In this sermon, Catherine Coogman reflects on her role as a preacher and the responsibility that comes with it. She describes the anticipation and fear she feels before stepping onto the stage to deliver her message. Coogman acknowledges the sacrifices made by the audience members who have traveled far to attend the service. She also discusses the limitations of the human body in handling the power of the Holy Spirit, but asserts her ability to endure long hours of preaching without fatigue. Despite medical predictions of her physical limitations, Coogman remains steadfast in her dedication to her work and compares it favorably to that of any man.

This is tape KK14 in the Springs of Living Water Tape Library. There are four steps that lead up to a little landing where the door opens on the stage of Carnegie Auditorium North Side in Pittsburgh. There's a black doorknob on the door. I have walked up those four steps and have stood on that little landing with my hand on that black doorknob, and Kathryn Kuhlman has died a thousand deaths on that one step. Because I knew that when I opened that door, I would have to walk out on that stage. And I knew that sitting out there in that auditorium were people who had traveled hundreds of miles. People out there from every walk of life. People who have made sacrifices to be in that miracle service. Who've come because it was their last resort. The medical profession could do nothing more for them. And then it comes. This is the last resort. Who go into one of those miracle services and will believe God. The answer prayer. I knew that sitting out there in that audience would be a father who had taken off work. And would come with his wife with a little child. They tried everything. Perhaps it was cancer in that child's body. That child was more precious to them than anything else in the world. They'd come as a last resort. Bringing that child to God in prayer. I knew as I stood on that last step with my hand on that black doorknob. That there were people sitting out there in that audience who'd come in great pain. Making an almost insurmountable effort just to get there. And many whether they had spoken it or they had not. Had said within themselves, if I can just get there. I know I'll be healed. I died a thousand deaths on that last step. Only God knows. Only God the Father knows my thoughts, my feelings. And more than once I could easily have walked down those four steps. It would have been the easiest thing in the world. To just run from it all. Because Kathryn Kuhlman herself knew better than anyone else in the whole world. That she had no healing. That she had no healing power. Nobody, nobody, nobody knew it any better than I knew myself. I know myself. I too am human. I have my own weaknesses, my own failures. I'm just a sinner saved by the grace of God like any other Christian. Like in one of God's children. I knew standing on that top step that I had no power to heal. If my life depended upon it, I had no power to heal a single person out there in that audience. Oh, the helplessness of it all. The utter helplessness. And the complete dependence on the power of the Holy Spirit. Do you know what I'm talking about? Do you really know what I'm talking about? I died not once, not a half dozen times. But over and over and over again. Oh, sure. The other day, when someone came into my office and said, Kathryn Kuhlman, do you know that men who have great influence in many of our leading denominational churches, consider your ministry of the Holy Spirit one of the purest ministries today? I said, oh, thank you. That's so nice of you to say that. And then almost disappointed, he said, well, aren't you thrilled? Aren't you excited? Don't you consider that a wonderful compliment? And I said, oh, sure. Of course I appreciate that. But you know, after one has gone through much sacrifice, after one has fought so long to stay so yielded to the Holy Spirit, that when one is handed the trophy, it really doesn't mean much. You've paid the price. It was costly. It cost much. You paid a big price. But it was worth. In that moment, compelling myself to open that door and walk out on the platform, I go out smiling, and sometimes I'm reminded by those in the audience that I walk so quickly. I'm told that I walk so fast, whether it's from behind the curtains of the great stage of the Shrine Auditorium, or through that door of Carnegie Auditorium, or wherever it is. I'm not aware of the fact that I am walking that quickly. I think I do it spontaneously because I know that the very second that I stand before that great audience, I'm no longer Katharine Kuhlman. The Holy Spirit takes that which I have yielded unto Him, and when I speak of that which I yield unto Him, it's just a yielded pliable vessel of clay that I give. It's that simple. But one of the hardest lessons in the whole world to learn is how to yield oneself to the Holy Spirit. It's one of the hardest lessons I've had to learn, for I found out a long time ago the Holy Spirit is not a person that I can use. And that is the lesson. If only the Holy Spirit could get you to learn. He is not a person. He is not a power that I can use. He must use the vessel. And that's all that I furnish. I'm just taking the lid off of my heart to you this hour. I am telling you the truth. I'm taking the lid off of my heart and bearing things to you that few people know and few will ever fully understand. There is a place where one yields himself completely, where you give your body over to Him completely. Your body, your mind, every part of you, your lips, your voice, your consciousness is yielded completely unto Him. And all that He uses is the yielded vessel. I have never professed having any gift of the Spirit. I would not confess to you now that I have even one gift. There are those who have said that I have the gift of healing. There are those who have said that I have had the gift of faith. You may have said it, but you'll never hear Kathryn Kuhlman profess to have any. I still contend that if one has been so honored of the Holy Spirit, if the Holy Spirit has so honored that one, has so entrusted that one with a gift, if He so willed to give one a gift or gifts of the Spirit, that one will treat that gift so carefully, will guard it so well. It will be such a truth that one will not talk about it. One will not boast for that one knows that it is a trust. It must be used carefully, wisely, discreetly. And along with the giving of that gift, there is a responsibility that is so great that it is almost overwhelming. Many a time have I stood on that top step with my hand on that black doorknob wishing that He had called someone else instead of me. Many a time with this tremendous responsibility that is almost overwhelming, with the knowledge that He's given me of the Word, with the knowledge that He has given me of the powers that are, with that with which He's endowed me, that responsibility that goes with that with which He's entrusted to you, is so overwhelming that more than once I've envied the little woman on that Missouri farm who gathers the eggs at the close of the day from her little henhouse, who perhaps helps with the milking, who takes care of her precious little family. I could have easily have been that farmer's wife in Miss Nora had God not called me at the tender age of fourteen. She can go to bed at night, tired, oh sure, but she rests so well. And when the gray streaks of dawn break in the early morning hours, she again goes about her daily duties, a responsibility to her little family. But oh beloved, the responsibility of one who's been called of God, the responsibility that goes with that with which He's entrusted you with, after the close of a miracle service, and I walk off of that platform, oh sure, and those who leave that service say, Miss Kuhlman must feel so well rewarded. Think of those who were healed by the power of God in that great miracle service. And they go out of the service almost with envy. But beloved, I walk off of that same platform thinking, did I yield completely to the Spirit? What if I had known how to better have cooperated with the Spirit? Maybe another might have been healed. If only I had known how to better follow Him as He was moving in that great auditorium, someone else might have been set free. But responsibility, you're never from under it. You're never, you're never, you're never from under it. It is the power of God. It's the mighty power of the Holy Spirit. The secret of those bodies that were healed in those miracle services is the power of the Holy Spirit. Believe me. And the only part that the servant plays, the only part that I play, is in yielding my body unto Him. And He works through that body in lifting up His only begotten Son, in lifting up Jesus. But the vessel must be healed. You know, I become completely detached from that which happens during a miracle service. Absolutely. It is almost as though Kathryn Kuhlman, the person of Kathryn Kuhlman, is seated with the crowd in the auditorium. As a personality, as a person, I become completely detached from that which the Holy Spirit does. You marvel. Thousands have marveled the fact that I can go through a service four hours, four and a half hours, five, five and a half hours. I've gone as long as six hours in one service without stopping, on my feet, never being seated once. And I am a woman. And yet at the end of four hours, five, six hours, I can walk off of that platform, that stage, just as refreshed as I went on at the beginning of that service. Doctors have told me that from a medical standpoint, it is impossible for any human body to take that beating, year in, year out. A medical man in Pittsburgh told me 15 years ago that at the rate that I was going then, my physical body could not take three more years. Here I am, still going strong. And I'll put up against any man's work the work that I do. I'll put my work that I do in one week up against the work of any man that I know. Seven days a week, 24 hours a day, I can walk off of a platform after a four, five, six-hour service just as refreshed. In fact, I could turn around and do it all over again, you know? I'll tell you the secret. It's because Kathryn Kuhlman doesn't do it. It's the power of the Holy Spirit. Let me preach an hour under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, one hour under the anointing of the Holy Ghost, and I walk off of that stage, that platform more refreshed in body and in mind than I was when I walked on that platform. I know better than anyone else that it is not Kathryn Kuhlman. It's the power of the Holy Spirit that is refreshing for my own body as He fills the body with Himself and His own Spirit. There are those who ask regarding the slain power of the Holy Spirit. If I knew, I would tell you, and I'm being perfectly honest about it. If I knew, I would tell you. I know no more about the slain power of the Holy Spirit than I understood it when one Tuesday night a woman stood and said, Miss Kuhlman, last night while you were preaching, I was healed. I paused and I said, you mean that you were physically healed as I was preaching? She said, yes. I questioned her from the platform and found that as I was preaching, literally a tumor had dissolved in her body. She said, I was so sure of it. I was so sure of it. I went to my doctor today. He examined me and said, it's true. The tumor is no longer there. So far as I can recollect, that was the first time that anyone had ever been healed just as they sat in a service any time during my ministry. That was the very first time. Since that time, literally thousands and thousands and thousands have been healed just sitting there in the auditorium. Explain it. How can it be that someone just coming into a service, sitting there, no one laying hands upon them, no one touching them, they're not in a healing line, but sitting there completely healed of their affliction, their disease? Ask me to explain it? All I can tell you is that the presence of the Holy Spirit is there to heal. He doesn't need me to lay hands upon you that you might be healed. He doesn't need me to touch you. I have no healing virtue in my hands. I have no healing virtue that comes from my body. I remind you again. I'm just a sinner saved by the grace of God. But the same Holy Spirit who performed those miracles through the body of Jesus, as Jesus walked this earth as much man as though he were not God, and who admitted that it was the Holy Spirit who doeth these works. Peter understood. He, to acknowledge, it was the Spirit of God who performeth the miracles. He is still the same Holy Spirit. And it is the Holy Spirit who heals those bodies out there in that great auditorium. Many of them. Many, many, many feet from me. So far from me, I cannot see them. Strangers. I never touch them. But they're no strangers to Him. No. When it comes to the slain power of the Holy Spirit, I still contend that these old physical bodies of ours are not geared for so much power. And it's just like that. One of these days, this martyr will have put on immortality. One of these days, that which is corruption will have put on incorruption. But now, the old physical body, in this state of corruption, this old physical body can just take just so much of the power of the Holy Spirit, so much of this dynamite, and believe me, it is. It's the greatest power that man can know. Please stop your machine at this point and turn your cassette over.