but God has settled the whole thing today. I now want the Baptism in the Holy Ghost.” The Lord graciously baptized her in the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit will come when a man is cleansed. There must be a purging of the old life. I never saw anyone baptized who was not clean within. I never saw a man baptized who smoked. We take it for granted that anyone who is seeking the fullness of the Spirit is free from such things as these. You cannot expect the Third Person of the Trinity to come into an unclean temple. There first must be a confession of all that is wrong and a cleansing in the precious blood of Jesus Christ.

I remember being in a meeting at one time, where there was a man seeking the Baptism, and he looked like he was in trouble. He was very restless, and finally he said to me, “I will have to go.” I said, “What’s up?” He said, “God is unveiling things to me, and I feel so unworthy.” I said, “Repent of everything that is wrong.” He continued to tarry and the Lord continued to search his heart. These times of waiting on God for the fullness of the Spirit are times when He searches the heart and tries the reins. Later the man said to me, “I have a hard thing to do, the hardest thing I have ever had to do.” I said to him, “Tell the Lord you will do it, and never mind the consequences.” He agreed, and the next morning he had to take a ride of thirty miles and go with a bag of gold to a certain party with whom he dealt. This man had a hundred head of cattle and he bought all his feed at a certain place. He always paid his accounts on a certain day, but one day he missed. He was always so punctual in paying his accounts that when later the people of his firm went over their books, they thought they must have made a mistake in not crediting the man with the money and so they sent him a receipt. The man never intended not to pay the account, but if you defer to do a right thing the devil will see that you never do it. But when that man was seeking the Lord that night the Lord dealt with him on this point, and he had to go and straighten the thing the next morning. He paid the account and then the Lord baptized him in the Spirit. They that bear the vessels of the Lord must be clean, must be holy.

When the Holy Spirit comes He always brings a rich revelation of Christ. Christ becomes so real to you that, when, under the power of the Spirit, you begin to express your love and praise to Him, you find yourself speaking in another tongue. Oh, it is a wonderful thing! At one time I belonged to a class who believed that they had received the Baptism in the Spirit without the speaking in tongues. There are many folks like that today, but if you can go with them to a prayer meeting you will find them asking the Lord again and again to baptize them in the Spirit. Why all this asking if they really have received the Baptism? I have never heard anyone who has received the Baptism in the Holy Ghost after the original pattern asking the Lord to give them the Holy Ghost. They know of a surety that He has come.

I was once traveling from Belgium to England. As I landed I received a request to stop at a place between Harwich and Colchester. The people were delighted that God had sent me, and told me of a special case they wanted me to pray for. They said, “We have a brother here who believes in the Lord, and he is paralyzed from his loins downward. He cannot stand on his legs and he has been twenty years in this condition.” They took me to this man and as I saw him there in his chair I put the question to him. “What is the greatest desire in your heart?” He said, “Oh, if I could only receive the Holy Ghost!” I was somewhat surprised at this answer, and I laid my hands on his head and said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” Instantly the power of God fell upon him and he began breathing very heavily. He rolled off the chair and there he lay like a bag of potatoes, utterly helpless. I like anything that God does. I like to watch God working. There he was with his great, fat body, and his head was working just as though it was on a swivel. Then to our joy he began speaking in tongues. I had my eyes on every bit of him and as I saw the condition of his legs I said, “Those legs can never carry that body.” Then I looked up and said, “Lord, tell me what to do.” The Holy Ghost is the executive of Jesus Christ and the Father. If you want to know the mind of God you must have the Holy Ghost to bring God’s latest thought to you and to tell you what to do. The Lord said to me, “Command him in My name to walk.” But I missed it, of course. I said to the people there, “Let’s see if we can lift him up.” But we could not lift him, he was like a ton weight. I cried, “Oh Lord, forgive me.” I repented of doing the wrong thing, and then the Lord said to me again, “Command him to walk.” I said to him, “Arise in the name of Jesus.” His legs were immediately strengthened. Did he walk? He ran all round. A month after this he walked ten miles and back. He has a Pentecostal work now. When the power of the Holy Ghost is present, things will happen.

There is more for us all yet, praise the Lord. This is only the beginning. So far we have only touched the fringe of things. There is so much more for us if we will but yield to God.

Do you want to receive the Spirit? “If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.” I am a father and I want to give my boys the very best. We human fathers are but finite, but our heavenly Father is infinite. There is no limit to the power and blessing He has laid up for them that love Him. Be filled with the Spirit.

Labels: 1923, Faith that Prevails, Pentecostal Evangel

Published in the Pentecostal Evangel, October 27, 1928.

“Forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that ye may excell to the edifying of the church.” 1 Corinthians 14:12.

This is the Word of God and it is most important that when we read it we do so with purpose of heart to obey its every precept. We have no right to open the Word of God carelessly or indifferently. I have no right to come to you with any message unless it is absolutely in the perfect order of God. I believe we are in order to consider further the subject so necessary to be informed about in these days when so many people are receiving the Baptism of the Holy Ghost, and then do not know which way to go.

We have a great need to-day. It is that we may be supplied with revelation according to the mind of the Lord, that we may be instructed by the mind of the Spirit, that we may he able rightly to divide the Word of Truth, that we may not be novices, seeing that the Spirit of the Lord has come to us in revelation. We ought to be alert to every touch of divine, spiritual illumination.

We should carefully consider what the apostle said to us, “Grieve not the Holy Spirit, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.” The sealing of the Spirit is very remarkable and I pray God that not one person may lose the divine inheritance that God has chosen for you, greater than you could choose if you had your mind ten times more largely exercised. God’s mind is greater than yours. His thought is higher than the heavens over you, so that you need not be afraid.

I have great love for my boys in England, great love for my daughter here; but it is nothing in comparison to God’s love toward us. God’s love is desirous that we should walk up and down the earth as His Son, clothed, filled, radiant, with fire beaming forth from the countenance, setting forth the power of the Spirit, so that the people jump into liberty.

But there is deplorable ignorance among those who have gifts. It is not right for you to think that because you have a gift you are to wave it before the people and try to get their minds upon that, because if you do you will be out of the will of God. Gifts and callings may be in the body without repentance, but remember that God calls you to account for the gifts being properly administered in a spiritual way after you have received it. It is not given to adorn you, but to sustain, build, edify and bless the church. When the church receives this edification and God ministers through that member, then all the members will rejoice together. God moves upon us as His offspring, as His choice, and fruit of the earth. He wants us to be decked in wonderful raiment, even as our Master.

His operations upon us may be painful but the wise saint will remember that among those whom God chastens it is he who is exercised hy that chastening to whom “it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness.” Therefore let Him do with you what seemeth Him good, for He has His hand upon you and He will not willingly take it off till He has performed the thing He knows you need. So if He comes with a fan, be ready for the fan. If He comes with chastisement, be ready for chastisement. If He comes with correction, be ready for correction. Whatever He wills to do, let Him do it and He will bring you to the land of plenty. Oh, it is worth the world to be under the power of the Holy Ghost!

If He chastens you not, if you sail placidly along without incident, without crosses, without persecutions, without trials, remember that “if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, thon are ye bastards and not sons.” Hebrews 12:8. Therefore “Examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith.” Never forget that Jesus said this word: “They that hear My voice, follow Me.” Jesus wants you all to follow, wants you to have a clear ring in your testimony.

You are eternally saved by the power of God. Do not be led astray by anything, do not take your feelings for your salvation, do not take anybody’s word for your salvation. Believe that God’s Word is true. What does it say?

“He that hath the Son hath life; he that hath not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth upon him.”

When your will becomes entirely the will of God, then you are clearly in the place where the Holy Ghost can make Jesus Lord in your life, Lord over your purchases, Lord over your selling, Lord over your eating and your drinking, your clothing and your choice of companionship.

“Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.” 1 Corinthians 12:4-7.

The variation of humanity is tremendous. Faces are different, so is physique. Your whole body may be so tempered that one particular gift would not suit you at all while it would suit another person.

So the Word of God deals here with varieties of gifts, meaning that these gifts perfectly meet the condition of people in this place. That is God’s plan. Not one person, it may be, would be led out to claim all gifts. Nevertheless, do not be afraid; the Scriptures are definite. Paul said that you need not come behind in any gift. God has for you wonderful things beyond what you have ever known. The Holy Ghost is so full of prophetic operation of divine power, that it is marvelous what may happen after the Holy Ghost comes.

How He loosed me! I am no good without the Holy Ghost. The power of the Holy Ghost loosed my language. I was like my mother. She had no language. If she began to tell a story, she couldn’t go through. My father would say, “Mother, you will have to begin again.” I was like that. I couldn’t tell a story, I was bound. Plenty of thought, but no language. But oh, after the Holy Ghost came!

When He came I had a great desire after gifts. So the Lord caused me to see that it is possible for every believer to live in such holy unction, such divine communion, such pressed-in measure by the power of the Spirit that every gift can he his.

But is there not a vast and appalling unconcern about possessing the gifts? Ask of a score of saints chosen at random from almost any assembly, “Have you any of the gifts of the Spirit?” and the answer will be, “No,” and given in a tone and with a manner that conveys the thought that the saint is not surprised at not having the gifts, that he doesn’t expect to have any of them, and does not expect to seek for them. Isn’t this terrible when this living Word exhorts us specifically to “Covet earnestly the best gifts”?

So in order that the gift might be everything and in evidence, we have to see that we cease to live excepting for His glory. He works with us, we work with Him, co-operative, working together. This is divine. Surely this is God’s plan.

God has brought you to the banquet and He wants to send you away full. We are in a place where God wants to give us visions. We are in a place where His great love is being bent over us with kisses. Oh, how lovely the kiss of Jesus, the expression of His love!

Oh come, let us seek Him for the best gifts, and let us strive to be wise and rightly divide the Word of Truth, giving it forth in power that the church may be edified and sinners may be saved.

Labels: 1928, Pentecostal Evangel

Published in the Pentecostal Evangel, June 16, 1923.

The most important thing, the one thing that counts, is to see that we are filled with the Holy Spirit, filled to overflowing. Anything less than this is displeasing to God. We are commanded by God to be filled with the Spirit, and in the measure you fall of this you are that far short of the plan of God. The Lord would have us moving on from faith to faith, from glory to glory, from fulness to overflowing. It is not good for us to be ever thinking of the past tense, but we should be moving on to the place where we dare believe God. He has declared that after the Holy Ghost is come upon us we shall have power. I believe there is an avalanche of power from God to be apprehended if we will but catch the vision.

Paul wrote at one time, “I will now come to visions and revelations.” God has put us in a place where He expects us to have His latest revelation, the revelation of that marvelous fact, CHRIST IN US, and what this really means. We can apprehend Christ fully only as we are filled and overflowing with the Spirit of God. Our only safeguard from dropping back into our natural mind from which we can never get anything, is to be filled and yet filled again with the Spirit of God and to be taken on to visions and revelations on a new line. The reason why I emphasize the importance of the fulness of the Holy Ghost is that I want to get you beyond all human plans and thoughts into the fulness of vision, into the full revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you want rest? It is in Jesus. Do you want to be saved from everything the devil is bringing up in these last times? Receive and continue in the fulness of the Holy Ghost, and He will be ever revealing to you that all you need for all times is in Christ Jesus your Lord.

I desire to emphasize the importance of the Spirit’s ministration and of the manifestation of the Spirit which is given to every man to profit withal. As you yield to the Spirit of the Lord He has power over your intellect, over your heart, and over your voice. The Holy Spirit has power to unveil Christ and to project the vision of Christ upon the canvas of your mind, and then He uses your tongue to glorify and magnify Him in a way that you could never do apart from the Spirit’s power.

Never say that when you are filled with the Holy Ghost you are “obliged” to do this or that. When people say that they are “obliged” to do this or that I know it is not the Spirit of God, but their own spirit moving them on to do that which is unseemly and unprofitable. Lots of people spoil meetings because they scream. If you want to do that kind of thing you had better get into some cellar. That is not to edification. I believe that, when the Spirit of God is upon you and moving you to speak as He gives utterance, it will always be to edification. But don’t spoil the prayer meeting because when you ought to stop you go on. Who spolls the prayer meeting? The man who starts in the Spirit and finishes in the flesh. Nothing is more lovely than prayer, but a prayer meeting is killed if you will go on and on in your own spirit when the Spirit of God is through with you. You say as you come from some meetings, “That was a lovely message if the preacher only had stopped half an hour before he did.” Learn to cease immediately [once] the unction of the Spirit lifts. The Holy Ghost is jealous. Your body is the temple, the office of the Holy Ghost, but He does not fill the temple for human glorification, but only for the glory of God. You have no license to continue beyond a “Thus saith the Lord.”

There is another side to this. God would have the assembly as free as possible, and you must not put your hand upon the working of the Spirit or it will surely bring trouble. You must be prepared to allow a certain amount of extravagance in young and newly baptized souls. You must remember that when you were brought into this life of the Spirit you had as many extravagances as anybody, but you have now become somewhat sobered down. It is a pity that some do get sobered down, for they are not where they were in the early days. We have to look to God for wisdom that we do not interfere or dampen the Spirit or quench the power of God when He is manifested in our meetings. If you want to have an assembly full of life you must have an assembly full of manifestation. Nobody will come if there is no manifestation. We need to look to God for special grace that we do not move back to looking at things from a natural viewpoint.

The preacher, after he loses his unction, should inwardly repent and get right with God and get the unction back. We are no good without the unction of the Spirit of God. If you are filled with the grace of God you will not be judging everybody in the assembly, you win rather be trusting everybody, you will not be frightened at what is being done, you will have a heart to believe an things, and to believe that though there may be some extravagances, the Spirit of God will take control of things and will see that the Lord Jesus Christ Himself is exalted, glorified, and revealed to hungry hearts that desire to know Him. The Lord would have us wise unto that which is good and simple concerning evll, free from distrust, entering into a divine likeness to Jesus, that dares believe that God Almighty will surely watch over all. Hallelujah!

The Holy Ghost is the One who magnifies the Lord Jesus Christ, the One who gives illumination of Him. If you are filled with the Holy Ghost, it is impossible to keep your tongue still. Talk about a dumb baptized soul! It is not to be found in the Scriptures or outside of the Scriptures. We are filled with the Spirit in order that we may magnify the Lord, and there should be no meeting in which the saints do not glorify, magnify, praise, and worship the Lord in Spirit and in truth.

I would like to give one word of caution, for fallure often comes through our not recognizing the fact that we are always in the body. We will need our bodies as long as we live. But our body is to he used and controlled by the Spirit of God. We are to present our bodies, holy and acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable service. Every member of our body must be so sanctified that it works in harmony with the Spirit of God. Our very eyes must be sanctified. God hates the winking of the eye. From the day that I read in the Proverbs what God had to say about the winking of the eye (Proverbs 6.13 and 10.10) I have never winked. I desire that my eyes may be so sanctified that they can always be used for the Lord. The Spirit of God will bring within us a compassion for souls that will be seen in our very eyes.

God has never changed the order of things that, first, there comes the natural, and then the spiritual. For instance, when it is on your heart to pray, you begin in the natural and your second word will probably be under the power of the Spirit. You begin and God will end. It is the same in giving forth utterances under the Spirit’s power. You feel the moving of the Spirit within and you begin to speak and the Spirit of God will give forth utterance. Thousands have missed wonderful blessings because they have not had faith to move out and begin in the natural, in faith that the Lord would take them into the realm of the supernatural. When you receive the Holy Ghost you receive God’s gift, in whom are all the gifts of the Spirit. Paul counsels Timothy to stir up the gift that was within. You have power to stir up God’s executive within you. The way you stir up the gift within you is by beginning in faith, and then He gives forth what is needed for the occasion. You would never begin unless you were full of God. When we yield to timidity and fear we simply yield to Satan. Satan whispers, “It is all self.” He is a liar. I have learned this: If the Spirit of God is stirring me up, I have no hesitation in beginning to speak in tongues, and the Spirit of God gives me utterance and gives me the interpretation. I find that every time I yield to the Lord on this line I get a divine touch, I get a leading thought from the Spirit of God, and the meeting is moved up on the line of faith.

You attend a meeting in faith, believing that the Lord is going to meet you there. But perhaps the evangelist is not in harmony with God. The people in the assembly are not getting what God wants. The Lord knows it. He knows His people are hungry. What happens? He will take perhaps the smallest vessel and put His power upon them. As they yield to the Spirit they break forth in a tongue. Another yields to the Spirit and there comes forth the interpretation. The Lord’s church has to be fed, and the Lord will take this means of speaking to His people. Pentecostal people cannot be satisfied with the natural message. They are in touch with heavenly things and cannot be satisfied with anything less. They feel when there is something lacking in a meeting, and they look to God and He supplies that which is lacking.

When a man is filled with the Spirit he has no conception of what he has. We are so limited in our conception of what we have received. The only way we can know the power that has been given is through the ministration and manifestation of the Spirit of God. Do you think that Peter and John knew what they had when they went up to the temple to pray? They were limited in thought, and limited in their expression. The nearer we get to God the more conscious we are of the poverty of the human, and we cry with Isaiah, “I am undone, I am unclean.” But the Lord will bring the precious blood and the flaming coals for cleansing and refining and send us out to labor for Him empowered by His Spirit.

God has sent forth this outpouring that we may all be brought into a revelation of our sonship—that we are sons of God, men of power, that we are to be like the Lord Jesus Christ, that we are to have the powers of sonship, the power to lay hold of that which is weak and to quicken it. The Baptism of the Spirit is to make us sons of God with power. We will be conscious of our human limits, but we will not limit the Holy One who has come to dwell within. We must believe that since the Holy Ghost has come upon us we are indeed sons of God with power. Never say that “you can’t.” All things are possible to them that believe. Launch out into the deep and believe that God has His all for you, and that you can do all things through Him who strengthens you.

Peter and John knew that they had been in the upper room, they had felt the glory, they had been given divine utterances. They had seen conviction on the people. They knew that they had come into a wonderful thing. They knew that what they had would be ever increasing and that it would be ever needful to cry, “Enlarge the vessel that the Holy Ghost may have more room within.” They knew that all the old things were moved away and they had entered into an increasing and ever increasing knowledge of God, and that it was their Master’s wish that they should be filled with the Spirit of God and with power every day and every hour. The secret of power is the unveiling of Christ, the all-powerful One within, the revelation of God who comes to abide within us. As they looked upon the crippled man at the Beautiful Gate they were filled with compassion. They were prompted by the Spirit to stop and speak with him. They said to the lame man, “Look on us.” It was God’s plan that the man should open his eyes with expectation. Peter said, “Of silver and gold we have none. But we have something and we will give it to you. We don’t know what it is, but we give it to you. It is all in the name of Jesus.” And then began the ministry of God. You begin in faith and you see what will happen. It is bidden from us at the beginning, but as we have faith in God He will come forth. The coming forth of the power is not of us but of God. There is no limit to what He will do. It is all in a nutshell as you believe God. And so Peter said, “Such as I have I give to thee: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.” And the man who had been in that way for forty years stood up, and began to leap, and entered into the temple walking and leaping and praising God.

“For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom.” I want you to keep in mind the importance of never expecting the gifts of the Spirit apart from the power of the Spirit. In coveting the best gifts, covet to be so full of God and His glory that the gifts in manifestation will always glorify Him. We do not know all and we cannot know all that can be brought forth in the manifestation of the word of wisdom. One word of wisdom from God, one flashlight on the Word of God, is sufficient to save us from a thousand pitfalls. People have bullt without a word from God, they have bought things without a word from God, and they have been ensnared. They have lacked that word of wisdom which will bring them into God’s plan for their lives. I have been in many places where I have needed a word of wisdom from God and this has heen vouchsafed.

I will give you one instance. There is one thing I am very grateful to the Lord for, and that is that He has given me grace not to have a desire for money. The love of money is a great hindrance to many; and many a man is crippled in his ministry because he lets his heart run after financial matters. I was walking out one day when I met a godly man who lived opposite me and he said, “My wife and I have been talking together about selling our house and we feel constrained to sell it to you.” As we talked together he persuaded me to buy his place, and before we said good-by I told him that I would take it. We always make big mistakes when we are in a hurry. I told my wife what I had promised, and she said, “How will you manage it?” I told her that I had managed things so far, but I did not know how I was going to get through this. I somehow knew that I was out of divine order. But when a fellow gets out of divine order it seems that the last person he goes to is God. I was relying on an architect to help me, but that scheme fell through. I turned to my relations and I certainly had a wet shirt as one after another turned me down. I tried my friends and managed no better. My wife said to me, “Thou hast never been to God yet.” What could I do?

I have a certain place in our house where I go to pray. I have been there very often. As I went I said, “Lord, if You will get me out of this scrape, I will never trouble Thee on this line again.” As I waited on the Lord He just gave me one word. It seemed a ridiculous thing, but it was the wisest counsel. There is divine wisdom in every word He speaks. I came down to my wife, saying, “What do you think? The Lord has told me to go to Brother Webster.” I said, “It seems very ridiculous, for he is one of the poorest men I know.” He was the poorest man I knew, but he was also the richest man I knew, for he knew God. My wife said, “Do what God says, and it will be right.”

I went off at once to see him, and he said as he greeted me, “Smith, what brings you so early?” I answered, “The word of God.” I said to him, “About three weeks ago I promised to buy a house of a man, and I am short 100 pounds.* I have tried to get this money, but somehow I seem to have missed God.” “How is it,” he asked, “that you have come to me only now?” I answered, “Because I went to the Lord about it only last night.” “Well,” he said, “it is a strange thing; three weeks ago I had 100 pounds. For years I have heen putting money into a co-operative system and three weeks ago I had to go and draw 100 pounds out. I hid it under the mattress. Come with me and you shall have it. Take it. I hope it will bring as great a blessing to you as it has been a trouble to me.” I had had a word from God, and all my troubles were cnded. This has been multiplied in a hundred ways since that time. If I had been walking along filled with the Holy Ghost, I would not have bought that house and would not have had all that strain. I believe the Lord wants to loose us from things of earth. But I am ever grateful for that word from God. There have been times in my life when I have been in a great crisis and under a great weight of intercession. I have gone to the meeting without the knowledge of what I would say, but somehow or other God would vouchsafe the coming forth under the power of the Spirit of some word of wisdom, just what some souls in that meeting needed. As we look to God His mind will he made known, and His revelation and His word of wisdom will be forthcoming.

*£100 in 1923 is equivalent to $32,000 in 2008.

Labels: 1923, Pentecostal Evangel