Katy said;

I do hope you find YOUR ministry David and don't spend your whole life drooling over someone elses...God may have something different for you....



And I thought that stuff on my shirt was sweat!




David

David, and Linn, Thank you so much for your PM's. I really appreciate your genuine love and encouragement. Now that's what I call real Christianity in action.

God created us as unique and individual, with differing gifts, yet all one body.

I believe if we are to covet any of these gifts, Paul said to covet the gift of Prophecy...upholding the truth, proclaiming the truth, reiterating the truth. The truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

David, when I think about signs and wonders and miracles, I'm reminded that there were many signs and wonders and miracles when Israel was in the wilderness....yet, with all that, none of those who saw these signs wonders and miracles entered the promise land. They didn't just see them, but partook of them...yet, whined, and complained still more and more…and…..they all died in their sins in the wilderness.

Except those 20 and under who probably didn’t see but a tenth if they could even remember any of them at all. Once they got to the border to enter in, there was no need for signs wonders and miracles…the Land was right before them.

Then I am reminded of all the signs wonders and miracles Jesus did, yet...look what happened to Him!!! He wasn’t just a mere man as Smith Wigglesworth, or the Apostles, but God Himself…yet did Israel believe?

Out of all those, only 120 were in the upper room.

Only the preaching of the CROSS is the POWER unto Salvation. To those who parish it's foolishness, but to us who are saved IT IS the Power of God, Preaching Christ Crucified, and Risen.

Paul also said, God forbid that I would preach anything but Christ and Him Crucified. I don’t think Paul and the Apostles preached Signs Wonders and Miracles, but the signs wonders and miracles were manifest to authenticate their Apostleship to proclaim Christ Crucified and risen.

Well, time for bed.

God Bless!
Katy

Katy,

I owe you an apology. I meant what I said but do not believe I said what I meant. It certainly made sense this morning but as the day wore on ...

_________________
Mike Balog

Good Morning Mike,

John Alexander Dowie –

Dowie was an apostle who didn’t have the complete understanding of that office. The anointing he carried pierced the religious theocracies of his day, but there were few who understood him, including himself. As a result, he misunderstood several administrations that came with the passion of his office. One passion was in the area of politics.

Dowie’s leadership was gaining a strong national influence. So seeing his potential and knowing his stand, the Temerance Society asked him to run for Parliament. At first, he opposed the idea. But he later changed his mind, thinking he could possibly influence more in the political arena and decided to enter the race.

But Dowie suffered a sound defeat in the elections. The local newspapers that had been so damaged by his ministry waged an all-out attack against him. The politicians and alcoholic beverage industry paid untold amounts of money to see him slandered and defeated. After the election, Dowie had wounded his church, and disgraced his ministry.

Dowie was moved by such strong spiritual yearnings that the sought to fulfill them in the natural. I can only speculate why he made this move. It could have been because the church world wasn’t grasping the truth fast enough to satisfy him. Whatever his reason, he misread the timing and plan of God for his ministry.

We need to understand that God has a central point from which every aspect of our lives operate, whether individually or corporately. That area is called “timing”. From the operation of that one word, lives can move forward with God or be hindered. Nations can advance spiritually, or regress. Life in the spirit realm has timing to it just as life in the natural. Therefore, it is vitally important for us to follow the leading or our spirit. We must lean that it’s not always right to move into action because it seems like the thing to do. This kind of obedience only comes from season of prayer and intercession.

Politicians and the political arena have never changed the world, church wise or governments-wise. Only a people whose hearts are changed by the Gospel can transform civil laws and regulations. Politics are meant for compromise to please people as a whole. The apostolic office presents the Word of the Lord, and then it is up to the people to conform to and follow it. The apostolic and political don’t mix. Dowie with his calling, should have never resorted to a political lifestyle.

While campaigning for office, Dowie also neglected his commandment to preach divine healing. He simply steered away from his calling to pursue a personal goal, thinking he could reach a greater mass of people. And as a result, the rest of his time in Australia was spent in darkness and futility.

====

Smith Wigglesworth –

Seeking God with all his heart to experience this “baptism in the Holy Spirit”, Smith went to a local Salvation Army building to pray. Three times he was struck to the floor by the power of God. The Salvationists warned him against speaking in tongues, but Smith was determined to know God in this realm. Four days he sought the Lord expecting to speak in other tongues, but to no avail. Finally, discouraged in his spirit, he felt it was time to return to Bradford. But before his departure, he went to the parsonage to tell the vicar’s wife, Mrs. Boddy, good-bye. He told her that he had to go home and didn’t get to speak in tongues. She answered, “It is not the tongues you need, but the baptism”. Smith asked her to lay hands on him before he left. She prayed a simple but powerful prayer, and then left the room. It was then that the fire fell. Bathed in the power and glory of the Lord, Smith saw a vision of the empty cross with Jesus exalted at the right hand of the Father. Filled with worship and praise, Smith opened his mouth and began to speak in other tongues, finally realizing that even though he had received an anointing earlier, he was now baptized in the Holy Spirit as one the day of Pentecost.

Instead of going home, Smith went straight to the church where Rev Boddy was conducting the service. Interrupting, he begged to speak for a moment. When he finished his “sermon” fifty people were gloriously baptized in the Holy Spirit and spoke with other tongues. The local newspaper, the Sunderland Daily Echo, headlined the meeting, giving detailed accounts of Smith’s experience, including the tongues and the healings. He telegraphed his home, telling them of the great news.

Another Secret

Smith Wigglesworth was a man greatly moved by compassion. As he received prayer requests from all over the world he would cry out to God and weep on their behalf. Many times, as he ministered to the afflicted, tears ran down his cheeks. He was also very tender with children and the elderly. In his services, when the heat became stifling, he felt great compassion and would call for the babies and the elderly to be prayed for first.

Demonstrating the truths in Acts 19:11-12, thousands upon thousands were healed by Smith prayer and sent handkerchiefs to those he couldn’t visit. An intimate friend spoke of the sincerity and compassion portrayed by Smith, saying, “When…the time for the opening of the letters came, we all had to stop whatever we were doing and get under the burden. There was nothing rushed or slipshod about his methods…. Everybody in the house must join in the prayers and lay hands on the handkerchiefs sent out to the suffering ones. They were treated as though the writers were present in person.


====

Aimee Semple McPherson –

While Aimee was in Baltimore a national healing campaign began. Incredible and highly unusual miracles occurred. The headlines screamed the results of each meeting.

It has been said that when Aimee would enter the hall before a meeting, there were often throngs of desperately ill people seeking to touch her. And that when she saw them, she would run back overwhelmed into her dressing room to pray for God’s help.

Everywhere Aimee went, crowds pressed in to touch her. She would watch in regret as the police were forced to bolt the doors in trying to protect her.

After a while, when she closed her eyes at night, all she could see was the seventeen hundred people who were packed into a place that was built to hold a thousands. She would see the alters and basements overflowing with the sick and would wake up thinking of how Jesus had dealt with al this.


Robert traveled extensively, but corresponded regularly with Aimee throughout the winter. Then in the early spring of 1908, Robert returned to Ingersoll and proposed to her. In fact, he proposed to Aimee in the same house in which she received the baptism a few months earlier. Six months later on August 12, 1908, Aimee married Robert in her family’s farmhouse near Salford, Ontario.

Aimee would not finish high school because of her love for Semple. In fact, she left behind everything in order to love, honor, and obey her new husband. Robert was all she needed for a fulfilled and enriching life.

HE WAS MY THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, she would later write, “my spiritual mentor, and my tender, patient, unfailing lover.”

Before their marriages, Aimee and Robert had convinced her parents that speaking in other tongues was scriptural. But it took much more to convince Minnie of God’s will concerning the couple’s call to China.

In preparation for their trip, Robert worked in a factory by day and preached by night. Soon, his ministry took them to London, Ontario, where they ministered in homes.

====

Kathryn Kuhlmn –

The moment Kathryn saw in God’s Word that healing was provided for the believer at the same as salvation, she began to understand the Christian’s relationship with the Holy Spirit. In 1947 she began teaching a series on the Holy Spirit. Some of the things she said during the first night of her teaching were revelations even to her. Later she spoke of being awake all that night, praying and reading more in the Word.

The second night of her meeting was a momentous occasion. A unique testimony had been given by someone who was healed in a Kathryn Kuhlman meeting. A women stood up and told of having been healed while Kathryn preached the night before. Without anyone laying hands on her and without Kathryn even being aware of what was happening, this women was healed of a tumor. The women had gone to her doctor to confirm her healing before the evening service.

In 1950, a worldwide ministry began to develop. In later years, Kathryn said that God didn’t call her to build a church, maintaing that her ministry was not to be isolated to any one building. Some may be called to build buildings, but she wasn’t one of those.

The fact that she did build churches was largely overshadowed by the publicity of the miracle services. The Kathryn Kuhlman Foundation, established in Pittsburgh, financed more than twenty churches in foreign mission fields with nationals as pastors.

Many called her ‘pastor’ out of love and respect, but Kathryn was never ordained to the office of pastor. After her stay in Denver, she never pastured a church. Kathryn said she was not called to a five-fold office, (i.e., Ephesians 4:11) She walked in the simplicity of being a “a handmaiden” of the Lord.

It is said by those closest to her, that Kathryn announced at the very beginning of her ministry, that she would be the next Aimee Semple McPherson, founder of the Four Square denomination. Aimee was definitely Kathryn’s role model. When the flamboyant “Sister” built Angelus Temple in Los Angeles, Kathryn was present during it’s highest popularity. It is said that Kathryn attended Aimee’s Bible School, and sat in the balcony of her church, taking in every aspect of the anointed messages and theatrics of “Sister”. Unlike the other L.I.F.E Bible School students, Kathryn chose not to stay with the Four Square denomination. She chose an independent route.

I like this testimony of Wigglesworth;

Bible Reading-Acts 5:1-20.

Notice this expression that the Lord gives of the Gospel message-"the words of this life." It is the most wonderful life possible-the life of faith in the Son of God. This is the life where God is all the time. He is round about and He is within. It is the life of many revelations and of many manifestations of God's Holy Spirit, a life in which the Lord is continually seen, known, felt and heard. It is a life without death, for "we have passed from death unto life." The very life of God has come within us. Where that life is within in its fullness, disease cannot exist. It would take me a month to tell out what there is in this wonderful life. Everyone can go in and possess and be possessed by this life.

It is possible for you to be within the vicinity of this life and yet miss it. It is possible for you to be in a place where God is pouring out His Spirit and yet miss the blessing that God is so willing to bestow. It all comes through shortness of revelation and through a misunderstanding of the infinite grace of God, and of the "God of all grace," who is willing to give to all who will reach out the hand of faith. This life that He freely bestows is a gift. Some think they have to earn it and they miss the whole thing. Oh, for a simple faith to receive all that God so lavishly offers. You can never be ordinary from the day you receive this life from above. You become extraordinary, filled with the extraordinary power of our extraordinary God.

Katy,

Hesitatingly will I attempt this ...

_________________
Mike Balog

Wigglesworth seemed to live in revival and carry revival:

"Ananias and Sapphira were in this thing and yet they missed it. They thought that possibly the thing might fail. So they wanted to have a reserve for themselves in case it did turn out to be a failure. They were in the wonderful revival that God gave to the early church and yet they missed it. There are many people like them today who make vows to God in times of a great crisis in their lives. But they fail to keep their vows and in the end they become spiritually bankrupt. Blessed is the man who will swear to his own hurt and change not; who keeps the vow he has made to God; who is willing to lay his all at God's feet. The man who does this never becomes a lean soul. God has promised to "make fat his bones." There is no dry place for such a man; he is always fat and flourishing, and he becomes stronger and stronger. It pays to trust God with all and to make no reservation.

I wish I could make you see how great a God we have. Ananias and Sapphira were really doubting God and were questioning whether this work that He had begun would go through. They wanted to get some glory for selling their property, but because of their lack of faith they kept back part of the price in reserve in case the work of God should fail.

Many are doubting whether this Pentecostal revival will go through. Do you think this Pentecostal work will stop? Never. For fifteen years I have been in constant revival and I am sure that it will never stop. When George Stephenson made his first engine he took his sister Mary to see it. She looked at it and said to her brother, "George, it'll never go." He said to her, "Get in, Mary." She said again, "It'll never go." He said to her, "We'll see, you get in." Mary at last got in-the whistle blew, there was a puff and a rattle, and the engine started off. Then Mary cried out, "George, it'll never stop! It'll never stop!"

People are looking on at this Pentecostal revival and they are very critical and they are saying, "It'll never go;" but when they are induced to come into the work, they one and all say, "It'll never stop." This revival of God is sweeping on and on and there is no stopping the current of life, of love, of inspiration, and of power.

(Interpretation; It is the living Word who has brought this. It is the Lamb in the midst, the same yesterday, today and forever.)

God has brought unlimited resources for everyone. Do not doubt. Hear with the ear of faith. God is in the midst. See that it is God who bath set forth that which you see and hear today."




David

What a blessed life and Ministry that Wigglesworth lived in!

Oh that we would believe God for such marvelous things in our day!