Message of the Month by Pastor Paul June 2020
WIGGLESWORTH - A MAN WITH A MESSAGE
Thirty years ago, when we were newly married my wife Rosario and I, spent part of our honeymoon in the USA. For some of that time we stayed in Florida with my friend Terry Parks who has contributed often to this website. On the Sunday he and his wife took us to the very large church which they belonged to at the time. After the service we went into the church’s bookshop and I was surprised to find a good number of books there about the British evangelist Smith Wigglesworth. It seemed he was even more famous in America than he was in England!
Smith Wigglesworth was born the North of England in 1859. He was a true Yorkshire man - plain speaking and blunt, but with a heart of gold. His family was poor and he started working in the fields at the age of six - followed by work in a factory at seven years old, which meant that he had no real education so he was illiterate until he married his wife Polly, a Salvation Army officer, who taught him to read and write at the age of twenty three. Smith had been evangelizing ever since he got saved and he also began preaching but he had great struggles in expressing himself in the early days.
In 1907 he went to see what was happening in the Anglican church in Sunderland where the vicar, Alexander Boddy and others had been baptised in the Holy Spirit as a result of the famous revival that began in Azusa Street, Los Angeles in 1906. Just as Smith was about to leave there to go home, he went to say goodbye to the vicar whose wife prayed for him and he received the baptism of the Spirit with speaking in tongues.
When Wigglesworth got home his wife, who had been somewhat skeptical about the baptism and also about speaking in tongues when she heard him preach that Sunday she said “That’s not my Smith, that’s not my Smith!” and she promptly received the baptism of the Holy Spirit herself.
This is what Wigglesworth said about his experience:
“I want you to see that he that speaks in an unknown tongue edifies himself or builds himself up. We must be edified before we can edify the church. I cannot estimate what I, personally, owe to the Holy Ghost method of spiritual edification.
I am here before you as one of the biggest conundrums in the world. There never was a weaker man on the platform. Language? None. Inability–full of it. All natural things in my life point exactly opposite to my being able to stand on the platform and preach the gospel.
The secret is that the Holy Ghost came and brought this wonderful edification of the Spirit. I had been reading this Word continually as well as I could, but the Holy Ghost came and took hold of it, for the Holy Ghost is the breath of it, and He illuminated it to me.”
This transformed his preaching and every other aspect of his life and ministry - which was blessed with many outstanding healing miracles. Fourteen people were raised from the dead under his ministry which really took off in an international way after his wife Polly died in 1913. Over the years Smith travelled throughout Europe, the USA, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden, the Pacific Islands, India, and Ceylon.
It was when brother Wigglesworth was preaching in South Africa in 1936 that he met a young preacher by the name of David du Plessis who, at the age of 30, was the General Secretary of the Apostolic Faith Mission. Smith in his usual style marched into his office early one morning, stood him up against a wall and prophesied that there was going to be a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit on all denominations and that David would be a key person within that. When this began to happen in 1960 the prophecy was fulfilled in what became known as the CHARISMATIC MOVEMENT and Du Plessis travelled around the world as a great ambassador within this.
The account of how the Charismatic Movement began is recorded in the book entitled “Nine O Clock in the Morning” by Dennis Bennett who was the rector of (vicar). of the St Marks Episcopalian (Anglican style) Church, in Van Nuys, California with 2,600 members.
After he, his wife and a number of other members of his church had received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, he finally felt that the time had come to announce this to the rest of the congregation which he did on Sunday morning, 3 April 1960 and soon after that he was told to resign. The story of this spread like wildfire across America and was even covered by Time and Newsweek magazines. Many invitations followed for Rev Bennett to share his testimony with churches around the world and this, along with other events, resulted in thousands of people in the mainstream denominations experiencing the Baptism in the Holy Spirit.
What struck me as I read this book again recently, was the way in which SPEAKING IN TONGUES was such a central part of the beginning of the Charismatic Movement across all the denominations. It was the gift of tongues that drew the curiosity and interest of people and it was this gift that people were receiving in their thousands across the world as the Movement spread.
Let us not underestimate this - the Pentecostal Movement followed by the Charismatic Movement were the biggest most wide-reaching and long-lasting outpourings of Holy Spirit revival that this world has ever seen. By 2011 there were estimated to be some 300 million Charismatic Christians and 279 million Pentecostals worldwide!
It was only as I read Dennis Bennett’s book again that I realised that I had wrongly assumed that the Charismatics were more casual about the gift of tongues than Classical Pentecostals. It was definitely NOT the case in the beginning - that only started to happen much later as time went by. In fact I know of many Pentecostals who are no longer emphasizing this gift any more either.
This challenges me. As much as I believe in the gift of tongues as an aid to prayer and love to sing in tongues and worship in the Spirit with any group of likeminded people, I recognize that over the last few years I have not used the gift as often as I used to. The apostle Paul said “I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you” (1 Corinthians 14:18). So if it was so highly valued by him - who am I to neglect it - especially when praying in tongues builds up one’s spirit in such a vital dynamic way? And I repeat the words of Smith Wigglesworth here:
“I want you to see that he that speaks in an unknown tongue edifies himself or builds himself up. We must be edified before we can edify the church. I cannot estimate what I, personally, owe to the Holy Ghost method of spiritual edification.” So my conclusion is I want to consciously exercise this wonderful gift in my prayer life once again.
Shortly before he died in 1947, it is recorded that Smith Wigglesworth delivered the following prophecy:
“During the next few decades there will be two distinct moves of the Holy Spirit across the church in Great Britain. The first move will affect every church that is open to receive it, and will be characterised by the restoration of the baptism and gifts of the Holy Spirit. (The Charismatic Movement)
"The second move of the Holy Spirit will result in people leaving historic churches and planting new churches (The House Church/Restoration Movement). In the duration of each of these moves, the people who are involved will say, ‘This is a great revival.’ But the Lord says, ‘No, neither is this the great revival but both are steps towards it.’
"When the new church phase is on the wane, there will be evidence in the churches of something that has not been seen before: a coming together of those with an emphasis on the Word and those with an emphasis on the Spirit.
"When the Word and the Spirit come together (see Footnote), there will be the biggest move of the Holy Spirit that the nations, and indeed, the world have ever seen. It will mark the beginning of a revival that will eclipse anything that has been witnessed within these shores, even the Wesleyan and Welsh revivals of former years.
"The outpouring of God’s Spirit will flow over from the United Kingdom to mainland Europe, and from there, will begin a missionary move to the ends of the earth.”
All I can say to that is:
“Lord may the fulness of this prophecy soon come to pass for Your Glory before Jesus comes again”
“AMEN”
FOOTNOTES
1. My understanding of the Word and the Spirit coming together is this:
There are many evangelical Christians and preachers who love and believe God’s Word but when they receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit then there’s a new dynamic which Wigglesworth himself experienced and which I believe is the birthright of all born again believers and was the norm in the early Church.
On the other hand, there are some Pentecostal/Charismatic Christians who major on the Spirit but not so much on an accurate understanding and exegesis of Scripture - which should be Spirit-led anyway, since as Wigglesworth said: “I had been reading this Word continually as well as I could, but the Holy Ghost came and took hold of it, for the Holy Ghost is the breath of it, and He illuminated it to me.”
2. Smith Wigglesworth died on 12 March 1947. At the funeral, Wilf Richardson said Smith's ministry was summed up in his own words:
"There are four principles we need to maintain: First, read the Word of God. Second, consume the Word of God until it consumes you. Third, believe the Word of God. Fourth, act on the Word."
3. Further words of Smith Wigglesworth can be found on the QUOTES page
4. Lester Sumrall was a famous American evangelist and missionary. He spent most of the 1950’s in the Philippines where he established the Cathedral of Praise in Manila with over 24,000 members. From 1972 to 1997, he acquired television stations throughout the United States becoming the ‘father of TV evangelism’. He died in 1996 at the age of 83. As a young man he knew Smith Wigglesworth personally and went to visit him in his home on a number of occasions.
On this video brother Sumrall gives an account of his conversations
with Smith:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnXONyQI8wM
5. Smith Wigglesworth’s full testimony as told by him personally, can be found on this website:
http://www.smithwigglesworth.com/index.php/smith-wigglesworth-life/birth-and-boyhood
