© 19 Colin Melbourne, Transcribed and annotated from The Pentecostal Evangel 1923
Blind Woman
We were together for some time, and then the power of God fell.
Rushing to the window, she exclaimed,
“I can see! Oh, I can see! The blood is gone, I can see!”
She then enquired about receiving the Holy Spirit, and confessed that for ten years she had been fighting our position. She said, “I could not bear these tongues, but God has settled the whole thing today. I want the Baptism in the Holy Ghost.”
The Lord graciously baptized her in the Spirit.
Purged and Cleansed
The Holy Spirit will come when a man is cleansed.
There must be a purging of the old life.
I never saw a man baptized who smoked.
We take it for granted that, anyone who is seeking the fullness of the Spirit is free from such things as these.
You cannot expect the Third person of the Trinity to come into an unclean temple. There must first be a confession of all that is wrong and a cleansing in the precious Blood of Jesus Christ.
I remember being in a meeting at one time, where there was a man seeking the Baptism, and he looked like he was in trouble. He was very restless, and finally he said to me, “I will have to go.”
I said, “What’s up?”
He said, “God is unveiling things to me, and I feel so unworthy.”
I said, “Repent of everything that is wrong.”
He continued to tarry, and the Lord continued to search his heart.
These times of waiting on God for fullness of the Spirit are times when He searches the heart, and tries the reins.
Later the man said to me, “I have a hard thing to do, the hardest thing I have ever had to do.”
I said to hm, “Tell the Lord you will do it, and never mind the consequences.”
He agreed, and the next morning he had to take a ride to a certain party with whom he had dealt. He always paid his accounts on a certain day, but one day he missed.
He was always so punctual in paying his accounts, that when later the people of his firm went over their books, they thought they must have made a mistake in not crediting the man with the money, and so they sent him a receipt.
The man never intended not to pay the account, but if you will defer to do a right thing, the Devil will see that you never do it. But when that man was seeking the Lord that night, the Lord dealt with him on this point, and he had to go and straighten the thing the next morning.
He paid the account, and then the Lord baptized him in the Spirit.
They that bear the vessels of the Lord must be clean, must be holy.
Christ Becomes Real
When the Holy Ghost comes He always brings a rich revelation of Christ. Christ becomes so real to you that, when under the power of the Spirit, you begin to express your love and praise to Him, you find yourself speaking in another tongue. Oh it is a wonderful thing!
At one time, I belonged to a class who believed that they had received the Baptism in the Spirit without the speaking in tongues. [Still a common misconception amongst believers. Ed.]
Continue reading… Smith Wigglesworth: Ye Shall Receive Power
Preached at Springfield Assembly of God in 1922
© 19 Colin Melbourne, Transcribed and annotated from The Pentecostal Evangel 1923
<< Smith Wigglesworth: On The Holy Spirit: The Lord took an uneducated Plumber and made him the greatest British evangelist, and then used Smith to stimulate faith, work miracles, and introduce the Baptism in The Holy Spirit to many nations. Do you think you may possibly learn something from Smith’s preaching?