Power of The Name
The Power of the Name
By Smith Wigglesworth
Read Acts 3:1-16
All things are possible through the name of Jesus. God
hath highly exalted Him, and given Him the name, which is
above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow.
There is power to overcome everything in the
world through the name of Jesus. I am looking forward to a
wonderful union through the name of Jesus. There is none
other name under heaven given among men, whereby we
must be saved.
I want to instill into you a sense of the power, the virtue
and the glory of that name. Six people went into the house of
a sick man to pray for him. He was an Episcopal vicar, and
lay in bed utterly helpless, without even strength to help
himself. He had read a little tract about healing and had heard
about people praying for the sick, and sent for these friends,
who, he thought, could pray the prayer of faith. He was
anointed according to James 5:14, but, because he had no
immediate manifestation of healing, he wept bitterly. The six
people walked out of the room, somewhat crestfallen to see
the man lying there in an unchanged condition.
When they were outside, one of the six said, “There is one
thing we might have done. I wish you would all go back with
me and try it.” They went back and all got together in a
group. This brother said, “Let us whisper the name of Jesus.”
At first when they whispered this worthy name nothing
seemed to happen. But as they continued to whisper, “Jesus!
Jesus! Jesus!” the power began to fall. As they saw that God
was beginning to work, their faith and joy increased, and they
whispered the name louder and louder. As they did so the man arose from his bed and dressed himself. The secret was just this, those six people had gotten their eyes off the sick
man, and they were just taken up with the Lord Jesus
Himself, and their faith grasped the power that there is in His
name. O, if people would only appreciate the power that
there is in this name, there is no telling what would happen.
I know that through His name and through the power of
His name we have access to God. The very face of Jesus fills
the whole place with glory. All over the world there are
people magnifying that name, and O, what a joy it is for me
to utter it.
One day I went up into the mountain to pray. I had a
wonderful day. It was one of the high mountains of Wales. I
heard of one man going up this mountain to pray, and the
Spirit of the Lord met him so wonderfully that his face shone
like that of an angel when he returned. Every one in the
village was talking about it. As I went up to this mountain
and spent the day in the presence of the Lord, His wonderful
power seemed to envelop and saturate and fill me.
Two years before this time there had come to our house
two lads from Wales. They were just ordinary lads, but they
became very zealous for God. They came to our mission and
saw some of the works of God. They said to me, “We would
not be surprised if the Lord brings you down to Wales to
raise our Lazarus.” They explained that the leader of their
assembly was a man who had spent his days working in a tin
mine and his nights preaching, and the result was that he had
collapsed, gone into consumption, and for four years he had
been a helpless invalid, having to be fed with a spoon.
While I was up on that mountain top I was reminded of
the transfiguration scene, and I felt that the Lord’s only purpose in taking us into the glory was to fit us for greater
usefulness in the valley.
Interpretation of Tongues
“The living God has chosen us for His divine inheritance, and He it is who is preparing us
for our ministry, that it may be of God and not of man.”
As I was on the mountain top that day, the Lord said to me, “I want you to go and raise Lazarus.” I told the brother who accompanied me of this, and when we got down to the
valley, I wrote a postcard: “When I was up on the mountain
praying today, God told me that I was to go and raise
Lazarus.” I addressed the postcard to the man in the place
whose name had been given to me by the two lads. When we
arrived at the place we went to the man to whom I had
addressed the card. He looked at me and said, “Did you send
this?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Do you think we believe in this?
Here, take it.” And he threw it at me.
The man called a servant and said, “Take this man and
show him Lazarus.” Then he said to me, “The moment you
see him you will be ready to go home. Nothing will hold
you.” Everything he said was true from the natural viewpoint.
The man was helpless. He was nothing but a mass of bones
with skin stretched over them. There was no life to be seen.
Everything in him spoke of decay.
I said to him, “Will you shout? You remember that at
Jericho the people shouted while the walls were still up. God
has like victory for you if you will only believe.” But I could
not get him to believe. There was not an atom of faith there.
He had made up his mind not to ha ve anything.
It is a blessed thing to learn that God’s word can never
fail. Never hearken to human plans. God can work mightily
when you persist in believing Him in spite of
discouragements from the human standpoint. When I got back to the man to whom I had sent the postcard, he asked,
“Are you ready to go now?”
I am not moved by what I see. I am moved only by what I
believe. I know this — no man looks at appearances if he
believes. No man considers how he feels if he believes. The
man who believes God has it. Every man who comes into the
Pentecostal condition can laugh at all things and believe God.
There is something in the Pentecostal work that is different
from anything else in the world. Somehow, in Pentecost, you
know that God is a reality. Wherever the Holy Ghost has
right of way, the gifts of the Spirit will be in manifestation;
and where these gifts are never in manifestation, I question
whether he is present. Pentecostal people are spoiled for
anything else than Pentecostal meetings. We want none of the
entertainments that the churches are offering. When God
comes in He entertains us Himself. Entertained by the King of
kings and Lord of lords! Oh, it is wonderful.
There were difficult conditions in that Welsh village, and
it seemed impossible to get the people to believe. “Ready to
go home?” I was asked. But a man and a woman there asked
us to come and stay with them. I said, “I want to know how
many of you people can pray.” No one wanted to pray. I
asked if I could get seven people to pray with me for the poor
man’s deliverance. I said to the two people who were going to
entertain us, “I will count on you two, and there is my friend
and myself, and we need three others.” I told the people that
I trusted that some of them would awaken to their privilege
and come in the morning and join us in prayer for the raising
of Lazarus. It will never do to give way to human opinions. If
God says a thing, you are to believe it.
I told the people that I would not eat anything that night.
When I got to bed it seemed as if the devil tried to place on “I don’t care what the devil says; if God says he will raise you
up it must be so. Forget everything else except what God says
about Jesus.”
The sixth time the power fell and the sick man’s lips
began moving and the tears began to fall. I said to him, “The
power of God is here; it is yours to accept it.” He said, “I
have been bitter in my heart, and I know I have grieved the
Spirit of God. Here I am helpless. I cannot lift my hands, nor
even lift a spoon to my mouth.” I said, “Repent, and God will
hear you.” He repented and cried out, “O God, let this be to
Thy glory.” As he said this the virtue of the Lord went right
through him.
I have asked the Lord to never let me tell this story except
as it was, for I realize that God cannot bless exaggerations. As
we again said, “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!” the bed shook, and the
man shook. I said to the people that were with me, “You can
all go down stairs right away. This is all God. I’m not going to
assist him.” I sat and watched that man get up and dress
himself. We sang the doxology as he walked down the steps. I
said to him, “Now tell what has happened.”
It was soon noised abroad that Lazarus had been raised
up and the people came from Llanelly and all the district
round to see him and hear his testimony. And God brought
salvation to many. This man told right out in the open air
what God had done, and as a result many were convicted and
converted. All this came through the name of Jesus, through
faith in His name, yea, the faith that is by Him gave this sick
man perfect soundness in the presence of them all.
Peter and John were helpless, were illiterate, they had no
college education. They had been with Jesus. To them had
come a wonderful revelation of the power of the name of
Jesus. They had handed out the bread and fish after Jesus had multiplied them. They had sat at the table with him and John
had often gazed into His face. Peter had often to be rebuked,
but Jesus manifested His love to Peter through it all. Yea, He
loved Peter, the wayward one. O, He’s a wonderful lover! I
have been wayward, I have been stubborn, I had an
unmanageable temper at one time, but how patient He has
been. I am here to tell you that there is power in Jesus and in
his wondrous name to transform anyone, to heal anyone.
If you will see Him as God’s Lamb, as God’s beloved Son
who had laid upon Him the iniquity of us all, if only you will
see that Jesus paid the whole price for our redemption that
we might be free, you can enter into your purchased
inheritance of salvation, of life and of power.
Poor Peter, and poor John! They had no money! But they
had faith, they had the power of the Holy Ghost, they had
God. You can have God even though you have nothing else.
Even though you have lost your character you can have God.
I have seen the worst men saved by the power of God.
I was one day preaching about the name of Jesus and
there was a man leaning against a lamppost, listening. It took
a lamppost to enable him to keep on his feet. We had
finished our open-air meeting, and the man was still leaning
against the post. I asked him, “Are you sick?” He showed me
his hand and I saw beneath his coat, he had a silver handled
dagger. He told me that he was on his way to kill his
unfaithful wife, but that he had heard me speaking about the
power of the name of Jesus and could not get away. He said
that he felt just helpless. I said, “Get you down.” And there
on the square, with people passing up and down, he got
saved.
I took him to my home and put on him a new suit. I saw
that there was something in that man that God could use. He said to me the next morning, “God has revealed Jesus to me;
I see that all has been laid upon Jesus.” I lent him some
money, and he soon got together a wonderful little home. His
faithless wife was living with another man, but he invited her
back to the home that he had prepared for her. She came:
and, where enmity and hatred had been before, the whole
situation was transformed by love. God made that man a
minister wherever he went. There is power in the name of
Jesus everywhere. God can save to the uttermost.
There comes before me a meeting we had in Stockholm
that I shall ever bear in mind. There was a home for
incurables there and one of the inmates was brought to the
meeting. He had palsy and was shaking all over. He stood up
before 3,000 people and came to the platform, supported by
two others. The power of God fell on him as I anointed him
in the name of Jesus. The moment I touched him he dropped
his crutch and began to walk in the name of Jesus. He walked
down the steps and round that great building in view of all
the people. There is nothing that our God cannot do. He will
do everything if you will dare to believe.
Someone said to me, “Will you go to this Home for
Incurables?” They took me there on my rest day. They
brought out the sick people into a great corridor and in one
hour the Lord set about twenty of them free.
The name of Jesus is so marvelous. Peter and John had
no conception of all that was in that name; neither had the
man, lame from his mother’s womb, who was laid daily at the
gate; but they had faith to say, “In the name of Jesus Christ of
Nazareth, rise up and walk.” And as Peter took him by the
right hand, and lifted him up, immediately his feet and
anklebones received strength, and he went into the temple
with them, walking and leaping and praising God. How can it be done? Through His name, through faith in His name,
through faith which is by Him.
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