AFTER YOU HAVE RECEIVED POWER

Every born-again saint of God, filled with the Spirit has a real revelation of that truth, '… greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world' (1John 4:4). I say this with as much audacity as I please. I know evil spirits are in abundance and in multitude; Jesus cast them out as legion. The believer, because of the Spirit that is in him, has the power to cast out the evil Spirit. It must be so; God wants us to have this power in us; we must be able to destroy Satan's power wherever we go. One day as I came into the house my wife said, 'Which way did you come? ' I answered that I had come in by the back way, 'Oh, 'She said, 'If you had come in by the front you would have seen a man there in a terrible state. There is a crowd of people around him and he is in terrible straits.

'Then the doorbell rang and she said, 'There he is again. What shall we do?' I said, 'Just be still,' I rushed to the door and just was very careful then in opening the door, and then I heard the man crying outside, 'Oh , I have committed the unpardonable sin, I am lost, I am lost,' I asked him to come in and when he got inside he said again in awful distress, ' I am lost, I am lost.'

Then the Spirit came upon me and I commanded the lying Spirit to come out of the man in the name of Jesus. Suddenly he lifted up his arms and said, 'I never did it.' The moment the lying Spirit was out, he was able to speak the truth. I then realized the power in the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It was the Spirit that said, 'This is what I baptized you for,' and I believe we ought to be in place where we shall always be able to understand the mind of the Spirit amid all the other voices in the world. After the Holy Ghost has come upon you, you have power.

I believe a great mistake is made in these days by people tarrying and tarrying after they have received. After you have received it is, 'Go ye, 'Not 'sit still,' but 'go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel.' We shall make serious havoc of the whole thing if we turn back again and crawl into a corner seeking something we already have.

I want you to see that God depends on us in these last days. There is no room for anyone to boast and the man who goes about saying, 'Look at me for I am somebody,' is of no value whatever. God is done with that man altogether.

He will have a people to glorify Him. He is doing what He can with what He has, but we are so unwilling to move in the plan of God that He has to grind us many times to get us where He can use us. Jesus was so filled with the Holy Ghost that He stood in the place where He was always ready. He was always in the attitude where He brought victory out of every opportunity. The power of the Holy Spirit is within us, but it can be manifested only as we go in obedience to the opportunity before us. I believe if you wait until you think you have power after you have received the Holy Ghost you will never know you have it.

Don't you know that the child of God who has the baptism is inhabited by the Spirit? You will remember one time when they tried to throw Jesus from the brow of the hill, that He pressed through the midst of them and as soon as He got through He healed the man with the blind eyes. Pressing through the crowd which was trying to kill Him, He showed forth His power. Some people might think that Jesus should have run away altogether but He stopped to heal.

•Culled from Smith Wigglesworth : The Complete Collection of His Teachings. March 1, 1941