Smith Wigglesworth- Fully Persuaded
In Romans 4, we are called to follow in the footsteps of Abraham and walk by faith v. 12).
Going back to that Last Passover night, we see how within hours, everything would change. The joy of the early night would become tears and the opportunity to have their hearts overwhelmed.
“For the enemy has persecuted my soul; He has crushed my life to the ground; He has made me dwell in darkness, like those who have long been dead. Therefore my spirit is overwhelmed with in me; my heart within me is distressed.”
Psalm 143: 3, 4
When you read those verses we can only imagine how watching everything that happened to the disciples starting that Passover night, how they may have felt this way. All hope appeared gone, they were weak, vulnerable, alone, and potential targets. They would be mocked and treated as outcasts for believing in Jesus. I can only imagine how many tears were shed over the next few days.
The Lord God has always worked on the lines of human weakness for He knows that as long as we can do it or make it happen, then we will. But when we come to end, He is able to move.
Smith explained:
And so there is a higher order than the natural man, and God wants to bring us into this higher order, where we will believe Him. In the first place, God promised Abraham a son. Could a child be born into the world except on the line of the natural law? It was when all natural law was finished, and when there was no substance in these two persons, that the law of the Spirit brought forth a son. It was the law of faith in God Who had promised.”
The Lord has created laws and within these laws there are higher laws. When conditions are met the law of lift overcomes the law of gravity.
Smith explained:
“And then we are brought to the time when our blessed Lord was conceived. I hear Mary saying to the angel, ‘Lord, be it unto according to Thy Word,’ so that the man Christ Jesus was brought forth on the same lines. Tonight I see before me faces I know, and I can see that these men are born, not of blood, neither by the will of the flesh, but of God. We have the same law in our midst tonight. Born of God! And sometimes I see this power within us is greater when we are weak than we are strong; and this power was greater in Abraham day by day than when he was strong.”
In the place of weaknesses and surrender, when we come by faith He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above and beyond. What He desire to bring forth always exceeds what we could produce naturally. The enemy wants to paralyze us by overwhelming the heart.
“So shall they fear the Name of the Lord from the west, and His glory from the rising of the sun; when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.”
Isaiah 59: 19
We become overwhelmed when we are stretched beyond our resources and we face certain failure. We look and no matter what we do, we have no hope. But in this place of such weakness, He comes to demonstrate His mighty strength.
Smith said:
“Looking at him, Sarah would shake her head and say: ‘I never saw anything so thin and weak and helpless in my life. No, Abraham, I have been looking at you, and you seem to be going right down. But Abraham refused to look at his own body of that of Sarah; he believed the promise that is should be done.”
There is a place where unless He intercedes and moves on our behalf, we will absolutely fail. Here we have no choice but to cling to the Word, and believe that what He promised He is able to do. As we look at see the enemy attack like a tsunami, we know He will come and defend us.
Smith explained:
“Some of you people have come for healing. You know as well as possible that, according to the natural life, there is no virtue in your body to give you that health. You know also that the ailment from which you suffer has so drained your life and energy that there is no help at all in you; but God says that you shall be healed if you believe. It makes no difference how you body is. It was exactly the helplessness of Sarah and Abraham that brought the glorious fact that a son was born, and I want you to see what sort of a son he was.”
Maybe you are standing for healing, or finances, or a restoration and your heart is overwhelmed because you are so weak and weighed down. Oh, you long to cast off the burden and wish that someone else would carry it for I is too much for you to bear!
As Smith said:
“Here is Sarah- her body is dead- and Abraham- his body is dead. ‘As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations. ‘Now,’ says Abraham, ‘God has made me a father of many nations, and there is no hope of a son according to the natural law- no hope whatever.’ But here God says, ‘I have made thee a father of many nations,’ and yet he has no son, and during the past twenty years of waiting, conditions have grown more and more helpless, and yet the promise was made.”
It was so much easier to believe the promise naturally when his body had strength, but now all hope was gone and Abraham found a new hope. Smith adds:
“Abraham is the great substance of the whole keynote of Scripture- a man that dared for twenty-five years (to) believe God when everything went worse every day. Oh, it is lovely. It is perfect. I do not know anything in the Scriptures so marvelous, so far-reaching, and so full of the substance of living reality, to change us if we will believe God. He will make us so different.”
The Lord declaring to Abraham when all looked like it had failed, ‘I have made you a father of many nations.” Oh, in the Secret Place He calls us to come that we might hear Him speak the promise a fresh to us. For with every word He speaks there is power to change all things. He calls to us asking us to believe Him.
Smith said:
“Oh, beloved, there is not a subject in the whole Bible that makes my body aflame with passion after God and His righteousness as this. I see He never fails. He wants the man to believe, and then the man shall never fail. Oh, the loveliness of the character of God.”
No wonder Peter said:
“by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”
2 Peter 1: 4
Are we more moved by what the eyes see or by eyes of faith? As we dare believe His Word and receive it, these precious NOW promises have the life of God in them and bring forth a change in us. They impart to us the very divine nature.
Smith explained:
“There is no such thing as a groan when God gets hold of you. There is no such thing as want to them who trust the Lord. When we really get in the will of God, He can make our enemies to be at peace with us. It is wonderful.”
He is not limited to our limitations and what we see as impossible, He sees as an opportunity to demonstrate His power. He longs to show Himself strong on behalf of His children that they might know He is the God who hears and answers prayers. The world sees prayer as a pot luck thing, where maybe on a good day if all the stars are aligned prayer is answered.
And what the Lord desires to do in answering prayer is always bigger than we can imagine as Smith explained:
“I am here- saved by the power of God because of the promise that God made to Abraham; as the countless sands upon the seashore and as the stars in multitude and glory, the seed of thy son shall be! It is for us tonight, beloved.”
To think that Abraham who was simply a nobody in the middle of nowhere but because he obeyed and believed God, became such a powerful history maker. The Nation of Israel and the Church stand because of his faithfulness. He dared to believe God and God never failed. How much more is at stake if we would believe God? How much more does He desire to achieve if we will simply look to Him and believe His promises? But the enemy knows this and seeks to steal, kill and destroy. The enemy knows if he can overwhelm the heart he can choke the Word. But if we will keep our eyes on Him, the Word is alive and the promise He watches over to perform.
Smith said:
“And, being fully persuaded that that which He had promised He was able to perform. Therefore, it was imputed unto him for righteousness, and not to him only, but to all the people who will believe.”
Abraham didn’t just believe in the promise, but also that God was able to perform it for him as promised.
