Carrie Judd Montgomery and Smith Wigglesworth were friends ever since she met him on her missionary journey to England in 1909. From then on their lives intersected and Wigglesworth felt led by the Spirit to come to California to be a pat of Carrie’s 1914 World-Wide Pentecostal Camp Meetings where he gave several messages. Additionally through the years, he visited her at her Home of Peace in Oakland as well as spoke at several of her meetings. Below is Carrie’s impression of Wigglesworth’s ministry at that time followed by one of the messages he gave while speaking at one of her meetings in Oakland. He speaks of an account of a blind man being healing in one of his meetings.
“Mr. Smith Wigglesworth” by Carrie Judd Montgomery
“Our dear Brother, Mr. S. Wigglesworth from England, has been holding meetings during the month of August at Glad Tidings Hall,1536 Ellis Street, San Francisco. We have also had the pleasure of having him with us for two of our Monday meetings in Oakland. Our Brother’s addresses are full of the power of the Holy Spirit, and those who listen to him are getting a very blessed view of what Full Salvation means for spirit, soul and body.
Brother Wigglesworth was with us at our World-Wide Camp Meeting at Cazadero, in 1914. He was then a great blessing to many. Since then, however, we feel that his own experience has been greatly enriched and that he comes with a deeper and fuller message than before. He will hold meetings probably in Victoria Hall, and also at Bethel Temple, Los Angeles, Calif. Dates for these meetings, however, have not yet been announced. Our Brother has a distinct ministry for the body as well as a most precious spiritual message.”
Carrie Judd Montgomery, “Notes by the Editor, Triumphs of Faith 42:8 (Aug 1922), 190-191.
“Filled with God” by Smith Wigglesworth
(Extract from an address delivered at Mrs. Montgomery’s Monday Meeting. Danish Hall, Oakland, CA)
I want to read to you, in the beginning, the second chapter of Hebrews. Now, this, like every other Scripture, is all very important for us. You could scarcely, at the beginning, pick any special Scripture out of this we have read, it is all so full of truth, it means so much to us, and we must understand that God, in these times, wants to bring us into perfect life, that we need never, under any circumstances, go outside of His Word for anything.
Some people only come with a very small thought concerning God’s fulness, and a lot of people are satisfied with a thimbleful and you can just imagine God saying, “O, if they only knew how much they could take away!” Other people come with a larger vessel, and they go away satisfied, but you can feel how
much God is longing for us to have such a desire for more, such a longing as only God Himself can satisfy. I suppose you women would have a good idea of what I mean from the illustration of a screaming child being taken about from one to another, but never satisfied till it gets to the bosom of its Mother. You will find that there is no peace, no help, no source of strength, no power, no life, nothing can satisfy the cry of the child of God but the Word of God. God has a special way of satisfying the cry of His children. He is waiting to open to us the windows of Heaven until He has so moved in the depths of our hearts that everything unlike Himself has been destroyed. There need no one in this place go away dry, dry. God wants you to be filled. My brother, my sister, God wants you today to be like a watered garden, filled with the fragrance of His own heavenly joy, till you know at last you have touched immensity. The Son of God came for no other purpose than to lift and lift, and mould and fashion and remould, until we are just after His mind.
I know that the dry ground can have floods, and may God save me from ever wanting anything less than a flood. I will not stoop for small things when I have such a big God. Thorough the blood of Christ’s atonement we may have riches and riches. We need the warming atmosphere of the Spirit’s power to bring us closer and closer until nothing but God can satisfy, and then we may have some idea of what God has
left after we have taken all that we can. It is only like a sparrow taking a drink of the ocean and then looking around and saying, “What a vast ocean! What a lot more I could have taken if I had only had room!”
You may have sometimes things you can use, and not know it. Don’t you know that you could be dying of thirst right in a river of plenty? There was once a vessel in the mouth of the Amazon river. They thought they were still in the ocean, and they went dying of thirst, some of then nearly mad. They saw a ship and asked if they would give them some water, for some of them were dying of thirst, and they replied,
“Dip your bucket right over; you are in the mouth of the river.” There are any amount of people today in the midst of a great river of life, but they are dying of thirst, because they do not dip down and take it. Dear brother, you may have the Word, but you need an awakened spirit. The Word is not alive until it is moved
upon by the Spirit of God, and in the right sense it becomes Spirit and life when it is touched by His hand alone.
O beloved, there is a stream that maketh glad the city of God. There is a stream of life that makes everything move. There is a touch of divine life and likeness through the Word of God that comes nowhere else. There is a death which has no life in it; and there is a death-likeness with Christ which is full of life.
O beloved, there is no such thing as an end to God’s beginnings. But we must be in it; we must know it. It is not a touch; it is not a breath; it is the Almighty God; it is a Person; it is the Holy One dwelling in the temple not made with hands. O beloved, He touches and it is done. He is the same God over all, rich unto all who call upon Him. Pentecost is the last thing that God has to touch the earth with.The baptism is the last thing; if you do not get this you are living in a weak and impoverished condition which is no good to yourself or anybody else. May God move us on to a place where there is no measure to this fulness that He wants to give us. God exalted Jesus and gave Him a Name above every name. You notice that everything has been put under Him. It is about eight years since I was in Oakland and in that time I have seen thousands and thousands healed by the power of God. Last year in Sweden, the last five months of the year, we had over 7,000 people saved by the power of God. The tide is rolling in; let us see to it today that we get right out into the tide, for it will bear you. The bosom of God’s love is the center of all things. Get your eyes off yourself; lift them up high and see the Lord, for in the Lord there is everlasting strength.
If you went to see a doctor, the more you told him, the more he would know, but when you come
to Doctor Jesus, He knows all from the beginning, and He never gives you the wrong medicine. I went to see one today, and someone said, “‘Here is a person who has been poisoned through and through by a doctor giving him the wrong medicine”. Jesus sends His healing power and brings His restoring grace, and so there is nothing to fear. The only thing that is wrong is your wrong conception of the mightiness of His
redemption.
He was wounded that He might be touched with a feeling of your infirmities. He took your flesh and
laid it upon the cross that He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage. You will find that almost all the ailments that you are heir to come on Satanic lines, and they must be deal with as Satanic; they must be
cast out. Do not listen to what Satan says to you, for the devil is a liar from the beginning. If people would only listen to the truth of God they would find out they were over the devil, over all Satanic forces; they would realize that every evil spirit was subject to them; they would find out that they were always in the place of triumph, and they would “reign in life” by King Jesus.
Never live in a less place than where God has called you to, and He has called you up on high to
live with Him. God has designed that everything shall be subject to man. Through Christ He has given you power over all the power of the enemy. He has wrought out your eternal redemption.
I was finishing a meeting one day in Switzerland. And when we had finished the meeting and
had ministered to all the sick, we went out to see some people. Two boys came to us and said that there was a blind man present at the meeting this afternoon, who had heard all the words of the preacher, and said he was surprised that he had not been prayed for. They went on to say this blind man had heard so much that he would not leave that place until he could see. I said, “This is positively unique. God will do
something today for that man.”
We got to the place. This blind man said he never had seen; he was born blind, but because of
the word preached in the afternoon he was not going home until he could see. If ever I have joy it is when I have a lot of people who will not be satisfied until they get all they have come for. With great joy I anointed him that day and laid hands on his eyes, and then immediately God opened his eyes. It was very strange how he acted. There were some electric lights. First he counted them; then he counted us. O, the ecstatic pleasure that every moment was created in that man because of his sight! It made us all feel like weeping and dancing and shouting. Then he pulled out his watch, and said that for years he had been feeling the watch for the time, by the raised figures, but now he could look at it and tell us the time. Then, looking as
if he was awakened from some deep sleep, or some long, strange dream, he awakened to the fact that he had never seen the face of his father and mother, and he went to the door and rushed out. At night he was the first in the meeting. All the people knew him as the blind man, and I had to give him a long time to talk
about his new sight.
Beloved, I wonder how much you want to take away today. You could not carry it if it was substance, but there is something about the grace and the power and the blessings of God that can be carried, no matter how big they are. O, what a Saviour; what a place we are in, by grace, that He may come in to commune with us. He is willing to say to every heart, “Peace, be still”, and, to every weak body, “Be strong”.
Are you going half way; or are you going right to the end! Be not today deceived by Satan, but believe in God.
Smith Wigglesworth, “Filled with God,” Triumphs of Faith 42:8 (Aug 1922).
Both of these articles were transcribed by Jennifer Miskov and kept in their original form. ©Jennifer Miskov
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Or to read a short bio about Carrie’s life go here.