This may be difficult to read, but it also may help in your
understanding the times in which we live.
Sometime in the last month or so I was reading the writings of
Smith Wigglesworth, the great preacher and healer of the early 1900’s. He was
recounting how for years he and his wife had had a church mission in England.
One day while away from there he had attended a service and had been baptized
in the Holy Spirit. He had in other words received the anointing of the Spirit.
And when he returned to the church mission, that night he stood in front to
preach and his wife sat in the back. As he preached, a man stood up and
shouted, “I want what he has.” Then the man tried to sit down but couldn’t, and
he fell down. Soon fourteen people were lying about the room, overcome by the
power of the Holy Spirit, or as some say, by the anointing.
What really got my attention were these words Wigglesworth said
about the experience: “So a revival broke out and the crowds came.” Think about
that a moment. He said a revival broke out and the crowds came. And I assume
that was the dramatic real beginning of his world-wide healing ministry.
A few days after I read that I was meeting with a minister friend,
and I told him the Wigglesworth story. I repeated what Wigglesworth had said.
And then I said that we had done that, that we had had several meetings like
that. There was a night in particular when the Holy Spirit came and soon only
Cathy and I and the musician were standing up; everyone else in the audience
was stretched out on the floor! There was a time we were holding a healing
service at a church not too far away, and the Holy Spirit touched perhaps
everyone in the congregation. There have been many occasions when the Holy
Spirit touched those in our meetings.
But never has revival broken out and the crowds come, to use
Wigglesworth’s words. Rather, the service eventually ends and the people go
home. And we go on to the next meeting/service, whether at the same place or
elsewhere.
So I said to my minister friend, “Why? Why did a revival break out
and the crowds come in Wigglesworth’s day?”
He gave his wise answer. He explained that the times are different
now. In Wigglesworth’s day there wasn’t that much going on in the way of
entertainment or other activities. When the people left his meeting where the
Holy Spirit had so touched everyone, they no doubt told others. And they
brought others to the next meetings. And others wanted to come. But in our day?
Even though people were dramatically touched in our meetings, and have been,
they at the end of the service go home and that is that. Not much telling to
others. For most no real compulsion to bring anyone else to our next program
wherever that is. They just go home.
I’ve always been amazed that when people are dramatically healed
by God of a dramatic illness, perhaps one thought to be terminal, we usually
don’t see them and their families and friends at the meetings in the future.
Where are they? Why don’t we hear from them?
It’s not like that kind of thing is happening everywhere.
Unfortunately it is not.
And of course the answer is just what my minister friend
indicates. There is just too much going on. Too much outside the home. And
people, once home, stay there. They don’t tell others. They don’t bring others.
Only once did we ever have anything similar to others suddenly
coming – at an inner city healing service in a store front church. As we prayed
for people to receive their healing, suddenly we noticed people were coming up
to us who had not been in the church when we started. And we later learned a
woman in the back pew was telephoning people and telling them to get down there
to be prayed for, to receive their healing. She had seen the power of God and
wanted others to see and experience it.
But that is the only time.
Our world is just too busy and too private. Maybe too busy for
God. Too private to tell neighbors and friends and family who are lost or in
desperate need of help that that help is being given out at a nearby meeting or
service if they only knew, if they only could be open to God to receive.
Ponder all that as you can. And pray for the people of our world, most
so lost and yet so busy they don’t have time to tell others of miracles or what
they just saw, so busy they can’t be bothered. Even though they see God
dramatically move in front of their eyes, that doesn’t change their walk or
cause them to tell others.
Amazing.
Jesus can’t be far off, can he.
Keep Your Eyes on Jesus!
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