Keep on Praying and Never Give Up

I was called at 10 o’clock one night to pray for a young person given up by the doctor who was dying of infection of lungs. As I looked, I saw that unless God undertook it was impossible for her to live.

I turned to the mother & said, “Well, mother, you will have to go to bed.”

She said, “Oh, I have not had my clothes off for three weeks.”

I said to the daughters, “You will have to go to bed,” but they did not want to go. It was the same with the son.

I put on my overcoat & said, “Good-bye, I’m off.”

They said, “Oh, don’t leave us.” I said, “I can do nothing here.”

They said, “Oh, if you will stop, we will all go to bed.”

I knew that God would move nothing in an atmosphere of mere natural sympathy & unbelief.

They all went to bed and I stayed & that was surely a time as I knelt by that bed face to face with death & with the devil. But God can change the hardest situation & make you know that He is almighty.

Then the fight came. I prayed from 11 to 3:30 in the morning. I saw the glimmering light on the face of the sufferer & saw her pass away.

The devil said, “Now you are done for. You have come from Bradford & the girl has died on your hands.”

I said, “It can’t be. God did not send me here for nothing. This is a time to change strength.”

I remembered that passage which said, “Men ought always to pray and not to faint.” (Luke 18:1).

Death had taken place but I knew that my God was all-powerful & He that had split the Red Sea is just the same today.

I looked at the window & at that moment the face of Jesus appeared. It seemed as though a million rays of light were coming from His face. As He looked at the one who had just passed away, the color came back to the face. She rolled over & fell asleep. Then I had a glorious time.

In the morning she woke early, put on a dressing gown & walked to the piano. She started to play & to sing a wonderful song. The mother & the sisters & the brother had all come down to listen. The Lord had undertaken. A miracle had been wrought.

I am thanking God for difficult cases. The Lord has called us into heart union with Himself. He wants us to have one heart & one Spirit with Him & to do what He Himself loved to do. The lungs were gone but the Lord restored lungs that were perfectly sound. (‘Ever Increasing Faith’ - Smith Wigglesworth)