Published in the Pentecostal Evangel, August 17, 1940.

These are the last days; the days of the falling away. These are days when Satan is having a great deal of power. But we must keep in mind that Satan has no power only as he is allowed.

It is a great thing to know that God is loosing you from the world, loosing you from a thousand things. You must seek to have the mind of God on all things. If you don’t, you will stop His working. I had to learn that as I was on the water en route to Australia. We stopped at a place called Aden, where they were selling all kinds of ware. Among other things were some beautiful rugs arid ostrich feathers in great quantities. There was a gentleman in “first class” who wanted feathers. He bought one lot and the next lot put up was too big; he did not want so many. He said to me, “Will you join me?” I knew I did not want feathers for I had no room or use for them and wouldn’t know what to do with them if I got them. However, he pleaded with me to join him. I perceived it was the Spirit as clearly as anything and I said, “Yes, I will.” So the feathers were knocked down for fifteen dollars. Then I found the man had no money on him. He had plenty in his cabin. I perceived it was the Spirit again, so it fell to my lot to pay for the feathers. He said to me, “I will get the money and give it to one of the stewards.” I replied: “No, that is not business. I am known all over the ship. You seek me out.”

The man came and brought the money. I said, “God wants me to talk to you. Now sit down.” So he sat down and in ten minutes’ time the whole of his life was unhinged, unraveled, broken up, so broken that like a big baby he wept and cried for salvation. It was “feathers” that did it. But you know we shall never know the mind of God till we learn to know the voice of God. The striking thing about Moses is that it took him forty years to learn human wisdom, forty years to know his helplessness, and forty years to live in the power of God. One hundred and twenty years it took to teach that man, and sometimes it seems to me it will take many years to bring us just where we can tell the voice of God, the leadings of God, and all His will concerning us.

I see that all revelation, all illumination, everything that God had in Christ was to be brought forth into perfect light that we might be able to live the same, produce the same, and be in every activity sons of God with power. It must be so. We must not limit the Holy One. And we must clearly see that God brought us forth to make us supernatural, that we might be changed all the time on the line of the supernatural, that we may every day live so in the Spirit, that all of the revelations of God are just like a canvas thrown before our eyes, on which we see clearly step by step all the divine will of God.

Any assembly that puts its hand upon the working of the Spirit will surely dry up. The assembly must be as free in the Spirit as possible, and you must allow a certain amount of extravagance when people are getting through to God. Unless we are very wise, we can easily interfere and quench the power of God which is upon us. It is an evident fact that one man in a meeting, filled with unbelief, can make a place for the devil to have a seat. And it is very true, that if we are not careful we may quench the Spirit of some person who is innocent but incapable of helping himself. “And ye that are strong must bear the infirmities of the weak.” If you want an assembly full of life you must have one in which the Spirit of God is manifested. And in order to keep at the boiling pitch of that blessed incarnation of the Spirit, you must be as simple as babies; you must be as harmless as doves and as wise as serpents. I always ask God for a leading of grace. It takes grace to be in a meeting because it is so easy if you are not careful, to get on the natural side. The man who is a preacher, if he has lost the unction, will be well repaid if he will repent and get right with God and get the unction back. It never pays us to be less than always spiritual, and we must have a divine language and the language must be of God. Beloved, if you come into real perfect line with the grace of God, one thing will certainly take place in your life. You will change from that old position of the world’s line where you were judging everybody; and where you were not trusting anyone, and come into a place where you will have a heart that will believe all things; a heart that under no circumstances reviles again when you are reviled. I know many of you think many times before you speak once. Here is a great word: “For your obedience is come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore on your behalf; but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.” Innocent. No inward corruption or defilement, that is full of distrusts, but just a holy, divine likeness of Jesus that dares believe that God Almighty will surely watch over all. Hallelujah! “There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For He shall give His angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways.” The child of God who is rocked in the bosom of the Father has the sweetest touch of heaven, and the honey of the Word is always in it.

If the saints only knew how precious they are in the sight of God they would scarcely be able to sleep for thinking of His watchful, loving care. Oh, He is a precious Jesus! He is a lovely Saviour! He is divine in all His attitude toward us, and makes our hearts to burn. There is nothing like it. “Oh,” they said on the road to Emmaus, “did not our hearts burn within us as He walked with us and talked with us?” Oh beloved, it must be so today.

Always keep in your mind the fact that the Holy Ghost must bring manifestation. We must understand that the Holy Ghost is breath, the Holy Ghost is Person, and it is the most marvelous thing to me to know that this Holy Ghost power can be in every part of your body. You can feel it from the crown of your head to the soles of your feet. Oh, it is lovely to be burning all over with the Holy Ghost! And when that takes place there is nothing but the operation of the tongue that must give forth the glory and the praise.

You must be in the place of magnifying the Lord. The Holy Ghost is the great Magnifier of Jesus, the great Illuminator of Jesus. And so after the Holy Ghost comes in it is impossible to keep your tongue still. Why, you would burst if you didn’t give Him utterance. Talk about a dumb baptized soul? Such a person is not to be found in the Scriptures, You will find that when you speak unto God in the new tongue He gives you, you enter into a close communion with Him hitherto never experienced. Talk about preaching! I would like to know how it will be possible for all the people filled with the Holy Ghost to stop preaching. Even the sons and daughters must prophesy. After the Holy Ghost comes in a man is in a new order in God. And you will find it so real that you will want to sing, talk, laugh, and shout. We are in a strange place when the Holy Ghost comes in.

If the incoming of the Spirit is lovely, what must be the onflow? The incoming is only to be an onflow. I am very interested in scenery. When I was in Switzerland I wouldn’t be satisfied till I went to the top of the mountain, though I like the valleys also. On the summit of the mountain the sun beats on the snow and sends the water trickling down the mountains right through to the meadows. Go there and see if you can stop it. Just so in the spiritual. God begins with the divine flow of His eternal power which is the Holy Ghost, and you cannot stop it.

We must always clearly see that the Baptism with the Spirit must make us ministering spirits.

Peter and John had been baptized only a short time. Did they know what they had? No I defy you to know what you have. No one knows what he has in the Baptism with the Holy Ghost. You have no conception of it. You cannot measure it by any human standards. It is greater than any man has any idea of, and consequently those two disciples had no idea what they had. For the first time after they were baptized in the Holy Ghost they came down to the Gate Beautiful. There they saw the man sitting who for forty years had been lame. What was the first thing after they saw him? Ministration. What was the second? Operation. What was the third? Manifestation, of course. It could not be otherwise. You will always find that this order in the Scripture will be carried out in everybody.

I clearly see that we ought to have spiritual giants in the earth, mighty in apprehension, amazing in activity, always having a wonderful report because of their activity in faith. I find instead that there are many people who perhaps have better discernment than you, better knowledge of the Word than you, but they have failed to put it into practice, so these gifts lie dormant. I am here to help you to begin on the sea of life with mighty acts in the power of God through the gifts of the Spirit. You will find that this which I am speaking on is out of knowledge derived from a wonderful experience in many lands. The man who is filled with the Holy Ghost is always acting. You read the first verse of the Acts of the Apostles, “Jesus began both to do and teach.” He began to do first, and so must we.

Beloved, we must see that the Baptism with the Holy Ghost is an activity with an outward manifestation, When I was in Norway God was mightily moving there, though I had to talk by interpretation. However, God always worked in a wonderful way. One day we met a man who stopped the three men I was with, one being the interpreter. I was walking on but I saw he was in a dilemma so I turned back, and said to the interpreter, “What is the trouble?” “This man” he said, “is so full of neuralgia that he is almost blind and he is in a terrible state.” As soon as ever they finished the conversation I said to the spirit that was afflicting him, “Come out of him in the name of Jesus.” And the man said, “It is all gone! It is all gone! I am free.” Ah, brothers, we have no conception of what God has for us!

I will tell you what happened in Sydney, Australia, A man with a stick passed a friend and me. He had to get down and then twist over, and the tortures of his face made a deep impression on my soul. I asked myself, “Is it right to pass this man?” So I said to my friend, “There is a man in awful distress and I cannot go further, I must speak to him.” I went over to this man and said to him, “You seem to be in great trouble.” “Yes,” he said, “I am no goad and never will be.” I said, “You see that hotel. Be in front of that door in five minutes and I will pray for you, and you shall be as straight as any man in this place.” This is on the line of activity in the faith of Jesus. I came back after paying a bill, and he was there. I will never forget him wondering if he was going to be trapped, or what was up that a man should stop him in the street and tell him he should be made straight. I had said it, so it must be. If you say anything you must stand with God to make it so. Never say anything for bravado, without you have the right to say it. Always be sure of your ground, and that you are honoring God. If there is anything about it to make you anything, it will bring you sorrow. Your whole ministry will have to be on the line of grace and blessing. We helped him up the two steps, passed him through to the elevator and took him upstairs. It seemed difficult to get him from the elevator to my bedroom, as though Satan was making the last stroke for his life, but we got him there. Then in five minutes’ time this man walked out of that bedroom as straight as any man in this place, He walked perfectly and declared he hadn’t a pain in his body.

Oh brother, it is ministration, it is operation, it is manifestation! Those are three of the leading principles of the Baptism with the Holy Ghost. And we must see to it that God is producing these three through us.

The Bible is the Word of God, it has the truths and whatever people may say of them they stand stationary, unmovable. Not one jot or tittle shall fail of all His good promises. His word will came forth. In heaven it is settled, on earth it must be made manifest that He is the God of everlasting power.

God wants manifestation and He wants His glory to be seen. He wants us all to be filled with that line of thought that He can look upon us and delight in us subduing the world unto Him. And so you are going to miss a great deal if you don’t begin to act. But once you begin to act in the order of God, you will find that God establishes your faith and from that day starts you on the line of the promises. When will you begin?

In a place in England I was dealing on the lines of faith and what would take place if we believed God. Many things happened. But when I got away it appeared one man who worked in the colliery had heard me. He was in trouble with a stiff knee. He said to his wife, “I cannot help but think every day that that message of Wigglesworth’s was to stir us to do something. I cannot get away from it. All the men in the pit know how I walk with a stiff knee, and you know how you have wrapped it around with yards of flannel. Well, I am going to act. You have to be the congregation.” He got his wife in front of him, “I am going to act and do just like Wigglesworth did.” He got hold of his leg unmercifully saying, “Come out, you devils, came out! In the name of Jesus. Now Jesus help me. Come out you devils, come out.” Then he said, “Wife they are gone! Wife, they are gone. This is too good. I am going to act now.” So he went to his place of worship and all the collier boys were there. It was a prayer meeting. As he told them this story these men became delighted. They said, “Jack, come over here and help me.” And Jack went. As soon as he was through in one home he was invited to another, loosing these people of the pains they had gotten in the colliery.

Ah, brothers and sisters, we have no idea what God. has for us if we will only begin! But oh, the grace we need! We may make a mishap. If you do it outside of Him, if you do it for yourself, and if you want to be some one, it will be a failure. We shall only be able to do well as we do it in the name of Jesus. Oh the love that God’s Son can put into us if we are only humble enough, weak enough, and helpless enough to know that except He does it, it will not be done! “What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive and ye shall have them.”

Live in the Spirit, walk in the Spirit, walk in the communion of the Spirit, talk with God. All leadings of the divine order are for you. I pray that if there are any who have turned to their own way and have made God second, they will come to repentance on all lines. Separate yourself from every earthly touch and touch ideals. And God will bring you to an end of yourself. Begin with God this moment.

Labels: 1940, Pentecostal Evangel

From Confidence, April/June 1924.

The Lord Jesus came to bring back to us what was forfeited in the Garden. Adam and Eve were there—free from sin and disease—and first sin came, then disease, and then death came after, and people want to say it is not so! But I tell you, “Get the Devil out of you, and you will have a different body. Get disease out, and you will get the Devil out.”

Jesus rebuked sickness, and it went, and so I want to bring you to a place where you will see that you are healed. You must give God your life; you must see that sickness has to go and God has to come in; that your lives have to be clean, and God will keep you holy; that you have to walk before God, and He will make you perfect, for God says, “Without holiness no man shall see Him,” and as we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin.

I want to say to you believers that there is a very blessed place for you to attain to, and the place where God wants you is a place of victory. When the Spirit of the Lord comes into your life it must be victory. The disciples, before they received the Holy Ghost, were always in bondage. Jesus said to them one day, just before the Crucifixion, “One of you shall betray Me,” and they were so conscious of their inability and their human depravity and helplessness that they said one to another, “Is it I?” And then Peter was ashamed that he had taken that stand, and he rose up and said, “Though all men deny Thee, yet will not I.” And likewise the others rose and declared that neither would they; but they—every one—did leave Him. But, beloved, after they received the power of the enduement of the Holy Ghost upon them, if you remember, they were made like lions to meet any difficulty. They were made to stand any test, and these men that failed before the Crucifixion, when the power of God fell upon them in the upper room, they came out in front of all those people who were gathered together and accused them of crucifying the Lord of Glory. They were bold. What had made them so? I will tell you. Purity is bold. Take, for instance, a little child. It will gaze straight into your eyes for as long as you like, without winking once. The more pure, the more bold; and I tell you God wants to bring us into that Divine purity of heart and life—that holy boldness. Not officiousness; not swelled-headedness; not self-righteousness; but a pure, holy, Divine appointment by One Who will come in and live with you, defying the powers of Satan, and standing you in a place of victory—overcoming the world.

You never inherited that from the flesh. That is a gift of God, by the Spirit, to all who obey. And so, none can say they wish they were overcomers, but that they have failed and failed until they have no hope. Brother, God can make YOU an overcomer. When the Spirit of God comes into your body He will transform you, He will quicken you. Oh, there is a life in the Spirit which makes you free from the law of sin and death, and there is an audacity about it—also there is a personality about it. It is the personality of the Deity. It is God in you.

I tell you that God is able to so transform and change and bring you into order by the Spirit that you can become a new creation after God’s order. There is no such thing as defeat for the believer. Without the Cross, without Christ’s righteousness, without the new birth, without the indwelling Christ, without this Divine incoming of God, I see myself a failure. But God, the Holy Ghost, can come in and take our place till we are renewed in righteousness—made the children of God. Nay, verily, the Sons of God.

Do you think that God would make you to be a failure? God has never made man to be a failure. He made man to be a “Son”; to walk about the earth in power; and so when I look at you I know that there is a capability that can be put into you which has the capacity of controlling and bringing everything into subjection. Yes, there is the capacity of the power of Christ to dwell in you, to bring every evil thing under you till you can put your feet upon it, and be master over the flesh and the devil; till within you there is nothing rises except that which will magnify and glorify the Lord; and God wants me to show you these disciples, who were so frail, like you and me, that we, too, may now be filled with God, and become pioneers of this wonderful truth I am preaching. Here we see Peter, frail, helpless, and, at every turn of the tide, a failure. And God filled that man with the Spirit of His righteousness, till he went up and down, bold as a lion, and when he came to death—even crucifixion—he counted himself unworthy of being crucified like his Lord, and asked that his murderers would put him head downwards on the tree. There was a deep submissiveness, and a power that was greater than all flesh. Peter had changed into the power of God.

The Scriptures do not tell two stories. They tell the truth. I want you to know the truth, and the truth will set you free. What is truth? Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” “He that believeth on Me, as the Scriptures have said, out of his innermost being shall flow forth rivers of living water.” This He spake of the Spirit that should be given them after Jesus was glorified. I do not find anything in the Bible but holiness, and nothing in the world but worldliness. Therefore if I live in the world I shall become worldly; but, on the other hand, if I live in the Bible, I shall become holy. This is the truth, and the truth will set you free. The power of God can remodel you. He can make you hate sin and love righteousness. He can take away bitterness and hatred and covetousness and malice, and can so consecrate you by His power, through His blood, that you are made pure—every bit holy. Pure in mind, heart and actions—pure, right through. God has given me the way of life, and I want to give it to you, as though this were the last day I had to live. Jesus is the best there is for you, and you can each take Him away with you. God gave His Son to be the propitiation for your sins, and not only so, but also for the sins of the whole world.

Jesus came to make us free from sin—free from disease and pain. When I see any who are diseased and in pain, I have great compassion for them, and when I lay my hands upon them, I know God means men to be so filled with Him that the power of sin shall have no effect upon them, and they shall go forth, as I am doing, to help the needy, sick, and affiicted. But what is the main thing? To preach the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Jesus came to do this. John came preaching repentance. The disciples began by preaching repentance towards God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and I tell you, beloved, if you have really been changed by God, there is a repentance in your heart never to be repented of.

Through the revelation of the Word of God we find that Divine healing is solely for the glory of God, and salvation is to make you to know that now you have to be inhabited by another, even God, and you have to walk with God in newness of life.

Labels: 1924, Confidence

Published in the Pentecostal Evangel, March 20, 1926.

Brother Smith Wigglesworth writes, “After seven weeks in Switzerland, I had a call into Italy to visit some sick one belonging to two of the people who were baptized in my first visit to Switzerland five years ago. After a week of much blessing, they came with me to Florence, Rome and Naples. I had the joy of my life preaching in Rome. I prayed much about this, that God would provide me with an interpreter, and the first man I met in Rome was a man that was in my meetings in San Jose, an Italian, and he really did good work for me. We had a great meeting that reminded me of a red-hot Welsh revival. I had a great crowd of Italians crying to God for mercy, many fine men among them, and after this, many seeking the Baptism. Quite a number received and others were under the power. A number were healed. They now want me to go back to them again. I was given to understand that there are many Pentecostal meetings in Italy.” Brother Wigglesworth is now on his way to Ceylon and is looking forward to working with the missionaries in Ceylon and India during the next few months. Pray for him.

Labels: 1926, Pentecostal Evangel