A Deluge Of The Spirit
A Deluge Of The Spirit
In 1908, I preached at Pretoria, South Africa, when one night God came over my life in such power, in such streams of liquid glory and power, that it flowed consciously off my hands like streams of electricity.
I would point my finger at a man and that stream would strike him.
When a man interrupted the meeting, I would point my finger at him and say, "Sit down!" He fell as if struck and lay for three hours.
When he became normal they asked him what happened, and he said, "Something struck me that went straight through me. I thought I was shot."
At two o'clock in the morning I ministered to sixty-five sick who were present, and the streams of God that were pouring through my hands were so powerful the people would fall as though they were hit.
I was troubled because they fell with such violence.
And the Spirit said,
"You do not need to put your hands on them. Keep your hands a distance away."
And when I held my hands a foot from their heads they would crumple and fall in a heap on the floor. They were healed almost every one.
That was the outward manifestation.
That was what the people saw.
But beloved, something transpired in my heart that made my soul like the soul of Jesus Christ.
Oh, there was such a tenderness, a newborn tenderness of God that was so wonderful that my heart reached out and cried and wept over men in sin.
I could gather them in my arms and love them, and Jesus Christ flowed out of me and delivered them.
Drunkards were saved and healed as they stood transfixed looking at me.
During that period men would walk down the aisle, and when they came within ten feet of me, I have seen them fall prostrate, one on top of the other.
A preacher who had sinned, as he looked at me, fell prostrate, was saved, baptized in the Holy Ghost under my own eyes, as I preached or prayed.
I continued in the ministry of healing until I saw hundreds of thousands healed.
At last I became tired.
I went on healing people day after day, as though I were a machine.
And all the time my heart kept asking,
"Oh God, let me know Yourself better. I want You, my heart wants You, God."
Seeing men saved and healed and baptized in the Holy Ghost did not satisfy my growing soul.
It was crying for a greater consciousness of God, the withinness of me was yearning for Christ's own life and love.
After awhile my soul reached the place where I said,
"If I cannot get God into my soul to satisfy the soul of me, all the rest of this is empty."
I had lost interest in it, but I put my hands on the sick and they continued to be healed by the power of God.
I will never forget Spokane, Washington, for during the first six months I was there, God satisfied the cry of my heart, and God came in and my mind opened and my spirit understood afresh, and I was able to tell of God and talk out the heart of me like I never had been able to before.
God reached a new depth in my spirit and revealed new possibilities in God.
So beloved, you pray through.
Pray through for this church, pray through for this work.
Oh, God will come!
God will come with more tongues than you have ever heard.
God will come with more power than your eyes ever beheld.
God will come with waves of heavenly love and sweetness, and blessed God, your heart will be satisfied in Him.
Will a man speak in tongues when he is baptized in the Holy Ghost?
Yes, he will, and he will heal the sick when he is baptized, and he will glorify God out of the spirit of him with praises more delightful and heavenly than you ever heard.
He will have a majestic bearing.
He will look like the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be like Him.
Blessed be God.
The greatest manifestation of the Holy Ghost-baptized life ever given to the world was not in the preaching of the apostles;
it was not in the wonderful manifestation of God that took place at their hands.
It was in the unselfishness manifested by the Church.
Think of it! Three thousand Holy Ghost-baptized Christians in Jerusalem from the Day of Pentecost onward, who love their neighbor's children as much as their own, who were so anxious for fear their brethren did not have enough to eat that they sold their estates and brought the money and laid it at the apostle's feet.
They said, "Distribute it, carry the glow and the fire and the wonder of this divine salvation to the whole world."
That showed what God had wrought in their hearts.
Oh, I wish we could arrive at that place, where this church was baptized in that degree of unselfishness.
That would be a greater manifestation than healing, greater than conversion, greater than baptism in the Holy Ghost, greater than tongues.
It would be a manifestation of the love of First Corinthians 13 that so many preach about and do not possess.
When a man sells his all for God and distributes it for the kingdom's good, it will speak louder of love than the evangelists who harp about love and oppose tongues and the other gifts of the Spirit.
That was the same Holy Ghost that came upon them and caused them to speak in tongues.
No more grabbing for themselves.
No more bantering for the biggest salary, no more juggling to put themselves and their friends in the most influential positions.
All the old characteristics were gone.
They were truly loved.
Why their heart was like the heart of Jesus, their soul was like the soul of God, they loved as God loved, they loved the world, they loved sinners so, that they gave their all to save them.
Do you want Him?
You can have Him.
Oh, He will come and fill your soul. Then the Holy Ghost will take possession of your life.
He will reveal the wonder of heaven and the glory of God, and the richness and purity of His holiness, and make you sweet and godlike forever.
Thou are not far away, Oh God.
Our souls are enveloped in the eternal God.
We feel Thee round about us.
We feel Thy precious, loving arm and the beating of Thy heart and the pulsing of Thy heavenly soul,
and we are asking Thee, my God,
that the truth of the Eternal shall be breathed into us forever,
until all our nature is submerged in God,
buried in God,
infilled with God,
revealing God.
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