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Faith-building accounts of men & women who walked with God
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1APRIL – JUNE 2012April – June 2012
Issue 10 £3.50 $6.00 €5.00
heroes ofthe
faith
inspiring insights from men & women who proved God
PLUS • TL Osborn • DL Moody • Saving souls as Titanic sank
inspiring insights from men & women who proved God
• Saving souls as Titanic sank
INSIDE:
• Th e Mother of Pentecost
Pentecostal powerhouse Maria Woodworth-Etter
• Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Renowned Bible teacher who preached simple grace
• John G LakeWealthy man who gave it all away to spread the gospel
• From Cairoto Capetown!
Reinhard Bonnke and his dream of a bloodwashed Africa
3APRIL – JUNE 2012
Eyebrows were raised when,
in 1928, a brilliant young
doctor gave up his career
in medicine to become pastor of
a struggling Calvinistic Method-
ist mission church in Aberavon,
South Wales.After all, the young man had
risen to become chief clinical
assistant to Sir Thomas Horder,
the King’s physician, at St Bar-
tholomew’s Hospital in London.
What was he thinking of to leave
a promising medical career to
preach to people in a working
class area?Some regarded his change
of career as romantic, others as
crass stupidity, but Dr Martyn
Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) had no
doubt about God’s call on his life
to preach. During his years at
Aberavon the church was revived
under his ministry and, although
‘the Doctor’ later became better
known as a great Bible teacher,
in his early years in Wales his
evangelistic ministry was the
instrument through which many
of his hearers found Christ.
One such person was a
notorious character called Wil-
liam Thomas, better known to
the locals as ‘Staffordshire Bill’.
Bill lived three or four miles up
the valley from Aberavon and
during his years of employment
he had carried on a door-to-door
business selling fish. However, his
insatiable thirst for alcohol would
often mean he had to rely on his
pony to take the fish cart home
while he himself lay drunk among
the unsold fish, having fallen
backwards off the driver’s seat as
the cart went up the steep hill!
By the time he was 70, the
pony and the fish cart were long
gone, but not his habit of excessive
drinking. One Sunday afternoon
he was in the workingmen’s club
in Aberavon, drinking himself
into a sodden state. As usual
he was alone, as even men with
few moral standards had long
since learned to avoid the filthy
language and general aura of
unpleasantness that surrounded
Staffordshire Bill. Later he
confessed that this particular
afternoon he was feeling low,
hopeless and depressed, seeking
to drown his sorrows and fears
with drink.However, he happened to
overhear a conversation between
two men at the table next to
him who were talking about the
preacher at the local chapel. The
snippet he heard was to change
his life. “Yes,” said one man to his
companion, “I was there last Sun-
day night and that preacher said
nobody was hopeless – he said
there was hope for everybody.”
The thought arrested Bill and,
with his brain now completely
sobered, he said to himself, “If
there’s hope for everybody, then
there’s hope for me. I’ll go to that
chapel myself and see what that
man says.”However, Bill’s intentions were
not so easily realised. On that first
Sunday evening he stood outside
the church for some time until
his nerve failed him and he went
home. Throughout the wretched
week that followed he waited for
the next Sunday evening. How-
ever, when he arrived at the chapel
he heard singing and realised he
was late for the service.
Filled with fear and with his
heart in his boots he once more
turned away and went home, even
more miserable than before. With
two such setbacks Bill might
have been tempted to go back
to his old ways, but the Spirit of
God had started a work in him,
something, which prevented him
drowning his sorrows in drink
as he had in the past. The third
Sunday evening found him once
again outside the church, longing
to go in but fearful of doing so.
This time, however, a member
of the congregation saw him and
welcomed him with the words,
“Are you coming in, Bill? Come
and sit with me.”
That same night Staffordshire
Bill passed from darkness to light
as he heard ‘the Doctor’ preach.
He found that he could understand
what was being said from the
pulpit and at the end of the sermon
he believed the gospel and his
heart was flooded with light. The
transformation in his face was
remarkable – people said the face
of the old sinner now had the radi-
ance of a saint!
As Bill walked out that night,
lovingly shepherded by the
member of the congregation who
had invited him in, he passed
Lloyd-Jones’ wife, Bethan. The
congregation member introduced
him by saying, “Mrs Jones, this is
Staffordshire Bill.” Bill, however,
flinched as though he had been
struck a sudden blow. With an
agonised look on his face he said,
“Oh no. Oh no. That’s a bad old
name for a bad old man. I am Wil-
liam Thomas now.”
Old things had truly passed
away and all things had become
new for the man who now
insisted as being known as Wil-
liam Thomas. The change in his
life was apparent for all to see.
Although an elderly man at the
time of his conversion, he thought
nothing of walking the three or
four miles up and the steep hill to
attend church. In fact, he was at
every meeting – twice on Sunday,
the Monday evening prayer meet-
ing, the Wednesday night church
fellowship and the Saturday night
men’s meeting.
Through his meeting with ‘the
Doctor’ – and more particularly
the Doctor’s Saviour – William
Thomas’ battered old face was
transformed and radiated with
inner joy.
Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones is remembered as an outstanding Bible teacher, and it was his
preaching of grace that brought hope to one man who had nearly given up on life itself
The Doctor who brought man to light
While many stories
about Smith
Wigglesworth
quite naturally concen-
trate on the miracles he
performed at campaign
meetings, this should not
obscure the fact that he was
also an insatiable personal
soul winner.His friend, the late
George Stormont, remarked
that, “Right through to old
age, Wigglesworth sought
the lost. There was a park
near his home and few
people who frequented it
were missed in his witness-
ing. He shared Christ with
almost all he met.”
Smith’s grandson, Leslie
Wigglesworth, tells how he
loved to evangelise at the
bowling greens.
“Grandpa used to love
to walk out in the parks on
his own and he would gently
walk down to a nearby
park and sit by the bowling
greens. “He would commune
with God and eventually
someone would come and sit
down beside him. Immedi-
ately he would talk to them
about the Lord Jesus.
“Because his communi-
cation with God was so rich,
people were saved around
the bowling green, or around
the tennis courts and even
around the cricket pitches.
“He used to like a game
of cricket and while he
was watching the cricket
he would be talking to the
nearby people about the
Lord Jesus. That was his
‘open space evangelism.’”
● Information and
photographs taken from
In The Steps Of Smith
Wigglesworth by Philip
Taylor, available from
amazon.co.uk or www.
smithwigglesworth.com
The bowling green evangelist
Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Soul winner Smith
The bowling greens and park bench
from where Smith evangelised
14 APRIL – JUNE 2012
15APRIL – JUNE 2012
20 APRIL – JUNE 2012
21APRIL – JUNE 2012
The young German missionary had
a dream one night in which he saw
a map of Africa being washed in
blood. And the Holy Spirit whispered in
his ear: “Africa shall be saved!” This was
the beginning of the vision that was to lead
Reinhard Bonnke on an audacious adven-
ture preaching Christ ‘from Cape Town to
Cairo’.He was well out of the limelight at the
time, serving God among the poor people of
Lesotho (formerly Basutoland), a mountain-
ous nation entirely surrounded by South
Africa. Yet despite his obvious success as a
missionary there, Bonnke’s first five years
in Africa only confirmed his conviction that
the key to world evangelism was aggressive
preaching of the gospel in the power of the
Spirit with signs following.
So in 1973 he invited a notable evange-
list, who was making headlines in the South
African press with reports of healings, to
hold a campaign in Maseru, the Lesotho
capital. A great crowd gathered for the first
meeting, eagerly anticipating miracles.
However, all fell flat when the evangelist
abruptly left the service without praying for
the sick. But worse was to follow. For when
Reinhard went to collect the evangelist for
the next day’s meeting, he found him pack-
ing to leave, saying the Holy Spirit had told
him to go!Left alone to face the large crowd which
was by now packing the church, Reinhard
prayed desperately and then announced to
the disappointed pastors: “I am going to
preach tonight and God will do miracles.”
As he preached, the power of the Spirit
was so strong that his interpreter fell to the
floor. And as he waited for him to recover,
Reinhard heard God’s voice: “My word in
your mouth is as strong as my word in my
mouth.”Taking hold of his faith, Reinhard
prayed for the sick and astonishing miracles
took place. Blind eyes were opened and
cripples began to walk. The miracles went
on all day with many giving their lives to
Christ. And as he lingered in the church af-
ter the crowds had eventually left, Bonnke
realised that God had given him a break-
through in his ministry – he was to plunder
hell and populate heaven. From that day he
has regularly addressed huge crowds in vast
open-air meetings all over Africa as well as
in many other parts of the world.
Preaching officer
The fifth of six children, Reinhard was
born in 1940 in what was then Konigsberg
(now Kaliningrad) in East Germany. His
parents were both Pentecostals, his father,
Hermann, having been saved and healed
of tuberculosis under the ministry of an
American Pentecostal evangelist. Hermann
was an officer in the German army, working
in supplies and logistics and, because of his
strong witness for Christ, he was known as
the ‘preaching officer’.
By the summer of 1944, as the Second
World War was reaching its conclusion, the
German army was in full retreat with the
Russians closing in on Konigsberg. Rein-
hard’s mother, Meta, took her children and
fled from the terror of the advancing Rus-
sians. Although under constant attack from
Russian aircraft, the family miraculously
made its way to Denmark where they spent
the next three-and-a-half years in a refugee
camp before being reunited with Hermann,
who had been held in a British POW camp
in Kiel, Germany.
Disillusioned by the conduct of the Na-
zis, Hermann vowed to spend the remainder
of his days preaching the gospel and, after
being pensioned off from the army in 1950,
he pioneered a church in Krempe, five miles
from the family home at Gluckstadt.
Although none of his older brothers
showed any interest in their father’s faith,
Reinhard was different. By the time he
was ten, he had committed his life fully to
Christ and was taking an interest in the mis-
sion field. One day, when listening to mis-
sionaries talking about their experiences, he
received a definite call of God to Africa. A
few months later he was mightily baptised
in the Holy Spirit, an experience he says
that “boosted my faith like super-charging a
car engine.”From the age of 14, Reinhard started
accompanying his father to the services at
Krempe. One day, during a prayer meeting,
he experienced a sensation of electricity in
his hands and, when he prayed for a sick
woman, she was miraculously healed. This
was a foretaste of the many miracles that
would one day take place throughout the
world under his ministry.
Reinhard’s call to Africa was further
confirmed in 1957 when he saw a vision of a
map of Africa with just one city – Johannes-
burg – marked on it. Two years later he was
accepted into a great missionary college,
the Bible College of Wales, where he not
only learned English in a surprisingly short
time, but also learnt how to trust God for
his every need. The college was founded
by that great man of faith, Rees Howells,
whose son, Samuel, carried on the same
faith traditions as his father. Reinhard found
his experiences of having to trust God for
every penny during his college course a
great foundation for his ministry, and he left
college as a man of faith as well as a man of
the Word.
George Jeffreys
On his way home from Wales at the end
of his course, Reinhard had a remarkable
meeting with the great Elim evangelist,
George Jeffreys. Killing a few hours in
London with a little sightseeing, the young
student by ‘chance’ found himself outside
Jeffreys’ house in Clapham. Gaining
admittance, he spent some time with the old
evangelist, at the end of which Jeffreys sud-
denly laid hands on Reinhard and prayed
his blessing upon him. The young man got
up knowing he had received something
significant from God. Jeffreys died just a
few weeks later, making the meeting with
Reinhard all the more remarkable and
significant.Returning to Germany, Bonnke set
about proving his call by doing evangelistic
work under the guidance of his father, and
finally by pioneering a church in Flemsberg
in 1964. During this time he met and mar-
ried Anni Sulzle, who quickly became his
enthusiastic co-worker. Anni and Reinhard
were to have three children – Kai-Uwe
(‘Freddy’), Gabriele and Suzanne.
After two years in Flemsberg, the
Bonnkes offered themselves as missionar-
ies to the German Pentecostal Fellowship
(BPF). In spite of the fact that the BPF did
not send missionaries to South Africa, they
were accepted, and in 1967, together with
their first child, Reinhard and Anni set sail
for Durban.A year of probationary ministry with
the Apostolic Faith Mission of South
Africa was made difficult by the apartheid
attitudes of some of the South African
Christians. When told not to shake hands
‘My word in your mouth is as strong as my word in my mouth’
Day Bonnke heard:
This issue we celebrate the life and ministry of someone who is still very much alive and
active for the Lord, even after more than 50 years of preaching – Reinhard Bonnke
❛
❛Since launching CFAN
his ministry has witnessed
more than 60 million
people fill out decision
cards and accept Christ
into their hearts
Reinhard Bonnke speaking at the Bethel
Convention in 2011
Reinhard Bonnke
24 APRIL – JUNE 2012
25APRIL – JUNE 2012
It’s 100 years since the RMS Titanic
set sail on its ill-fated, maiden voyage
across the Atlantic. The ship, regarded
by many as ‘the unsinkable’, set sail
from Southampton to New York on 10th
April 1912 with 2,223 people on board.
However, just four days into the crossing,
at 11:40 pm on April 14 1912, the Titanic
hit an iceberg and sank at 2.20 am on the
morning of April 15 with the loss of 1517
lives.One factor that crucially contributed to
the high death rate was the failure of nearby
ship, the Californian, to come to the rescue.
The Titanic stayed afloat for more than two
and half hours, which meant that the Cali-
fornian had enough time to reach her before
she sank. In the end it was the Carpathia
which came to the rescue and picked up the
survivors from the lifeboats – but not until
the Titanic had been sunk for almost two
hours.While the Californian stood aloof from
the disaster, one man at least was giving
his all to save his fellow men – both their
bodies and their souls. Among the passen-
gers in the freezing water was a widowed
preacher from Glasgow, Rev John Harper.
He had been on board on his way to the
Moody Bible Institute in Chicago with his
six-year-old daughter, Nana.
As soon as it was realised the liner was
sinking, John took his little girl to the safety
of a lifeboat. He could easily have got into
the boat with her but he was too concerned
for the souls of the people on board the
Titanic to do that. Instead he kissed his little
girl and told her he would see her again one
John Harper was saving lives physically and spiritually as
the Titanic sank a century ago. David Littlewood tells his
remarkable story
day. Then he went back into the melee on
deck both to assist others and also to wit-
ness to them about Christ.
Church pioneer
John Harper was born in 1872 to solid
Christian parents and accepted Christ as
Lord of his life when he was just 13. Four
years later at the ripe old age of 17, he
began to preach by going to the streets of
his village and pleading for people to be
reconciled to God.
In 1896, John Harper pioneered a
church, which is now known as the Harper
Memorial Baptist Church. John began with
just 25 members, but the church had grown
to over 500 members when he left 13 years
later. During this time he had married but
sadly was soon widowed.
Ironically, John Harper almost drowned
several times during his life. When he was
two-and-a-half-years of age, he fell into
a well and had to be resuscitated by his
mother. At the age of 26, he was swept out
to sea by a reverse current and barely sur-
vived. And at 32 he faced death on a leaking
ship in the Mediterranean. Perhaps, in his
providence, God used these experiences to
prepare this servant for what was to be the
ultimate test of his faith.
When the Titanic finally went under,
John Harper swam among the people in
the ice-cold waters urging them to accept
Christ before hypothermia set in. The
effects of his witness are remarkable. Four
years after the disaster, a young Scotsman
stood up in a meeting in Hamilton, Canada,
and said, “I am a survivor of the Titanic.
When I was drifting alone on a spar that
awful night, the tide brought John Harper
of Glasgow, also on a piece of wreck, near
me. ‘Man,’ he said, ‘Are you saved?’ ‘No,’ I
said. ‘I am not.’ He replied, ‘Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.’
“The waves bore him away; but, strange
to say brought him back a little later, and
he said, ‘Are you saved now?’ ‘No,’ I said,
‘I cannot honestly say that I am.’ He said
again, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved,’ Then he took off
his life vest and gave it to me saying, ‘You
need this more than I do.’ Shortly after he
went down; and there, alone in the night,
and with two miles of water under me, I
believed in Christ.
Last convert
“I am,” said the young man, “Rev John
Harper’s last convert. I was saved that
night by the kindness and sincerity of two
men: one who gave me not only the truth
about Christ but his life jacket as well. And
I was also saved by the One who had died
many years before on a cross for my sins,
so I could be saved not just in this life but
forever.”Perhaps predictably, the character of
John Harper is not mentioned in the Hol-
lywood blockbuster Titanic, a romanticised
piece of fiction in which the ‘hero’ and
‘heroine’ indulge in a somewhat sordid
love affair. No matter. Shortly after he
finally disappeared under the waves, John
was welcomed in heaven as a true hero of
the faith. He was a man who realised that
eternity was more than this life and, while
other people were trying to buy their way
onto the lifeboats to save their own lives,
John Harper gave of his life so
that others might be saved.
The Bible says, “Greater
love has no man than this, that
a man lays down his life for his
friends.” John Harper gave up
his life not just for his friends
but for people who he didn’t even
know – but people who were
in desperate need of salvation.
Before the waters finally claimed
him he spent his last breath urging
others to accept the Saviour he
loved. And in this he was truly the
hero of the Titanic.
Saving souls as steamer sank
John Harper
The story of John Harper’s bravery is told
in The Monthly Evangel newspaper
H
8 APRIL – JUNE 2012
9APRIL – JUNE 2012
Maria Woodworth-Etter
She goes at it like a footpad (highway
robber) tackles his prey. By some
supernatural power she just knocks
’em silly when they are not looking for it,
and while they are down she applies the
hydraulic pressure and pumps the grace of
God into them by the bucketful.’ This was
part of an 1885 newspaper report of meet-
ings held by a remarkable woman evangelist
in which hundreds found Christ. So many,
in fact, that the police said they had never
seen such a change in their city that had
been so cleaned up they had nothing to do!
The evangelist was Maria Woodworth-
Etter – diminutive in stature but huge
in faith and in the power of the Holy
Spirit. During 45 years of mainly itinerant
ministry, she experienced some of the most
remarkable manifestations of the Spirit
seen since the Acts of the Apostles, and is
regarded by many as the grandmother of the
Pentecostal movement.
Maria, pronounced Mar-eye-a, was born
in 1844 on a farm in Lisbon, Ohio, and was
converted to Christ at the age of 13. She
immediately felt the call to preach even
though her church did not recognise women
preachers. Added to that, the tragic death
of her father when she was 12 meant she
had to drop out of school and this, together
with her later disastrous marriage to PH
Woodworth, who fathered her six children,
made a preaching career most unlikely.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, tragedy
struck the Woodworth home when disease
claimed the lives of five out of their six chil-
dren. Maria kept her faith in God but her
husband appeared never to have recovered.
With her life in turmoil through the loss
of her children and the nagging call within
to preach, Maria searched the Scriptures for
guidance. Here she found Joel’s prophecy
that the Spirit would be poured out on both
men and women. She then had a vision in
which angels came into her room. They
took her to the West where she saw fields
of waving golden grain, which began to
fall like sheaves when she preached. So she
obeyed the call of God on her life.
Unschooled and relying entirely on the
Holy Spirit for what to say, Maria launched
her preaching ministry in 1880. Tremen-
dous conviction came upon her hearers and
people cried and fell to the floor in repen-
tance. Then, as she had seen in her vision,
extraordinary manifestations began to take
place which marked out her ministry and
which also brought fierce persecution.
She writes, “Fifteen came to the altar
screaming for mercy. Men and women fell
and lay like dead. I had never seen anything
like this. I felt it was the work of God but
did not know how to explain it or what to
say.” After lying on the floor for some time,
the people arose with shining faces shouting
the praises of God.
These ‘trances’ (which Woodworth-
Etter called ‘the power’) became a major
talking point. People would often fall into
trances, have a vision of heaven and hell
The Mother of Pentecost
She may have looked like ‘your grandmother’, but Pentecostal
powerhouse Maria Woodworth-Etter was certainly not a woman
to be messed with. David Littlewood reports
❛ ❛Men and women fell
and lay like dead.
I had never seen
anything like this. I
felt it was the work
of God but did not
know how to explain
it or what to say
and get up soundly saved. Even on their
way home from a meeting or in their homes
miles away, people would fall under the
power of God.Maria herself often went into a trance
during a service, standing like a statue
for an hour or more with her hands raised
while the meeting continued. She regarded
the phenomenon as the same type Peter
received at Joppa. Her critics, of course,
took a different view, and Maria was
dubbed the ‘trance evangelist’ and the
‘voodoo princess’, and was often charged
with hypnotising people.
Her style of meetings was very different
from the usual church order of the late 19th
century, with shouting, dancing, singing
and fervent preaching. Maria believed that
Page 8
Page 14
Page 20
Page 30
5 WELCOMEfrom Editor Dave Littlewood
6 TL OSBORNHis giant crusades have given huge impetus to the Church in previously unreached areas
8 THE MOTHER OF PENTECOSTMaria Woodworth-Etter may have looked tame, but she certainly wasn’t a woman to be messed with
12 HEROES OF THE BOOK Th e Apostle Peter may have been writing from experience when talking about being tested by fi re
14 MAN BROUGHT TO LIGHT!How renowned Bible teacher Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones preached grace to a man who had lost hope
15 THE BOWLING GREEN EVANGELIST Smith Wigglesworth
16 TIME TRAVEL amazing answers to prayer17 WORDS TO LIVE BY & Bible crossword18 THE BIG PICTURE TL Osborn in Paris20 AN ACTIVE HERO OF THE FAITH
Reinhard Bonnke is still seeing people being saved after more than 50 years in ministry
25 THE MAN WITH A MIDAS TOUCHWealthy businessman John G Lake gave away all he had to take the gospel to South Africa
30 SAVING SOULS AS STEAMER SANKJohn Harper was saving lives physically and spiritually as the Titanic sank a century ago
32 BOOK REVIEWS – Recommended reads
34 WHAT IF... he hadn’t visited class? Th e day that changed DL Moody’s life
Inside this issue... SUBSCRIPTIONSSEE PAGE 35 FOR DETAILS
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Fields are ready for harvest
The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” So said the author Mark Twain after hearing that
his obituary had been published in the New York Journal.
One could apply the same maxim to the Church of Jesus Christ, which, despite countless doom and gloom prophecies about her imminent demise, continues to expand and spread the good news of Jesus Christ throughout the world. Today we can safely say that the true Church of Jesus Christ is bigger than it has ever been.
One reason for the phenomenal growth of the Church during the 20th century in many parts of the world has been the divine raising up of men and women with a truly apostolic evangelistic anointing. These are people who have preached the gospel with signs follow-ing and hence have acted as an arrowhead to pierce the spiritual darkness of this world.
Maria Woodworth-Etter was an uneducated woman who looked like a granny but who could knock strong men senseless with the power of God in her meetings. Both John G Lake and DL Moody were successful businessmen who turned their undoubted talent at selling this world’s goods to winning souls for Christ.
And the evangelists TL Osborn and Reinhard Bonnke have become legends in their own lifetimes by holding phenomenally successful gospel crusades to enormous crowds throughout the world, with signs and wonders following their ministries.
Very different in approach was the renowned teacher, Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones, yet he also enjoyed remarkable success as an evangelist. And, did you know that Smith Wigglesworth was just as much at home as a personal soul winner as he was conducting healing campaigns?
It is our prayer that as you read this edition of Heroes of the Faith it will inspire you to pray that God will send out a new generation of workers into the harvest fi elds of the whole earth to do the great work of apostolic evangelism.
Truly in our troubled world the fi elds are white for harvest as they perhaps never have been before and, as Reinhard Bonnke is fond of saying, we don’t just need the sickle, but the combine harvester to bring in the harvest in these last days.
David Littlewood, Editor
WELCOME
Consulting EditorsDave Allen, former lecturer and Dean of Mattersey Hall College; Des Cartwright, offi cial historian for Elim; Mathew Clark, Director of Postgraduate Studies at Regents Theological College; Dave Garrard, a missionary for 23 years in Zaire; William Kay, Professor of Theology at Glyndwr University; RT Kendall, long time minister at West-minster Chapel; Barry Killick, an Elim Minister for over 30 years; John Lancaster, who lectured on systematic theology for 25 years at Elim’s Bible College; Steve Uppal, an AoG minister who leads All Nations Christian Centre in Wolverhampton.
8 APRIL – JUNE 2012
Maria Woodworth-Etter
She goes at it like a footpad (a highway robber) tackles his prey. By some supernatural power she just knocks
’em silly when they are not looking for it, and while they are down she applies the hydraulic pressure and pumps the grace of God into them by the bucketful.’ This was part of an 1885 newspaper report of meet-ings held by a remarkable woman evangelist in which hundreds found Christ. So many, in fact, that the police said they had never seen such a change in their city that had been so cleaned up they had nothing to do!
The evangelist was Maria Woodworth-Etter – diminutive in stature but huge in faith and in the power of the Holy Spirit. During 45 years of mainly itinerant ministry, she experienced some of the most remarkable manifestations of the Spirit seen since the Acts of the Apostles, and is regarded by many as the grandmother of the Pentecostal movement.
Maria, pronounced Mar-eye-a, was born in 1844 on a farm in Lisbon, Ohio, and was converted to Christ at the age of 13. She immediately felt the call to preach even though her church did not recognise women preachers. Added to that, the tragic death of her father when she was 12 meant she had to drop out of school and this, together with her later disastrous marriage to PH Woodworth, who fathered her six children, made a preaching career most unlikely.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, tragedy struck the Woodworth home when disease
claimed the lives of five out of their six chil-dren. Maria kept her faith in God but her husband appeared never to have recovered.
With her life in turmoil through the loss of her children and the nagging call within to preach, Maria searched the Scriptures for guidance. Here she found Joel’s prophecy that the Spirit would be poured out on both men and women. She then had a vision in which angels came into her room. They took her to the West where she saw fields of waving golden grain, which began to fall like sheaves when she preached. So she obeyed the call of God on her life.
Unschooled and relying entirely on the Holy Spirit for what to say, Maria launched her preaching ministry in 1880. Tremen-dous conviction came upon her hearers and people cried and fell to the floor in repen-tance. Then, as she had seen in her vision, extraordinary manifestations began to take place which marked out her ministry and which also brought fierce persecution.
She writes, “Fifteen came to the altar screaming for mercy. Men and women fell and lay like dead. I had never seen anything like this. I felt it was the work of God but did not know how to explain it or what to say.” After lying on the floor for some time, the people arose with shining faces shouting the praises of God.
These ‘trances’ (which Woodworth-Etter called ‘the power’) became a major talking point. People would often fall into trances, have a vision of heaven and hell
The Mother of Pentecost
She may have looked like everybody’s favourite grandma, but Pentecostal powerhouse Maria Woodworth-Etter was certainly not
a woman to be messed with. David Littlewood reports
❛ ❛Men and women fell and lay like dead. I had never seen
anything like this. I felt it was the work of God but did not
know how to explain it or what to say
and get up soundly saved. Even on their way home from a meeting or in their homes miles away, people would fall under the power of God.
Maria herself often went into a trance during a service, standing like a statue for an hour or more with her hands raised while the meeting continued. She regarded the phenomenon as the same type Peter received at Joppa. Her critics, of course, took a different view, and Maria was dubbed the ‘trance evangelist’ and the ‘voodoo princess’, and was often charged with hypnotising people.
Her style of meetings was very different from the usual church order of the late 19th century, with shouting, dancing, singing and fervent preaching. Maria believed that
9APRIL – JUNE 2012
The man with the Midas touch!
25APRIL – JUNE 2012
John G Lake was a wealthy businessman who gave away all he had before setting off to take the gospel to South Africa. In just five years the Pentecostal message spread through the country like wildfire, writes Charles Gardner
South African Pentecostals and Charismatics have been an undeni-able blessing to the worldwide body
of Christ – men like David du Plessis, who helped spark off the Charismatic movement and, more recently, Ray McCauley and oth-ers he has influenced.
But the strength of the Pentecostal movement in South Africa today can be traced back to a Canadian-born missionary called John G Lake, a wealthy businessman who gave away all he had before setting sail for Cape Town in 1908. Lake had the Midas touch, not only in business but also in the things of the Spirit. Whatever he touched turned to gold, and after just five years in South Africa he left behind 1,250 preachers, 625 congregations, 100,000 converts and saw countless miracles! Yet it all came at a cost more expensive than gold – a faith truly tried in the fires of adversity.
The extraordinarily bold and energetic man of faith started out as a sickly child surrounded by death and sorrow. Lake (1870-1935) was born in Ontario but moved with his family to Michigan, USA, when he
was a teenager. He was one of 16 children, half of whom died, many of them from a strange digestive disease that nearly killed him too. He suffered with it for nine years and experienced almost unbearable sorrow watching so much tragedy around him. Tears and grief overshadowed his childhood and he never saw anything good come from it, apart from an intense personal desire for the power of God in his determination to beat sickness and disease. And although after his conversion Christians tried to con-sole him with the thought that God meant the sicknesses for good, Lake kept looking for a miracle.
Determined prayer Following the move to Michigan he was converted as a result of a Salvation Army meeting but joined the Methodists. He was eventually healed through his own deter-mined prayer, but another problem emerged with his legs growing out of shape through rheumatism contracted through working in a waterlogged mine. Again he was told he was glorifying God in his sickness, but he
went to see a healing evangelist in Chicago called John Alexander Dowie where his legs were straightened and he became convinced that healing was for everyone. He was still surrounded by sickness, but his brother, who had been an invalid for 22 years, walked out of Dowie’s Divine Healing Home fit and well. His 34-year-old sister, who was dying of breast cancer and had to be carried there on a stretcher, was also healed while another sister (with a bleeding condition) was raised from the dead after Lake sent a telegram to Dowie requesting prayer.
Sickness had also struck his young wife, Jennie, who became paralysed with tuberculosis and an incurable heart disease. He decided he would take up her case himself after he was struck by Acts 10:38, which spoke of Jesus ‘healing all that were oppressed of the devil’. He clearly saw that Satan was the oppressor and Jesus the healer. So he set the time for it – April 28 1898 at 9.30am – and asked others to join him in prayer. As he laid hands on her at that very hour, his wife was totally healed and Lake’s healing ministry was born.
John G Lake
35APRIL – JUNE 2012
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1APRIL – JUNE 2012April – June 2012
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• Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones
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