Follow After Love
(Smith Wigglesworth 1922)
I want to turn this morning to the last verse of the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, and the first three verses of the fourteenth chapter. I want you to see that the primary thought in this passage is that when love is in perfect progress, other things will work in harmony, for prophetic utterances are of no value unless perfectly covered by divine love.
Jesus was so full of love to His Father and love to us that that love never failed to accomplish its purpose. It works in us and through us by the power of the Father's love in Him. This is what must come into our lives. Christ is to be the all-in-all of all things. All our doings, sayings, workings must be in Him and unto Him. Then our prophetic utterances will be well-pleasing to God. Pentecostal people sometimes make prophetic utterance a side issue. They think they are obliged to rise up and speak because the Spirit is upon them. That is not true - and again it is true. If they are in the right place - hidden away in Christ, saturated with His love they will have such unction as to be balanced and always have spiritual utterance that pleases Him. It will all be to edification.
"Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy" (1 Corinthians 14:1). Moses said, I would " ... that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them!" (Numbers11:29). And this is to me a revelation that God would have us in such a spiritual, holy place that He can take our words and so fill them with divine power that we speak in the Spirit right along in prophetic utterance. Beloved, there is human language on the human plane, and there is a divine incoming into the same language so that it is changed by spiritual power and made to live to those who hear. That divine touch of prophetic utterance will never come on any line except being filled with the Spirit. If you wish to be anything for God, do not miss the plan. You cannot afford to be on ordinary lines. You must realize that within you there is a power of the Spirit that is forming everything you require.
Perhaps you have not heard what our experience was in the early days of the Christian Mission in England which turned out to be the Salvation Army. I have never seen anything like it in my life. The power of God rested upon the worst characters and they were saved. It reached every class. Drunkards were saved right and left and the next day when they were put up for testimony their testimony thrilled the place so that the power of God fell upon others who in turn became witnesses to the salvation of Christ. There was no such thing as a building large enough to hold the work. The meetings were in open marketplaces, and they put big wagons there for platforms. The people who were saved the night before would speak and the power of God would fall.
I maintain that we are in a different order and a higher, yet we lack. We have too much preaching and too little testifying. You can never get a live Pentecostal church with a preacher every night preaching, preaching, preaching. The people become weary of preaching. But they never tire of the whole place being on fire. Therefore I can understand the exhortation "that ye may prophesy." You must awake out of your lethargy. There is no room for a man in the Pentecostal Movement who has settled on his lees. If you come to a Pentecostal meeting and sit through it unmoved, you are not in the Spirit, and dearth will fall on the church.
When the Holy Ghost comes in His fullness He comes into a man to move him so that he knows he has to speak now in a different way. " ... when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth ... " (John16:13). The Holy Ghost is inspiration, revelation, manifestation, operation. When a man comes into the fullness of the Holy Ghost he is in perfect order, built on a scriptural foundation. I have failed to find any man who understood the 12th, 13th and 14th chapters of First Corinthians unless he had been baptized in the Holy Ghost. When a man gets baptized with the Holy Ghost, he speaks from a deep inward conviction, by the power of the Spirit, a revelation of that Scripture.
God wants to make us on fire in the Spirit, speaking burning words. He wants to make all that a man has so prophetic in all its bearings that he will always speak as an oracle of God. There ought to be something within him that shines through him with a vital power that makes men know he has seen God, and they feel God has come into their midst.
One day in a railroad carriage I was drawing near to Cardiff and washed my hands and face because I knew the moment I jumped off the train I should have to rush to get to the meeting. I had just a little season of prayer while washing. Meanwhile the carriage had filled up with people who got on at Newport. When I returned there were two ministerial gentlemen with the accustomed white collars. These two parsons cried out under conviction of sin, and in ten minutes' time the whole place was bathed in prayer and conviction.
We should be filled with the Holy Ghost to such an extent it would always be so. To be filled with the Holy Ghost and fire is a higher order different from anything else. I often kneel before God thinking, "Now what is the burden of my heart?" The Lord knows more than I do about the burden, and the moment I kneel down I lose all my English. I am in the presence of God and He takes me right on to victory. Talk about this praying in the Holy Ghost, there is nothing like it! There is a secret about it. It is a secret between you and God. It is purely a Holy Ghost utterance. Let me tell you an incident of what it does. It does such marvelous things.
Brother Burton, who is associated with my son-in-law in Africa, has a wonderful work going on in the Congo. When they were going there to break up the new ground they lost one man on the way, and then Burton was laid low. He seemed dead, and they started on brokenheartedly. But looking around they saw him coming on just as lively as though he had never had a touch of fever. "What has happened?" they shouted. "Tell us!" He said, "From my head right down there came a warmth of life through my body, and here I am perfectly well."
Afterwards Burton visited England and when he was at a meeting a woman said to him, "Do you keep a diary?" "Yes," he answered. "I wish you would look at your diary," she continued, "and tell me what happened on a certain day," (giving the date). While he was looking it up she went on, "I saw you lying as one dead, and I was broken down before God in your behalf and was praying for you when the Spirit filled me and there I was speaking in an unknown tongue, and when I got through I saw you looking perfectly well. Burton found in his diary that it was the very hour of his recovery. What we need is more of the Holy Ghost. Oh, let it be no longer we but the Spirit who prays!
Two African boys were brought to us from the Congo, and my daughter said to me, "Father, will you take the boys around?" Well, it was a job because they could not speak a word of English. When I was walking with these boys I kept saying, "Praise the Lord, Amen." After a while they caught on to it. So when I said, "Praise the Lord," they would say, "Amen." We boarded a car which was full of people and the boys were at one end and I at the other. They would shout, "Praise the Lord!" and I would respond, "Amen," and we kept it up through the town. The boys were having a great time. When they sought the baptism of the Holy Ghost we had a glorious time. By the way, these "boys" were thirty years old. The Holy Ghost fell on them and gave them a new language, so different from their own. It was wonderful. They were full of the Spirit and joyful beyond words. They said, "When we were saved it was good, very good; but now it is more good, more so!" 0 beloved! I know God wants us all to have this "more so" salvation. It is not a measure but a pressed down measure; and not only a pressed down measure but a measure shaken together and running over. The baptism of the Spirit is an overflowing cup. Praise the Lord!
People who are baptized in the Holy Ghost can have a wonderful time in song. I have seen it, especially in England. If we only understood it better we should have greater chorals than ever were sung, far better than man ever made. I have heard singing in the Spirit with such rarity of music as I have never heard elsewhere, music from the deepest bass to octaves higher than you ever hear in the natural. All is in perfect harmony and it makes you think of a big organ, only more massive, more beautiful. Everyone gets to weeping and rejoicing and is solemnized by the presence of God, so that there is nothing in the flesh. The people are melted down at such times. I pray God we may all come to understand this in its fullness.
(1922, Glad Tidings Tabernacle, San Francisco, California.)
Read Smith Wigglesworth's other works at http://www.teleiosministries.com/Gifts-of-Healing.html
Free Downloads at www.teleiosministries.com
(Smith Wigglesworth 1922)
I want to turn this morning to the last verse of the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, and the first three verses of the fourteenth chapter. I want you to see that the primary thought in this passage is that when love is in perfect progress, other things will work in harmony, for prophetic utterances are of no value unless perfectly covered by divine love.
Jesus was so full of love to His Father and love to us that that love never failed to accomplish its purpose. It works in us and through us by the power of the Father's love in Him. This is what must come into our lives. Christ is to be the all-in-all of all things. All our doings, sayings, workings must be in Him and unto Him. Then our prophetic utterances will be well-pleasing to God. Pentecostal people sometimes make prophetic utterance a side issue. They think they are obliged to rise up and speak because the Spirit is upon them. That is not true - and again it is true. If they are in the right place - hidden away in Christ, saturated with His love they will have such unction as to be balanced and always have spiritual utterance that pleases Him. It will all be to edification.
"Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy" (1 Corinthians 14:1). Moses said, I would " ... that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them!" (Numbers11:29). And this is to me a revelation that God would have us in such a spiritual, holy place that He can take our words and so fill them with divine power that we speak in the Spirit right along in prophetic utterance. Beloved, there is human language on the human plane, and there is a divine incoming into the same language so that it is changed by spiritual power and made to live to those who hear. That divine touch of prophetic utterance will never come on any line except being filled with the Spirit. If you wish to be anything for God, do not miss the plan. You cannot afford to be on ordinary lines. You must realize that within you there is a power of the Spirit that is forming everything you require.
Perhaps you have not heard what our experience was in the early days of the Christian Mission in England which turned out to be the Salvation Army. I have never seen anything like it in my life. The power of God rested upon the worst characters and they were saved. It reached every class. Drunkards were saved right and left and the next day when they were put up for testimony their testimony thrilled the place so that the power of God fell upon others who in turn became witnesses to the salvation of Christ. There was no such thing as a building large enough to hold the work. The meetings were in open marketplaces, and they put big wagons there for platforms. The people who were saved the night before would speak and the power of God would fall.
I maintain that we are in a different order and a higher, yet we lack. We have too much preaching and too little testifying. You can never get a live Pentecostal church with a preacher every night preaching, preaching, preaching. The people become weary of preaching. But they never tire of the whole place being on fire. Therefore I can understand the exhortation "that ye may prophesy." You must awake out of your lethargy. There is no room for a man in the Pentecostal Movement who has settled on his lees. If you come to a Pentecostal meeting and sit through it unmoved, you are not in the Spirit, and dearth will fall on the church.
When the Holy Ghost comes in His fullness He comes into a man to move him so that he knows he has to speak now in a different way. " ... when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth ... " (John16:13). The Holy Ghost is inspiration, revelation, manifestation, operation. When a man comes into the fullness of the Holy Ghost he is in perfect order, built on a scriptural foundation. I have failed to find any man who understood the 12th, 13th and 14th chapters of First Corinthians unless he had been baptized in the Holy Ghost. When a man gets baptized with the Holy Ghost, he speaks from a deep inward conviction, by the power of the Spirit, a revelation of that Scripture.
God wants to make us on fire in the Spirit, speaking burning words. He wants to make all that a man has so prophetic in all its bearings that he will always speak as an oracle of God. There ought to be something within him that shines through him with a vital power that makes men know he has seen God, and they feel God has come into their midst.
One day in a railroad carriage I was drawing near to Cardiff and washed my hands and face because I knew the moment I jumped off the train I should have to rush to get to the meeting. I had just a little season of prayer while washing. Meanwhile the carriage had filled up with people who got on at Newport. When I returned there were two ministerial gentlemen with the accustomed white collars. These two parsons cried out under conviction of sin, and in ten minutes' time the whole place was bathed in prayer and conviction.
We should be filled with the Holy Ghost to such an extent it would always be so. To be filled with the Holy Ghost and fire is a higher order different from anything else. I often kneel before God thinking, "Now what is the burden of my heart?" The Lord knows more than I do about the burden, and the moment I kneel down I lose all my English. I am in the presence of God and He takes me right on to victory. Talk about this praying in the Holy Ghost, there is nothing like it! There is a secret about it. It is a secret between you and God. It is purely a Holy Ghost utterance. Let me tell you an incident of what it does. It does such marvelous things.
Brother Burton, who is associated with my son-in-law in Africa, has a wonderful work going on in the Congo. When they were going there to break up the new ground they lost one man on the way, and then Burton was laid low. He seemed dead, and they started on brokenheartedly. But looking around they saw him coming on just as lively as though he had never had a touch of fever. "What has happened?" they shouted. "Tell us!" He said, "From my head right down there came a warmth of life through my body, and here I am perfectly well."
Afterwards Burton visited England and when he was at a meeting a woman said to him, "Do you keep a diary?" "Yes," he answered. "I wish you would look at your diary," she continued, "and tell me what happened on a certain day," (giving the date). While he was looking it up she went on, "I saw you lying as one dead, and I was broken down before God in your behalf and was praying for you when the Spirit filled me and there I was speaking in an unknown tongue, and when I got through I saw you looking perfectly well. Burton found in his diary that it was the very hour of his recovery. What we need is more of the Holy Ghost. Oh, let it be no longer we but the Spirit who prays!
Two African boys were brought to us from the Congo, and my daughter said to me, "Father, will you take the boys around?" Well, it was a job because they could not speak a word of English. When I was walking with these boys I kept saying, "Praise the Lord, Amen." After a while they caught on to it. So when I said, "Praise the Lord," they would say, "Amen." We boarded a car which was full of people and the boys were at one end and I at the other. They would shout, "Praise the Lord!" and I would respond, "Amen," and we kept it up through the town. The boys were having a great time. When they sought the baptism of the Holy Ghost we had a glorious time. By the way, these "boys" were thirty years old. The Holy Ghost fell on them and gave them a new language, so different from their own. It was wonderful. They were full of the Spirit and joyful beyond words. They said, "When we were saved it was good, very good; but now it is more good, more so!" 0 beloved! I know God wants us all to have this "more so" salvation. It is not a measure but a pressed down measure; and not only a pressed down measure but a measure shaken together and running over. The baptism of the Spirit is an overflowing cup. Praise the Lord!
People who are baptized in the Holy Ghost can have a wonderful time in song. I have seen it, especially in England. If we only understood it better we should have greater chorals than ever were sung, far better than man ever made. I have heard singing in the Spirit with such rarity of music as I have never heard elsewhere, music from the deepest bass to octaves higher than you ever hear in the natural. All is in perfect harmony and it makes you think of a big organ, only more massive, more beautiful. Everyone gets to weeping and rejoicing and is solemnized by the presence of God, so that there is nothing in the flesh. The people are melted down at such times. I pray God we may all come to understand this in its fullness.
(1922, Glad Tidings Tabernacle, San Francisco, California.)
Read Smith Wigglesworth's other works at http://www.teleiosministries.com/Gifts-of-Healing.html
Free Downloads at www.teleiosministries.com
Follow After Love
(Smith Wigglesworth 1922)
I want to turn this morning to the last verse of the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, and the first three verses of the fourteenth chapter. I want you to see that the primary thought in this passage is that when love is in perfect progress, other things will work in harmony, for prophetic utterances are of no value unless perfectly covered by divine love.
Jesus was so full of love to His Father and love to us that that love never failed to accomplish its purpose. It works in us and through us by the power of the Father's love in Him. This is what must come into our lives. Christ is to be the all-in-all of all things. All our doings, sayings, workings must be in Him and unto Him. Then our prophetic utterances will be well-pleasing to God. Pentecostal people sometimes make prophetic utterance a side issue. They think they are obliged to rise up and speak because the Spirit is upon them. That is not true - and again it is true. If they are in the right place - hidden away in Christ, saturated with His love they will have such unction as to be balanced and always have spiritual utterance that pleases Him. It will all be to edification.
"Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy" (1 Corinthians 14:1). Moses said, I would " ... that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them!" (Numbers11:29). And this is to me a revelation that God would have us in such a spiritual, holy place that He can take our words and so fill them with divine power that we speak in the Spirit right along in prophetic utterance. Beloved, there is human language on the human plane, and there is a divine incoming into the same language so that it is changed by spiritual power and made to live to those who hear. That divine touch of prophetic utterance will never come on any line except being filled with the Spirit. If you wish to be anything for God, do not miss the plan. You cannot afford to be on ordinary lines. You must realize that within you there is a power of the Spirit that is forming everything you require.
Perhaps you have not heard what our experience was in the early days of the Christian Mission in England which turned out to be the Salvation Army. I have never seen anything like it in my life. The power of God rested upon the worst characters and they were saved. It reached every class. Drunkards were saved right and left and the next day when they were put up for testimony their testimony thrilled the place so that the power of God fell upon others who in turn became witnesses to the salvation of Christ. There was no such thing as a building large enough to hold the work. The meetings were in open marketplaces, and they put big wagons there for platforms. The people who were saved the night before would speak and the power of God would fall.
I maintain that we are in a different order and a higher, yet we lack. We have too much preaching and too little testifying. You can never get a live Pentecostal church with a preacher every night preaching, preaching, preaching. The people become weary of preaching. But they never tire of the whole place being on fire. Therefore I can understand the exhortation "that ye may prophesy." You must awake out of your lethargy. There is no room for a man in the Pentecostal Movement who has settled on his lees. If you come to a Pentecostal meeting and sit through it unmoved, you are not in the Spirit, and dearth will fall on the church.
When the Holy Ghost comes in His fullness He comes into a man to move him so that he knows he has to speak now in a different way. " ... when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth ... " (John16:13). The Holy Ghost is inspiration, revelation, manifestation, operation. When a man comes into the fullness of the Holy Ghost he is in perfect order, built on a scriptural foundation. I have failed to find any man who understood the 12th, 13th and 14th chapters of First Corinthians unless he had been baptized in the Holy Ghost. When a man gets baptized with the Holy Ghost, he speaks from a deep inward conviction, by the power of the Spirit, a revelation of that Scripture.
God wants to make us on fire in the Spirit, speaking burning words. He wants to make all that a man has so prophetic in all its bearings that he will always speak as an oracle of God. There ought to be something within him that shines through him with a vital power that makes men know he has seen God, and they feel God has come into their midst.
One day in a railroad carriage I was drawing near to Cardiff and washed my hands and face because I knew the moment I jumped off the train I should have to rush to get to the meeting. I had just a little season of prayer while washing. Meanwhile the carriage had filled up with people who got on at Newport. When I returned there were two ministerial gentlemen with the accustomed white collars. These two parsons cried out under conviction of sin, and in ten minutes' time the whole place was bathed in prayer and conviction.
We should be filled with the Holy Ghost to such an extent it would always be so. To be filled with the Holy Ghost and fire is a higher order different from anything else. I often kneel before God thinking, "Now what is the burden of my heart?" The Lord knows more than I do about the burden, and the moment I kneel down I lose all my English. I am in the presence of God and He takes me right on to victory. Talk about this praying in the Holy Ghost, there is nothing like it! There is a secret about it. It is a secret between you and God. It is purely a Holy Ghost utterance. Let me tell you an incident of what it does. It does such marvelous things.
Brother Burton, who is associated with my son-in-law in Africa, has a wonderful work going on in the Congo. When they were going there to break up the new ground they lost one man on the way, and then Burton was laid low. He seemed dead, and they started on brokenheartedly. But looking around they saw him coming on just as lively as though he had never had a touch of fever. "What has happened?" they shouted. "Tell us!" He said, "From my head right down there came a warmth of life through my body, and here I am perfectly well."
Afterwards Burton visited England and when he was at a meeting a woman said to him, "Do you keep a diary?" "Yes," he answered. "I wish you would look at your diary," she continued, "and tell me what happened on a certain day," (giving the date). While he was looking it up she went on, "I saw you lying as one dead, and I was broken down before God in your behalf and was praying for you when the Spirit filled me and there I was speaking in an unknown tongue, and when I got through I saw you looking perfectly well. Burton found in his diary that it was the very hour of his recovery. What we need is more of the Holy Ghost. Oh, let it be no longer we but the Spirit who prays!
Two African boys were brought to us from the Congo, and my daughter said to me, "Father, will you take the boys around?" Well, it was a job because they could not speak a word of English. When I was walking with these boys I kept saying, "Praise the Lord, Amen." After a while they caught on to it. So when I said, "Praise the Lord," they would say, "Amen." We boarded a car which was full of people and the boys were at one end and I at the other. They would shout, "Praise the Lord!" and I would respond, "Amen," and we kept it up through the town. The boys were having a great time. When they sought the baptism of the Holy Ghost we had a glorious time. By the way, these "boys" were thirty years old. The Holy Ghost fell on them and gave them a new language, so different from their own. It was wonderful. They were full of the Spirit and joyful beyond words. They said, "When we were saved it was good, very good; but now it is more good, more so!" 0 beloved! I know God wants us all to have this "more so" salvation. It is not a measure but a pressed down measure; and not only a pressed down measure but a measure shaken together and running over. The baptism of the Spirit is an overflowing cup. Praise the Lord!
People who are baptized in the Holy Ghost can have a wonderful time in song. I have seen it, especially in England. If we only understood it better we should have greater chorals than ever were sung, far better than man ever made. I have heard singing in the Spirit with such rarity of music as I have never heard elsewhere, music from the deepest bass to octaves higher than you ever hear in the natural. All is in perfect harmony and it makes you think of a big organ, only more massive, more beautiful. Everyone gets to weeping and rejoicing and is solemnized by the presence of God, so that there is nothing in the flesh. The people are melted down at such times. I pray God we may all come to understand this in its fullness.
(1922, Glad Tidings Tabernacle, San Francisco, California.)
Read Smith Wigglesworth's other works at http://www.teleiosministries.com/Gifts-of-Healing.html
Free Downloads at www.teleiosministries.com
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