Smith Wigglesworth- Do Not Fear
Jesus, on the night where He knew He would be betrayed and begin the pay the most horrific price for us, recognizes that fear is attacking the disciples. When we discern something is changing in the spiritual realm, the enemy loves to come and attack with fear. The disciples knew that Passover was unlike any other day. Something was happening, and they became fearful. Jesus had preached many wonderful messages to the crowds, but tonight He was pouring into His disciples.
“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.”
John 14: 1
After my father died, my family entered a whole new world. My mom was not able to work, and we survived off of social security. I remember many nights being filled with fear, and that fear followed me into my adult life.
Smith Wigglesworth said:
“Fear looks; faith jumps. Faith never fails to obtain its object. If I leave you as I found you, I am not God’s channel.”
Instead of Jesus being focused on Himself and what He would soon suffer, His heart was on His own. He didn’t want the disciples injured by the enemy, and as always, He didn’t want to leave them in the same condition. Every encounter with the Lord should lift you if you will soften your hearts to Him. We must choose to fear not but to believe Him. Fear will cause you to become paralyzed, but faith will cause a fresh boldness to arise that always leads you onward. There is a fear that is like cancer in the heart, sucking every drop of life from you and holding you captive in a place of discouragement.
Smith said:
“Fear not, neither be thou dismayed, for the God who has led, shall descend upon thee, shall surely carry thee where thou wouldst not.’ But to this end He has called thee out to take thee on, to move upon thee with divine unction of the Spirit that thou shouldst not be entertained by nature, but caught up with Him to hear His Words, to speak His truth, to have His mind, to know His will, to commune and be still, to see Him who is invisible, to be able to pour out to others the great stream of life, to quicken everything wherever it moves.”
We don’t like things to change, but on this earth every season will indeed change until one day when we finish the course and stand before Him. Jesus, turned to His disciples as He does to us today and says…
“In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”
John 14: 2, 3
No matter what we face, we know we have a divine appointment with Him and home where we will enjoy life in a never changing season. There will be no pain, no failure, and no fear of death. On this earth everything is touched with death and no matter where we run, death is always there. But we press forward to a city and a place where there will never be death again.
But while we are on this earth, He comes to impart faith to us and banish all fear. He calls us to believe in God and in Him. He must be the Almighty God, the absolute authority and the One who keeps us. As a child I would often wonder what it would be like to have a father and know he would carry the burden for the family. A father, so I didn’t have to worry about tomorrow and think about simply enjoying life.
When we get the revelation that Jesus the Living Word, is absolute and all things must bow to Him, then everything changes. We can cast our burdens on Him, knowing He has us. Smith said:
“God took the Word and made the world of the things which did not appear. And we live in the world which was made by the Word of God, and it is inhabited by millions of people. And you say it is a substance. Jesus, the Word of God, made it of things which did not appear.”
The complexity of even the simplest thing is beyond compare and it is governed by complex laws that men can spend all their lives trying to understand. For everything operates by His doing in the place of finetuned despite everything.
Smith explained:
“God is making manifest His power. God is a reality and proving His mightiness in the midst of us. And as we open ourselves to divine revelation, and get rid of all things which are not of the Spirit, then we shall understand how mightily God can take us on in the Spirit, and move the things which are, and bring the things which are not, into prominence.”
Oh, that we would have eyes to see and ears to hear. We would see how great a Father we have and how He is Almighty. He is rich in love towards us, and He is more than able to keep us always in the place of blessing.
“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd gives His life for the sheep.”
John 10: 10, 11
Jesus has the task of being our Good Shepherd; we need to learn how to yield, trust and believe in Him. The burdens we carry and allow to cripple and paralyze us, we don’t have to receive. They don’t belong to us. We are listening to the wrong source and giving authority to the wrong things. We have made Jesus too small, and many other things too big.
Smith said:
“David knew that there was mightiness beyond and within, and he says, ‘Thou hast dealt bountifully with me,’ knowing that all springs came from God that were in Him, which made His face to shine.”
The Father longs for us to come and rest upon His lap in the Secret Place. He longs that we might know the richness of His love towards us and believe in His love. Earthly fathers may fail, but He never will. We need a fresh vision of Him and how He is the Almighty God. We must receive from the Holy Spirit such revelation that we might know so that in the day of trial we stand unmovable.
“And God wants to make us so in fidelity with Him that He unveils Himself. He rolls the cloud away; the mist disappear at His Presence. He is almighty in His movements.”
Paul wrote:
“Concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.”
Romans 1: 3, 4
Of these beautiful verses, Smith said:
“Oh, what a climax of beatitudes there is here! How beautiful! God breathe upon us this morning this holy, inward way after His passion. Hear it. ‘Declared to be the Son of God with power.”
We so often fail to understand that unholiness opens the door that the enemy may come in and impart his bad report, and unholiness so weakens our faith, that on the day of trial, we fail. But God wants to do a heart work in us so that our hearts may not be troubled.
“Let not your hearts be troubled!” the Master tells us today. The Greek word translated troubled is “tarasso,” and it means commotion, lack of calmness, disturbed, noisy, restless, and troubled. We all know that inward storm that can rage with such violence that all our strength is immediately drained. But one word from the Master in the Secret Place changes everything, for He can calm every storm and bring all things to rest.
We must walk in the abiding place, where we see His face ever before us. He is becoming more real daily, and we know He is the Almighty God. We must know on the inside first that He is the absolute authority. We must know, like the woman with the issue of blood, that if we but get a hold of the hem of His garment, all will be well. For He is our answer, and we have a way to reach Him. He is not far off but available if we simply draw near Him.
Smith said:
“Oh, the vision is so needy today, more needy than anything that man should have the vision of God. The people have always perished when there was no vision. God wants us to have visions, and revelations, and manifestations.”
We must come into the Secret Place and meet with Him. We need daily a fresh vision of Him and fresh revelation of His Word. In the Secret Place, if we will daily come and press into the deeper waters, we will find the Holy Spirit swallowing up the old man.
Smith said:
‘You cannot have the Holy Ghost without having manifestations. You cannot have the Holy Ghost without having revelations. You cannot have the Holy Ghost without being turned into another nature. It was the only credential that Joshua and Caleb could enter the land because they were of another spirit.”
Many talk the talk and boast of having the Holy Spirit, but does He have us? Is there a daily presenting and yielding? Do we come to encourage ourselves in the Lord? Do we hear His voice, and suddenly, joy fills our being, and we must come running to Him? Does the Word burn as fire in our bones as we know the Master is speaking to us? Or have we slipped into the form and lost the power? We must recognize Him as the Absolute One, the Almighty God, and the greatest need of our being. We can’t live without Him. We can’t face today or dare think of tomorrow unless we meet with Him. But when we do meet with Him, everything changes. With each Word He speaks, every bondage breaks, and a boldness of faith arises. Smith said:
“And we must live in an unction, in a power, in a transformation, and a divine attainment where we cease to be, where God becomes enthroned so richly.”
In this place, we are kept, and His authority reigns. All things of the enemy must be destroyed or must flee. Smith said:
“Thank God, Satan had to come out. Yes, and how did he come out? By the Word of His power. And beloved, if we get to know, and understand the principles of our inheritance by faith, we shall find out Satan will always be cast out by the same power that cast him out in the beginning.”
The enemy and his evil report have no right or place in your life. And if we stay in the abiding place where we are consumed daily by Him and His Word, we will find we are transformed. If we allow the Holy Spirit will do a work of holiness in us, for if He is to consume us, then we must be pure and holy. Not pureness or holiness by our hands, but by allowing the Holy Spirit to have His way. In these last days, He is cleaning the house, convicting us of all sin so that we might be clean.
Smith said:
“By the brightness of His Presence, the holiness of His holiness, the purity of His purity, where darkness cannot remain, where sin cannot stand, where only holiness, purity remain. All else will flee from the Presence of God…”
Oh, that we would have holy desperation and deep hunger for Him today. That sin would lose all of its luster, and we would always press into deeper waters to know Him. Here we find the Word as absolute authority and power; faith arises as we hear it. We know He can do the impossible.
Smith said:
“And God has saved us with this Word of power over the powers of sin. I know there is a teaching and a need of teaching of the personality of the Presence of the fidelity of the Word of God with power. And we need to eat and drink of this Word. We need to feed upon it in our hearts. We need that holy revelation that ought always to take away the mists from our eyes and reveal Him.”
