Lilian de Fin, great-granddaughter of Smith Wigglesworth (1859-1947), speaks with PneumaReview.com about Smith Wigglesworth’s ministry and legacy, the re-opening of Bowland Street Mission, her own ministry, and the coming revival. Are you ready for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit?

PneumaReview.com: Your great-grandfather, Smith Wigglesworth, was a well-known Pentecostal minister. From a family perspective, what can you tell us about him?

Lilian de Fin: Smith and Polly Wigglesworth were blessed with five beautiful children. The eldest son, Seth, was my grandfather. My mother was Seth’s eldest daughter; she was named Alice after my auntie Alice, who was the only daughter of Smith and Polly Wigglesworth. In our home, Smith Wigglesworth was always referred to as “Grandpa” because he was my mother’s grandfather. So we all call him Grandpa.

My mother, Alice, went to Africa as a missionary. She married my dad, Joseph Harold Berry, who was also a missionary in the Congo, Central Africa. That makes me a fourth-generation preacher’s kid. I was born and brought up in Africa. Grandpa was promoted to heaven just three months after I was born, so I never met him. I like to believe that he prayed for me when he heard that another great granddaughter was born on the mission field in Congo. All the stories that I can tell you are stories that I heard from my parents.

Smith Wigglesworth

Smith Wigglesworth was a faithful father, fruitful, fascinating, and full of the Spirit of God. He was bold and courageous, yet full of compassion, a man who shared his faith wherever he went. He loved nature and would go for walks on the Yorkshire moors for recreation. I am told that when the pond iced over in Bradford, he and grandma Polly would skate on the ice together and the crowds would gather around to watch them.

My mother told me how Grandpa would love to take young ministers shopping. She related seeing him standing in a store with tears of joy streaming down his face as he watched some young men choosing a new suit and shoes. He himself had made a deal with God when he entered the ministry fulltime. He told the Lord that he expected to always have a good suit and good shoes otherwise he would return to his plumbing business.

When mom was growing up, she would attend a Bible study on a Wednesday night at Grandpa’s house. It was a time when Grandpa would meet with his family and teach them the word of God and recount some of his experiences concerning his healing ministry abroad. Mom tells how she would take the quiet road home through the park in order to have time alone and enjoy the presence of God that was upon her after spending time with Grandpa.

My dad would tell us how he would go to visit Grandpa Wigglesworth.

I always felt that I belonged to a very generous family.

My Grandpa Seth bought a house just around the corner from the plumber’s shop where he and Grandma lived. It was made available for us and other missionaries to live in while they were on furlough. It was such a blessing to have a provision like that. My auntie Alice together with her husband Jim Salter would come out to Africa to visit the missionaries. They would go out of their way to visit us at the boarding school that we attended. When they said goodbye, auntie Alice would always slip a little bit of money into our hands. It meant the world to us just to have some family around.

Prophets with no names, lions that do not clean their plates, altars that split without an axe and a king with an arm that looks like a raisin: all these elements contribute to an intriguing and sometimes baffling story found in First Kings 13. Evangelicals are attracted to it because the story contains powerful prophetic fulfillment. Charismatics love it because signs and wonders are displayed. The Emergent crowd likes it because the story values authenticity and relationship. What do we make of this prophecy for the ages?

Power Encounter

Image: Lemuel Butler

A fascinating story of prophetic courage and failure is found in First Kings 13. If the story were only verses one to ten, it would rank with Elijah’s confrontation with the Baal priests at Mt. Carmel as one of the great bold strokes in Old Testament history ( v. 1-3 ). The Judean “man of God” (a euphemism for prophet) confronts the Northern Kingdom’s ruler, Jeroboam. Jeroboam’s idolatry and false altar (he worships at Bethel instead of Jerusalem) calls forth Yahweh’s judgment. The man of God prophesies that King Josiah will be born from the house of David (Southern Judean ruler) who will judge the idolatry of the northern kingdom. This prophecy is truly remarkable. Not only does the man of God precisely describe the actions of Yahweh three hundred years before the event, but also he calls the future king by name. This is prophetic accuracy at its finest (see 2 Kings 23:15-20 ). The man of God truly must have been a man of God; intimately acquainted with the ways, heart, and character of Yahweh ( Isaiah 55:8-9 ). In addition, the man of God prophesies a split altar signifying Yahweh’s displeasure with Israel’s idolatrous worship ( v. 3 ). The word is fulfilled as God performs his own version of Demolition Day ( v. 5 ). The prophet walks in the intimacy with God and the power of the Spirit: the words and works of Jesus.

By Whose Authority?

High drama continues when Jeroboam points his finger at the man of God, demands his arrest, and the king’s hand withers ( 1 Kings 13:4-6 ). In our culture, finger pointing is simply an added gesture for emphasis. In some parts of Africa, pointing is considered rude beyond all measure. In Bible times, pointing the finger symbolized authority. In scripture, the right hand is a symbol of intense power and strength.¹  The king by his right hand was leading the Israelites in false worship, but God’s mighty power reduced the king’s hand into a dry shriveled appendage. “The withering of Jeroboam’s hand demonstrated the superiority of God’s authority.”²  The man of God displays Yahweh’s mercy and kindness when he heeds the king’s request to restore his hand. Then, Jeroboam tries a little manipulation by inviting the prophet to dinner ( 1 Kings 13:7 ).

Evangelist David Hernandez reflects on the Spirit’s ministry of healing and the classic work by Francis MacNutt.

Rob Murdoch with woman healed of deafness.

Recently, I was at a crusade in a certain country where we saw many extraordinary things take place. Through the sound system in those nights, the gospel was preached to thousands. Then we began to pray for the sick and many people would come up to testify. I came to realize one detail. The people that were testifying weren’t Christians, or at least weren’t Christians when they came to the event. The majority were Hindus! People who hadn’t believed in Christ before are now getting healed and giving their lives to Jesus. Especially this one Hindu woman that caught my attention, who testified that God had opened her deaf ears. I thank God for these miracles happening all around us.

The 25^th Anniversary edition of Healing by Francis MacNutt.

However, this sparked my interest in the topic of healing. I came to realize that it was topic I knew little about. So how do you learn about a topic? You read. This book about healing is written by a former Catholic priest who became involved in the Charismatic Renewal through the ministry of Agnes Sanford. He became disheartened by traditional church teaching of sickness and suffering that claims that all pain is part of God’s redemptive plan. After this, he himself became interested in the ministry of healing. Through his years of experience, he came to learn much about this controversial teaching that was spreading like wildfire during the Charismatic Renewal. With the help of others, he learns enough to be able to write about this subject.

He first points out that it seems to be God’s general will to heal the sick. I must say that when the Bible talks about sickness, it has absolutely nothing good to say about it. God’s general concern is for our well-being since he is a loving God. It is not simply God granting wishes every now and then, but him revealing his character towards us as our healer. Since Jesus healed, this is the revelation of God’s character towards sickness and disease.

Francis MacNutt

He talks about the traditional teaching of sickness and suffering and points out that the more traditional teaching (that of the early church to the 3rd century) was actually one of healing. Many Catholics, and even Protestants, have been stuck with the teaching that all sickness and suffering are something from God. Slowly, as we look at the Scriptures and the present day ministry of the Holy Spirit, we see that is not the case.

Not only is healing something of the physical body, but also of our soul, mind and emotions. He separates the different types of healing that he has encountered from inner healing to forgiveness. He also talks a little about the controversial deliverance ministry. These types of healings could all be intertwined or the healing of one could resulting in the healing of another. Basically, God wants to heal all our being, not just our bodies.

Healing is a difficult subject where not every question can be answered, but this take on it is an interesting one from an interesting perspective that we should pay attention too.

Jack Levison, in his work Fresh Air: the Holy Spirit for an Inspired Life, aims to clear a foggy, often caricatured view of the Holy Spirit in today’s church. Does one feel a move of the Spirit only through mountain-top, ecstatic experiences? Or may one also drudge forth in the mundane of the daily with full-confidence of the Spirit’s presence? Levison’s honest piece, filled with top-notch exegetical work, answers a resounding “yes” to the question of the Spirit’s presence in our daily work. In fact, as Levison defines it, the spirit functions not only as the third person of the Trinity, but also as “the breath that animates and motivates all people” (17). For this reason, he keeps the title Holy Spirit in lower case throughout his work. Levison presents a convincing case for the spirit as “the breath within” every person, offering a Fresh perspective on how one understands the spirit’s role in a person’s life (36).

Finally, Levison concludes with hope for the “uncommon unity” of the spirit (212). Regardless of background or experience, Levison believes that the spirit should bring us together and not tear us apart. Levison’s hope for unity among churches, centered in our understanding of Jesus and our study of the Scriptures, should be heeded by all. For if there is division in the household of God, it is unlikely to remain standing (cf. Mark 3:20-30). Overall, Levison’s work embodies the spirit’s own ability to inspire freshness. After reading, every Pentecostal pastor should experience a renewed excitement to return to the biblical text and to re-examine how the spirit works both in the individual and the community, in the mountain-top and the valley.

Reviewed by JP O’Connor

Publisher’s page: http://www.paracletepress.com/fresh-air-the-holy-spirit-for-an-inspired-life.html

Jim Cymbala is the pastor of  the Brooklyn Tabernacle, New York, NY. Pastored by Cymbala since 1972, the Tabernacle has, as of 1996, began holding four services a Sunday, each with at least 1,600 per meeting. This is despite the fact that they have been sending groups out to plant churches since 1985, seventeen as of the printing of his book. In the inner city, a church isn’t likely to grow due to transference of members from other churches, or slick programs. Churches grow in dark places when they meet the deep spiritual needs of the people. Clearly then, Jim Cymbala has something to say.

The first part of the book shows the struggle Jim and his wife Carol endured when they took on a small dying church in Brooklyn, that could not even pay it’s bills. A young man with no formal training in ministry, he heard all manner of church growth advice (p. 24). Finally the Lord spoke to him, saying that if he would lead the people to pray and call on his name, that they would never build a building large enough to accommodate the crowds God would send. On that word from the Lord, Cymbala instituted Tuesday night prayer in his church and, as they say, the rest is history.

Cymbala told his church that the Tuesday prayer meeting would become the barometer for the church, the gauge by which they would judge success or failure (p.27). By this measure Cymbala sees the church in America sadly lacking. In Brooklyn, broken lives were healed, from prostitutes to drug addicts, not because of polished sermons, or better teaching, but because of love birthed in prayer.

Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire is a plea to the church in this country to return to prayer. “Pastors and churches have to get uncomfortable enough to say, ‘We are not New Testament churches if we don’t have a prayer life’” (p 50). Many pastors have come to him and told Cymbala that they would be embarrassed to have a prayer meeting in their church because nobody would come. “Does the Bible say anywhere from Genesis to Revelation that  ‘My house shall be called a house of preaching?’” (p. 71). He is bold enough to say that he is embarrassed that religious leaders in America talk about having prayer in public schools, when we do not even have prayer in our churches (p. 72).

Cymbala rounds out the book with an assessment of the church’s penchant for novelty (chapter 7), marketing (chapter 8), and doctrine without power (chapter 9). This includes a sober and refreshing look at fads, and “new” doctrines. This reviewer was encouraged by Cymbala’s questioning of weird, yet widely accepted teachings. Although this book is far from being polemical, the author is at times less than even-handed, calling into question the motives of some without sufficient information, and a using some loaded language. He does not, however, name names, which is admirable.