The Encounters and Apostolic Faith of Smith Wigglesworth
It’s no joke when the devil smells smith he flew from him due to his rugged faith life and principles that bend not nor bow to situation. He believed it’s either the situation move or he move it. And many have wondered about the life of this gentle in look man of God yet aggressive in approach to devils and his works.
Early Life of Smith
Smith Wigglesworth was born on 8 June 1859 in Menston, Yorkshire, England, to an impoverished family. As a small child, he worked in the fields pulling turnips alongside his mother; he also worked in factories. During his childhood he was an illiterate. He became born again at the age of 8 and got married to Polly Featherstone on 2 May 1882. His wife was learned and also a preacher with Salvation Army through her smith learned how to read the bible which later became the only book smith permitted in their house.
The Encounter of Faith
Very few understood the mystery behind baptism of the holyghost and speaking in tongues in his days and ofcourse that prompted him to seek for this strange tongues. The hunger and desperation in smith for this wonderful gift brought him to a meeting in 1907 in sunderland where he heard that people were receiving the holyghost. With much of hunger in him ofcourse nothing makes sense in the meeting to him than the holyghost he was looking for. After the whole meeting smith wasn’t baptized and decided to leave but thought to say good bye, Mary Boddy, the vicar’s wife, said, “Brother Wigglesworth, it is not the tongues you need but the Baptism. If you will allow God to baptize you, the other will be all right.” Smith told her to lay her hands on him and there smith was filled with the holyghost by faith.
The Turn Around
Ofcourse his wife doubted him when he arrived home concerning the in-filling of the holyghost smith was sharing with his wife. Then his wife said to him let see what you’ve got in tonight’s meeting.
The next Sunday he entered the pulpit and, prompted by the Spirit, preached from Isaiah 61:1-3: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings….” The bold and fluent preaching that came forth startled his wife as she sat in the back of the mission. Speaking in a voice loud enough that everyone around her heard, Polly sputtered, “That’s not my Smith, Lord; that’s not my Smith!”
Apostolic Healing by Smith
Smith is one of the few in his days that believed healing is possible by faith only and smith display his believed via the unbending and unyielding attitudes in pose during his healing services. He mostly will say “folk you aren’t going to leave hea unless you got your healing”. So radical was smith faith, provoking the spiritual realms to pay attention to his believe.
Indeed, he preached that “faith is the audacity that rejoices in the fact that God cannot break His own Word. Faith is not agitation; it is quiet confidence that God means what He says, and we act on His Word.” Yet, there was nothing quiet or subtle about Wigglesworth. He had a voice to match the vigor of his faith.
The challenges of faith
Though Wigglesworth believed mightily in God’s promise to heal, he himself mourned the early deaths of his wife and a son. He prayed frequently for his daughter Alice Salter to be healed of deafness but to no avail. To add to his frustration, he endured excruciating pain for 3 years from a “thorn in the flesh”–kidney stones. Like others, he could only deduce that he hadn’t mustered sufficient faith.
The foreseen future revival
As predicted by many servant of God of the latter end armies of God that will arise from the four corners of the world, smith without no doubt believed in God for the restoration promised by him in latter days of the church. And am telling you that God is ready to establish his word now.
God bless you
