Heroes of the Faith Apr –Jun 21012 Taster

1APRIL – JUNE 2012April – June 2012

Issue 10 £3.50 $6.00 €5.00

heroes ofthe

faith

inspiring insights from men & women who proved God

PLUS • TL Osborn • DL Moody • Saving souls as Titanic sank


• Saving souls as Titanic sank

INSIDE:

• Th e Mother of Pentecost

Pentecostal powerhouse Maria Woodworth-Etter

• Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Renowned Bible teacher who preached simple grace

• John G LakeWealthy man who gave it all away to spread the gospel

• From Cairoto Capetown!

Reinhard Bonnke and his dream of a bloodwashed Africa

3APRIL – JUNE 2012

Eyebrows were raised when,

in 1928, a brilliant young

doctor gave up his career

in medicine to become pastor of

a struggling Calvinistic Method-

ist mission church in Aberavon,

South Wales.After all, the young man had

risen to become chief clinical

assistant to Sir Thomas Horder,

the King’s physician, at St Bar-

tholomew’s Hospital in London.

What was he thinking of to leave

a promising medical career to

preach to people in a working

class area?Some regarded his change

of career as romantic, others as

crass stupidity, but Dr Martyn

Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) had no

doubt about God’s call on his life

to preach. During his years at

Aberavon the church was revived

under his ministry and, although

‘the Doctor’ later became better

known as a great Bible teacher,

in his early years in Wales his

evangelistic ministry was the

instrument through which many

of his hearers found Christ.

One such person was a

notorious character called Wil-

liam Thomas, better known to

the locals as ‘Staffordshire Bill’.

Bill lived three or four miles up

the valley from Aberavon and

during his years of employment

he had carried on a door-to-door

business selling fish. However, his

insatiable thirst for alcohol would

often mean he had to rely on his

pony to take the fish cart home

while he himself lay drunk among

the unsold fish, having fallen

backwards off the driver’s seat as

the cart went up the steep hill!

By the time he was 70, the

pony and the fish cart were long

gone, but not his habit of excessive

drinking. One Sunday afternoon

he was in the workingmen’s club

in Aberavon, drinking himself

into a sodden state. As usual

he was alone, as even men with

few moral standards had long

since learned to avoid the filthy

language and general aura of

unpleasantness that surrounded

Staffordshire Bill. Later he

confessed that this particular

afternoon he was feeling low,

hopeless and depressed, seeking

to drown his sorrows and fears

with drink.However, he happened to

overhear a conversation between

two men at the table next to

him who were talking about the

preacher at the local chapel. The

snippet he heard was to change

his life. “Yes,” said one man to his

companion, “I was there last Sun-

day night and that preacher said

nobody was hopeless – he said

there was hope for everybody.”

The thought arrested Bill and,

with his brain now completely

sobered, he said to himself, “If

there’s hope for everybody, then

there’s hope for me. I’ll go to that

chapel myself and see what that

man says.”However, Bill’s intentions were

not so easily realised. On that first

Sunday evening he stood outside

the church for some time until

his nerve failed him and he went

home. Throughout the wretched

week that followed he waited for

the next Sunday evening. How-

ever, when he arrived at the chapel

he heard singing and realised he

was late for the service.

Filled with fear and with his

heart in his boots he once more

turned away and went home, even

more miserable than before. With

two such setbacks Bill might

have been tempted to go back

to his old ways, but the Spirit of

God had started a work in him,

something, which prevented him

drowning his sorrows in drink

as he had in the past. The third

Sunday evening found him once

again outside the church, longing

to go in but fearful of doing so.

This time, however, a member

of the congregation saw him and

welcomed him with the words,

“Are you coming in, Bill? Come

and sit with me.”

That same night Staffordshire

Bill passed from darkness to light

as he heard ‘the Doctor’ preach.

He found that he could understand

what was being said from the

pulpit and at the end of the sermon

he believed the gospel and his

heart was flooded with light. The

transformation in his face was

remarkable – people said the face

of the old sinner now had the radi-

ance of a saint!

As Bill walked out that night,

lovingly shepherded by the

member of the congregation who

had invited him in, he passed

Lloyd-Jones’ wife, Bethan. The

congregation member introduced

him by saying, “Mrs Jones, this is

Staffordshire Bill.” Bill, however,

flinched as though he had been

struck a sudden blow. With an

agonised look on his face he said,

“Oh no. Oh no. That’s a bad old

name for a bad old man. I am Wil-

liam Thomas now.”

Old things had truly passed

away and all things had become

new for the man who now

insisted as being known as Wil-

liam Thomas. The change in his

life was apparent for all to see.

Although an elderly man at the

time of his conversion, he thought

nothing of walking the three or

four miles up and the steep hill to

attend church. In fact, he was at

every meeting – twice on Sunday,

the Monday evening prayer meet-

ing, the Wednesday night church

fellowship and the Saturday night

men’s meeting.

Through his meeting with ‘the

Doctor’ – and more particularly

the Doctor’s Saviour – William

Thomas’ battered old face was

transformed and radiated with

inner joy.

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones is remembered as an outstanding Bible teacher, and it was his

preaching of grace that brought hope to one man who had nearly given up on life itself

The Doctor who brought man to light

While many stories

about Smith

Wigglesworth

quite naturally concen-

trate on the miracles he

performed at campaign

meetings, this should not

obscure the fact that he was

also an insatiable personal

soul winner.His friend, the late

George Stormont, remarked

that, “Right through to old

age, Wigglesworth sought

the lost. There was a park

near his home and few

people who frequented it

were missed in his witness-

ing. He shared Christ with

almost all he met.”

Smith’s grandson, Leslie

Wigglesworth, tells how he

loved to evangelise at the

bowling greens.

“Grandpa used to love

to walk out in the parks on

his own and he would gently

walk down to a nearby

park and sit by the bowling

greens. “He would commune

with God and eventually

someone would come and sit

down beside him. Immedi-

ately he would talk to them

about the Lord Jesus.

“Because his communi-

cation with God was so rich,

people were saved around

the bowling green, or around

the tennis courts and even

around the cricket pitches.

“He used to like a game

of cricket and while he

was watching the cricket

he would be talking to the

nearby people about the

Lord Jesus. That was his

‘open space evangelism.’”

● Information and

photographs taken from

In The Steps Of Smith

Wigglesworth by Philip

Taylor, available from

amazon.co.uk or www.

smithwigglesworth.com

The bowling green evangelist

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Soul winner Smith

The bowling greens and park bench

from where Smith evangelised

14 APRIL – JUNE 2012




The young German missionary had

a dream one night in which he saw

a map of Africa being washed in

blood. And the Holy Spirit whispered in

his ear: “Africa shall be saved!” This was

the beginning of the vision that was to lead

Reinhard Bonnke on an audacious adven-

ture preaching Christ ‘from Cape Town to

Cairo’.He was well out of the limelight at the

time, serving God among the poor people of

Lesotho (formerly Basutoland), a mountain-

ous nation entirely surrounded by South

Africa. Yet despite his obvious success as a

missionary there, Bonnke’s first five years

in Africa only confirmed his conviction that

the key to world evangelism was aggressive

preaching of the gospel in the power of the

Spirit with signs following.

So in 1973 he invited a notable evange-

list, who was making headlines in the South

African press with reports of healings, to

hold a campaign in Maseru, the Lesotho

capital. A great crowd gathered for the first

meeting, eagerly anticipating miracles.

However, all fell flat when the evangelist

abruptly left the service without praying for

the sick. But worse was to follow. For when

Reinhard went to collect the evangelist for

the next day’s meeting, he found him pack-

ing to leave, saying the Holy Spirit had told

him to go!Left alone to face the large crowd which

was by now packing the church, Reinhard

prayed desperately and then announced to

the disappointed pastors: “I am going to

preach tonight and God will do miracles.”

As he preached, the power of the Spirit

was so strong that his interpreter fell to the

floor. And as he waited for him to recover,

Reinhard heard God’s voice: “My word in

your mouth is as strong as my word in my

mouth.”Taking hold of his faith, Reinhard

prayed for the sick and astonishing miracles

took place. Blind eyes were opened and

cripples began to walk. The miracles went

on all day with many giving their lives to

Christ. And as he lingered in the church af-

ter the crowds had eventually left, Bonnke

realised that God had given him a break-

through in his ministry – he was to plunder

hell and populate heaven. From that day he

has regularly addressed huge crowds in vast

open-air meetings all over Africa as well as

in many other parts of the world.

Preaching officer

The fifth of six children, Reinhard was

born in 1940 in what was then Konigsberg

(now Kaliningrad) in East Germany. His

parents were both Pentecostals, his father,

Hermann, having been saved and healed

of tuberculosis under the ministry of an

American Pentecostal evangelist. Hermann

was an officer in the German army, working

in supplies and logistics and, because of his

strong witness for Christ, he was known as

the ‘preaching officer’.

By the summer of 1944, as the Second

World War was reaching its conclusion, the

German army was in full retreat with the

Russians closing in on Konigsberg. Rein-

hard’s mother, Meta, took her children and

fled from the terror of the advancing Rus-

sians. Although under constant attack from

Russian aircraft, the family miraculously

made its way to Denmark where they spent

the next three-and-a-half years in a refugee

camp before being reunited with Hermann,

who had been held in a British POW camp

in Kiel, Germany.

Disillusioned by the conduct of the Na-

zis, Hermann vowed to spend the remainder

of his days preaching the gospel and, after

being pensioned off from the army in 1950,

he pioneered a church in Krempe, five miles

from the family home at Gluckstadt.

Although none of his older brothers

showed any interest in their father’s faith,

Reinhard was different. By the time he

was ten, he had committed his life fully to

Christ and was taking an interest in the mis-

sion field. One day, when listening to mis-

sionaries talking about their experiences, he

received a definite call of God to Africa. A

few months later he was mightily baptised

in the Holy Spirit, an experience he says

that “boosted my faith like super-charging a

car engine.”From the age of 14, Reinhard started

accompanying his father to the services at

Krempe. One day, during a prayer meeting,

he experienced a sensation of electricity in

his hands and, when he prayed for a sick

woman, she was miraculously healed. This

was a foretaste of the many miracles that

would one day take place throughout the

world under his ministry.

Reinhard’s call to Africa was further

confirmed in 1957 when he saw a vision of a

map of Africa with just one city – Johannes-

burg – marked on it. Two years later he was

accepted into a great missionary college,

the Bible College of Wales, where he not

only learned English in a surprisingly short

time, but also learnt how to trust God for

his every need. The college was founded

by that great man of faith, Rees Howells,

whose son, Samuel, carried on the same

faith traditions as his father. Reinhard found

his experiences of having to trust God for

every penny during his college course a

great foundation for his ministry, and he left

college as a man of faith as well as a man of

the Word.

George Jeffreys

On his way home from Wales at the end

of his course, Reinhard had a remarkable

meeting with the great Elim evangelist,

George Jeffreys. Killing a few hours in

London with a little sightseeing, the young

student by ‘chance’ found himself outside

Jeffreys’ house in Clapham. Gaining

admittance, he spent some time with the old

evangelist, at the end of which Jeffreys sud-

denly laid hands on Reinhard and prayed

his blessing upon him. The young man got

up knowing he had received something

significant from God. Jeffreys died just a

few weeks later, making the meeting with

Reinhard all the more remarkable and

significant.Returning to Germany, Bonnke set

about proving his call by doing evangelistic

work under the guidance of his father, and

finally by pioneering a church in Flemsberg

in 1964. During this time he met and mar-

ried Anni Sulzle, who quickly became his

enthusiastic co-worker. Anni and Reinhard

were to have three children – Kai-Uwe

(‘Freddy’), Gabriele and Suzanne.

After two years in Flemsberg, the

Bonnkes offered themselves as missionar-

ies to the German Pentecostal Fellowship

(BPF). In spite of the fact that the BPF did

not send missionaries to South Africa, they

were accepted, and in 1967, together with

their first child, Reinhard and Anni set sail

for Durban.A year of probationary ministry with

the Apostolic Faith Mission of South

Africa was made difficult by the apartheid

attitudes of some of the South African

Christians. When told not to shake hands

‘My word in your mouth is as strong as my word in my mouth’

Day Bonnke heard:

This issue we celebrate the life and ministry of someone who is still very much alive and

active for the Lord, even after more than 50 years of preaching – Reinhard Bonnke

❛

❛Since launching CFAN

his ministry has witnessed

more than 60 million

people fill out decision

cards and accept Christ

into their hearts

Reinhard Bonnke speaking at the Bethel

Convention in 2011

Reinhard Bonnke



It’s 100 years since the RMS Titanic

set sail on its ill-fated, maiden voyage

across the Atlantic. The ship, regarded

by many as ‘the unsinkable’, set sail

from Southampton to New York on 10th

April 1912 with 2,223 people on board.

However, just four days into the crossing,

at 11:40 pm on April 14 1912, the Titanic

hit an iceberg and sank at 2.20 am on the

morning of April 15 with the loss of 1517

lives.One factor that crucially contributed to

the high death rate was the failure of nearby

ship, the Californian, to come to the rescue.

The Titanic stayed afloat for more than two

and half hours, which meant that the Cali-

fornian had enough time to reach her before

she sank. In the end it was the Carpathia

which came to the rescue and picked up the

survivors from the lifeboats – but not until

the Titanic had been sunk for almost two

hours.While the Californian stood aloof from

the disaster, one man at least was giving

his all to save his fellow men – both their

bodies and their souls. Among the passen-

gers in the freezing water was a widowed

preacher from Glasgow, Rev John Harper.

He had been on board on his way to the

Moody Bible Institute in Chicago with his

six-year-old daughter, Nana.

As soon as it was realised the liner was

sinking, John took his little girl to the safety

of a lifeboat. He could easily have got into

the boat with her but he was too concerned

for the souls of the people on board the

Titanic to do that. Instead he kissed his little

girl and told her he would see her again one

John Harper was saving lives physically and spiritually as

the Titanic sank a century ago. David Littlewood tells his

remarkable story

day. Then he went back into the melee on

deck both to assist others and also to wit-

ness to them about Christ.

Church pioneer

John Harper was born in 1872 to solid

Christian parents and accepted Christ as

Lord of his life when he was just 13. Four

years later at the ripe old age of 17, he

began to preach by going to the streets of

his village and pleading for people to be

reconciled to God.

In 1896, John Harper pioneered a

church, which is now known as the Harper

Memorial Baptist Church. John began with

just 25 members, but the church had grown

to over 500 members when he left 13 years

later. During this time he had married but

sadly was soon widowed.

Ironically, John Harper almost drowned

several times during his life. When he was

two-and-a-half-years of age, he fell into

a well and had to be resuscitated by his

mother. At the age of 26, he was swept out

to sea by a reverse current and barely sur-

vived. And at 32 he faced death on a leaking

ship in the Mediterranean. Perhaps, in his

providence, God used these experiences to

prepare this servant for what was to be the

ultimate test of his faith.

When the Titanic finally went under,

John Harper swam among the people in

the ice-cold waters urging them to accept

Christ before hypothermia set in. The

effects of his witness are remarkable. Four

years after the disaster, a young Scotsman

stood up in a meeting in Hamilton, Canada,

and said, “I am a survivor of the Titanic.

When I was drifting alone on a spar that

awful night, the tide brought John Harper

of Glasgow, also on a piece of wreck, near

me. ‘Man,’ he said, ‘Are you saved?’ ‘No,’ I

said. ‘I am not.’ He replied, ‘Believe on the

Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.’

“The waves bore him away; but, strange

to say brought him back a little later, and

he said, ‘Are you saved now?’ ‘No,’ I said,

‘I cannot honestly say that I am.’ He said

again, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,

and thou shalt be saved,’ Then he took off

his life vest and gave it to me saying, ‘You

need this more than I do.’ Shortly after he

went down; and there, alone in the night,

and with two miles of water under me, I

believed in Christ.

Last convert

“I am,” said the young man, “Rev John

Harper’s last convert. I was saved that

night by the kindness and sincerity of two

men: one who gave me not only the truth

about Christ but his life jacket as well. And

I was also saved by the One who had died

many years before on a cross for my sins,

so I could be saved not just in this life but

forever.”Perhaps predictably, the character of

John Harper is not mentioned in the Hol-

lywood blockbuster Titanic, a romanticised

piece of fiction in which the ‘hero’ and

‘heroine’ indulge in a somewhat sordid

love affair. No matter. Shortly after he

finally disappeared under the waves, John

was welcomed in heaven as a true hero of

the faith. He was a man who realised that

eternity was more than this life and, while

other people were trying to buy their way

onto the lifeboats to save their own lives,

John Harper gave of his life so

that others might be saved.

The Bible says, “Greater

love has no man than this, that

a man lays down his life for his

friends.” John Harper gave up

his life not just for his friends

but for people who he didn’t even

know – but people who were

in desperate need of salvation.

Before the waters finally claimed

him he spent his last breath urging

others to accept the Saviour he

loved. And in this he was truly the

hero of the Titanic.

Saving souls as steamer sank

John Harper

The story of John Harper’s bravery is told

in The Monthly Evangel newspaper

H



Maria Woodworth-Etter

She goes at it like a footpad (highway

robber) tackles his prey. By some

supernatural power she just knocks

’em silly when they are not looking for it,

and while they are down she applies the

hydraulic pressure and pumps the grace of

God into them by the bucketful.’ This was

part of an 1885 newspaper report of meet-

ings held by a remarkable woman evangelist

in which hundreds found Christ. So many,

in fact, that the police said they had never

seen such a change in their city that had

been so cleaned up they had nothing to do!

The evangelist was Maria Woodworth-

Etter – diminutive in stature but huge

in faith and in the power of the Holy

Spirit. During 45 years of mainly itinerant

ministry, she experienced some of the most

remarkable manifestations of the Spirit

seen since the Acts of the Apostles, and is

regarded by many as the grandmother of the

Pentecostal movement.

Maria, pronounced Mar-eye-a, was born

in 1844 on a farm in Lisbon, Ohio, and was

converted to Christ at the age of 13. She

immediately felt the call to preach even

though her church did not recognise women

preachers. Added to that, the tragic death

of her father when she was 12 meant she

had to drop out of school and this, together

with her later disastrous marriage to PH

Woodworth, who fathered her six children,

made a preaching career most unlikely.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, tragedy

struck the Woodworth home when disease

claimed the lives of five out of their six chil-

dren. Maria kept her faith in God but her

husband appeared never to have recovered.

With her life in turmoil through the loss

of her children and the nagging call within

to preach, Maria searched the Scriptures for

guidance. Here she found Joel’s prophecy

that the Spirit would be poured out on both

men and women. She then had a vision in

which angels came into her room. They

took her to the West where she saw fields

of waving golden grain, which began to

fall like sheaves when she preached. So she

obeyed the call of God on her life.

Unschooled and relying entirely on the

Holy Spirit for what to say, Maria launched

her preaching ministry in 1880. Tremen-

dous conviction came upon her hearers and

people cried and fell to the floor in repen-

tance. Then, as she had seen in her vision,

extraordinary manifestations began to take

place which marked out her ministry and

which also brought fierce persecution.

She writes, “Fifteen came to the altar

screaming for mercy. Men and women fell

and lay like dead. I had never seen anything

like this. I felt it was the work of God but

did not know how to explain it or what to

say.” After lying on the floor for some time,

the people arose with shining faces shouting

the praises of God.

These ‘trances’ (which Woodworth-

Etter called ‘the power’) became a major

talking point. People would often fall into

trances, have a vision of heaven and hell

The Mother of Pentecost

She may have looked like ‘your grandmother’, but Pentecostal

powerhouse Maria Woodworth-Etter was certainly not a woman

to be messed with. David Littlewood reports

❛ ❛Men and women fell

and lay like dead.

I had never seen

anything like this. I

felt it was the work

of God but did not

know how to explain

it or what to say

and get up soundly saved. Even on their

way home from a meeting or in their homes

miles away, people would fall under the

power of God.Maria herself often went into a trance

during a service, standing like a statue

for an hour or more with her hands raised

while the meeting continued. She regarded

the phenomenon as the same type Peter

received at Joppa. Her critics, of course,

took a different view, and Maria was

dubbed the ‘trance evangelist’ and the

‘voodoo princess’, and was often charged

with hypnotising people.

Her style of meetings was very different

from the usual church order of the late 19th

century, with shouting, dancing, singing

and fervent preaching. Maria believed that

Page 8

Page 14

Page 20

Page 30

5 WELCOMEfrom Editor Dave Littlewood

6 TL OSBORNHis giant crusades have given huge impetus to the Church in previously unreached areas

8 THE MOTHER OF PENTECOSTMaria Woodworth-Etter may have looked tame, but she certainly wasn’t a woman to be messed with

12 HEROES OF THE BOOK Th e Apostle Peter may have been writing from experience when talking about being tested by fi re

14 MAN BROUGHT TO LIGHT!How renowned Bible teacher Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones preached grace to a man who had lost hope

15 THE BOWLING GREEN EVANGELIST Smith Wigglesworth

16 TIME TRAVEL amazing answers to prayer17 WORDS TO LIVE BY & Bible crossword18 THE BIG PICTURE TL Osborn in Paris20 AN ACTIVE HERO OF THE FAITH

Reinhard Bonnke is still seeing people being saved after more than 50 years in ministry

25 THE MAN WITH A MIDAS TOUCHWealthy businessman John G Lake gave away all he had to take the gospel to South Africa

30 SAVING SOULS AS STEAMER SANKJohn Harper was saving lives physically and spiritually as the Titanic sank a century ago

32 BOOK REVIEWS – Recommended reads

34 WHAT IF... he hadn’t visited class? Th e day that changed DL Moody’s life

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Fields are ready for harvest

The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” So said the author Mark Twain after hearing that

his obituary had been published in the New York Journal.

One could apply the same maxim to the Church of Jesus Christ, which, despite countless doom and gloom prophecies about her imminent demise, continues to expand and spread the good news of Jesus Christ throughout the world. Today we can safely say that the true Church of Jesus Christ is bigger than it has ever been.

One reason for the phenomenal growth of the Church during the 20th century in many parts of the world has been the divine raising up of men and women with a truly apostolic evangelistic anointing. These are people who have preached the gospel with signs follow-ing and hence have acted as an arrowhead to pierce the spiritual darkness of this world.

Maria Woodworth-Etter was an uneducated woman who looked like a granny but who could knock strong men senseless with the power of God in her meetings. Both John G Lake and DL Moody were successful businessmen who turned their undoubted talent at selling this world’s goods to winning souls for Christ.

And the evangelists TL Osborn and Reinhard Bonnke have become legends in their own lifetimes by holding phenomenally successful gospel crusades to enormous crowds throughout the world, with signs and wonders following their ministries.

Very different in approach was the renowned teacher, Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones, yet he also enjoyed remarkable success as an evangelist. And, did you know that Smith Wigglesworth was just as much at home as a personal soul winner as he was conducting healing campaigns?

It is our prayer that as you read this edition of Heroes of the Faith it will inspire you to pray that God will send out a new generation of workers into the harvest fi elds of the whole earth to do the great work of apostolic evangelism.

Truly in our troubled world the fi elds are white for harvest as they perhaps never have been before and, as Reinhard Bonnke is fond of saying, we don’t just need the sickle, but the combine harvester to bring in the harvest in these last days.

David Littlewood, Editor

WELCOME

Consulting EditorsDave Allen, former lecturer and Dean of Mattersey Hall College; Des Cartwright, offi cial historian for Elim; Mathew Clark, Director of Postgraduate Studies at Regents Theological College; Dave Garrard, a missionary for 23 years in Zaire; William Kay, Professor of Theology at Glyndwr University; RT Kendall, long time minister at West-minster Chapel; Barry Killick, an Elim Minister for over 30 years; John Lancaster, who lectured on systematic theology for 25 years at Elim’s Bible College; Steve Uppal, an AoG minister who leads All Nations Christian Centre in Wolverhampton.


Maria Woodworth-Etter

She goes at it like a footpad (a highway robber) tackles his prey. By some supernatural power she just knocks

’em silly when they are not looking for it, and while they are down she applies the hydraulic pressure and pumps the grace of God into them by the bucketful.’ This was part of an 1885 newspaper report of meet-ings held by a remarkable woman evangelist in which hundreds found Christ. So many, in fact, that the police said they had never seen such a change in their city that had been so cleaned up they had nothing to do!

The evangelist was Maria Woodworth-Etter – diminutive in stature but huge in faith and in the power of the Holy Spirit. During 45 years of mainly itinerant ministry, she experienced some of the most remarkable manifestations of the Spirit seen since the Acts of the Apostles, and is regarded by many as the grandmother of the Pentecostal movement.

Maria, pronounced Mar-eye-a, was born in 1844 on a farm in Lisbon, Ohio, and was converted to Christ at the age of 13. She immediately felt the call to preach even though her church did not recognise women preachers. Added to that, the tragic death of her father when she was 12 meant she had to drop out of school and this, together with her later disastrous marriage to PH Woodworth, who fathered her six children, made a preaching career most unlikely.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, tragedy struck the Woodworth home when disease

claimed the lives of five out of their six chil-dren. Maria kept her faith in God but her husband appeared never to have recovered.

With her life in turmoil through the loss of her children and the nagging call within to preach, Maria searched the Scriptures for guidance. Here she found Joel’s prophecy that the Spirit would be poured out on both men and women. She then had a vision in which angels came into her room. They took her to the West where she saw fields of waving golden grain, which began to fall like sheaves when she preached. So she obeyed the call of God on her life.

Unschooled and relying entirely on the Holy Spirit for what to say, Maria launched her preaching ministry in 1880. Tremen-dous conviction came upon her hearers and people cried and fell to the floor in repen-tance. Then, as she had seen in her vision, extraordinary manifestations began to take place which marked out her ministry and which also brought fierce persecution.

She writes, “Fifteen came to the altar screaming for mercy. Men and women fell and lay like dead. I had never seen anything like this. I felt it was the work of God but did not know how to explain it or what to say.” After lying on the floor for some time, the people arose with shining faces shouting the praises of God.

These ‘trances’ (which Woodworth-Etter called ‘the power’) became a major talking point. People would often fall into trances, have a vision of heaven and hell

The Mother of Pentecost

She may have looked like everybody’s favourite grandma, but Pentecostal powerhouse Maria Woodworth-Etter was certainly not

a woman to be messed with. David Littlewood reports

❛ ❛Men and women fell and lay like dead. I had never seen

anything like this. I felt it was the work of God but did not

know how to explain it or what to say

and get up soundly saved. Even on their way home from a meeting or in their homes miles away, people would fall under the power of God.

Maria herself often went into a trance during a service, standing like a statue for an hour or more with her hands raised while the meeting continued. She regarded the phenomenon as the same type Peter received at Joppa. Her critics, of course, took a different view, and Maria was dubbed the ‘trance evangelist’ and the ‘voodoo princess’, and was often charged with hypnotising people.

Her style of meetings was very different from the usual church order of the late 19th century, with shouting, dancing, singing and fervent preaching. Maria believed that


The man with the Midas touch!


John G Lake was a wealthy businessman who gave away all he had before setting off to take the gospel to South Africa. In just five years the Pentecostal message spread through the country like wildfire, writes Charles Gardner

South African Pentecostals and Charismatics have been an undeni-able blessing to the worldwide body

of Christ – men like David du Plessis, who helped spark off the Charismatic movement and, more recently, Ray McCauley and oth-ers he has influenced.

But the strength of the Pentecostal movement in South Africa today can be traced back to a Canadian-born missionary called John G Lake, a wealthy businessman who gave away all he had before setting sail for Cape Town in 1908. Lake had the Midas touch, not only in business but also in the things of the Spirit. Whatever he touched turned to gold, and after just five years in South Africa he left behind 1,250 preachers, 625 congregations, 100,000 converts and saw countless miracles! Yet it all came at a cost more expensive than gold – a faith truly tried in the fires of adversity.

The extraordinarily bold and energetic man of faith started out as a sickly child surrounded by death and sorrow. Lake (1870-1935) was born in Ontario but moved with his family to Michigan, USA, when he

was a teenager. He was one of 16 children, half of whom died, many of them from a strange digestive disease that nearly killed him too. He suffered with it for nine years and experienced almost unbearable sorrow watching so much tragedy around him. Tears and grief overshadowed his childhood and he never saw anything good come from it, apart from an intense personal desire for the power of God in his determination to beat sickness and disease. And although after his conversion Christians tried to con-sole him with the thought that God meant the sicknesses for good, Lake kept looking for a miracle.

Determined prayer Following the move to Michigan he was converted as a result of a Salvation Army meeting but joined the Methodists. He was eventually healed through his own deter-mined prayer, but another problem emerged with his legs growing out of shape through rheumatism contracted through working in a waterlogged mine. Again he was told he was glorifying God in his sickness, but he

went to see a healing evangelist in Chicago called John Alexander Dowie where his legs were straightened and he became convinced that healing was for everyone. He was still surrounded by sickness, but his brother, who had been an invalid for 22 years, walked out of Dowie’s Divine Healing Home fit and well. His 34-year-old sister, who was dying of breast cancer and had to be carried there on a stretcher, was also healed while another sister (with a bleeding condition) was raised from the dead after Lake sent a telegram to Dowie requesting prayer.

Sickness had also struck his young wife, Jennie, who became paralysed with tuberculosis and an incurable heart disease. He decided he would take up her case himself after he was struck by Acts 10:38, which spoke of Jesus ‘healing all that were oppressed of the devil’. He clearly saw that Satan was the oppressor and Jesus the healer. So he set the time for it – April 28 1898 at 9.30am – and asked others to join him in prayer. As he laid hands on her at that very hour, his wife was totally healed and Lake’s healing ministry was born.

John G Lake


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