Ever Increasing Faith - 1. Have Faith in God
by Smith
Wigglesworth
"For verily I say unto you,
That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast
into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those
things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.
Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe
that ye receive them, and ye shall have them" (Mark 11:23, 24)
These are days when we need to have our faith strengthened, when we need to
know God. God has designed that the just shall live by faith. Any man can be
changed by faith, no matter how he may be fettered. I know that God's word is
sufficient. One word from Him can change a nation. His word is from
everlasting to everlasting. It is through the entrance of this everlasting
Word, this incorruptible seed, that we are born again, and come into this
wonderful salvation. Man cannot live by bread alone, but must live by every
word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. This is the food of faith.
"Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God."
Everywhere men are trying to discredit the Bible and take from it all the
miraculous. One preacher says, "Well, you know, Jesus arranged beforehand to
have that colt tied where it was, and for the men to say just what they did."
I tell you God can arrange everything without going near. He can plan for you,
and when He plans for you, all is peace. All things are possible if you will
believe.
Another preacher said, "It was an easy thing for Jesus to feed the people with
five loaves. The loaves were so big in those days that it was a simple matter
to cut them into a thousand pieces each." But He forgot that one little boy
brought those five loaves all the way in his lunch basket. There is nothing
impossible with God. All the impossibility is with us when we measure God by
the limitations of our unbelief.
We have a wonderful God, a God whose ways are past finding out, and whose
grace and power are limitless. I was in Belfast one day and saw one of the
brethren of the assembly. He said to me, "Wigglesworth, I am troubled. I have
had a good deal of sorrow during the past five months. I had a woman in my
assembly who could always pray the blessing of heaven down on our meetings.
She is an old woman, but her presence is always an inspiration. But five
months ago she fell and broke her thigh. The doctors put her into a plaster
cast, and after five months they broke the cast. But the bones were not
properly set and so she fell and broke the thigh again."
He took me to her house, and there was a woman lying in a bed on the right
hand side of the room. I said to her, "Well, what about it now?" She said,
"They have sent me home incurable. The doctors say that I am so old that my
bones won't knit. There is no nutriment in my bones and they could never do
anything for me, and they say I shall have to lie in bed for the rest of my
life." I said to her, "Can you believe God?" She replied, "Yes, ever since I
heard that you had come to Belfast my faith has been quickened. If you will
pray, I will believe. I know there is no power on earth that can make the
bones of my thigh knit, but I know there is nothing impossible with God." I
said, "Do you believe He will meet you now?" She answered, "I do."
It is grand to see people believe God. God knew all about this leg and that it
was broken in two places. I said to the woman, "When I pray, something will
happen." Her husband was sitting there; he had been in his chair for four
years and could not walk a step. He called out, "I don't believe. I won't
believe. You will never get me to believe." I said, "All right," and laid my
hands on his wife in the name of the Lord Jesus. The moment hands were laid
upon her the power of God went right through her and she cried out, "I'm
healed." I said, "I'm not going to assist you to rise. God will do it all."
She rose and walked up and down the room, praising God.
The old man was amazed at what had happened to his wife, and he cried out,
"Make me walk, make me walk." I said to him, "You old sinner, repent." He
cried out, "Lord, You know I never meant what I said. You know I believe." I
don't think he meant what he said; anyhow the Lord was full of compassion. If
He marked our sins, where would any of us be? If we will meet the conditions,
God will always meet us. If we believe, all things are possible. I laid my
hands on him and the power went right through the old man's body; and those
legs, for the first time in four years, received power to carry his body, and
he walked up and down and in and out. He said, "O what great things God has
done for us tonight!"
"What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and
ye shall have them." Desire toward God, and you will have desires from God;
and He will meet you on the line of those desires when you reach out in simple
faith.
A man came to me in one of my meetings who had seen other people healed and
wanted to be healed, too. He explained that his arm had been fixed in a
certain position for many years and he could not move it. "Got any faith?" I
asked. He said He had a lot of faith. After prayer he was able to swing his
arm round and round. But he was not satisfied and complained, "I feel a little
bit of trouble just there," pointing to a certain place. "Do you know what is
the trouble with you?" He answered, "No." I said, "Imperfect faith." "What
things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive there, anal ye
shall have them."
Did you believe before you were saved? So many people would be saved, but they
want to feel saved first. There was never a man who felt saved before he
believed. God's plan is always this, if you will believe, you shall see the
glory of God. I believe God wants to bring us all to a definite place of
unswerving faith and confidence in Himself.
Jesus here uses the figure of a mountain. Why does He say a mountain? Because,
if faith can remove a mountain, it can remove anything. The plan of God is so
marvelous, that if you will only believe, all things are possible.
There is one special phrase to which I want to call your attention, "And shall
not doubt in his heart." The heart is the mainspring. See that young man and
young woman. They have fallen in love at first sight. In a short while there
is a deep affection, and a strong heart love, the one toward the other. What
is a heart of love? A heart of faith. Faith and love axe kin. In the measure
that that young man and that young woman love one another they are true. One
may go to the North and the other to the South, but because of their love they
will be true to each other.
It is the same when there is a deep love in the heart toward the Lord Jesus
Christ. In this new life into which God has brought us, Paul tells us that we
have become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that we should be married
to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead. God brings us into a
place of perfect love and perfect faith. A man who is born of God is brought
into an inward affection, a loyalty to the Lord ,Jesus that shrinks from
anything impure. You see the purity of a man and woman when there is a deep
natural affection between them; they disdain the very thought of either of
them being untrue. I say that, in the measure that a man has faith in Jesus,
he is pure. He that believes that Jesus is the Christ overcomes theworld. It
is a faith that works by love.
Just as we have heart fellowship with our LORD our faith cannot be daunted. We
cannot doubt in our hearts. There comes, as we go on with God, a wonderful
association, an impartation of His very life and nature within. As we read His
Word and believe the promises that He has so graciously given to us, we are
made partakers of His very essence and life. The Lord is made to us a
Bridegroom, and we are His bride. His words to us are spirit and life,
transforming us and changing us, expelling that which is natural and bringing
in that which is divine.
It is impossible to comprehend the love of God as we think on natural lines.
We must have the revelation from the Spirit of God. God giveth liberally. He
that asketh, receiveth. God is willing to bestow on us all things that pertain
to life and godliness. Oh, it was the love of God that brought Jesus. And it
is this same love that helps you and me to believe. In every weakness God will
be your strength. You who need His touch, remember that He loves you. Look,
wretched, helpless, sick one, away to the God of all grace, whose very essence
is love, who delights to give liberally all the inheritance of life and
strength and power that you are in need of.
When I was in Switzerland the Lord was graciously working and healing many of
the people. I was staying with Brother Reuss of Goldiwil and two policemen
were sent to arrest me. The charge was that I was healing the people without a
license. Mr. Reuss said to them, "I am sorry that he is not here just now. He
is holding a meeting about two miles away, but before you arrest him let me
show you something."
Brother Reuss took these two policemen down to one of the lower parts of that
district, to a house with which they were familiar, for they had often gone to
that place to arrest a certain woman, who was repeatedly put in the prison
because of continually being engaged in drunken brawls. He took them to this
woman and said to them, "This is one of the many cases of blessing that have
come through the ministry of the man you have come to arrest. This woman came
to our meeting in a drunken condition. Her body was broken, for she was
ruptured in two places. While she was drunk, the evangelist laid his hands on
her and asked God to heal her and deliver her." The woman joined in, "Yes, and
God saved me, and I have not tasted a drop of'liquor since." The policemen had
a warrant for my arrest, but they said with disgust, "Let the doctors do this
kind of thing." They turned and went away and that was the last we heard of
them.
We have a Jesus that heals the broken-hearted, who lets the captives go free,
who saves the very worst. Dare you, dare you, spurn this glorious Gospel of
God for spirit, soul and body? Dare you spurn this grace? I realize that this
full Gospel has in great measure teen hid, this Gospel that brings liberty,
this Gospel that brings souls out of bondage, this Gospel that brings perfect
health to the body, this Gospel of entire salvation. Listen again to this word
of Him who left the glory to bring us this great salvation, "Verily I say unto
you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, . . . he
shall have whatsoever he with." Whatsoever!
I realize that God can never bless us on the lines of being hardhearted,
critical or unforgiving. This will hinder faith quicker than anything. I
remember being at a meeting where there were some people tarrying for the
Baptism-seeking for cleansing, for the moment a person is cleansed the Spirit
will fall. There was one man with eyes red from weeping bitterly. He said to
me, "I shall have to leave. It is no good my staying without I change things.
I have written a letter to my brother-in-law, and filled it with hard words,
and this thing must first be straightened out." He went home and told his
wife, "I'm going to write a letter to your brother and ask him to forgive me
for writing to him the way I did." "You fool!" she said. "Never mind," he
replied, "this is between God and me, and it has got to be cleared away." He
wrote the letter and came again, and straightway God filled him with the
Spirit.
I believe there are a great many people who would be healed, but they are
harboring things in their hearts that are as a blight. Let these things go.
Forgive, and the Lord will forgive you. There are many good people, people
that mean well, but they have no power to do anything for God. There is just
some little thing that came in their hearts years ago, and their faith has
been paralyzed ever since. Bring everything to the light. God will sweep it
all away if you will let Him. Let the precious blood of Christ cleanse from
all sin. If you will but believe, God will meet you and bring into your lives
the sunshine of His love.
HEALINGS IN NEW ZEALAND
We have received a few testimonies of those healed in the meeting conducted by
Brother Smith Wigglesworth at Wellington, New Zealand. Mrs. E. Curtis of
Christchurch, New Zealand, was suffering with septic poisoning. She had become
only a skeleton and the doctors could do nothing for her. She had agonizing
pains all day and all night. She was healed immediately prayer was made for
her. She states that for the past sixteen years she has been a martyr to pain
but is now wonderfully well. Another testified to healing to deafness, goiter,
adenoids and bad eyesight. Another testified to healing of double curvature of
the spine from infancy, hip disease, weak heart, leg lengthened three inches,
which grew normal like the other leg. It was also three inches lessin
circumference. She wore a large boot but now walks on even feet, the large
boot having been discarded. Another was healed from goiter through a
handkerchief. ––Pentecostal Evangel.