In this sermon, the speaker shares a personal story about how he gave his life to God and witnessed the power of God in his ministry. He emphasizes the importance of recognizing our own inability and relying on God's strength. The speaker also mentions the spiritual secrets of Smith Wigglesworth's life and encourages the audience to have a daily commitment to God. The sermon concludes with an invitation for the audience to commit their lives to God and experience the freedom and victory that comes from God's power.

This is take number one on the spiritual secrets of the life of Smith Riddlesworth. This presentation, The Man, is one of four fine cassette programs covering the dynamic ministry of this man of God and apostle of faith. Sharing these secrets, Pastor George Stormont. I'm asking you to turn to Psalm 15, just reading that as our starting point. When I was a boy, I used to stay on a farm and we got the water out of a pump. You always kept a jug of water by the pump, so that first thing in the morning you could prime the pump. You pour the water in the top of the pump, it would cause the plunger to swell, you could get water out. So let's pour some water in and prime the pump this morning. Psalm 15. Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart. He that dactightheth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor. In whose eyes a vile person is contemned, but he honors them that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to his own heart, and changeth not, he that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved. In 1964, Oral Roberts was preaching in England for the first time, and I was driving him back to the home where he was staying one night after service, and we began to talk about Smith Wigglesworth. And he said to me, every one of us in the healing ministry today owe a debt to Smith Wigglesworth that we can never repay. And I began to reflect on that and think of the time that I had had with Smith Wigglesworth, and how his life had blessed me. And as I reflected on this, so the understanding of the ways of God grew. And in the early 1970s, when I was preparing to come to preach in America for the first time, God laid a burden on my heart to share some of those spiritual secrets. And that's what I'm doing here with you today. And many of you will not know Smith Wigglesworth or too much about him. It's a funny name, Wigglesworth. It's a Yorkshire name from the north of England. Smith is an unusual first name, fancy calling your husband Smith. But he was a plumber, faved at an early age, and not really used in a worldwide sense until he was 55. That was the beginning of his world ministry that had had such influence on so many, many lives. And when he began to move out in the spirit, God began to use him in a wonderful way. He had such an understanding of faith that it was not difficult to call him the apostle of faith. He died in 1947 at the age of 87. And sometimes when I've been introduced as his friend and colleague, I've wondered what age they thought I was. A little lady in California came to me after a meeting and said, it's so wonderful to talk to someone who actually talked to Wigglesworth and to shake hands with the very hand that shook the hand of Smith. Then she looked into my eyes and said, did you know Jonathan Edwards? He died in 1758. And with great pastoral tact, I said, my dear, I never met him, but I have read some of his books. My next service was in Sacramento. And I told the whole story of a kind of icebreaker. And the same little lady came to me after the service. She said, I didn't mean it that way. I said, my dear, I could hug you. You've given me the best preacher's story against myself I've ever heard. And so here's a very old gentleman here this morning to share with you. And to tell you some things, one thing that stands out, my contact with Wigglesworth was only over a period of about seven years, but it gave me an insatiable hunger for God and the word of God and the manifestation in reality of the power of God. I couldn't be content afterwards with just preaching. I needed to see, and I still need to see the Lord working with me, confirming his word with signs following. And I believe that's the ministry that God wants us all to have. I'd like to make clear this is not a eulogy. Wigglesworth would have been angry with me even for telling you what I'm telling you. But I'm not here to exalt a man. I think that Paul had the right standard when he said, be followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. And I want to show how Jesus worked in Smith Wigglesworth. And you'll get your eyes off Smith Wigglesworth and on Jesus, and see Jesus moving in his life. One day when he was staying in our home, I was doing what every good husband should do. I was taking my wife a cup of tea in bed in the morning. And I met Wigglesworth on the stairway. And he said, brother, God spoke to me on your bed. I said, what did he say? He said, Wigglesworth, I'm going to burn you all up until there's no more Wigglesworth, and it's only Jesus. He stood on the stairway in our home, 27 Canter Road, Leon C. Essex, England, lifted his hands to heaven with tears rolling down his cheeks. Oh, Lord, he said, come and do it. I don't want them to see Wigglesworth anymore. I just want them to see Jesus. And so as we share this this morning and through these days, let's get our eyes on the Lord. There's another thing I want to say right at the beginning. God doesn't want a lot of little Wigglesworth. At one time, people tried to imitate him. And you couldn't really. You had to be Wigglesworth to be Wigglesworth. You just couldn't copy him. Don't try to. Just look behind and beyond the examples that I may give and see the principle of operation that God has in his servant life, that you'll look to the Lord to accomplish in you what he wants through you. You can be no one else but you. And God wants that you redeemed, sanctified, committed, anointed, and fully developed and matured. And the potential in you is so great that there's enough power potentially in this gathering today to blast America wide open morally and spiritually and to change the course of the nation. If you become the kind of you God meant you to be in the fullness of his redemption. It was an unusual thing to have Smith Wigglesworth in your home. He was an easy guest, but he had some unusual habits. I would bring him slippers when he came in from a meeting. My brother, he said, I never put slippers on. He wore patent leather shoes and he wouldn't take those off till he went to bed. He put them on first thing in the morning. He warmed them the whole day. You see, my brother, he said, I take these off, I might catch cold. So he kept his patent leather shoes on. He had a copper hot water bottle, which he asked you to fill every morning, every night with boiling water that he took to bed with him without any cover on it. And he used to make that his comforter in the night. And then, of course, in many English homes in those days, there wasn't door plumbing. And so he didn't have to wait for you to boil water. He used the water out of his hot water bottle to wash and shave him first thing in the morning. He wouldn't wear a buttonhole. I tried to give him a rose to wear one day, thought it would look nice on his dark suit. Brother, he said, I never wear buttonholes. You see, my brother, he said, when you cut a flower, it starts to die. And I don't want anything that smells of death on me. And so he wouldn't even wear a buttonhole. Let me try to share something today about the man. I first met him for personal conversation. When I had to bring him from London to my hometown during the war, 1940, we were not allowed to keep cars in our area because we were in a defense area. We were frequently bombed. And so I had to go by train to London to bring him back 40 miles by train. And on the way back, he had arranged to meet a man whose wife was dying of cancer of the abdomen. And we got together on the train. We were set in one corner. I sat next to him. The man sat opposite him. And there was a young lady in the train. We didn't know, probably a secretary from London. We got to love. As soon as we sat down, the train started, said to the man whose wife was ill, Jesus is up. Jesus is down. Jesus is up. And this was my first meeting with him. I thought, what on earth does he mean? And then he quoted John 3, 13. No man hath ascended to heaven, but he which came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven. You see, my brother, he said to this man, Jesus is in heaven with all power. I put out the hand of faith and touched him. He reaches down the hand of power and touches me. And his life flowed into me. And then moved by his compassion and faith, I put out my hand and I touched the sick. And the life of Jesus flowed through me to the sick person, and he heals him. And when he's healed, he begins to praise the Lord for his healing, and the life of Jesus goes back to heavenly worship. You see, my brother, he did that's the cycle of life in the Holy Ghost. Now, come on, Brother Stormont, he said, we're going to pour light into this fellow. And so we stood up. And Wigglesworth never prayed quietly. He had an enormously strong voice. And this poor girl who didn't belong to us looking was looking on almost terrified. What were these strange men doing in a British railway carriage? Wigglesworth said, Lord, pour your life into this fellow. Come on, Brother Stormont, you pray. And I prayed. And he said, louder, pray louder. I didn't believe in quiet prayer. And when we prayed together, he said to this man, now go home, put your hands on your wife's stomach, and God will heal her. I never met that man again. But six months later, I met his pastor, Mark Fortatton. He said, that's just what he did. He went home, put his hands on his wife's stomach, and she was instantly healed of terminal cancer. The cycle of life in the Holy Ghost. Fred Francis Brosworth said, one of the reasons God has fulfilling believers with the Holy Spirit is that he wants to be unhindered in his wonderful work of quickening continually our whole spirit and soul and body. And when we're really in touch with God, the life of God is flowing through us. And a very handshake can communicate the healing, convicting, redeeming, sanctifying grace of God in ways that we can never measure. I took the hand of a blind woman suffering from congenital venereal disease, and led her through my parents' home from one room to another. And later, I discovered that when I touched her, God touched her. And she was healed of congenital venereal disease after 49 years. Because the life of God is in us. And there's a cycle of life in the Holy Ghost that we need to discover and to move in. He was a blunt man, very blunt in his speech. One day, my wife was apologizing for something that hadn't come up to standard. Ladies, when you have visitors, does that happen sometimes? Something goes a little wrong in the cooking? And she said, I'm sorry, Brother Wigglesworth, but the pie isn't quite up to standard. He said, shut up, woman. And my wife looked astonished. She's not, not even I would say that to her. He said, shut up, woman. No complaints when the blessing dawned. You see, he said he's sanctified by the word of God and prayer. And once it's sanctified, you don't complain. So men, you better get your complaints in before you say grace. I took him to a church for a meeting. We were driving home together. And in his rather rough North Country way, he said, Brother, they'll never have revival in that church with that woman at piano. And I told the pastor what he said. I said, well, you have that lady at the piano, Wigglesworth, said you'll never get revival. Oh, he said, ridiculous. That lady's still there. 44 years later, they'll have to lift her off that piano stool into her coffin. She's so determined to stay there. And they've never had revival. They've had a decline all the way through. Oh, he was blunt, but he knew something of the mind and the spirit. He wasn't always right. He sometimes would hit people when he prayed for them. And I said to him, why do you hit them? He said, I don't hit them. I hit the devil. They get in the way. But if you didn't agree with him, you have to acknowledge he had remarkable results. My predecessor in Manchester was John Nelson Pound. He told me, he said, I had Wigglesworth here. And Wigglesworth had great pain in his back before the service. And Wigglesworth said, John, he said, I want you to pray for me. So John just put his hand on him as we normally do and prayed for him. He said, that's no good. You'll never get anywhere that way. Thump it out, man. Thump it out. There were a couple of Bible school students from Hampstead Bible School, London, who came out for prayer. Both had stomach trouble. I think it was Bible school cooking. And he said to the first one, what's wrong with you? He said, it's my stomach, Mr. Wigglesworth. Stand there. In the name of Jesus, come out of it. The fellow doubled up. Next night, he said, what's wrong with you? He said, please, will you pray for my eyes? Justice Duplicy, the brother of David Duplicy, was the General Secretary of the Apostolic Faith Church of South Africa. And he told me that Wigglesworth's visit to South Africa revolutionized the spiritual life of the whole country. He said in one service, a big South African woman came out for prayer. And Wigglesworth said, what's wrong with you? And she told him, and he said, in the name of the Lord, and slowed her. She said, oh, is that how it is? And she hit him back. But the next night, she was back in the meeting in tears. And she said, may I have opportunity, please, to apologize in public for hitting the servant of the Lord. When I got home, I found I was totally healed. So while I don't recommend his method and suggest you don't try it, you need to recognize what he saw was the power of Satan. And one of his favorite texts was, the female of heaven suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. The story told in connection with him of a lady who had a little dog. She was standing at the bus stop, and the dog had followed her from the home. And she turned to the dog and said, darling, you must go home. Mommy can't do with you. And darling, didn't go home. So she's going, you must go home. You know, mommy can't do with you. I'm going on the bus. And she talked in that silly way to that silly dog, just a piece of gristle with four legs. And nothing happened until the bus came and she turned around and said, get home, she said. And the dog went off with his tail between his feet, his legs, I'm sorry. And Wigglesworth said, that's the way to deal with the devil. He said, you can't be soft with him. But in spite of that, he was filled with compassion. When he stayed in our home, I'd bring him his meal. And after breakfast, he would sit at the table, my wife would peel things away. He'd open his mail and he'd in his own hand, long hand writing, he would write a letter back. And sometimes he'd call me to him from my office, which is in another part of the house at that time. He said, you must come and help me. And he'd be weeping over letters from people that he had never met. Because of the problems that he read in this letter or these letters. And he was all the time moved with compassion. I think that's the one reason God blessed him. Sometimes he'd stand before a congregation, he'd see people come out for prayer in desperate spiritual need and physical need. And he'd be so broken up, he'd weep so much, he could hardly pray. And sometimes the whole congregation was involved in this weeping in the spirit, in compassion. They weren't just trophies that he wanted to hang up. They were people. And we have to look at those who come as people. I sometimes get people say something to me about spiritual growth, numerical growth. You mustn't be after numbers. Well, I tell you, Jesus was and I am. And we go to the floor, because numbers represent people. If every one of these chairs was filled with someone, a living human being, we'd have a potential of evangelism, or of teaching, or of growth. And you count with God as an individual. And every needy person counts with God as an individual. And we need to be moved with compassion. Sometimes when I pray for the sick, I get that same overwhelming sense of the love of God, that God loves people and loves to redeem. Sometimes he could be strong and sometimes very gentle. We had a preacher in one of the conventions. They imported, can I use that word, Wigglesworth as chairman of the convention at a place called Preston in Lancashire, in England. It's a big convention, those days 2,000 people. And Wigglesworth was a marvelous chairman. He would get a meeting free in two minutes. I remember standing up to speak to 2,000 people, and it was only eight minutes into the service, but it was in perfect liberty, because Wigglesworth knew how to bring freedom in the Holy Spirit in the meeting. And Wigglesworth, in this particular convention, had a speaker who'd just been to Belgian Conga, it wasn't those days, Zaire it's called now. And he came back with a tremendous story of the needs and the problems. He was getting excited as he talked. He was preaching, his voice was getting higher and higher, and the tension was growing more and more and more. He went on and on until Wigglesworth stood up and said, sit down man, you're killing yourself and us. And he made the man sit down, and he sat down. And then he said, well, we'll sing a hymn while our brother gets quiet, and he can start again. And we sang a hymn, and the man, I knew, well, had the grace to get quiet. And Wigglesworth wasn't afraid to do that sort of thing. When I went first time to speak in that convention, I was pretty new on the convention circuit, and they had some of the leading teachers, Donald Gee and Howard Carter were there that particular meeting. And there was I, a raw beginner in convention speaking. Wigglesworth just looked at me and said, my brother, he said, you'll be the first speaker after I've gone through the operation of the Holy Ghost of opening the door as wide as possible. Did he get that? He dropped his foot, but he said, you'll be the first speaker after I've gone through the operation of the Holy Ghost of opening the door as wide as possible. And he would just move with compassion to a young creature, but prepared to deal severely with a man who also was no better. He was a man who moved in the spirit. I believe that like Jesus, Wigglesworth knew what it was to love people. He was moved with compassion. Sometimes you learn through life, read how often Jesus was moved with compassion, and see that movement of the spirit working in your own life. He was, one day in this press and convention, making some comments. He would do this between items that have a cause or hymn. One of his great hymns was, Restless now, come Jesus Lord with holy fire, come and my quickened heart in fire. And he'd have a hymn like that, and then he'd make a comment or two. And he was so anointed one time he was making a comment that a man at the balcony way over there began to speak with tongues, and Wigglesworth said, shut up! That's tactful, courteous crowd control, eh? He said, I'm talking, and when I'm talking, it's not time for you to talk in tongues. I like talking in tongues, he said, more than all of you here. But when I'm talking, I'm talking. You see, it says in the scripture, let the first hold his peace. And it doesn't mean that you have the right to interrupt him. You let the first come to the end of what he's saying. When he holds his peace, that's the time to speak. And Wigglesworth discovered that and discerned that. And I thought at that time, my, that was sharp. I don't think that was the right thing to do. You know, young preachers know it all, don't they? And Bible students know even, Bible school students know even more. And we know what the preacher ought to do, how he ought to have said it, and why he shouldn't have done that. And there was I saying, he shouldn't have done that, that was rude. Discovered later that that man was an interruption in many conventions, and Wigglesworth had discerned in the spirit that man was out of order. He was speaking one day in his comments between speakers, and suddenly he stopped. He said, God has shown me that in this meeting today, there are those who are afflicted with a spirit of uncleanness, of moral and sexual uncleanness. Wherever you are, raise your hand. And he didn't ask us to bow our heads, and I sat on the platform and wept. All over the building, I saw people raising hands, young people and old, white-haired people. He said, now stand to your feet. And he prayed for them one by one. Never forget one young man, he was under the balcony, he said, I'm praying for you as he pointed to him. And suddenly as Wigglesworth prayed for him, this boy flung his arms in the air and shouted at the top of his voice, I'm free, I'm free, I'm free. And he was totally liberated from the power of uncleanness by the power of God. There is victory. We don't have to be contaminated by the world. And Wigglesworth so moved in the spirit, he discerned that I think most of us who should bow your head, don't look around, but Wigglesworth was prepared to deal with it and face up to it. And I just thank God for that memory, because I saw the possibility that I had repeated in my own life and ministry of seeing people delivered from the power of uncleanness and brought into holiness with Jesus. In one of our services in Leonce, there was a person who got up and gave a very, very lengthy utterance in tongues. Well, said Wigglesworth, the first half of that morning, now more than half of it was phrases, I shan't bother with that, but here's the interpretation of the bit that really was for the church. That's the way to interpret it. We never had any trouble with that lady after that. She never spoke in tongues so long again. I think Wigglesworth had discerned what the situation was. In one of his crusades, a lady came forward for prayer. She had a small head. In those days, no lady would come into a church or even a religious meeting without a head. And she had a small head, but obviously she could see her face. And Wigglesworth, as he's about to pray for her, had a revelation from God that this was a loose woman, living sin. And so he quietly, he covered the mic and he said to her, go home and stop sinning and God will heal you. He didn't pray for her. That was all he had to say. The next night she was back with a big head, with a floppy brim that covered her face. And she came out again. There were 2,000 people out for prayer that night. And Wigglesworth couldn't have recognized her in that crowd. But as she came forward, he said, you were here last night. I told you to go home and stop sinning. And he doesn't cover the mic. He said, get out. Until you obey God, don't you come again. It had a devastating effect on the woman. A very profound effect on the meeting. People realize that you can't play with God. God is holy. And God is righteous. And God is prepared to deal in grace. But he also wants to deal in righteousness. Righteousness. Pastor Arnie Dahl, who's known to some here, told me that when Wigglesworth was in Norway, there was a preacher came out for prayer and this preacher had abused his voice. And Wigglesworth said before he prayed, look my brother, he said, if you're in business and I knew that you were doing everything you could to destroy your business, I wouldn't pray for God to pass for you. You're doing everything you know how to destroy your voice. He said, I won't pray for you until you promise to use your voice properly. That man repented of the abuse of his voice. Wigglesworth prayed for him and he was healed. You see, Wigglesworth knew what truth was and he wouldn't put up with sham. He believed in being real with God. He was always saddened by evangelistic exaggeration. We hear the term evangelistically speaking, or sometimes evangelastically speaking, and we know what it means, but it hurt Wigglesworth. He said to me one day, brother, he said, God has shown me never to exaggerate. God cannot bless exaggeration. And he said, I asked God always to help me to tell it as it was, never to add to it. You know, you hear some testimonies and they grow through the years, don't they? They grow with the telling. I knew one man who was arrested for drunkenness. It took one policeman to arrest him, but he told that story so often that it was four policemen before he finished. Wigglesworth had nothing to do with that. He said, God bless his truth. And though I heard some of his stories, many times they never varied by a hair breadth. You could always count on Wigglesworth's word. The man of his word, he spoke the truth. A young man in America, when Wigglesworth was preaching over here, was drawn to him and Wigglesworth said, young man, if ever you need me, let me know and I'll come and help you. And this young man was in the New York area. Wigglesworth was away in California conducting meetings when this young man wired, come, I need your help. Wigglesworth wound up the meetings he was in and traveled at his own expense across America, by rail in those days, and went to help this young man and he had just six people in the first meeting. But you see, he'd given his word, says Psalm 15, he swears to his own hurt and changes not. In the Pentecostal Conference, World Pentecostal Conference in London in 1952, I was chairman of the first public meeting and I was given the task of introducing preachers who had written, said they'd like a preaching appointment, to their host pastors. And so I introduced quite a number. What hurt me more than anything else I can remember, almost, was this, that many of those men came to me after having been introduced to their host pastor saying, Brother Stormont, we'll have to cancel out that appointment you have for us. I've just met some friends I haven't seen for years and we want to see London together. And they broke an appointment to preach the gospel because they'd met some friends. I can't tell you how that wounded me. And I've come across it, can I say it, very tenderly, more than America, than anywhere else. Men make promises and don't keep them. And I think it's a great thing to get this in your spirit. Like Wigglesworth, I will always speak the truth. And if I say it, if it's within my power, I'll do it. I'll keep my word at all costs. Wigglesworth was a generous man. When he got royalties from his book, Ever-Increasing Faith, they amounted to quite a sum. Twenty thousand pounds, which in those days would be about a hundred thousand dollars. Well, in 1940, a hundred thousand dollars was a lot of money here, wasn't it? It was a very big sum of money. And Wigglesworth didn't keep one penny. He gave every cent to missions. He heard of a couple from India wanting to go back to India and they couldn't raise their fare. He'd just come to the end of a month's meetings and he'd had a very generous ministry gift, a love offering. And when he heard about these missionaries, he endorsed the check and gave it to them and said, here's your fare back to India. He gave because he discovered there's a principle, give and it shall be given unto you, Luke 6 and 38. And he lived by that and never lacked. He used to drink a lot of olive oil before ever polyunsaturated fats were ever heard of. He was always drinking olive oil. And when you couldn't get a small bottle during the war, God always saw to it that his servant had a gallon bottle. It was amazing how God supplied all his needs. A friend of mine named Willie Hacking has written a book, you may come across it, Wigglesworth Remembered. And Hacking knew him a lot closer than I did. And I was just trying to think what I was trying to tell you that about. It slipped out of my mind. But Willie Hacking knew him as a man who kept his word and the man who gave and it was given unto him. It comes back to my mind now. He gave to Willie Hacking a copy of his book. He said, now Willie, don't you lend that book to anyone. You see, if they borrow it off you, they won't buy it. And I want you to, I want them to buy it because I want the profit to go to me. He was moved in this wonderful way. He'd learned this secret. Someone said to him, you know, you live by faith, but you're always well dressed. Willie said, my brother, I used to be a plumber. And whenever the time comes when my suit is worn out, my shoes are down on the heel. I say, Lord, it's about time I went back to plumbing. He thought God could look after him better than he could look after himself. And God did. You really live by faith. Howard Carter was a well-known Bible teacher in those days and a friend of Burgos Wilson. He was a man who moved very much in the realm of faith. He lived by faith. And someone said, Brother Carter, you must have had some hard times living by faith. Hard times, he said. You'd have to be dying by faith, not living by faith. See, when God gives, he gives abundantly. And in 2 Corinthians 9, verse 8 and verse 11, God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound unto every good work, being enriched in everything unto all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving to God. I have a friend in Indiana who is marvelously used of God. They have their church. He's been meeting in a barn. They're just pulling, they're extending now to seat 500 in a village that has 300 inhabitants. And they bring back to the doors. He said, you know, I never learned the fullness of freedom until I learned to give. I was saved from the world's economy and brought into God's economy. And that's where Widdowsworth lived, in the sweetness and the freedom of the Spirit of God. Widdowsworth was a holy man. Holiness isn't a very popular doctrine. We're living in society when standards have gone, and when things are accepted, even amongst Christians, that used to be frowned on. And I'm not talking just about the negatives. I mean, there used to be a lot that were just human rules. But there are some principles of righteousness that are abandoned these days. And Widdowsworth was a man who was moved by the spirit of hunger after righteousness. And he had a passion for holiness. And my brothers and sisters, and especially you young men and women, you'll never go wrong if that is a major passion in your heart, that you might be holy, that you might be like Jesus Christ. Widdowsworth lived in that realm. He was a very calm man. Widdowsworth was so calm that you never saw the slightest flatter of unrest in him. He was walking with Willie one day, and he just bought a new hat. And as they walked, the wind blew and took his new expensive hat right into the middle of the river. And Widdowsworth said, well, Brother Hacking, he said, I don't think it's wise to walk out without a hat. Let's go home. Wasn't the slightest bit disturbed. And yet, there was a time, he tells himself, when he had such a temper that he would go white with rage. He would shake. He would almost lose control. But he said, I went to my room and I shut myself in with God for 10 days. And I waited before God until God dealt with that old nature and worked the Jesus nature into me. And his wife bore witness. He said, I never saw a greater change in a man than in my husband Smith. Nothing was too hot, too cold. Everything was right. And I knew him those seven years and had many situations where things could have irritated him. But he just moved in the sweetness and the freedom and the blessing of God. And he never ceased to hunger after righteousness. D. James Kennedy of Coleridge, Florida, wrote a short article, Five Prayers That Have Changed My Life. You might like to note them. Slay me. Cleanse me. Fill me. Lead me. Use me. Slay me. Cleanse me. Fill me. Lead me. Use me. Slay me. Let me know what it means to be crucified with Christ. Cleanse me. Take away the defilements from my heart. Fill me with the Holy Spirit. Guide me. And then use me. And that seemed to me to sum up the way Wigglesworth would pray. On Matthew 5 and 6, he had this comment. Hungering and thirsting after righteousness is when nothing in the world can fascinate us so much as being near to God. On Mark 11, 24, if there's anything in your heart which is in the way of condemnation, you cannot pray the prayer of faith. Purity is vital to faith. On Philippians 2, verse 5, when you're willing to throw your whole heart into the plan of God, when you long to be holy, when you long to be pure, then there is the law of the Spirit of life working in you that will make you free from the law of sin and death. Now, Wigglesworth wasn't a perfect man. I wouldn't like to give the impression that I thought he was. I think sometimes his view of healing was too simplistic. If people weren't healed, there was only one reason. They hadn't got faith. His daughter Alice was a marvelous missionary, but she was very, very deaf. In later years, she would sit on the platform before electronic aids were around with an ear trumpet, and she put the ear trumpet out while her dad was preaching. And he'd turn around and say, using Yorkshire dialect, there's not wrong, there's nothing wrong, there's not wrong with Alice's hearing, it's her faith that's wrong. He'd say that publicly. I said to him one day, Brother Wigglesworth, you know it says in the script of the prayer of faith, you'll save the sick. That's right, my brother. But I said it's the faith of a man praying, not the faith of the man prayed for. He says, I've got enough faith for them all to be healed. They have not enough faith to take it. Well, I think it was a little get out, you know. Just a little. There's a place of faith there where we can have faith for others, and God can bless and move in that realm. But I'll tell you what his strength was. Wigglesworth, with all his limitations, used all that he had for God. He was preaching in our church, and he was preaching on Mark 11, 23. Do you remember the text, he shall have whatsoever he saith? The man who doesn't doubt, but believes in his heart, he shall have whatsoever he saith. Have you begun to set yet? And he preached for 20 minutes about setting. So when we got home, I said, Wigglesworth, you were wrong tonight. What? I said, you said you've got to set. He said, so you have. But I said, you can't set. He said, if you can't set, you don't know God. But brother Wigglesworth, it's I say, you say, he says. He said, you got it, hang on to it. But I said, your grammar's wrong. He said, I don't know anything about grammar, but if you can't set, you better get on your knees till you can. Now he was quite oblivious to the fact that verbs relate to their subjects. And so it said set in the Bible, and set it had to be. A lack of limitation. He couldn't spell. I have letters from him with glorious misspellings. I think it reminds me of your president, Grover Cleveland, who once said, it's a poor kind of mind that can think of only one way to spell a word. Sorry, teachers. He wrote to one man, Cecil Paul Hill, who had a triple honors degree from Cambridge University, England. That's a pretty high degree. And he wrote a letter and Paul Hill met Wigglesworth afterwards. He said, you know, Wigglesworth, you spell the title of the Holy Spirit seven different ways in one letter. He said, did I, did you understand? He said, yes. Thank God. He said, that's all I want. We couldn't save him. But you see, with all his limitation, he gave what he had to God. A young fellow came to D.L. Moody, said, Mr. Moody, I don't like your, your grammar, your grammar's bad. And Moody with tears in his eyes said, young man, I'm using all the grammar I've got for God. What are you doing with yours? There's a challenge. These days we're better educated. Wigglesworth didn't learn to read till he was 23. His wife told him. But all he had, he gave to God. I don't think there was a moment when he, he didn't just reach out to God in great desire to be all on the order. Wigglesworth, I'm going to burn you all up till there's no more Wigglesworth, and it's Jesus only. Come and do it, Lord. And I don't know, there's a sense of brokenness in my spirit this morning. God is wanting someone here, not just to learn about Wigglesworth, but just to come to the point in his life, her life, when you'll say, Lord, I have not too much, but all I have is yours. I hold nothing back. Can I tell you about my own experience? I may have said this before, but I want to say it again. I had the misfortune in teen years to suffer terribly from acne, and my face was covered with all sorts of spots, and I didn't know what to, it was embarrassing. My dad was a Baptist preacher, and one morning, Sunday morning, he called me in his room. I'd recommitted my life to God. This would be 1928, maybe early 1929. He said, my boy, I'm too sick to preach today. Will you go and preach for me? And I'd never preached before. I talked to young people in a small, 10-minute talk. I said, Dad, I can't preach, and look, they wouldn't look at me, they wouldn't want to see me in the pulpit. He said, boy, there's no one else to send. I listed some names of men, and he said that I ought to go. He said, you must go. And I went to a Baptist church, a place called Smethwick, near Birmingham, England, and I told the secretary the situation. And he introduced me, he said, our brother Charles Stormont-Kong, come, he's sick, he sent his son, I just hope he's a chip off the old block. And that was my introduction to preach. And I stood up, so self-conscious, so limited, but I said to God in tears before I left home that morning, oh God, I've got nothing at all. I just give myself to you, and all there is in me I give to you. If you can use me, please do. And at the end of the message, I really don't know what I preached about, I just felt I should give an invitation. And 23 young people came forward to accept Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. And two years later, the secretary wrote to my dad and said, every one, every one of those 23 is still standing. You see, I've got much to give to God, but I gave it to him. And when you do, he can use you. Don't count on your ability, recognize your inability, and throw yourself completely on God, and God will use you, and God will bless you. Littlesworth lived for God. He lived to please God. He lived to be led of God. Here's something he said at the end of one of his talks. Are you ready? Ready what for? Ready to believe God, ready to catch the vision of what God has for you, ready to enter into God's plan for you today. We were sitting in our garden, lovely sunny day, in sunny England. And Littlesworth said, I want to tell you something that you must never forget. Every fresh revelation calls for a new dedication. Every fresh revelation calls for a new dedication. You see, there's a committing of our lives. If you read Romans 6 carefully and study the tenses, there's a wholehearted committing of our whole lives to God. But there's a daily committing as well. And so every fresh revelation calls for a new dedication. And as we come to the end of our first talk, I want to share this with you. There's an opportunity for you today in the quiet time of prayer we're going to have in a moment. When you'll be able to commit your life to God, each of us will have glimpsed something else in God's dealing with his servant. Each of us will sense some particular application to our lives. And as we do so, let's make our commitment and yield our lives afresh to him, that in his joy and in his power, we may go forward. I'm getting towards the end of the journey. I don't know how long God has for me. A few months time, I should be 75. And I'm praising God that has given me a new lease of life after a very serious illness. But I was praying this morning, said, Lord, you know, sometimes we get not the intimations of immortality, but the intimations of mortality. I don't know how long I'll be around. Maybe I'll never come to Seattle again. Who knows? But I prayed this morning that God would put his hand on someone's right here today, that will take up the torch of faith and honor and glory to Jesus, and bear the tidings to the far ends of the earth. God has someone here is saying, Are you ready? Ready to commit your life to God? Let's pray.