Tongues and the Baptism By Smith Wigglesworth on the Holy Spirit

Tongues and the Baptism

By Smith Wigglesworth on the Holy Spirit

Let me tell you about my own experience of being baptized with the Holy Spirit. 

You know, beloved, that it had to be something that was based on solid facts in order to move me. 

I was as certain as possible that I had received the Holy Spirit, and I was absolutely rigid in this conviction. 

Many years ago, a man came to me and said, 

“Wigglesworth, do you know what is happening in Sunderland, England? People are being baptized in the Holy Spirit exactly the same way that the disciples were on the Day of Pentecost.” 

I said, “I would like to go.”

Immediately, I took a train and went to Sunderland and met with the people who had assembled for the purpose of receiving the Holy Spirit. 

I was continuously in those meetings causing disturbances, until the people wished I had never come. 

They said that I was disrupting the conditions for people to receive the baptism. 

But I was hungry and thirsty for God, and had gone to Sunderland because I had heard that God was pouring out His Spirit in a new way. 

I had heard that God had now visited His people and manifested His power, and that people were speaking in tongues as on the Day of Pentecost.

Therefore, when I first got to Sunderland, I said to the people, “I cannot understand this meeting. I have left a meeting in Bradford all on fire for God. The fire fell last night, and we were all laid out under the power of God. I have come here for tongues, and I don’t hear them—I don’t hear anything.”

“Oh!” they said. “When you get baptized with the Holy Spirit, you will speak in tongues.”

“Oh, is that it?” I said. “When the presence of God came upon me, my tongue was loosened, and when I went in the open air to preach, I really felt that I had a new tongue.”

“Ah, no,” they said, “that is not it.”

“What is it, then?” I asked.

“When you get baptized in the Holy Spirit—”

“I am baptized,” I interjected, “and there is no one here who can persuade me that I am not baptized.”

So I was up against them, and they were up against me.

I remember a man getting up and saying, 

“You know, brothers and sisters, I was here three weeks and then the Lord baptized me with the Holy Spirit, and I began to speak with tongues.”

I said, “Let us hear it. That’s what I’m here for.”

But he could not speak in tongues at will; he could only speak as the Spirit gave him the ability, and so my curiosity was not satisfied. 

I was doing what others are doing today, confusing the twelfth chapter of 1 Corinthians with the second chapter of Acts. 

These two chapters deal with different things; one deals with the gifts of the Spirit, and the other deals with the baptism of the Spirit with the accompanying sign of tongues.

I saw that these people were very earnest, and I became quite hungry for tongues. 

I was eager to see this new manifestation of the Spirit, and, as I said, I would be questioning all the time and spoiling a lot of the meetings. 

One man said to me, “I am a missionary, and I have come here to seek the baptism in the Holy Spirit. I am waiting on the Lord, but you have come in and are spoiling everything with your questions.” 

I began to argue with him; the argument became so heated that when we walked home, he walked on one side of the road, and I walked on the other.

That night, there was to be another meeting, and I purposed to go. I changed my clothes and left my key in the clothes I had taken off. 

As we came from the meeting in the middle of the night, I found that I did not have my key with me, and this missionary brother said, “You will have to come and stay with me.” 

But do you think we went to sleep that night? Oh, no, we spent the night in prayer. We received a precious shower from above. 

The breakfast bell rang, but that was nothing to me. 

For four days, I wanted nothing but God. 

If you only knew the unspeakably wonderful blessing of being filled with the third person of the Trinity, you would set aside everything else to wait for this infilling.

As the days passed, I became more and more hungry for God. 

I had opposed the meetings so much, but the Lord was gracious, and I will always remember that last day—the day I was to leave. God was with me so much. 

They were to have a meeting, and I went, but I could not rest. 

This revival was taking place at an Episcopal church. I went to the rectory to say goodbye, and I said to Sister Boddy, the rector’s wife, 

“I cannot rest any longer; I must have these tongues.”

She replied, “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.”

I answered, “My dear sister, I know I am baptized. You know that I have to leave here at four o’clock. Please lay hands on me so that I may receive the tongues.”

She stood up and laid her hands on me, and the fire fell.

There came a persistent knock at the door, and she had to go out. That was the best thing that could have happened, for I was alone with God. 

Then He gave me a revelation. 

Oh, it was wonderful! He showed me an empty cross and Jesus glorified. I do thank God that the cross is empty, that Christ is no longer on the cross.

Then I saw that God had purified me. I was conscious of the cleaning of the precious blood of Jesus, and I cried out, 

“Clean! Clean! Clean!” 

I was filled with the joy of the consciousness of the cleansing. 

As I was extolling, glorifying, and praising Him, I was speaking in tongues “as the Spirit gave [me] utterance” (Acts 2:4). 

I knew then that I had received the real baptism in the Holy Spirit.

It was all as beautiful and peaceful as when Jesus said, 

“Peace, be still!” (Mark 4:39). 

The tranquillity and the joy of that moment surpassed anything I had ever known up to that time. 

But hallelujah! These days have grown with greater, mightier, more wonderful divine manifestations and power. 

That was only the beginning. There is no end to this kind of beginning. 

You will never come to the end of the Holy Spirit until you have arrived in glory—until you are right in the presence of God forever. 

And even then we will always be conscious of His presence.

What had I received? 

I had received the biblical evidence. This biblical evidence is wonderful to me. 

I knew I had received the very evidence of the Spirit’s incoming that the apostles had received on the Day of Pentecost. 

I knew that everything I had had up to that time was in the nature of an anointing, bringing me in line with God in preparation. 

However, now I knew I had the biblical baptism in the Spirit. It had the backing of the Scriptures. 

You are never right if you do not have a foundation for your testimony in the Word of God.

For many years, I have thrown out a challenge to any person who can prove to me that he has the baptism without the speaking in tongues as the Spirit gives utterance—

to prove it by the Word that he has been baptized in the Holy Spirit without the biblical evidence—

but so far, no one has accepted the challenge. 

I only say this because so many are like I was; 

they have a rigid idea that they have received the baptism, without having the biblical evidence. 

The Lord Jesus wants those who preach the Word to have the Word in evidence. 

Don’t be misled by anything else. 

Have a biblical proof for everything you have, and then you will be in a place where no man can move you.