Published in the Pentecostal Evangel, March 31, 1923.
Ever Increasing Faith, chapter 7. (Published 1924.)

Read Acts 4.

Today we praise God for the fact that our glorious Jesus is the risen Christ. Those of us who have tasted the power of the indwelling Spirit know something of the manner in which the hearts of those two disciples burned as they walked to Emmaus with their risen Lord as their companion.

Note the words of verse 31, "And when they had prayed, the place was shaken." There are many churches where they never pray the kind of prayer that you read of here. A church that does not know how to pray and to shout will never be shaken. If you live in a place like that you may as well write "Ichabod—the glory of the Lord has departed"—over the threshold. It is only when men have learned the secret of prayer, of power, and of praise, that God comes forth. Some people say, "Well, I praise God inwardly," but if there is an abundance of praise in your heart, your mouth cannot help speaking it.

There was a man who had a large business in London who was a great church-goer. The church he attended was beautifully decorated, and his pew was delightfully cushioned—just about enough to make it easy to sleep through the sermons. He was a prosperous man in business, but he had no peace in his heart. But there was a boy at his business who always looked happy. He was always jumping and whistling. One day he said to this boy, "I want to see you in my office." When the boy was in his office he asked him, "How is it that you can always whistle and be happy?"

"I cannot help it," answered the boy.

"Where did you get it?" asked the master.

"I got it at the Pentecostal mission."

"Where is that?"

The boy told him, and the next thing was, that the man was attending. The Lord broke him up there, and in a short while he was entirely changed. One day, shortly after this, he found that, instead of being distracted by his business as he formerly had been, he was actually whistling and jumping. His whole position and his whole life had been changed.

The shout cannot come out unless it is in. There must first be the inner working of the power of God. It is He who changes the heart, and transforms the life, and before there is any real outward evidence there must be the inflow of divine life.

Sometimes I say to people, "You weren't at meeting the other night."

They reply, "Oh yes, I was there in spirit."

I say to them, "Well, come next time with your body also. We don't want a lot of spirits here and no bodies. We want you to come and get filled with God."

When all the people will come and pray and praise as did these early disciples there will be something doing. People who come will catch fire and they will want to come again. But they will have no use for a place where everything has become formal, dry, and dead.

The power of Pentecost as it came at first came to loose men. God wants us free on every line. Men and women are tired of imitations; they want reality; they want to see people who have the living Christ within, and are filled with Holy Ghost power.

I received several letters and telegrams about a certain case, but when I arrived I was told I was too late. I said, "That cannot be. God has never sent me too late anywhere." God showed me when I went that something different would happen to anything I had seen previously. The people I went to were all strangers. I was introduced to a young man who lay helpless, and for whom there was no hope. The doctor had been to see him that morning and had declared that he would not live through the day. He lay with his face to the wall, and when I spoke to him he whispered, "I cannot turn over." His mother said that they had had to lift him out of bed on sheets for weeks, and that he was so weak and helpless that he had to stay in one position.

The young man said, "My heart is so weak."

I assured him, "God is the strength of thy heart and thy portion forever. If you will believe God, it shall be so today."

Our Christ is risen. He is a living Christ who indwells us. We must not have this truth merely as a theory, Christ must be risen in us by the power of the Spirit. The power that raised Him from the dead must animate us, and as this glorious resurrection power surges through your being, you will be freed from all your weaknesses and you will become strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. There is a resurrection power that God wants you to have and to have it today. Why not? Receive your portion here and now.

I said to these people, "I believe your son will rise today." They only laughed. People do not expect to see signs and wonders today as the disciples saw them of old. Has God changed? Or has our faith waned so that we are not expecting the greater works that Jesus promised? We must not harp on any minor key. Our message must rise to concert pitch, and there must be nothing left out of it that is in the Book.

It was winter time, and I said to the parents, "Will you get the boy's suit and bring it here?" They would not listen to the request, for they were expecting the boy to die. But I had gone to that place believing God.

In Romans 4.17, we read of Abraham, "(I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were." God help us to understand this. It is time people knew how to shout in faith as they contemplate the eternal power of our God to whom it is nothing to quicken and raise the dead. I come across some who would be giants in the power of God but they have no shout of faith. I find everywhere people who go down even when they are praying simply because they are just breathing sentences without uttering speech, and you cannot get victory that way. You must learn to take the victory and shout in the face of the devil, "It is done!" There is no man who can doubt if he learns to shout. When we know how to shout properly, things will be different, and tremendous things will happen.

In verse 24 we read, "They lifted up their voice with one accord." It surely must have been a loud prayer. We must know that God means us to have life. If there is anything in the world that has life in it, it is this Pentecostal revival we are in. I believe in the Baptism of the Holy Ghost with the speaking in tongues, and I believe that every man who is baptized in the Holy Ghost will speak in other tongues as the Spirit gives him utterance. I believe in the Holy Ghost. And if you are filled with the Spirit you will be superabounding in life—living waters will flow from you.

At last I persuaded the parents to bring the boy's clothes and lay them on the bed. From the natural viewpoint, the young man lay dying. I spoke to the afflicted one, "God has revealed to me that, as I lay my hands upon you, the place will be filled with the Holy Ghost, the bed will be shaken, you will be shaken and thrown out of bed by the power of the Holy Ghost, you will dress yourself and be strong." I said this to him in faith. I laid hands on him in the name of Jesus and instantly the power of God fell and filled the place. I felt helpless and fell flat on the floor. I knew nothing except that a short while after the place was shaken, I heard the young man walking over me and saying, "For Thy glory, Lord! For Thy glory, Lord!"

He dressed himself and cried, "God has healed me." The father fell, the mother tell, and another who was present fell also. God manifested His power that day in saving the whole household and healing the young man. It is the power of the risen Christ we need. That young man is today preaching the gospel.

For years we have been longing for God to come forth, and, praise Him, He is coming forth. The tide is rising everywhere. I was in Switzerland not long ago, preaching in many places where the Pentecostal message had not been heard, and today there are nine new Pentecostal assemblies in different places going on blessedly for God. All over the world it is the same; this great Pentecostal work is in motion. You can hardly get to a place now where God is not pouring out His Spirit on hungry hearts. God has promised to pour out His Spirit upon all flesh, and His promises never fail. Our Christ is risen. His salvation was not a thing done in a corner. Truly He was a man of glory who went to Calvary for us, in order that He might free us from all that would mar and hinder, that He might transform us by His grace, and bring us out from under the power of Satan into the glorious power of God. One touch of our risen Christ will raise the dead. Hallelujah!

Oh, this wonderful Jesus of ours! He comes and indwells us. He comes to abide. He it is who baptizes us with the Holy Ghost, and makes everything different. We are to be a kind of firstfruits unto God and are to be like Christ who is the first fruit, walking in His footsteps, living in His power. What a salvation this is, having this risen Christ in us. I feel that everything else must go to nothingness, helplessness and ruin. Even the best thought of holiness must be on the decrease in order that Christ may increase, and we live in another state, and all things are under the power of the Spirit.

Dare you take your inheritance from God? Dare you believe God? Dare you stand on the record of His Word? What is the record? If thou shalt believe thou shalt see the glory of God. You will be sifted as wheat. You will be tried as though some strange thing tried you. You will be put in places where you will have to put your whole trust in God. There is no such thing as anyone being tried beyond what God will allow. There is no temptation that will come, but God will be with you right in the temptation to deliver you, and when you have been tried, He will bring you forth as gold. Every trial is to bring you to a greater position in God. The trial that tries your faith will take you on to the place where you will know that the faith of God will be forthcoming in the next test. No man is able to win any victory save through the power of the risen Christ within him. You will never be able to say, "I did this or that." You will desire to give God the glory for everything.

If you are sure of your ground, if you are counting on the presence of the living Christ within, you can laugh when you see things getting worse. God would have you settled and grounded in Christ, and it is only as you are filled with the Holy Ghost that you become stedfast and unmoveable in Him.

The Lord Jesus said, "I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished." He was assuredly straitened in the way, at Gethsemane, at the judgment hall, and after that, at the cross, where He, through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God. God will take us right on in like manner, and the Holy Spirit will lead every step of the way. God led Him right through to the empty tomb, to the ascension glory, to a place on the throne; and the Son of God will never be satisfied until He has us with Himself, sharing His glory and sharing His throne.

Labels: 1923, Ever Increasing Faith, Pentecostal Evangel

Published in the Pentecostal Evangel, June 12, 1926.

"Only believe! only believe! all things are possible, only believe!" Praise God, He has made all things possible. There is liberty for everyone, whatever the trouble. Our Lord Jesus says, "Only believe." He has obtained complete victory over every difficulty, over every power of evil, over every depravity. Every sin is covered by Calvary.

Who are of the tribe of Abraham? All who believe in Jesus Christ are the seed of faith, Abraham's seed. If we dare come believing, God will heal, God will restore, will lift the burden and wake us up to real overcoming faith. Look up! Take courage! Jesus has shaken the foundations of death and darkness. He fighteth for you and there is none like Him. He is the great I AM. His name is above every name. As we believe we are lifted into a place of rest, a place of conformity to Him. He says to us as He did to Abraham, "I will bless thee and thou shalt be a blessing." He says to us as He did to His people of old, "With loving kindness have I drawn thee." Hallelujah: "He'll never forget to keep me, He'll never forget to keep me; my Father has many dear children, but He'll never forget to keep me." Believe it. He will never forget.

In the sixth chapter of Acts we read of the appointment of seven deacons. The disciples desired to give themselves wholly to prayer and to the ministry of the Word, and they said to the brethren, "Look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business." And they chose Stephen (a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost) and six others. We read that Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people, and his opponents were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spake. When his opponents brought him before the Sanhedrin, all that sat in the Council looked steadfastly on him, and they saw his face as it had been the face of an angel.

I see many remarkable things in the life of Stephen. One thing moves me, and that is the truth that I must at all costs live by the power of the Spirit. God wants us to be like Stephen, full of faith and full of the Holy Ghost. You can never be the same again after you have received this wonderful Baptism in the Holy Spirit. It is important that day by day we should be full of wisdom and faith, and full of the Holy Ghost, acting by the power of the Holy Ghost. God has set us here in the last days, these of apostasy, and would have us be burning and shining lights in the midst of an untoward generation. God is longing for us to come into such a fruitful position as the sons of God, with the marks of heaven upon us, His divinity bursting through our humanity, so that He can express Himself through our lips of clay. He can take clay lips, weak humanity, and make of such an oracle for Himself. He can take frail human nature and by His divine power make our bodies meet to he His holy temple, washing our hearts whiter than snow.

Our Lord Jesus says, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." He longs that we should be filled with faith and with the Holy Ghost and declares to us, "He that believeth on me the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father." He has gone to the Father. He is in the place of power and He exercises His power not only in heaven but on earth, for He has all power on earth as well as in heaven. Hallelujah! What an open door to us if we will but believe Him.

The disciples were men after our standard on the line of the flesh. God sent them forth, joined to the Lord and identified with Him. Peter, John and Thomas, how diverse they were! Impulsive Peter, ever ready to go forth without a stop! John, the beloved, leaning on the Master's breast, how different! Thomas, with hard nature and defiant spirit. "I won't believe, unless I put my finger into the print of the nails and my hands into His side." What strange flesh! How peculiar! But the Master could mold them. There was no touch like His. Under His touch even stony-hearted Thomas believed. Ah my God, how Thou hast had to manage some of us. Have we not been strange and very peculiar? But oh, when God's hand comes upon us, He can speak to us in such a way—a word, a look, and we are broken. Has He spoken to you? I thank God for His speaking. Back of all His dealings we see the love of God for us. It is not what we are that counts, but what we can be as He disciplines and chastens us and transforms us by His all skillful hands. He sees our bitter tears and our weeping night after night. There is none like Him. He knows. He forgives. We cannot forgive ourselves; we oftentimes would give the world to forget, but we cannot. The devil won't let us forget. But God has forgiven and forgotten. Do you believe self, or the devil, or God? Which are you going to believe? Believe God. I know the past is under the blood and that God has forgiven and forgotten, for when He forgives He forgets. Praise the Lord! Hallelujah! We are baptized to believe and to receive.

In making provision for the serving of tables and the daily ministration, the disciples knew who were baptized with the Holy Ghost. In the early days of the church all who touched the work had to be men full of the Holy Ghost. I am hungry that I may be more full, that God may make choice of me for His service. And I know that the greatest qualification is to be filled with the Spirit. The Holy Spirit has the divine commission from heaven to impart revelation to every son of God concerning the Lord Jesus, to unfold to us the gifts and the fruit of the Spirit. He will take of the things of Christ and show them unto us.

Stephen was a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost. God declares it. God so manifested Himself in Stephen's body that he became an epistle of truth, known and read of all. Full of faith! Such men never talk doubt. You never hear them say, "I wish it could be so; or if it is God's will." No IFS. They KNOW. You never hear them say, "Well, it does not always act." They say, "It is sure to be." They laugh at impossibilities and cry, "It shall be done!" A man full of faith hopes against hope. He shouts while the walls are up and they come down while he shouts! God has this faith for us in Christ. We must be careful that no unbelief is found in us, no wavering.

"Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people." The Holy Ghost could do mighty things through him because he believed God, and God is with the man who dares to believe His Word. All things were possible because of the Holy Ghost's position in Stephen's body. He was full of the Holy Ghost so God could fulfill His purposes through him. When a child of God is filled with the Holy Ghost, the Spirit maketh intercession through him for the saints according to the will of God. He fills us with longings and desires until we are in a place of fervency as of a molten fire. What to do we know not. When we are in this place the Holy Ghost begins to do. When the Holy Ghost has liberty in the body He wafts all utterance into the presence of God according to the will of God. Such prayers are always heard. Such praying is always answered; it is never bare of result. When we are praying in the Holy Ghost, faith is in evidence and as a result the power of God can be manifested in our midst.

When there arose certain of the various synagogues to dispute with Stephen they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which He spake. When we are filled with the Holy Ghost we will have wisdom. Praise God! One night I was entrusted with a meeting and I was jealous of my position before God. I wanted approval from the Lord. I see that God wants men full of the Holy Ghost, with divine ability, filled with life, a flaming fire. In the meeting a young man stood up, a pitiful object, with a face full of sorrow.

I said, "What is it, young man?"

He said he was unable to work, he could scarcely walk. He said, "I am so helpless. I have consumption and a weak heart, and my body is full of pain."

I said, "I will pray for you." I said to the people, "As I pray for this young man, you look at his face and see it change."

As I prayed his face changed and he was in a strange way. I said to him, "Go out and run a mile and come back to the meeting."

He came back and said, "I can now breathe freely."

The meetings were continuing and I missed him. After a few days I saw him again in the meeting. I said, "Young man, tell the people what God has done for you."

"Oh," he said, "I have been to work. I bought some papers and I have made $4.50."

Praise God, this wonderful stream of salvation never runs dry. You can take a drink, it is close to you. It is a river that is running deep and there is plenty for all.

In a meeting a man rose and said, "Will you touch me, I am in a terrible way. I have a family of children, and through an accident in the pit I have had no work for two years. I cannot open my hands."

I was full of sorrow for this poor man and something happened which had never come before. We are in the infancy of this wonderful outpouring of the Holy Spirit and there is so much more for us. I put out my hand, and before my hands reached his, he was loosed and made perfectly free. I see that Stephen, full of faith and of power, did great wonders and miracles among the people. This same Holy Ghost filling is for us, and right things will be accomplished if we are filled with His Spirit. God will grant it. He declares that the desires of the righteous shall be granted.

Stephen was an ordinary man made extraordinary in God. We may be very ordinary, but God wants to make us extraordinary in the Holy Ghost. God is ready to touch and to transform you right now.

Once a woman rose in the meeting asking for prayer. I prayed for her and she was healed. She cried out, "It is a miracle! It is a miracle! It is a miracle!" That is what God wants to do for us all the time. As sure as we get free in the Holy Ghost something will happen. Let us pursue the best things and let God have His right of way.

All that sat in the council looked steadfastly on Stephen and saw his face as it had been the face of an angel. It was worth being filled with the Holy Ghost for that. The Spirit breaking through. There is a touch of the Spirit where the light of God will verily radiate from our faces.

The seventh chapter of Acts is the profound prophetic utterance that the Spirit spoke through this holy man. The word of God flowed through the lips of Stephen in the form of divine prophecy so that they who heard these things were cut to the heart. But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, "Behold I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God." Right to the last Stephen was full of the Holy Ghost. He saw Jesus standing. In another part we read of Him seated at the right hand of God. That is His place of authority. But here we see that He arose. He was so keenly interested in that martyr Stephen. May the Lord open our eyes to see Him and to know that He is deeply interested in all that concerns us. He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities.

All things are naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. That asthma, He knows. That rheumatism, He knows. That pain in the back, that head, those feet, He knows. He wants to loose every captive and to set you free just as He has set me free. I do not know that I have a body today. I am free of every human ailment, absolutely free. Christ has redeemed us. He has power over all the power of the enemy and has wrought out our great victory. Will you have it? It is yours—a perfect redemption.

And they stoned Stephen, who called upon God and said, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." And when he had said this he fell asleep. Stephen was not only filled with faith but he was also filled with love as he prayed just as his Master prayed, "Father, forgive them."

It is God's thought to make us a new creation, with all the old things passed away and all things within us truly of God, to bring in a new divine order, a perfect love and an unlimited faith. Will you have it? Redemption is free. Arise in the activity of faith and God will heal you as you rise. Only believe and receive in faith. Stephen, full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, did great signs and wonders. May God bless to us this word and fill us full of His Holy Spirit, and through the power of the Holy Ghost more and more reveal Christ in us.

The Spirit of God will always reveal the Lord Jesus Christ. Serve Him, love Him, be filled with Him. It is lovely to hear Him as He makes Himself known to us. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is willing to fill us with the Holy Ghost and faith just as He filled Stephen.

Labels: 1926, Pentecostal Evangel

Preached at Springfield Assembly, Springfield, Mo.
Published in the Pentecostal Evangel, April 14, 1923.
Faith that Prevails, chapter 7, “Present-time blessings.”

Read with me the first twelve verses of Matthew 5, these verses that we generally call the “Beatitudes.” Some tell us that Matthew 5 is a millennial chapter and that we cannot attain to these blessings at the present time. I believe that everyone who receives the Baptism in the Spirit has a real foretaste and earnest of millennial blessing, but that here the Lord Jesus is setting forth present-day blessings that we can enjoy here and now.

It is a great joy for me to be speaking to baptized believers. We have not reached the height of God’s mind, but my personal conviction is that we are nearer by far than we were fourteen years ago. If anyone had told me that I should be happier today than I was fourteen years ago when the Lord baptized me in the Spirit, I would not have believed him. But I see that God has more ahead for us, and that, so far, we have only touched the fringe of things. As we let the truth lay hold of us, we will press on for the mark ahead and enter more fully into our birth-right—all that God says.

It seems to me that every time I open my Bible I get a new revelation of God’s plan. God’s Spirit takes man to a place of helplessness, and then reveals God as his all in all.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” This is one of the richest places into which Jesus brings us. The poor have a right to everything in heaven. “Theirs is.” Dare you believe it? Yes, I dare. I believe, I know, that I was very poor. When God’s Spirit comes in as the ruling, controlling power of the life, He gives us God’s revelation of our inward poverty, and shows us that God has come with one purpose, to bring heaven’s best to earth, and that with Jesus He will indeed “freely give us all things.”

An old man and an old woman had lived together for seventy years. Someone said to them, “You must have seen many clouds during those days.” They replied, “Where do the showers come from? You never get showers without clouds.” It is only the Holy Ghost who can bring us to the place of realization of our poverty; but, every time He does it, He opens the windows of heaven and the showers of blessing fall.

But I must recognize the difference between my own spirit and the Holy Spirit. My own spirit can do certain things on natural lines, can even weep and pray and worship, but it is all on a human plan, and we must not depend on our own human thoughts and activities or on our own personality. If the Baptism means anything to you, it should bring you to the death of the ordinary, where you are no longer putting faith in your own understanding; but, conscious of your own poverty, you are ever yielded to the Spirit. Then it is that your body becomes filled with heaven on earth.

“Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.” People get a wrong idea of mourning. Over in Switzerland they have a day set apart to take wreaths to graves. I laughed at the people’s ignorance and said, “Why are you spending time around the graves? The people you love are not there. All that taking of flowers to the graves is not faith at all.” Those who died in Christ are gone to be with Him, “which,” Paul said, “is far better.”

My wife once said to me, “You watch me when I’m preaching. I get so near to heaven when I’m preaching that some day I’ll be off.” One night she was preaching and when she had finished, off she went. I was going off to Glasgow and had said goodbye to her before she went to meeting. As I was leaving the house, the doctor and policeman met me at the door and told me that she had fallen dead at the Mission door. I knew she had got what she wanted. I could not weep, but I was in tongues, praising the Lord. On natural lines she was everything to me; but I could not mourn on natural lines, but just laughed in the Spirit. The house was soon filled with people. The doctor said, “She is dead, and we can do no more for her.”

I went up to her lifeless corpse and commanded death to give her up, and she came back to me for a moment. Then God said to me, “She is Mine; her work is done.” I knew what He meant.

They laid her in the coffin, and I brought my sons and my daughter into the room and said, “Is she there?”

They said, “No, father.”

I said, “We will cover her up.”

If you go mourning the loss of loved ones who have gone to be with Christ, I say it in love to you, you have never had the revelation of what Paul spoke of when he showed us that it is better to go than to stay. We read this in Scripture, but the trouble is that people will not believe it. When you believe God, you will say, “Whatever it is, it is all right. If Thou dost want to take the one I love, it is all right, Lord.” Faith removes all tears of self-pity.

But there is a mourning in the Spirit. God will bring you to a place where things must be changed, and there is a mourning, an unutterable groaning until God comes. And the end of all real faith always is rejoicing. Jesus mourned over Jerusalem. He saw the conditions, He saw the unbelief, He saw the end of those who closed their ears to the Gospel. But God gave a promise that He should see the travail of His soul and be satisfied, and that He should see His seed. What happened on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem was an earnest of what will be the results of His travail, to be multiplied a billionfold all down the ages in all the world. And as we enter in the Spirit into travail over conditions that are wrong, snch mourning will ever bring results for God, and our joy will be complete in the satisfaction that is brought to Christ thereby.

“Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.” Moses was headstrong in his zeal for his own people, and it resulted in his killing a man. His heart was right in his desire to correct things, but he was working on natural lines, and when we work on natural lines we always fail. Moses had a mighty passion, and that is one of the best things in the world when God has control and it becomes a passion for souls to be born again; but apart from God it is one of the worst things. Paul had it to a tremendous extent, and, breathing out threatenings, he was hailing men and women to prison. But God changed it, and later we find him wishing himself accursed from Christ for the sake of his brethren, his kinsmen according to the flesh. God took the headstrong Moses and molded him into the meekest of men. He took the fiery Saul of Tarsus and made him the foremost exponent of grace. Oh, brothers, God can transform you in like manner, and plant in you a divine meekness and every other thing that you lack.

In our Sunday school we had a boy with red hair. His head was as red as fire and so was his temper. He was such a trial. He kicked his teachers and the superintendent. He was simply uncontrollable. The teachers had a meeting in which they discussed the matter of expelling him. They thought that God might undertake for that boy and so they decided to give him another chance. One day he had to be turned out, and he broke all the windows of the mission. He was worse outside than in. Some time later we had a ten-days revival meeting. There was nothing much doing in that meeting and people thought it a waste of time, but there was one result—the red-headed lad got saved. After he was saved, the difficulty was to get rid of him at our house. He would be there until midnight crying to God to make him pliable and use him for His glory. God delivered the lad from his temper and made him one of the meekest, most beautiful boys you ever saw. For twenty years he has been a mighty missionary in China. God takes us just as we are and transforms us by His power.

I can remember the time when I used to go white with rage, and shake all over with temper. I could hardly hold myself together. I waited on God for ten days. In those ten days I was being emptied out and the life of the Lord Jesus was being wrought into me. My wife testified of the transformation that took place in my life, “I never saw such a change. I have never been able to cook anything since that time that has not pleased him. Nothing is too hot or too cold, everything is just right.” God must come and reign supreme in your life. Will you let Him do it? He can do it, and He will if you will let Him. It is no use trying to tame the “old man.” But God can deal with him. The carnal mind will never be subjected to God, but God will bring it to the cross where it belongs, and will put in its place, the pure, the holy, the meek mind of the Master.

“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” Note that word. “SHALL be filled.” If you ever see a “shall” in the Bible make it yours. Meet the conditions and God will fulfil His word to you. The Spirit of God is crying, “Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money: come ye, buy and eat: yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” The Spirit of God will take of the things of Christ and show them to you in order that you may have a longing for Christ in His fullness, and when there is that longing, God will not fail to fill you.

See that crowd of worshipers who have come up to the feast. They are going away utterly unsatisfied, but on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stands up and cries, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” Jesus knew that they were going away without the living water, and so He directs them to the true source of supply. Are you thirsty today? The living Christ still invites you to Himself, and I want to testify that He still satisfies the thirsty soul and still fills the hungry with good things.

In Switzerland, I learned of a man who met with the assembly of the Plymouth Brethren. He attended their various meetings, and one morning, at their breaking of bread service, he arose and said, “Brethren, we have the Word, and I feel that we are living very much in the letter of it, but there is a hunger and thirst in my soul for something deeper, something more real than we have, and I cannot rest until I enter into it.”

The next Sunday this brother rose again and said, “We are all so poor here, there is no life in this assembly, and my heart is hungry for reality.”

He did this for several weeks until it got on the nerves of those people and they protested, “Sands, you are making us all miserable. You are spoiling our meetings, and there is only one thing for you to do, and that is to clear out.”

That man went out of the meeting in a very sad condition. As he stood outside, one of his children asked him what was the matter, and he said, “To think that they should turn me out from their midst for being hungry and thirsty for more of God!” I did not know anything of this until afterward.

Some days later someone rushed up to Sands and said, “There is a man over here from England, and he is speaking about tongues and healing.”

Sands said, “I’ll fix him. I’ll go to the meeting and sit right up in the front and challenge him with the Scriptures. I’ll dare him to preach these things in Switzerland. I’ll publicly denounce him.”

So he came to the meetings. There he sat. He was so hungry and thirsty that he drank in every word that was said. His opposition soon petered out. The first morning he said to a friend, “This is what I want.” He drank and drank of the Spirit. After three weeks he said, “God will have to do something now or I’ll burst.” He breathed in God and the Lord filled him to such an extent that he spoke in other tongues as the Spirit gave utterance. Sands is now preaching, and is in charge of a new Pentecostal assembly.

God is making people hungry and thirsty after His best. And everywhere He is filling the hungry and giving them that which the disciples received at the very beginning. Are you hungry? If you are, God promises that you shall be filled.

Labels: 1923, Faith that Prevails, Pentecostal Evangel

Preached at Springfield Assembly, Springfield, Mo.
Published in the Pentecostal Evangel, May 12, 1923.
Ever Increasing Faith, chapter 6. (Published 1924.)

Read Matthew 8:1-17.

Here we have a wonderful word. All the Word is wonderful. This blessed Book brings such life and health and peace, and such an abundance that we should never be poor any more. This Book is my heavenly bank. I find everything I want in it. I want to show you how rich you may be, that in everything you can be enriched in Christ Jesus. He has abundance of grace for you and the gift of righteousness and through His abundant grace all things are possible. I want to show you that you can be a living branch of the living Vine, Christ Jesus, and that it is your privilege to be right here in this world what He is. John tells us, “As He is, so are we in this world.” Not that we are anything in ourselves, but Christ within us is our all in all.

The Lord Jesus is always wanting to show forth His grace and love in order to draw us to Himself. God is willing to do things, to manifest His Word, and let us know in measure the mind of our God in this day and hour. There are many needy ones, many afflicted ones, but I do not think any present are half as bad as this first case that we read of in Matthew 8. This man was a leper. You may be suffering with consumption or cancers or other things, but God will show forth His perfect cleansing, His perfect healing, if you have a living faith in Christ. He is a wonderful Jesus.

This leper must have been told about Jesus. How much is missed because people are not constantly telling what Jesus will do in this our day. Probably someone had come to that leper and said, “Jesus can heal you.” And so he was filled with expectation as he saw the Lord coming down the mountain side. Lepers were not allowed to come within reach of people, they were shut out as unclean. And so in the ordinary way it would have been very diflicult for him to get near because of the crowd that surrounded Jesus. But as He came down from the mount He met this poor leper. Oh, this terrible disease! There was no help for him humanly speaking, but nothing is too hard for Jesus. The man cried, “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.” Was Jesus willing? You will never find Jesus missing an opportunity of doing good. You will find that He is always more willing to work than we are to give Him an opportunity to work. The trouble is we do not come to Him, we do not ask Him for what He is more than willing to give.

And Jesus put forth His hand, and touched him, saying, “I will; be thou clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. I like that. If you are definite with Him you will never go away disappointed. The divine life will flow into you and instantaneously you will be delivered. This Jesus is just the same today, and He says to you. “I will; be thou clean.” He has an overflowing cup for thee, a fulness of life. He will meet you in your absolute helplessness. All things are possible if you will only believe. God has a real plan. It is so simple. Just come to Jesus. You will find Him just the same as He was in days of old.

The next case we have in this chapter is that of the centurion coming and beseeching Jesus on behalf of his servant who was sick of the palsy and grievously tormented. This man was so in earnest that he came seeking for Jesus. Notice this, that there is one thing certain, there is no such thing as seeking without finding. He that seeketh findeth. Listen to the gracious words of Jesus, “I will come and heal him.” Most places that we go to there are so many people that we cannot pray for. In some places there are 200 or 300 who would like us to visit them, but we are not able to do so. But I am so glad that the Lord Jesus is always willing to come and heal. He longs to meet the sick ones. He loves to heal them of their afflictions. The Lord is healing many people today by means of handkerchiefs as you read that He healed people in the days of Paul. You can read of this in Acts 19:12.

A woman came to me in the city of Liverpool and said, “I would like you to help me. I wish you would join with me in prayer. My husband is a drunkard and every night comes into the home under the influence of drink. Won’t you join me in prayer for him?” I said to the woman, “Have you a handkerchief?” She took out a handkerchief and I prayed over it and told her to lay it on the pillow of the drunken man. He came home that night and laid his head on the pillow in which this handkerchief was tucked. He laid his head on more than the pillow that night. He laid his head on the promise of God. In Mark 11:24, we read, “What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them and ye shall have them.”

The next morning the man got up and caJled at the first saloon that he had to pass on his way to work and ordered some beer. He tasted it and said to the bartender, “You have put some poison in this beer.” He could not drink it, and went on to the next saloon and ordered some more beer. He tasted it and said to the man behind the counter, “You put some poison in this beer. I believe you folks have agreed to poison me.” The bartender was indignant at being thus charged. The man said, “I will go somewhere else.” He went to another saloon and the same thing happened as in the two previous saloons. He made such a fuss that they turned him out. After he came out from work he went to another saloon to get some beer, and again he thought he had been poisoned and he made so much disturbance that he was thrown out. He went to his home and told his wife what had happened and said, “It seems as though all the fellows have agreed to poison me.” His wife said to him, “Can’t you see the hand of the Lord in this, that He is making vou dislike the stuff that has been your ruin?” This word brought conviction to the man’s heart and he came to the meeting and got saved. The Lord has still power to set the captives free.

When I was in Australia a lady came to me who was much troubled about her son who was so lazy. I prayed over a handkerchief which was placed on the boy’s pillow. He slept that night on the handkerchief and the next morning he got up and went out and secured a position and went to work. Oh, praise the Lord, you can’t shut God out, but if you will only believe He will shut the devil out.

Jesus was willing to go and heal the sick one but the centurion said, “Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof; but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.” Jesus was delighted with this expression and said to the man, “Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.” And his servant was healed the self-same hour.

When I was in Australia a man came up to me. He was leaning on a big stick and said, “I would like you to help me. It will take you half an hour to pray for me.” I said, “Believe God and in one moment you will be whole.” His faith was quickened to receive an immediate healing and he went away glorifying God for a miraculous healing. The word of the Lord is sufficient today. If you will dare to believe God’s Word you will see a performance of His Word that will be truly wonderful. Here we have with the centurion an audacity of faith, a faith that did not limit God. Failures come when we limit the Holy One of Israel. I want to encourage you to a living faith to believe God’s Word.

The next healing we read of here is the healing of Peter’s wife’s mother who was sick of a fever. Luke tells us that Jesus rebuked the fever. The fever could hear. The moment it could hear it went. Jesus had a new method. Today there are a lot of folks who try to sweat out a fever. You can’t sweat the devil out. He can stand all the heat that you can apply to him. But if thou canst believe, deliverance is as sure and certain for you as it was for Peter’s wife’s mother.

I received a telegram once urging me to visit a case about 200 miles from my home. As I went to this place I met the father and mother and found them broken hearted. They lead me up a staircase to a room and I saw a young woman on the floor and five people were holding her down. She was a frail young woman but the power in her was greater than all those young men. As I went into the room the evil powers looked out of hcr eyes and they used her lips saying, “We are many, you can’t cast us out.” I said, “Jesus can.” He is equal to every occasion. He is waiting for an opportunity to bless. He is ready for every opportunity to deliver souls. When we receive Jesus it is true of us, “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.” He is greater than all the powers of darkness. No man can meet the devil in his own strength, but any man filIed with the knowledge of Jesus, filled with His presence, filled with His power, is more than a match for the powers of darkness. God has called us to be more than conquerors through Him that loved us.

The living Word is able to destroy Satanic forces. There is power in the name of Jesus. I would that every window in the street had the name of Jesus written large upon it. His name, through faith in His name, brought deliverance to this poor, bound soul, and thirty-seven demons came out giving their names as they came forth. The dear woman was completely delivered and they were able to give her back her child. That night there was heaven in that home and the father and mother and son and his wife were all united in glorifying Christ for His infinite grace. The next morning we had a gracious time in the breaking of bread. All things are wonderful with our wonderful Jesus. If you would dare rest your all upon Him, things would take place and He would change the whole situation. In a moment, through the name of Jesus, a new order of things can be brought in.

In the world they are always having new diseases and the doctors cannot locate them. A doctor said to me, “The science of medicine is in its infancy, and really we doctors have no confidence in our medicine. We are always experimenting.” But the man of God does not experiment. He knows, or ought to know, redemption in its fulness. He knows, or ought to know, the mightiness of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is not, or should not be, moved by outward observation, but should get divine revelation of the mightiness of the name of Jesus and the power of His blood. If we exercise our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ He will come forth and get glory over all the powers of darkness.

At eventide they brought unto Him many that were possessed with devils; and He cast out the spirits with His word and healed all that were sick: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, “Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.” The work is done if you only believe it. It is done. Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses. If you can only see the Lamb of God as He went to Calvary! He took our flesh that He might take upon Himself the full burden of all our sin and all the consequences of sin. There on the cross God laid upon Him the iniquities of us all. There on the cross of Calvary the results of sin were also dealt with. “As the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage.” Through His death there is deliverance for you today.

Labels: 1923, Ever Increasing Faith, Pentecostal Evangel