Published in the Pentecostal Evangel, January 9, 1926.

“And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.” As we look back over our spiritual careers we always see that there has been a good deal of our own day, and that the end or our day was the beginning of God’s day. We cannot enter into the deep things of God until we are free from our own ideas and ways.

Jacob! The name means supplanter, but when Jacob came to the end of his way God had a way. How slow we are to see that God has a better way for each one of us. Beloved, the glory is never so wonderful as when God has His way, when we are helpless and throw down our sword and give up our authority to another. Jacob was a great worker and he would go through any hardship if he could only have his way. In many things he had his way, and how gloriously God preserved him from calamity. There is a way that seems good, but the end of that way is death: but God has His very best for each of His own, a higher standard for us than we have yet attained. The best thing is for God’s plan and purpose to he fulfilled in our lives, and that we shall be delivered from the way our own natural hearts might lead us.

Jacob and his mother had a plan to secure the blessing from Isaac. But how inglorious was the fulfilling of this carnal plan. The result of it was that Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing where with his father blessed him, and Esau said in his heart, “The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob.” Our own plans lead us so frequently into disaster. Jacob had to flee from the land. But how gracious the Lord was to that fleeing fugitive. God planned the ladder and the angels. Our God is so gracious that He refused to have His plans of grace frustrated by the carnal workings of Jacob’s mind; and so He revealed Himself to Jacob, saying to him, “I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into the land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.” It is the goodness of the Lord that leads to repentance, and I believe that if ever Jacob was conscious of his own meanness it was when God revealed His wonderful goodness to him.

Many things may happen in our lives to show us how depraved we are by nature, but when the veil is lifted we see how merciful and tender God is. His tender compassion is over us all the time. Oh how wonderful it is to be where God is! Since the time that Jacob had had the revelation of the ladder and the angels he had had twenty-one years of wandering, fighting and struggling. But God had been faithful to His promise all these years. Listen to Jacob’s testimony to his wives. “Your father hath deceived me and changed my wages ten times, but God suffered him not to hurt me.” And his further testimony to his father-in-law, “Except the God of my father had been with me, thou hadst sent me away empty. God hath seen my affliction and the labor of my hands.”

Now that Jacob was returning to the land of his birth, his heart was full of fear. If ever he needed the Lord it was just at this time. He wanted to be alone with God. Oh to be left alone! Alone with God! In the context we read that all that he had, had gone on. His wives had gone on, his children had gone on, his sheep and oxen had gone on, his camels and asses had gone on, all had gone on. He was alone. You will often find that you are alone. Whether you like it or not. your wife will go on, your children will go on, your cattle will go on. “And Jacob was left alone, and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.” The Lord saw Jacab’s need and came down and met with him. He it was who wrestled with the supplanter, breaking him, changing him, transforming him. Jacob was brought to a place of absolute weakness. He knew that his brother Esau had power to take away all that he had and execute vengeance upon him. He knew that there was only one kind of deliverance. No one could deliver him but God. And there alone, lean in soul and impoverished in spirit he met with God. Oh we need to get alone with God, we need to be broken, we need to he changed, we need to he transformed. And when we meet with God, when He interposes, all care and strife is at an end. When He reveals Himself, all is plain, and the plan of the Holy Ghost is so clear. Get alone with God and receive the revelation of His infinite grace and of His wonderful purposes and plans for your life.

Jacob was left alone. The picture is so real to me. Alone! Alone! Alone! He began to think. He would think about the ladder and the angels. I think as he began to pray his tongue would cleave to the roof of his mouth. Jacob had to get rid of a lot of things. It had been all Jacob! Jacob! Jacob! It would all be so plain to him there alone with God. If you get alone with God, what a place of revelation! What a revelation of self! What a revelation of the provision at Calvary! It is here that we get the revelation of a life crucified with Christ, transformed by grace, and empowered by the Spirit!

Hour after hour passed. Oh that we might spend all nights alone with God! We stay too long with our relations, our camels and sheep. We are occupied too much with the things of time and sense. We need the presence of God. We need to give God time if we are to receive new revelations from Him. We need to get past all the thoughts of earthly matters that crowd in so rapidly. We need to give God time to deal with us. It is only after He has dealt with us as He dealt with Jacob that we can have power with Him and prevail.

Jacob was not dry-eyed that night. Hosea tells us, “He wept and made supplication.” He knew he had been a disappointment to the Lord, he had heen a groveller. But in the revelation that he received as he wrestled that night, he saw the possibility of being transformed from a supplanter to become a prince with God. The testing hour came when at break of day the angel, who was none other than the Lord of hosts, said to him, “Let me go, for the day breaketh.” This is where we so often fail. Jacob knew that if God went without blessing him, Esau could not be met. You cannot meet the terrible things that await you in the world unless you secure the blessing of God. If you are left alone—alone with God—and you cannot get to a place of victory, it is a terrible time.

You must never let go, whatever you are seeking—fresh revelation, light on the path, some particular need—never let go. Victory is ours if we are earnest enough. If darkness covers you, if it is a fresh revelation you need, or your mind needs relef, or there are problems that you know you cannot solve, lay hold of God and declare, “I will not let Thee go, except thou bless me.”

In wrestling, the strength is in the neck, the breast and the thigh; but your greatest strength is in your thigh. And so the Lord touched Jacob’s thigh. With his strength gone, surely defeat is certain. What did Jacob do? He hung on. God means to have a people who are broken in themselves, for divine power can only come when there is an end of self-sufficiency. When you are broken, still hold fast. If we let go we shall fall short.

Jacob cried, “I will not let thee go except thou bless me.” And God blessed him and declared, “Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel, for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.” Now a new order is beginning. The old supplanter has passed away, there is a new creation, and Jacob the supplanter is transformed to Israel the prince. God has come into his life. Henceforth he is a soldier of God and there is victory. When God comes into your life you will find Him enough for all time and all eternity. As Israel comes forth the sun rises upon him and he has power over all the things of the world, and power over Esau. Read how God blessed and honored him. Esau meets him. There is no fighting now, but a blessed reconciliation. They kissed each other. “When a man’s ways please the Lord, He maketh his enemies to be at peace with him.” “But what about all these cattle, Jacob?” “Oh, that’s a present.” “Oh, I have plenty; I don’t want your cattle. What a joy it is to see your face again!” What a wonderful change! The material things don’t count for much after a night of revelation. Who wrought this change? God.

Could Jacob hold on to the Lord? Can you hold God? Yes, you can. Sincerity can hold Him, dependence can hold Him, weakness can hold Him. It is when you are weak that you are strong. But I will tell you what cannot hold Him. Self-righteousness cannot hold Him, pride cannot hold Him, presumption cannot hold Him, highmindedness cannot hold Him; thinking you are something when you are nothing puffed up in your own imagination. But sincerity can hold Him. You can hold Him in the closet, in the prayer meeting, everywhere. If you become lukewarm, instead of being at white-heat, you become a disappointment to God.

There may be a thought sometimes that He has left you. Oh no. He has promised never to leave us nor forsake us. He had promised not to leave Jacob and He did not fail in His promise. He has promised not to leave us and He will not fail. We need to get alone with God, to have a real meeting with God. He will bring us down. He will change our names. He will transform us from Jacob to Israel. But we need to lay hold of Him. Jacob held on and clung to Him until the blessing came. If God does not help me I am no good for this world’s need. I am no longer salt. It is so easy to lose the savor. But as we get alone with God and meet with Him and He gives us His blessing, He resalts us, He empowers us, He brings us to brokenness, and moves us into the orbit of His own perfect will. God’s Spirit was working in Jacob to bring him to a place of helplessness. We need to be brought to a place of helplessness where we do not lean upon our own natural understanding. But when we are brought to a state of helplessness it is then that we need the Lord. It is then that we need His power, and we need to lay hold on Him and not let Him go until our whole being is surging with the mighty power of God, until we are filled with the mighty faith of God, and His very nature is implanted in us.

“And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. And as he passed over Peniel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh.” You may ask, “What is the use of a lame man?” It is those who have seen the face of God and have heen broken by Him that can meet the forces of the enemy and break down the bulwarks of Satan’s kingdom. It is the lame that take the prey. Jacob was brought to a place of dependence upon God. It is when we have the revelation of Calvary, and see that we ourselves are good for nothing, and that God counts us as good for nothing, and has crucified our old natures upon that rugged cross, and has made the cross of Christ real in our lives so that we are broken, that we can come forth to a life of dependence upon the power of the Holy Ghost. Henceforth we are nothing without Him, we are absolutely dependent upon Him. I am absolutely nothing without the power and unction of the Holy Ghost. Oh for a life of absolute dependence! It is only a life of dependence that is a life of power. If you are not there, get alone with God, let Him change and transform you, and never let Him go until He blesses you and makes you an Israel, a prince with God.

Labels: 1926, Pentecostal Evangel

Published in the Pentecostal Evangel, October 25, 1924.

Read Hebrews 11. 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 is a supernatural power. In the Word of God is the breath, the nature, and the power of the living God, and His power works in every person who dares to believe His Word. There is life through the power of it; and as we receive the Word in faith we receive the nature of God Himself. 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 right into touch with a living force, a power which changes nature into grace, a power that makes dead things live, a power which is of God, which will be manifested in our flesh. This power has come forth with its glory to transform us by divine act into sons of God, to make us like unto THE Son of God, by the Spirit of God who moves us on from grace to grace and from glory to glory as our faith rests in thIs living Word.

It is important that we have a foundation truth, something greater than ourselves, on which to rest. In Hebrews 12 we read, “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” Jesus is our life and He is the power of our life. We see in the 5th chapter of Acts that as soon as Peter was let out of prison the word of God came, “Go speak... all the words of this life.” There is only one Book that has life. In this Word we find Him who came that we might have life and have it more abundantly, and by faith this life is imparted to us. When we come into this life by divine faith (and we must realize that it is by grace we are saved through faith, and that it is not of ourselves, but is the gift of God), we become partakers of this life. This Word is greater than anything else. There is no darkness at all in it. Anyone who dwells in this Word is able under all circumstances to say that he is willing to come to the light that his deeds may be made manifest. But outside of this Word is darkness, and the manifestations of darkness will never come to the light because their deeds are evil. But the moment we are saved by the power of the Word of God we love the light, the truth. The inexpressible divine power, force, passion, and fire that we receive is of God. 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 would not believe in anything I could not handle and see,” Everything you can handle and see is temporary and will perish with the using. But the things not seen are eternal and will not fade away. Are you dealing with tangible things or with the things which are eternal, the things that are facts, that are made real to faith? 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 impact of life, of power, of vision and of truth more real than anyone can know who lives in the realm of the tangible. God manifests Himself to the person who dares to believe.

But there is something more beautiful than that. As we receive divine life in the new birth we receive a nature that delights to do the will of God. As we believe the Word of God a well of water springs up within our heart. A spring is always better than a pump. But I know that a spring is apt to be outclassed when we get the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. It was a spring to the woman at the well, but with 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 Father has and all the Son desires; and we should be so in the Spirit that God can cause us to move with His authority and reign by His divine ability.

I thank God He baptizes with the Holy Ghost. I know He did it for me because they heard me speak in tongues and then I heard myself. That was a scriptural work and I don’t want anything else, because I must be the epistle of God. There must be emanating through my body a whole epistle of the life, of the power, and of the resurrection of my Lord Jesus, There are wonderful things happening through this divine union with God Himself.

“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 this divine Person, this Word, this Son, God made all things. Notice that it says that He made the worlds by this Person and made them out of the things that were not there. Everything we see was made by this divine Son. I want you to see that as you receive the Son of God, and as Christ dwells in your heart by faith, there is a 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. By faith, if we receive and accept His Son, God brings us into sonship, and not only into sonship but into joint-heirship, into sharing together with Him all that the Son possesses.

I am more and more convinced every day I live that very few who are saved by the grace of God have a 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, “My brother, God pressed my wife from time to time to get me to preach and I promised her I would preach. I used to labor hard for a week to get something up, then give out the text and sit down and say, ‘I am done.’ Oh brother, I have given up getting things up. They all come down. And the sermons that come down stop down, then go back, because the Word of God says His word shall not return unto Him void. But if you get anything up it will not stop up very long, and when it goes down it takes you down with it.”

The sons of God are made manifest in this present earth to destroy the power of the devil. To be saved by the power of God is to be brought from the realm of the ordinary into the extraordinary, from the natural into the divine.

Do you remember the day when the Lord laid His hands on you? You say, “I could not 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 fulness of God. You do not have to say, “I tell you it was wonderful when I was baptized with the Holy Ghost.” If you have to look back to the past to make me know you are baptized, then you are backslidden. If the beginning was good, it ought to be better day by day, till everybody is fully convinced that you are filled with the might of God in the Spirit. Filled with all the fulness of God! “Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit.” I don’t want anything else than being full, and fuller, and fuller, until I am overflowing like a great big vat. Do you realize that if you have been created anew and begotten again by the Word of God that there is within you the word of power and the same light and life as the Son of God Himself had.

God wants to flow through you with measureless power of divine utterance and grace till your whole body is a flame of fire. God intends each soul in Pentecost to be a live wire. Not a monument, but a movement. So many people have been baptized with the Holy Ghost; there was a movement but they have become monuments and you cannot move them. God wake us out of sleep lest we should become indifferent to the glorious truth and the breath of the almighty power of God. We must be the light and salt of the earth, with the whole armor of God upon us. It would be a serious thing if the enemies were about and we had to go back and get our sandals. It would be a serious thing if we had on no breastplate. How can we be furnished with the armor? Take it by faith. Jump in, stop in, and never come out, for this is a baptism to be lost in, where you only know one thing and that is the desire of God at all times. The Baptism in the Spirit should be an ever-increasing enduement of power, an ever-increasing enlargement of grace. Oh 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 world, separated, sanctified, and made meet for Thy use, whom Thou hast designed to be filled with all Thy fulness.

Nothing has hurt me so much as this, to see so-called believers have so much unbelief in them that it it hard to move them. There is no difficulty in praying for a sinner to be healed. But with the “believer,” when you touch him he comes back and says, “You did not pray for my legs.” I say you are healed all over if you believe. Everything is possible to them that believe. God will not fail His Word whatever 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.

I was preaching on faith one time and there was in the audience a man who said three times, “I won’t believe." I kept right on preaching because that made no difference to me. I am prepared for a fight any day, the fight of faith. We must keep the faith which has been committed unto us. I went on preaching and the man shouted out, “I won’t believe.” As he passed out of the door he cried out again, “I won’t believe.” Next day a message came saying there was a man in the meeting the night before who said out loud three times. “I won’t believe,” and as soon as he got outside the Spirit said to him, “Because thou wouldst not believe thou shalt be dumb.” It was the same Spirit that came to Zacharias and said, “Thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words.” I believe in a hell. Who is in hell? The unbeliever. If you want to go to hell, all you need to do is to disbelieve the Word of God. The unbelievers are there. Thank God they are there for they are no good for any society. I said to the leader of that meeting, “You go and see this man and find out if these things are so.” He went to the house and the first to greet him was the man’s wife. He said, “Is it true that your husband three times in the meeting declared that he would not believe, and now he cannot speak?” She burst into tears and said, “Go and see.” He went into the room and saw the man’s mouth in a terrible state. The man got a piece of paper and wrote, “I had an opportunity to believe. I refused to believe, and now I cannot believe and I cannot speak.” The greatest sin in the world is to disbelieve God’s Word. We are not of those who draw back, but we are of those who believe, for God’s Word is a living Word and it always acts.

One day a stylishly dressed lady came to our meeting and on up to the platform. Under her arm, going down underneath her dress, was a concealed crutch that nobody could see, She had been helpless in one leg for twenty years, had heard of what God was doing, and wanted to be prayed for. As soon as we prayed for her she exclaimed, “What have you done with my leg?” Three times she said it, and then we saw that the crutch was loose and hanging, and that she was standing straight up. The lady that was interpreting for me said to her, “We have done nothing with your leg. If anything has been done it is God who has done it.” She answered, “I have been lame and used a crutch for twenty years, but my leg is perfect now.” We did not suggest that she get down at the altar and thank God; she fell down among the others and cried for mercy. I find when God touches us it is a divine touch, life, power, and it thrills and quickens the body so that people know it is God and conviction comes and they cry for mercy. Praise God for anything that brings people to the throne of grace.

God heals by the power of His Word. But the most important thing is, 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. God means by this divine power within you to make you follow after the mind of the Spirit by the Word of God, till you are entirely changed by the power of it. You might come on this platform and say, “Wigglesworth, is there anything you can look up to God and ask Him for in your body?” I will say now that I have a body in perfect condition and have nothing to ask for, and I am 65. It was not always so. This body was a frail, helpless body, but God fulfilled His Word to me according to Isaiah and Matthew—Himself took my infirmities and my diseases, my sicknesses, and by His stripes I am healed. It is fine to go up and down and not know you have a body. He took our infirmities, He bore our sickness, He came to heal our broken-heartedness. Jesus would have us to come forth in divine likeness, in resurrection force, in the power of the Spirit, to walk in faith and understand His Word, what He meant when He said He would give us power over all the power of the enemy. He will subdue all things till everything comes into perfect harmony with His will. Is He reigning over your affections, desires, will? If so, when He reigns you will be subject to His reigning power. He will be authority over the whole situation. When He reigns, everything must be subservient to His divine plan and will for us.

See what the Word of God says: “No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.” “Lord!” Bless God forever. Oh for Him to be Lord and Master! for Him to rule and control! for Him to be filling your whole body with the plan of truth! Because you are in Christ Jesus all things are subject to Him. It is lovely, and God wants to make it so to you. When you get there you will find divine power continually working. I absolutely believe that no man comes into the place of revelation and activity of the gifts of the Spirit but by this fulfilled promise of Jesus that He will baptize us in the Holy Ghost.

I was taken to see a beautiful nine-year-old boy who was lying on a bed. The mother and father were distracted because he had been lying there for seven months. They had to lift and feed him; he was like a statue with flashing eyes. As soon as I entered the place the Lord revealed to me the cause of the trouble, so I said to the mother, “The Lord shows me there is something wrong with his stomach.” She said, “Oh no, we have had two physicians and they say it is paralysis of the mind.” I said, “God reveals to me it is his stomach.” “Oh no, it isn’t. These physicians ought to know, they have X-rayed him.” The gentleman who brought me there said to the mother, “You have sent for this man, you have been the means of his coming, now don’t you stand out against him. This man knows what he has got to do.” But Dr. Jesus knows more than that. He knows everything. You have no need to ring the bell for doctors. All you have to do is ring your bell for Jesus and He will come down. You should never turn to human things, because divine things are so much better and just at your call. Who shall interfere with the divine mind of the Spirit which has all revelation, who understands the whole condition of life, for the Word of God declares He knoweth all things, is well acquainted with the manifestation of thy body, for everything is naked and open before Him with whom we have to do. Having the mind of the Spirit we understand what is the will of God. I prayed over this boy and laid my hands on his stomach. He became sick and vomited a worm thirteen inches long, and was perfectly restored. Who knows? God knows. When shall we come into the knowledge of God? When we cease from our own mind and allow ourselves to become clothed with the mind and authority of the mighty God.

The Spirit of God would have us understand there is nothing that can interfere with our coming into perfect blessing except unbelief. Unbelief is a terrible hindrance. As soon as we are willing to allow the Holy Ghost to have His way, we will 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 everybody believed God? I love the thought that God the Holy Ghost wants to emphasize the truth that if we will only yield ourselves to the divine plan He is right there to bring forth, the mystery of truth.

How many of us believe the Word? It is easy to quote it, but it is more important to have 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 was on the earth He was recognized by the people who heard Him. Never man spake like Him. 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 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 the body that 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 stand on the line with the Word of God and face the facts of the difficulties before us?

I can never forget the face of a man that came to me one time: His clothes hung from him, his whole frame was shrivelled, his eyes were glaring and glassy, his jaw bones stuck out, his whole being was a manifestation of death. He said to me, “Can you help me?” Could I help him? Just as we believe the Word of God can we help anybody, but we must be sure we are on the Word of God. If we are on the Word of God it must take place. As I looked at him I thought I had never seen anybody alive that looked like him. I said, “What is it?” He answered with a breath voice, “I had a cancer on my chest. I was operated on and in removing the cancer they removed my swallower; so now I can breathe but cannot swallow.” He pulled out a tube about nine inches long with a cup at the top and an opening at the bottom to go into a hole. He showed me that he pressed one part of that into his stomach and poured liquid into the top; and for three months had been keeping himself alive that way. It was a living death. Could I help him? See what the Word of God says: “Whosoever... 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." God wants to move us on scriptural lines. On those lines I said, “You shall have a good supper tonight.” “But,” he said, “I cannot swallow.” I said, “You shall have a good supper tonight.” “But I cannot swallow.” “You shall have a good supper; go and eat.”

When he got home he told his wife that the preacher said he could have a good supper that night. He said, “If you will get something ready I’ll see if I can swallow.” His wife got a good supper ready and he took a mouthful. He had had mouthfuls before but they would not go down. But the Word of God said “whatsoever,” and this mouthful went down, and more and more went down until he was full up. Then what happened? He went to bed with the joy of the knowledge that he could again swallow, and he wakened next morning with that same joy. He looked for a hole in his stomach, but God had shut that up when he opened the other.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for. Faith is the Word. You were begotten of the Word, the Word is in you, the life of the Son is in you, and God wants vou to believe.

Labels: 1924, Pentecostal Evangel

Given in Wellington, New Zealand.
Published in the Pentecostal Evangel, July 5, 1924.
Faith that Prevails, chapter 6.

Read the 20th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, beginning at verse 7. Humanity is a failure everywhere. But when humanity is filled with divine power, there is no such thing as failure; and we know that the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is not a failure.

There are two sides to this Baptism: the first is, that you possess the Baptism; the second is that the Baptism possesses you. This is my message at this time—being possessed by the Baptizer, and not merely possessing the Baptizer. There is no limit to the possibilities of such a life, because it has God behind it, in the midst of it, and through it. I see people from time to time very slack, cold, and indifferent; but after they get filled with the Holy Spirit they become ablaze for God. I believe that God's ministers are to be flames of fire; nothing less than flames; nothing less than mighty instruments with burning messages, with a heart full of love, with such a depth of consecration that God has taken full charge of the body and it exists only that it may manifest the glory of God. Surely, this is the ideal and the purpose of this great plan of salvation for man—that we might be filled with all the fulness of God, and become ministers of life, God working mightily in us and through us to manifest His grace—the saving power of humanity. We are only instruments for Him to use, channels through which He shall manifest His power.

This glorious Baptism is to be a witness to Jesus, and we must reach the ideal of identification with the Master, so that He can reveal Himself in His grace and power through us.

Now let us turn to this wonderful Word of God. I want you to see the demonstration of this power in this man Paul—this man who was “born out of due time;” this Paul, who was plucked as a brand from the burning; this Paul whom God chose to be an apostle to the Gentiles. See him first as a persecutor, mad to destroy those who were bringing glad tidings to the people. See how madly he rushed those people to prison, striving to make them blaspheme that holy name. Then see this same man changed by the power of God and the Gospel of Christ; see him filled with the Holy Ghost, becoming a builder for God and a revealer of the Son of God, so that he could say, “It is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me.” (Gal 2:20)

In the 9th chapter of Acts, we read that he was called to a special ministry. The Lord said to Ananias, “I will show him what great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.” I don’t want you to think that this means suffering from diseases; for it means suffering persecution, suffering from slander, from strife, from bitterness, from revilings and from many other evil things; but none of these things will hurt you; rather, they will kindle the fire of holy ambition, because the scripture says, “Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 5:10) To be persecuted for Christ’s sake is to be joined up with a blessed, blessed people; but, better still, it means to be united with our Lord Jesus in the closest of fellowship, the fellowship of His suffering. There is a day coming when we will rejoice greatly that we have been privileged to suffer for His name’s sake.

Beloved, God wants witnesses, witnesses to the truth, witnesses to the full truth, witnesses to the fulness of redemption—deliverance from sin and deliverance from disease—by the eternal power working in them, as they are filled with life through the Spirit. God wants us to believe that we may be ministers of that kind—of glorious things wrought in us by the Holy Spirit.

See in verse 7, how Paul was lost in his zeal for his ministry, so that he “continued his speech until midnight.” Then something happened that threatened to break up the meeting—a young man, becoming sleepy, fell out of the window. That was enough to break up any ordinary meeting. But this man, filled with the Spirit of God, was equal even to such an emergency even on the moment. He went down, picked up the young man, brought life back into him by the Spirit of life that was in him, then returned to the upper room and continued the meeting until break of day.

In Switzerland the people said to me, “How long can you preach to us?” I said to them, “When the Holy Ghost is upon us, we can preach forever!” When I was in San Francisco, driving down the main street one day, we came across a crowd in the street. The driver stopped and I jumped out of the car, and right across from where the tumult was, I found a boy lying on the ground apparently in the grip of death. I got down and asked, “What is amiss?” He replied in a whisper, “tramp.” I put my hand underneath his back and said, “In the name of Jesus, come out.” And the boy jumped up and ran away, not even stopping to say, “Thank you.”

So you will find out that, with the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, you will be in a position to act when you have no time to think. The power and working of the Holy Spirit is of divine origin. It is the supernatural, God thrilling and moving one with the authority and power of almightiness, and it brings things to pass that could not come to pass in any other way. I had some things of this character happen on the ship as I was crossing the ocean. I want ever to be in Paul’s position—that at any time, even at midnight, in the face of anything, even death itself, God may be able to manifest His power and do what He wants to do through me. This is what it means to be possessed by the Spirit of God. My heart is thrilled with the possibility of coming into the place where Paul was. Let us read verse 19, that we may get our mind perfectly fortified with this blessed truth that God has for us.

“Serving the Lord with all humility of mind.” None of us are going to be able to be ministers of this new covenant of promise in the unction and power of the Spirit without humility. It seems to me that the way to get up is to get down. It is clear to me that in the measure that the dying of the Lord is in me, the life of the Lord will abound in me. And to me, truly, a Baptism in of the Holy Spirit is not the goal, but it is an inflow to reach the highest level, the holiest position that it is possible for human nature to reach by Divine power. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit is given to reveal and to make real Him in whom dwells “all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” (Col. 2:9) So I see that to be baptized in the Holy Spirit means to be baptized into death, into life, into power, into fellowship with the Trinity, where the old life ceases to be, and the life of God possesses us forever.

No man can live after seeing God; and God wants us all to see Him in all His glorious, infinite sufficiency, so that we shall joyfully cease to be—that He may become our life. Thus it was that Paul could say, “It is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me.” I believe that God wants to make real to us all this ideal of humility where we so recognize human helplessness and human insufficiency that we shall rest no more on human plans and human devices and human energy, but continually look to God for His thought, for His voice, for His power, for His all-sufficiency in all things.

Now here is another word for us. Let us read it. It is found in verse 22. “Now, behold, I go bound in spirit.” Is there a possibility of the human so coming into oneness with the divine will? Let me give you two other versions of Scripture. Jesus was a man of flesh and blood like ourselves, though He was the incarnation of the authority and power and majesty of heaven, yet he bore about in his body our flesh, our human weakness, being tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. Oh, He was so lovely! Such a perfect Savior! Oh, that I could shout “Jesus!” so that all the world would hear. There is salvation, life, power, and deliverance through that name; but, beloved, I read in Mark 1:12, that that body was driven by the Spirit. In the fourth chapter of Luke, it says “led” by the Spirit. And now here is Paul “bound” in the spirit.

Oh, what condescension that God should lay hold of humanity and so possess it with His holiness, with His righteousness, with His truth, with His faith, that man can say, “I am bound in spirit; I have no choice; my only choice is for God; my only desire, my only ambition is the will of God; I am bound with God.” Is this possible, beloved? If you look into Galatians, first chapter, you will see how wonderfully he rose into this state of bliss. If you look in the third chapter of the Ephesians, you will see that he recognized himself as less than the least of all saints. Then, if you'll look into the 26th chapter of Acts, you will find him saying, “I have never lost the vision, King Agrippa, I have never lost it.” Then if you will look again in Galatians, you will see that, in order to keep the vision, he conferred not with flesh and blood; God laid hold of him, God bound him, God preserved him. I ought to say, however, that it is a wonderful position to be in—to be preserved by Almightiness—and we ought to see to it that we leave ourselves to God. The consequences will be all right. “Whosoever shall seek to save his life, shall lose it; and whoever shall lose his life for my sake the same shall save it.” There is no end to such a life; it reaches right into glory. As a man yields hitnself to God. God lays hold of him in the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. There is a possibility of being taken charge of by God and left in the world to carry out the plan of God, to be the “salt of the earth.”

Now, beloved, I am out for men. It is my business to be out for men. It is my business to make everybody hungry, dissatisfied. It is my business to make people either glad or mad. I have a message from heaven that will not leave people as I find them. Something must happen after they are filled with the Holy Spirit. A man filled with the Holy Spirit is no longer an ordinary man. A man can be swept by the power of God in the first stage of the revelation of Christ so that from that moment he will be an extraordinary man. But to be filled with the Holy Spirit he has to become a free, free body for God to dwell in, and to use, and to manifest Himself through. So I appeal to you, you people who have received the Holy Spirit, I appeal to you to let God have His way at whatever cost; I appeal to you to keep moving on with God into an ever-increasing realization of His infinite purposes in Christ Jesus for His redeemed ones until you are filled unto all the fulness of God. To remain three days in the same place would indicate that you had lost the vision. The child of God must catch the vision anew every day. Every day the child of God must be moved more and more by the Holy Ghost. The child of God must come into line with the power of heaven so that he knows that God has His hand upon him.

“I know the Lord, I know the Lord,

I know the Lord laid His hand on me.”

It is the same Jesus, the very same Jesus. He went about doing good. “God anointed Him with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with Him.” Beloved, is not that the ministry that God would have us see we are heir to? The mission of the Holy Ghost is to give us a revelation of Jesus and to make the Word of God life unto us as it was when spoken by the Son—as new, as fresh, as effective as if the Lord Himself were speaking. The Bride loves to hear the Bridegroom’s voice! Here it is, the blessed Word of God, the whole Word, not part of it, no, no, no! We believe in the whole of it. We really have such an effectiveness worked in us by the Word of life, that day by day we are finding out that the Word itself giveth life; the Spirit of the Lord, breathing through, revealing by the Word, giving it afresh to us, makes the whole Word alive today. Amen. So I have within my hands, within my heart, within my mind, this blessed reservoir of promises that is able to do so many marvelous things. Some of you most likely have been suffering because you have a limited revelation of Jesus, of the fulness of life there is in Him.

In Oakland, Calif., we had a meeting in a large theater. God wrought in filling the place till we had to have overflow meetings. There was a rising tide of people getting saved in the meeting by rising voluntarily up and down in the place, and getting saved. And then we had a rising tide of people who needed help in their bodies, rising in faith and being healed. One of these latter was an old man 95 years of age. He had heen suffering for three years, till he got to the place where for three weeks he had been taking liquids. He was in a terrible state. I got him to stand while I prayed for him; and he came back, and, with radiant face, told us that new life had come into his body. He said, “I am 95 years old. When I came into the meeting, I was full of pain from cancer of the stomach. I have been so healed that I have been eating perfectly, and have no pain." Many of the people were healed in a similar way.

(After the telling of the above incident in the meeting in Wellington, New Zealand, where this address was given, a lady arose who had rheumatism in the left leg. After being prayed for, she ran the full length of the hall several times, then testified to partial healing. A young man with pain in the head was healed instantly. Another man with pain in the head was healed instantly also.)

In the second chapter of Acts, you will see that when the Holy Ghost came there was such a manifestation of the power of God that it wrought conviction as the Word was spoken in the Holy Ghost. In the third chapter we read of the lame man healed at the Beautiful Gate through the power of the Spirit, as Peter and John went into the Temple. And in the fourth chapter, we read of such a wonderful manifestation of miraculous power through the Spirit that five thousand men besides women and children became believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. God gives manifestation of His Divine power, beloved, to prove that He is with us. Will you not, right now, open your heart to this wonderful God, and let Him come into your life and make of you all that His infinite wisdom has conceived, all that His infinite love has moved Him to provide in Christ Jesus, and that His infinite power, through the Holy Ghost, has made possible to be wrought in sinful man.

Seek this vision from God, and keep it ever before you. Pray the prayer that the apostle Paul prayed for the Ephesian believers, as recorded in Ephesians 1:17, 18, 19, “That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him: having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe.”

Labels: 1924, Faith that Prevails, Pentecostal Evangel

by K.W. Leslie

Poking around the Internet, I found Wigglesworth’s Ever Increasing Faith at SermonIndex.net, a website for sermon audio. So I thought put the links to each of the chapters here for you to download.

It is not Wigglesworth speaking. In fact, a computer is reading each of the chapters—in that usual unexcited monotone voice that computers typically have. So it’s not the greatest reading of Ever Increasing Faith ever done; but if you simply must have an audiobook version, I suppose it’ll do.

Links below are to the MP3s of each chapter, plus a miniature player if you want to listen to them from this page, and of course links to the original magazine articles.

1. Have faith in God. · MP3. · Text.
   
2. Deliverance to the captives. · MP3. · Text.
   
3. The power of the name. · MP3. · Text.
   
4. Wilt thou be made whole? · MP3. · Text.
   
5. I am the Lord that healeth thee. · MP3. · Text.
   
6. Himself took our infirmities. · MP3. · Text.
   
7. Our risen Christ. · MP3. · Text.
   
8. Righteousness. · MP3. · Text.
   
9. The words of this life. · MP3. · Text.
   
10. Life in the Spirit. · MP3. · Text.
    
11. What it means to be full of the Spirit. · MP3. · Text.
    
12. The Bible evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. · MP3. · Text.
    
13. Concerning spiritual gifts. · MP3. · Text.
    
14. The word of knowledge, and faith. · MP3. · Text.
    
15. The gifts of healing and the working of miracles. · MP3. · Text.
    
16. The gift of prophecy. · MP3. · Text.
    
17. The discerning of spirits. · MP3. · Text.
    
18. The gift of tongues. · MP3. · Text.
    

Labels: Ever Increasing Faith