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p. 135
Confidence, June 1912.
Mr. Smith Wigglesworth, of Bowland Street Mission, Manningham, Bradford, gave some astonishing personal testimony of divine healing. He said he stood there because God had healed him. He suffered from appendicitis for several weeks, and was at last forced to take to his bed. He was at the far end when the doctor came and said he must go through an operation. After the doctor had gone out, two visitors came unexpectedly to the house. “One of them, a young man, came upstairs in a big hurry,” said the speaker, “and handled me very roughly, and said, ‘Come out, thou demon! Come out of this man,’ and that instant the demon did come out and I was perfectly well, that instant; so well that I got up and went out.” The doctor returned while he was out, and when told that the patient was not in he said “They’ll bring him back a corpse.” “But glory to God, it has never touched me since,” exclaimed Mr. Wigglesworth.
Continuing, he said that afterwards he suffered badly from another complaint, and had not faith enough to trust God to heal him. But one afternoon while he was speaking with God, the power of God fell right over him, and he was cured. “Would not the stones cry out against me,” he asked, “if I did not glorify God?” He also related how he had cured people by anointing them with oil, of cancer, consumption, deafness, discharging ears, and a bad leg. Another incident he related was of an inmate in a lunatic asylum. The speaker and another man prayed for him, and then sent him a copy of the New Testament. When they visited the man they found he had been instantaneously healed, and he was now following his occupation.
Mr. Wigglesworth, continuing, said he was asked on one occasion to go to Weston-super-Mare to see a man who was possessed of a devil. He was absolutely unmanageable, and very distressed. “God wonderfully anointed me and prepared me for that visit. I stayed with the man all through the night; it seemed as if I was fighting demons, and I was practically in hell, but I got no victory whatever. At 6 o’clock I jumped up and said ‘I am going out.’ He said ‘Don’t leave me,’ and I said, ‘I shall be obliged to leave you.’ I went out to an early morning prayer meeting, and God seemed to give me fresh strength. I walked down the sea front to the bottom of the road, where I saw the man, with only his trousers on, rushing towards the sea. I met him, and in the name of Jesus I commanded the demon to come out of the man. He fell full length in the middle of the road, and God delivered him instantly. He rose up with tears in his eyes, and said, ‘I am a new man; I am free.’ His wife came running up after him, and he said, ‘My dearly-beloved wife, God has sent you a new husband,’ and they fell into each other’s arms.”
Mr. Wigglesworth, proceeding, told how he cast a demon out of a girl who had interrupted his services by taking fits, and how he visited a dying man at a Yorkshire village. He went upstairs into the man’s bedroom, and there was only the man, himself, and God present, though there was a lot of unbelief in the house, but, praise God, they were on the other side of the bedroom door. In the name of Jesus he laid hands upon the sick man, and the power of God fell. “I fell on the floor, and Matthew got up, shouting ‘Glory.’ The glory of God was so present that it was like being in heaven. I was laid with my face down, and I never looked up. In a quarter of an hour’s time the man was dressed and walking about, praising God. He opened the door and cried, ‘Father, God has healed me!’ His father fell down and cried for mercy, and his mother fell down and said, ‘Oh, save me.’” Afterwards in the same house he laid hands on a young woman who had been in the asylum periodically, and God instantly delivered her. The man, who had fed on slops for weeks, had a mutton chop and some eggs for his dinner that day. When he (the speaker) left the village all the inhabitants turned out to praise and bless God.
Apostle of Faith
Ever Increasing Faith
Faith That Prevails