19 February 2017

Exceedingly above all you can ask or think. (1-3/18)


p. 5


p. 6


p. 7
by Smith Wigglesworth
Confidence, January-March 1918.

Read Ephesians 3 carefully. This is a lovely chapter on Paul’s mission to the gentiles. God has grafted us gentiles in. In other ages it was not made known that the gentiles should be fellow-heirs, whereof he was made a minister by the effectual working of his power. This power in Paul wrought a very effectual work; it worked in him to such effect that he said he was the least of all saints; that to him was given this grace of mystery and revelation. It came forth as a living reality of a living substance indwelling him. “To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in the heavenly places might be known through the church the manifold wisdom of God.”

Wisdom. This wisdom of God is only revealed in the depths of humiliation where the Holy Ghost has full charge. There alone it is that the vision comes to all his saints. We are now in the process of revelation. You must let the Holy Ghost have his perfect office. A new order of breathing. First a calculation of the mind—“I can go no further, I give myself to a new order, the manifold wisdom of God in whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.” Boldness brings us into a place of access, confidence, laying hold, taking all off the table and making it ours. The Holy Ghost in the human body unfolding the mystery that we might know and have the revelation according to the will of God. The flesh brought to a place of non-existence, that in the life of this man should come out the mighty power of God to usward. Paul can get no further. He says, “I bow my knees unto the Father.”

Prayer. Jude also speaks of praying in the Holy Ghost. There is no natural line of thought here, not one point in particular upon which the mind can rest, but that which is predicted from the throne of glory, then the tongue, then all the divine attributes are displayed above all, exceedingly above all, that the glory of God may be revealed in the face of Jesus. Ye are his workmanship, created for his glory. God cannot display the greater glory except through those co-equal in the glory. The Holy Ghost is the ideal and brings out the very essence of heaven through the human soul. Oh, the need of the baptism of the Holy Ghost! Paul was held in the Spirit; may it be so in our case—there is no difference; he was willing for all things, bound in the Spirit—here we have the greatest liberty that can come to humanity, all the liberty of heaven open, the family in heaven and earth. I love that thought that the veil is so thin that the tie is closer than ever, Christ with them; they with us. One is on earth; what a loftiness, a reverence, a holiness! A wonderful thing is this wedlock and fellowship in the Spirit—now an infinite mind of fulfillment and glory. “Are they not all ministering spirits?” Who can help us as those tried with us? As the body is so fitly framed together by the effectual working of his power, we are all one, nothing separates us, but we look for the appearing of Jesus. He is there in the glory; they are with him. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, and the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, so shall we ever be with the Lord. We can only pray as the Holy Ghost gives utterance.

Verse 16: Here the Holy Ghost gives the highest principles through this prayer that the purposes of salvation are a continuous working and an increasing power all the time. The day that is coming will declare all things. Strengthened by the Spirit according to the riches of his glory.

Glory. What is the glory? All the glory that ever comes is from him. You have the glory in the measure that you have the Son of glory in you. If you are filled with Jesus, you are filled with the glory. When we have the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, there is nothing to hinder the Holy Ghost having the control of the whole being. That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. Faith is the production of all things. The Holy Ghost indwelling and enlarging until the whole body is filled with Christ, and we are coming there in a very remarkable way. Did the Holy Ghost ever utter a prayer that no power could answer?

In John 17.21 Jesus says, “That they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.” What works in us through being one with him, rooted and grounded? Perfect love, and perfect love has justice wrapped up in it, and the day is coming when the saints will say “Amen” to the judgments of God. Justice will do it. All the wood, hay and stubble must be destroyed, but, rooted and grounded in the word, I am a production of what God is forming and I can stay the gates of hell and laugh in the face of calamity and say, “All things work together for good to them that love God”; rooted and grounded in love. So-and-so may leave me, but if I am grounded, it is for my good and nothing can be against me but myself. We live for the glory of God. The Lord, it is he that establisheth, strengtheneth and upholdeth, making strong that which is weak and enabling them to stand in the difficulty, and in the day of battle. God is with thee to do far exceeding above all you can ask or think.

Faith. Are we children of circumstances, or children of faith? If we are on natural lines, we are troubled at the wind blowing, as it blows it whispers fearfulness; but if you are rooted and grounded you can stand the tests, and it is only then that you prove what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and know the love of Christ. It is an addition sum to meet every missionary’s needs, to display God’s power, enlarging that which needs to be quickened. Breadth: The whole man seeing God is sufficient in every state. The length of things. God is in everything. Oh, the depths! But God is in the depths! The heights! God is always lifting you, and the revelation of the mind in that verse is enough for any in any circumstances to triumph, able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that you can ask or think, not according to the mind of Paul but according to the revelation of the Spirit. Filled unto all the fullness of God. The natural capacity when filled with simplicity has within it an enlargement of itself, but this fullness is an ideal power of God in the human soul; every part of you is enlarged by the Spirit. God is there instead of you to make you full, and you are full as your faith reaches out to the measure. “Filled unto all the fulness of God.”

The power of the Lord was present to heal; fullness of power pressed out of them unto others. In Acts 1 we see a power of the Holy Ghost filling Jesus. He became lighter and lighter until he was lifted back to where he was before, in the presence of God. Jesus Christ manifest in the flesh, the power of God in human form. The fulness of the Godhead bodily manifested in Jesus. John says he was the light of life, increasing in fullness until wafted away entirely, in substance the fullness of God. Exceedingly abundantly above all we can ask or think. How can it be fulfilled in me, you say? It is filled there in the glory! But it’s a tremendous thing! God will have to do something! Beloved, it is not according to your mind at all, but according to the mind of God, according to the revelation of the Spirit. Above all you could ask or think! The blood has been poured out.

The Holy Ghost has been sent down. Verily, we are not worthy, but he is worthy! It’s above all you can ask! How can it be possible? God puts it in your heart! He can do it.

We have been hearing much about war loan and interest, but if you will follow on, God will add and enlarge and enlarge and lift you all the time, adding compound interest. Five percent! No! a thousand percent, a million percent! If thou wilt, if holiness is the purpose of your heart, it shall be, for God is in his place. Will you be in the plan according to the power that worketh, working in you? Whatever you are at any time, it will be by his effectual power, lifting, controlling, carrying you in constant rest and peace; it is according to the power that worketh in you. Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus through all ages, world without end. Amen.

Labels: ,

12 February 2017

Our great need. (11-12/17)


C., 84


C., 85


C., 86


C., 87


C., 90
by Smith Wigglesworth
Subtitled “Paul’s vision and the baptism of the Holy Ghost.”
Confidence, November-December 1917.
Preached at Kingsway Hall, London, 28 May 1917.
The Pentecostal Evangel, 21 April 1928.

I want to speak this afternoon of Pentecost and the fullness of the Spirit, and of what God is able to do with any man who is yielded to him. We are here today for one purpose, and that is, to kindle one another with a holier zeal than ever has possessed us before. I believe there is a greater need for us today in the world than ever. There is a more broken spirit abroad in our land than for a long time past, and no one can meet the need today but the man filled with God. God has promised to fill us. You may be filled with the mighty power of God, and yet in a way not realize it, and yet know that you are being used by a power apart from yourself, a power that keeps you from self-exhibition. Just as the sun by its mighty power brings certain resources to nature, so I believe the power of God in the human soul, the power filling it with himself, is capable, by living faith, of bringing about what otherwise could never be accomplished. May God by his Spirit this afternoon prepare us for what he has to say.


P.E., 1


P.E., 6


P.E., 7

I

I want to draw your attention to Acts 26.12-19, where we are told of the light from heaven and the voice which arrested Paul in his way to Damascus, and of his conversion, and of the commission given to him to go unto the gentiles to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, and of the fact that he “was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision.” You remember how it is stated, in Acts 9, that for three days after this vision Paul was blind; he was in a state in which he could not see, in a state of broken-heartedness, I suppose. And then God had him.

It is a wonderful thing when God gets you. You are not much good for anything until God gets you. When God gets you you are loose and you are bound; you are free, but you can act only as he wills for you to act; and when you act only for him there is in the process that which brings out something mighty for all time. Well, Paul had first to come to this time of crying, weeping, contrition, heart-meltedness, yieldedness. He had done all he could in the natural, but the natural had only brought him to a broken place, to blindness, to helplessness, and this must come out of Paul’s life before he could have the life of God. When we have altogether parted with our own, as it were, then there is a possibility of God’s likeness being made manifest in us, of the water of life filling us, and not only fertilizing our own life, but flowing from us as a river that will touch others; and no one can tell what a river can do when it is set aflow by God, because when God is in the plan everything works mightily and harmoniously. I pray God the Holy Ghost that at all times I should cease from anything except that thing which God wants to bring out, and not I.

There are so many wonderful things about a life filled with the Holy Ghost that one feels almost as if one were a machine and could never stop speaking of them. There are so many opportunities and such great forces that can never come along any other line. When Jesus has come to a place where he will not make bread for himself, I find that he reaches a place where he can make bread for thousands. And when I come to a place where I will not do anything for myself, then God will do something for me, and I will gladly do anything for him that he may desire me to do. That is in the order of the baptism. It is when we cease to clothe ourselves that God clothes us, and it is the clothing wherewith he clothes us that covers all our nakedness.

In his helplessness and brokenness Paul cries: “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” That cry reached to heaven, and as a result there came a holy man, touched with the same fire and zeal that filled his Master, and he laid his hands upon Paul and said, “Receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost.”

[Tongues (by Wigglesworth) and interpretation: “The living touch of the river of the life of God is that which makes all things akin, and brings a celestial glory into the human heart, and phrases that meet the kindled desire therein.”]

When God moves a man his body becomes akin with celestial glory all the time, and the man says things as he is led by the Holy Ghost who fills him. When we are filled with the Holy Ghost we go forth to see things accomplished that we could never see otherwise. First of all, Paul has a vision. There is always a vision in the baptism of the Spirit. But visions are no good to me except I make them real, except I claim them as they come, except I make them my own; and if your whole desire is to carry out what the Spirit has revealed to you by vision, it will surely come to pass. Lots of people lack the power because they do not keep the vision, because they do not allow the fire which has come to infuse into them and continue to burn. There must be a continuous burning on the altar. Holy Ghost power in a man is meant to be an increasing force, an enlargement. God has never anything of a diminishing type. He is always going on. And I am going on. Are you going on? It is necessary, I tell you, to go on. You must not stop in the plains; there are far greater things for you on the hilltops than in the plains.

Jesus took particular care of Paul; he did not rush him through the business. Some people think that everything ought to be done in a tremendous hurry. With God it is not so. God takes plenty of time, and he has a wonderful way of developing things as he goes along. Nothing that you undertake will fail, if only you do not forget what he has told you, and if you act upon it. You really cannot forget that which the Holy Ghost brings right into your heart as his purpose for you. A man baptized by the Holy Ghost is no longer a natural man; he is forced by the Spirit, he is turned into another man. Joshua and Caleb could not say anything less than that “God, who has taken us and let us see the land, he will surely give us the land.” Where are you fixed? Is God the Holy Ghost arranging things for you, or are you arranging things according to your own plan? A man filled with the Holy Ghost has ceased to be, in a sense; he has come to a rest, he has come to where God is working, to a place where he can “stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.” What do I mean? I mean that such a man has ceased from his own works and abilities and associations. He will not trust his own heart; he relies only on the omnipotent power of the Most High, he is girded with Another. The man baptized with the Holy Ghost will always keep in touch with his Master in the passing crowd, or wherever he may be. He has no room for anything that steps lower than the unction that was on his Master, or for anything that hinders him from being about his Master’s business. If you are baptized by the Holy Ghost, you have no spiritual food apart from the word of God, you have no resources but those that are heavenly; you have been “planted” with Christ, and have “risen with him,” and you are “seated with him in heavenly places”; your language is a heavenly language, your source of inspiration is a heavenly touch; God is enthroned in your whole life, and you see things “from above,” and not from below.

A man that is baptized with the Holy Ghost has a Jesus mission. He knows his vocation, the plan of his life. God speaks to him so definitely and really that there is no mistaking about it. Thank God for the knowledge which fixes me so solidly upon God’s word that I cannot be moved from it by any storm that may rage. The revelation of Jesus to my soul by the Holy Ghost brings me to a place where I am willing, if need be, to die on what the word says. The three Hebrew children said, “We are not careful to answer thee in this matter”; and when a man of God by the Spirit is quickened he never moves toward, or depends upon, natural resources. The furnace “one seven times more” heated is of no consequence to the men who have heard the voice of God; the lions’ den has no fearfulness for the man who opens his windows and talks to his Father. The people who live in the unction of the Spirit are taken out of the world in the sense that they are kept in the world without being defiled by the evil of the world.

II

But let us come back to this wonderful vision that Paul had. I want you to see how carefully the Lord deals with him. Verse 16: “But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee.” Do not you see how carefully the Lord works? He shows Paul the vision as far as Paul can take it in, and then he says: “There are other things in the which I will again appear unto thee.” Did he ever appear unto Paul after that? Certainly he did. But Paul never lost this vision; he kept it up, so to speak. What was there in the vision that held him in such close association with Jesus Christ that he was ready for every activity to which he was led by the Holy Ghost? There were certain things he had to do. Look, for instance, at Galatians 1.15-16. There you will find a very wonderful word—a word that has had a great impression upon me in relation to the subject of the continuation of the baptism. “When it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.” Now read together the words: “Therefore I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision,” and “I conferred not with flesh and blood.”

There is no man here this afternoon who can be clothed in the Spirit, and catch the fire and zeal of the Master every day and many times in the day, without he ceases in every way to be connected with the “arm of flesh” which would draw him aside from the power of God. Many men have lost the glory because they have been taken up with the natural. If we are going to accomplish in the Spirit the thing God has purposed for us, we can never turn again to the flesh. If we are Spirit-filled God has cut us short and brought us into relationship with himself, joined us to Another, and now he is all in all to us. You may have a vision of the Lord all the time you are in a railway train, or in a tramcar, or walking down a street. It is possible to be lonely in the world and to be a Christian, without what? Without you cease to be a natural man. I mean that the Christian ought to have such an unction as to realize at any moment, whether in the presence of others or alone, that he is with God. He can have a vision in the tramcar, or in the railway train, even if he has to stand with others in front or behind him; or he can have a vision if he is there alone.

Nehemiah stood before the king because of trouble in Jerusalem which had nigh broken his heart. He was sorrowful, and it affected his countenance; but he was so near to God that he could say: “I have communed with the God of heaven.” And if we believers are to go forth and fulfill God’s purpose with us, the Holy Spirit must be constantly filling us and moving upon us until our whole being is on fire with the presence and power of God. That is the order of the baptism of the Holy Ghost. The man is then ready for every emergency.

Now it is a most blessed thought—it struck me as I was reading at our assembly on Sunday morning—that in the holy, radiant glory of the vision that was filling Paul’s soul, the people became so hungry after it that until midnight they drank in at the fountain of his life, and as he was pouring forth a young man fell down from the third loft, and Paul, in the same glorious fashion, as always, went down and embraced him and pressed the very life from himself into the young man, and brought him back to life. Always equipment for emergency, a blessed, holy equipment by God! Someone calls at your door and wants to see you particularly; but you cannot be seen till you are through with God. Living in the Holy Ghost, walking in the divine likeness, having no confidence in the flesh, but growing in the grace and knowledge of God, and going on from one state of glorious perfection unto another state of perfection—that is it. You cannot compare the Holy Ghost to anything less, but something more, than ever you thought about with all your thoughts. That is the reason why the Holy Ghost has to come into us to give us divine revelations for the moment. The man that is a “partaker of the divine nature” has come into a relationship where God imparts his divine mind for the comprehension of his love and of the fellowship of his Son. We are only powerful as we know that source, we are only strong as we behold the beatitudes and all the wonderful things and graces of the Spirit.

III

It was a necessity that Jesus should live with his disciples for three years, and walk in and out amongst them and manifest his glory, and show it forth day by day. I will show you why it was a necessity. Those men believed in God. But this Messiah had continually, day by day, to bring himself into their vision, into their mind, into their very nature. He had to press himself right into their life to make them a success after he had ascended to heaven. He had to show them how wonderfully and gracefully and peacefully he could move the crowds. You remember that the house to which they brought the sick of the palsy, and in which he was speaking to the people, was so crowded that they could not come nigh unto him except by uncovering the roof and dropping the man through. The way to the cities was so pressed with the people who were following Jesus and his disciples, that he and they could hardly get along, but he always had time to stop and perform some good deed on the journey thither. What he had to bring home to the minds and hearts of the disciples was that he was truly the Son of God. They never could accomplish what they had to accomplish until he had proved that to them, and until he had soared to the glory. They could only manifest him to others when he had imparted his life into the very core of their nature, and make others confess that they were astonished, and that “we never saw things like this.” It was the Son of God traveling in the greatness of his strength to manifest before those disciples the keynote of truth that no one could gainsay. They had been with him and seen his desire, his craving, his lust to serve God. Yes, he lusted to be like God in the world manifesting him so that they might see what Philip had missed when Jesus said to him, “Hast thou not seen the Father?” He wanted them to be clothed with the Spirit, baptized by the Spirit.

Some people get a wrong notion of the baptism. The baptism is nothing less than the third person of the blessed trinity coming down from the glory, the executive Spirit of the triune God indwelling your body, revealing the truth to you, and causing you sometimes to say “Ah!” till your bowels yearn with compassion, as Jesus yearned, to travail as he travailed, to mourn as he mourned, to groan as he groaned. It cannot be otherwise with you. You cannot get this thing along a merely passive line. It does not come that way. But, glory be to God, it does come. Oh that God might bring from our hearts the cry for such a deluge of the Spirit that we could not get away till we were ready for him to fulfill his purpose in us and for us.

I had a wonderful revelation of the power of God this last week. If there is anything I know about this baptism it is this: That it is such a force of conviction in my life that I am carried, as it were, through the very depths of it. Sometimes we have to think; at other times we have not time to think, and it is when we are at our wits’ end that God comes and brings deliverance. When you are at your wits’ end, and you throw yourself on the omnipotent power of God, what a wonderful transformation there is in a moment.

An incident.

I went to a house where they were very much distressed. It is a peculiar thing, but it is true, that the Spirit of the Lord upon one either binds people together or makes them tremendously fidgety or restless, that they have to come to some place of decision. I know nothing like the mighty power of the Spirit; it works so harmoniously with the will of God. I was talking to the people in that house, and a young woman was there, and she said, “Oh, Father, I ought to have relief today. I am sitting here and I do know what to say, but somehow I feel that this whole trouble ought to go today.” “What trouble?” I said. “For six years I have not been able to drink. I cannot drink. I go to the tea-table and cannot drink. My body has gone down.”

I knew what it was. It was a devil in the throat. You say, “You must be very careful.” Well, I don’t care whom I affront by saying that; I believe the devil is the root of all evil, and it is a serious thing for a beautiful young woman who had perfect health, otherwise to be, as a result of that one thing, so disorganized in her mind and body. I knew it was the power of Satan. How did I know? Because it attacked her at a vital point, and it got her mind on that point, and when it got her mind on that point she went downhill, and she said, “I dare not drink; if I do I shall choke.” I asked the father and mother to go out, and then I said to the young woman, “You will be free and you will drink as much as you want as soon as I have done with you, if you will believe. As sure as you are there you will drink as much as you want.”

Our brethren are going out into the streets tonight, and I may be amongst them, and they will be preaching, and they will say definitely, “Everyone that believeth can be saved.” They will mean, everyone that believeth can be healed. The same truth. They will emphasize it over and over again. They have no more right to emphasize that than I have a right to say “He was wounded for my transgressions, he was bruised.” So I said to her, “Now, dare you believe?” “Yes, I believe that in the name of Jesus you can cast the evil power out.” I then laid my hands upon her, and I said, “It’s done; you drink.” She went laughingly, praise God, and drew the first glass of water and drank. “Mother! Father! Brother!” she said, “I’ve drunk one glass!” There was joy in the house.

What did it? It was the living faith of the Son of God. Oh, if we only knew how rich we are, and how near we are at the fountain of life! “All things are possible to him that believeth.” When Aeneas, who had kept his bed eight years, was told by Peter to “Arise and make thy bed, and he arose immediately,” what did it? A life clothed with the Spirit.

[Tongues (by Wigglesworth) and interpretation: “The living water is falling and making manifest the Christ mission to those who will enter in by a living faith. Nothing can hinder the life-flow to those who believe, for all things are possible to them that believe.”]

I wonder how many people there are here this afternoon who have missed the point. If I talked to you for a short time you would probably say to me, “I had a wonderful vision when I was baptized.” I want you to notice that this vision that Jesus gave to Paul was right on the threshold of his baptism. An inspired life is always on the very open door of the quickening of that life by the Spirit. I want you to notice also that when a man is born of God, or when, as it were, God is born into the man, and he becomes a quickened soul to carry out the convictions of the life of the Spirit of God in him—when he is born of God, instantly on the threshold of this new birth there comes a vision of what his life is to be. The question is whether you dare go through with it, whether you are going to hold on to the very thing the Holy Ghost brought to you, and never lose sight of it, but press on in a life of devotion to God and of fellowship and unity with him.

A warning.

That is what Paul did, that is what Jesus did, and that is what we all have to do. In this connection I want to say advisedly that when we are baptized with the gift of tongues we must not allow tongues to entertain us, nor he entertained with speaking in tongues. When you have accomplished one thing in the purpose of God for you, he mean you to go forward and accomplish another. As soon as you accomplish one thing it is, so to speak, no more to you, and God will enlarge you and fit you for the next thing he wants you to do.

When I was baptized in the Holy Ghost there was the unfolding of a new era of my life, and I passed into that and rejoiced in the fact of it, and others with me. But the moment I reached that, God has been ready with another ministry for me. If you are careful to watch for God, God is always caring for you. Jesus said: “If you honor me here, I will honor you yonder.” Whatever it may be that you are working out for God here, he is working out a far greater, a divine, glory for you. You have no need to be constantly talking of what you are going to appear like in the glory. The chief thing you are to watch is that you realize within yourself a deeper manifestation of the power of God today than yesterday, that you have something more clear today of the mind of the Spirit than you had the day before, that nothing comes between you and God to cloud your mind. You are to see a vision of the glory of God more today than yesterday, and to be living in such a state of bliss that it is heavenly to live. Paul lived in that ecstasy because he got into a place where the Holy Ghost could enlarge him more and more. I find that if I continually keep my mind upon God, he unfolds things to me, and if I obediently walk before God and keep my heart pure and clean and holy and right, he will always be lifting me higher than I have ever expected to be.

IV

How does it come? On this line. In Romans 12.1, Paul speaks about a certain place being reached—he speaks about an altar on which he had laid himself. When he had experienced the mercies of the Lord he could do no other than make a presentation of his body on the altar, and it was always to be on the altar and never to be taken off. As soon as he got there he was at the place where the Holy Ghost could bring out of him “things new and old,” and, as we read in his epistles, “things” which Peter said were “hard to be understood.” How was that? Because he so lived in the Spirit that God brought his mind into Paul’s mind, so that the apostle could write and speak, as an oracle of the Holy Ghost, things which had never been in print before, things portraying the mind of God; and we read them today and drink them in as a river, and we come out of the epistles, as it were, clothed with mighty power, the power of God himself.

How does it come? It comes when we are in a place low enough, and where God can pour in, pour in, pour in. Paul could say that not one thing that God had spoken of him had failed. In Acts 26 and Romans 15, you will find that he accomplished the whole of what Jesus said he would accomplish, when he was re-organized, or filled, or in-filled by the mighty power of God. God wants to do the same for you and for me, according to the gifts he has bestowed upon us. Shall we stop short of what he says we ought to be?—shall we cease to come into line with the mind which is always thinking for our best?—shall we cease to humble ourselves before him who took the way of the cross for us?—shall we cease to withhold ourselves from him who could weep over the doomed city, from the Lord Jesus Christ who “trod the winepress alone”? —shall we cease to give him our all? To what profit will it be if we hold back anything from him who gives us a thousand times more than ever he asks from us? In Hebrews 2 he says he is going to bring many sons to glory. Let that be your vision. If you have lost the vision, he is tender to those who cry to him; from the broken heart he never turns away, and they that seek him with a whole heart will find him.

As I speak to you this afternoon I feel somehow that my heart is very much enlarged, that my compassion for my Lord is intensified, that nothing is too hard. The people in the days of the apostles took joyfully the spoiling of their goods, and I feel there is a measure of grace given to the man who says, “I will go all the way with Jesus.” What is that measure of grace? It is a girding with hopefulness in pressing forward to the goal that God would have us reach. But it is important that we forget not Paul’s words, “Let no man take thy crown.” He saw there was a possibility lest any man who had been the means of sowing the good seed of the gospel should lose that for which God had apprehended him.

• • •

In closing, let me remind you that the Holy Ghost has brought us here. For what purpose has he brought us? Can anyone have come here, either seeker or speaker, without a cry to God to make some men today, as it were, flames of fire? My passion is that God shall endue this convention with such an unction and cry that you won’t be satisfied until you feel the very members of your body all on fire with a Spirit-kindled unity. It is not too late to don the girdle today, it is not too late to put on the armor of God, to put on the shield, to put on the sandals better than ever before. This afternoon God wants me to know, and you to know, that experimentally we have only touched the very frill, the very edge, of this outpouring of the Spirit. If we do not allow God to fill us with himself he will choose somebody else. If we do not fall into line with the will of God, there will be somebody else who will. God is able to raise up men to carry out his behests. The children were crying out one day, and the disciples rebuked them. “No,” he said, “if these were to hold their peace, the very stones,” of which he could make bread —he could make them cry out.

I have a Jesus like that, who can speak the word, and the thing is done; I have a Jesus indwelling me and vitalizing me with a faith that believes it is true; I have a Jesus within me who has never let me get faint-hearted or weary. Let us press on in faith along the line of God’s will and the outpouring which we have longed to see will come. Cheer up, hold on, never let go the vision; be sure it is for you just as much as for anybody else, and God will surely make it come to pass. Never look down, because then you will only see the ground and miss the vision. All blessings come from above; therefore keep your eye on Jesus. Never weary. If you do not fall out by the way, he will be with you to strengthen you in the way. Hallelujah!

Labels: , , ,

05 February 2017

Our living hope. (5-6/17)


p. 37


p. 38


p. 39

by Smith Wigglesworth
Confidence, May-June 1917.
Preached at Bowland Street Mission, March 1917.

“Being begotten again unto a living hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

In 1 Corinthians 15, we read of the glorious fact of Christ the first-fruits. A farmer goes over his land eagerly scanning the first ears of corn that show themselves above the soil because he knows, as the first beginnings, so may the harvest be. And just in the measure as Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, so are we. As he is, so are we in this world. Christ is now getting the church ready for translation. Here, we read in Peter, “We are begotten again into a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Oh, to be changed—a living fact in the body. Just as in the flesh Jesus triumphed by the Spirit. Oh, to be like him! What a living hope it is!

Continued…

Labels: ,

29 January 2017

1917 Bradford Convention. (5-6/17)


p. 36


p. 37

by Alexander Alfred Boddy (possibly; unattributed)
Confidence, May-June 1917.

The usual Easter Conference was held this year at Bowland Street Mission, Bradford, Yorkshire, and proved a time of unusual blessing. There was a wonderful outpouring of God’s manifested presence in the midst. This year the work was far deeper than any previous one, proving a spiritual growth in those that had received the baptism, and a deeper work in those ministering.

The meetings proper began on Good Friday morning [6 April] when the convener (Mr. S. Wigglesworth) opened with a word from Acts 1.8, on the importance of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. The convention was to stand for subtraction as well as addition, an enlargement in God making the believer extraordinary because of the indwelling presence of the living God, which the new order came to manifest in the world. He voiced the great need of an increasing knowledge of God and a pressing on until the fullness of the possibility was reached, and God’s ministers become a flame of fire. We were all glad to notice the power manifested was in the waiting rooms; also in the large assembly, people receiving the baptism at the same time as the word was being ministered. The preaching of Christ crucified as being the great need of the heathen world, was vividly set before our eyes at the missionary meeting on Monday, the offering amounting to over £90.

• • •

One was very deeply impressed with the singing in the Spirit of the heavenly anthem, which far excelled anything we have had before at Bowland Street Mission. The keynote was “Worthy Is the Lamb.” In nearly every meeting the song was heard, rising in spiritual fervor and revelation, until it was like entering in spirit into the opening of the book of Revelation, with a shout of victory and expectation in it, to herald the events that shall come to pass. The chief message of the song was “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.” “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever.”

Also the tongues and interpretations were of a very wonderful order, so clear and full of scriptural truth. Truly we are living in wonderful days, when the Holy Ghost so dwells in believers that he tells out divine bible truths. Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! Much interest has been awakened in other places nearby. This is the way God works.

Labels: , ,

22 January 2017

The inspiration of a living faith. (3-4/17)


p. 20


p. 21

by Smith Wigglesworth
Confidence, March-April 1917.
Preached at Bowland Street Mission, February 1917.

The inspiration of a living faith is not on the line of the flesh, but in God’s order. God will never let us move—he is bound up in it—until this faith is perfected. In order that we may merit the quickening of our faith we must lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us, remembering not only that earthly, but heavenly witnesses are watching to see faith established on the earth. Thus we live not unto ourselves in this race of faith. God plants faith that we may endure hardships. His hand holds; his hand filled with benevolence holds us. Not a moment’s unrest or trouble, if I keep my mind stayed on God. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee.” The enemy may seek to insert a dart of bitterness or hardness, but faith is the only production of that which is well-pleasing unto God. I must get my eye fixed, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

The lawyer said: “Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said—this is the principle—“To love God with all thy heart, mind, soul, strength, and thy neighbor as thyself.” It is only possible on the line of faith, “He that cometh from above is above all, and in you all” —the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus our Master is seated in the glory to reach all. There is given us the beatitudes: Blessed are the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, those that hunger and thirst after righteousness, the merciful, the pure, the peacemakers.

Salvation is the greatest and most stupendous work wrought in man. The healing of the body is wonderful, but to be like-minded with him, to think with him—our salvation began in the glory, and it will be finished there. If we are hindered, there is something not yet set aside. Faith in God is a living substance that abides, always working out the divine will in us. There will be hardships, wars, over-surfeitings to crush us and make us heavy at heart, unless our eyes are in the right place. People say, “Tell us how to get out of this, that, and the other. Consider him! when in awful agony as if your feet were almost swept away; all will go as a mist if you will only consider him. Little things, great things, tremendous things—but all went when you considered him. Looking unto Jesus! It is in the glory times I am likely to be switched off. The easy time is the time to look to Jesus.

[“Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him.” ] Why should sons need correcting? The sons we love need correcting, because all must go that the image of my Lord may be wrought out. The Lord might have chosen such and such! But me! Oh, beloved, if only you could see the dial; he chases all away to perfect us unto himself. As we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. The chastening is to bear the image of the heavenly—a great structure of his loveliness. Our face in the glory is here, as we can bear chastenings. Don’t think, beloved, the work is done when the gravity is removed; only the body is changed then to stand the glories upon glories. We are changed here, and the chastening is for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness —our profit; eternal pleasures. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Isaiah was undone when he was a moment in the glorious presence. Even the back parts left upon the face of Moses an expression so glorious that men could not bear to look upon; and the angels cry “Holy! Holy! Holy!”

Partakers of his holiness, the same holiness—not an earthly invention, but a divine apprehension through the Spirit, and the chastening is through the Spirit that we might know the breadth and length, and depth and height, and the love of God which passeth knowledge, that we might be filled unto all the fulness of God.

It yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby. It bringeth forth a righteousness which holdeth its integrity in the power of God —a blameless life lived in the world—they cannot live it, but they commend it, and it is a power of judgment to those looking on. Feeble knees —this state means a stretched-out hand to the needy. David says, Show me thy salvation, and “the humble shall hear thereof and be glad.”

When we get God’s salvation we are able to help those helpless from natural causes—those hung up to die, with no hand outstretched to help, linked on to his righteousness, able to help and confirm the feeble-kneed—where there is no vision the people perish, and none can see but those anointed with eye-salve. Anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see. The power of God taking away all criticism and hindrance until we see the need of the people.

Jesus always saw the need; the disciples did not always see, but Jesus did. Let it be healed. Follow peace and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. Blessed are ye if ye can endure; these people could not endure. Ye are come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, and to an innumerable company of angels. The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them. Oh, this wonderful inheritance—the fullness of the Spirit. Mount Zion is not far from us, the angels are close to us; we live in heavenly places close to all might, where we can change strength covered with almighty power, so glorified in God that you do not know that you have a body. Your name is written in heaven, clothed with God. His holiness is power, written in heaven—this assembly we are in. God’s voice speaking from heaven; verily we are in a holy place. God’s word, the efficacy of the atoning blood has power to take away this morning everything that cannot stand the judgment (if we will allow it) that that which cannot be shaken may remain.

The removing of those things that are shaken, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. So wholly for God that when the shaking in fervent heat comes (when that which can be shaken will be), that which is of God through the eternal working of the Spirit shall remain. For our God is a consuming fire. Oh, how lovely, beautiful, quickening, reviving, nourishing; and we are now in the place, if we will! If we desire, we can. None shall take our crown. The Lord himself began the work—purposing, hastening, perfecting, and no wind or storm can move us from the rock.

[Tongues and interpretation. “The Lord hath exalted his people, purging the floor, fanning with his fan, taking away the first to establish the second for ever, perfecting in holiness and righteousness (that no flesh should glory in his presence), from grace to grace, spirit to spirit, until the whole church is one solid block in the Lord, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing. To this end as a choice vessel keep thine house in order, filled with oil, waiting for the consummation.”]

Labels: ,

15 January 2017

Like precious faith. (10/14/22)


p. 1


p. 2

by Smith Wigglesworth
The Pentecostal Evangel, 14 October 1922.
Preached at Glad Tidings Assembly, San Francisco.
Faith That Prevails, chapter 2.

Read 2 Peter 1.1-8.

We are dull of comprehension because we so often let the cares of this world blind our eyes, but if we can be open to God we shall see that he has a greater plan for us in the future than we have ever seen or dreamed of in the past. It is God’s delight to make possible to us that which seems impossible, and when we reach a place where he alone has right of way, then all the things that have been misty and misunderstood are cleared up.

Continued…

Labels: , ,

08 January 2017

The Whitsuntide Convention: Some further notes. (8/16)


p. 127


p. 128

by Alexander Alfred Boddy (possibly; unattributed)
Confidence, August 1916.

Mrs. Walshaw on Prayer.

On the Monday evening there was a great gathering, when Mrs. [Lydia A.] Walshaw, of Halifax, spoke with great power. Here are some notes of her address:

  • “God longs to bring man back into heart-fellowship with himself.”
  • “The prayer life brings us back into communion with God.”
  • “It must be a life of prayer; we must go on until we even become a prayer.”
  • “God is waiting for our prayer, that he may give us a mighty revival.”
  • “The Holy Spirit teaches us and helps us in prayer.”
Continued…

Labels: , ,

01 January 2017

The place of power. (6/16)


p. 102


p. 103


p. 104


p. 105


p. 106
by Smith Wigglesworth
Confidence, June 1916.

The thought that has been pressing upon my mind for some time is the thought of “abiding,” and the joy of being at that place where I can always count upon being in the presence of power, where I know God’s presence is with me, leading to a place where victory is assured. Let us get hold of this thought—that if we keep in a certain place with God wonderful things may happen, for we shall then be in a place where we reach such spiritual attainment that marvels may be wrought because we are there. Then God will have his own way through us.

The anointed Jesus. In the fourth chapter of Luke, first verse, we read: “And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.” Mark speaks about being “driven” by the Spirit. Whatever Mark means or Luke means, there is one thing certain, and that is this—we see a power, a majesty, falling on the Lord Jesus. He is no longer the same man. He has received a mighty anointing power of God, and in this place he realizes that the only thing for him to do is to submit to God, and as he submits he is more and more covered with power and led by the Spirit.

Continued…

Labels: ,

25 December 2016

From the Great Northern Railway. (11/14)


p. 228


p. 229
by Smith Wigglesworth
On the Great Northern Railway at Glacier Park Station, posted Tuesday, 24 November 1914.
Confidence, Dec 1914.

My most precious Bro. Boddy,

Your request to me, to send some reports for your valuable paper from time to time, have never slipped my memory.

I now have a dear English brother accompanying me on this trip. He, owing to reading a copy of Confidence, was led to visit Bro. Mead in Los Angeles. He had just come from Mexico, and was in need of spiritual help. I was staying at Bro. Mead’s at the time, and being fresh from England, we became closely associated. This led to his baptism, and now he is most anxious to please God in any way, and is now writing this letter from me to you for your paper Confidence.

Continued…

Labels: ,

18 December 2016

From “Press reports of the Fifth Sunderland Convention.” (6/12)


p. 131


p. 135
taken from the Sunderland Echo, North Mail, Northern Echo, and Newcastle Journal. Edited by A.A. Boddy.
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.

Continued…

Labels: , ,

The Smith Wigglesworth Blog is a production of The Christ Almighty Blog. Come give us a visit.

Search

Recently

Apostle of Faith

  1. “First the blade…”
  2. An helpmeet for him.
  3. “Then the ear…”
  4. Endued from on high.
  5. After receiving the Baptism.
  6. The ministry of healing.
  7. In labors more abundant.
  8. Miracles in Australia and New Zealand.
  9. Visits to Switzerland and Sweden.

Ever Increasing Faith

  1. Have faith in God. (12/22)
  2. Deliverance to the captives. (2/23)
  3. The power of the name. (1/23)

Faith That Prevails

  1. The faith that comes from God. (9/22)
  2. Like precious faith. (10/14/22)

Archives

Credits

I started this site ’cause I took a Pentecostal history class in grad school, used several Wigglesworth articles for a paper, and rather than just throw away my source materials, I stuck ’em on the internet. I’ve been adding to them since. Thanks for the encouraging feedback!

Yes, the Wigglesworth articles are edited for spelling, punctuation, paragraph breaks, and verse references. But that’s all. Most of the source materials are transcripts of what he spoke aloud, so I believe such alterations are justifiable. I’ve included scans of the original publications in case you wish to compare. Any further typos are because the OCR software made them and I didn’t catch them. Sorry.

If you come across another version of these articles with significant differences (including in print!) it’s because their editor decided to take further liberties with Wigglesworth than I would. There comes a point when such editing becomes less about Wigglesworth’s own words, and more about editors wishing to reshape Wigglesworth to suit them. Or the times. There are certain things Wigglesworth said and taught where I personally can’t agree, and honestly don’t believe the scriptures back him up. (You want my view, visit Christ Almighty.) But as an historian I’m posting what he said, disagreements or not. I wouldn’t appreciate it if people bent my words in like manner, and I’m not editing him for anyone’s theological sensibilities—neither mine nor yours.

You have my permission to link to this blog, and make fair-use quotations of it. But as for republication, the rights don’t belong to me. Thanks to Disney’s continued lobbying for copyright extensions, they won’t be out of copyright in the United States till 2042—if ever. So the copyrights belong to Wigglesworth, the respective publications, and their successors. All rights reserved.

Bible links go to good old Bible Gateway. Wigglesworth used the Authorized (King James) Version, and any discrepancies are because he impressively quoted from memory.

European readers: It’s only fair to warn you this site uses cookies. Sorry. I didn’t put them there. Blogger did. I still love using Blogger though.

—K.W. Leslie

Powered by Blogger