Signs and Wonders God Wrought in the Ministry for Forty Years/Chapter 31
CHAPTER XXXI
A VISION OF THE COMING OF THE LORD
On March 24th, 1904, when I fell under the operation of the Power of God, while praying for the healing of the last one at the altar, I saw the Saviour on the Cross and sinners coming to Him. I saw Steps leading across to the Pearly Gates of Heaven. All those who plunged into the Fountain were at once placed on the Steps. Each one carried a light, which grew brighter as they went higher. There was not a spot of defilement on their robes. I was made to understand that they were the Light of the World, that their Lamps were lighted in Heaven. They had Christ in their souls. Each one had a body-guard of Angels of God, escorting them on the upward journey. At the top of the Steps were the Pearly Gates, where the Heavenly Hosts waited to welcome the Pilgrims of Earth.
I also saw that the world is in great darkness, and that saints are very few. “Many are called but few chosen,” or will accept. Many were under conviction, but trusted to water baptism, to confirmation, or to church membership; but unless they are carrying the light from God, they are worse than an open sinner.
The whole world lies in great darkness, except just a few. I saw the preparation in Heaven and earth for the Soon Coming of Christ. Heaven seemed to be in a commotion. The Lord was marshalling His hosts; getting the Horses and Chariots ready. The Armies of Heaven were moving, the Gates were open. An Angel came out of the Gates blowing a great Trumpet, the Saviour was taking the lead, with all the glory of Heaven, shouting to the saints in a loud voice, that awakened the dead.
The Lord showed me He was judging His saints, separating the Wheat from the Tares, that the Household of Faith was getting their portion of Meat in this God’s due season. The Angel was sealing the last ones of the members of the Bride, with the Seal of the living God. They were a little flock and the last one would soon be sealed, then the Lord would come in a cloud of glory to take His bride to the Marriage Feast, or Supper.
God help all who read this Vision to take warning, and repent for the Judgment of God is at hand. ANOTHER REMARKABLE VISION
While holding a, revival in Fostina, Ohio, in March, 1894, while in my bed, I had a vision of God. I thought I was in a day-meeting, and was standing by the pulpit. Some man in the congregation spoke in a loud voice, saying, “Sister Woodworth, look at the hand above the door.” I looked in that direction, and right above the door, coming from the vestibule, I saw a large hand, wrist and part of the arm. The wrist was bare for several inches. There was a soft, flowing sleeve, that hung down about eight inches. It was white and very soft looking. The fingers were all bent a little, except the little and index fingers. They pointed out each way. The hand and arm were lovely. The sleeves and all were white and shining. The hand and arm moved about and pointed all over the congregation again and again, then pointed the index finger to me and waved the hand and fingers as if beckoning me, or calling me to come. The hand continued to move over the people, then pointed. Every eye saw the wonderful hand sight. I cried out in a loud voice, “Oh! that is the hand of God!”
There was a very large window on the same side of the house. The transom was open and a hand just like the other came through the transom and did just like the other, both warning and pointing the people to me. Both lovely hands pointed over the house, then to me. I cried out again and again, “Oh! that is the hand of God!” They both went away at once.
It seemed the congregation could not move. Then I said, “Oh! I believe it is the Hand of God and it means something wonderful to the people, and especially to me.” Just then I saw through the transom of the same window and clear up to Heaven, a path twenty feet or more wide: It reached from Heaven down and was, full of stars and light. As I looked I saw one of the hands and nearly all of the arm with the flowing, soft sleeve come out of Heaven and come down the shining path. Then it came across to the window, through the transom without stopping, and over the congregation, with the index finger and arm pointing to me. The finger touched me on the forehead. The little finger or thumb, or both, touched my face. The hand and arm waved over me. I felt the Everlasting Arms and the soft sleeves around me. Every one saw it then. It went straight across the congregation and out of the window, and up to Heaven without stopping. I cried out with a loud voice, “It is the Hand of God. It was the Everlasting Arms.” I said, “God is going to reveal Himself to me in a wondrous way, writing His laws on my mind with the Finger of God. Perhaps he is soon going to take me home.” For the devil came also to make me believe I was going to die, but I said, “No.”
The Lord showed me the Vision is concerning the Soon Coming of Christ. The warning, the hands pointing over the people, then pointing them to me and to Heaven, was God drawing the people to me to get light on the speedy coming of our Lord, and to get ready to meet him. That it would be only a few years; that I would pass through several changes in my life and work; that would be for my good and the glory of God. This Vision was not of Christ, but of God that inhabits Eternity; the Father of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. The great Fatherhood and Love of God was revealed to me as never before, as a personal God. God is as much person as Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “I am the express image of my Father’s person.” God is a spirit form. He alone had Immortality; but through Christ’s obedience unto death on the Cross He brought Life and Immortality to light.
It was the Arm of God and the Finger OF God that touched my forehead. He showed me He would seal me with, and reveal unto me, the wisdom of God and the knowledge of his glorious plan of the ages; the winding up of this Harvest; of the calling and preparation of the Bride; of the Soon Coming of Christ, the Bridegroom; that the Gentile Door will soon be closed; of the great time of trouble that will follow the Rapture or Ascension of the Bride.
All that are left will go down in, or through this great day or time of trouble that the Angel Gabriel told Daniel of—such as never was, or ever shall be again. The whole world will be taken in a snare at the winding up of that awful time with the Great Battle of God Almighty with the armies of the earth, when He comes back with his saints to set up the glorious Millennial Kingdom, which will last one thousand years, when Christ and his Bride shall judge the nations.
In that Vision the Lord gave me a special call for this work, and to give the Household of Faith their Meat in due season; to give the Last Call to the Gentile sinners, the Last Call to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, for His wife is about ready to enter into the marriage relation, and the door will be closed never to be opened again; and to get those who have been called to be established, to be faithful and true, that they may be anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power, and sealed with the proper knowledge of His coming, and of their great work during the millennial reign of one thousand years, when the saints shall judge the world and angels, when all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
The Lord showed me He would enlighten and reveal these things to me by His Word; through the Spirit He would write them in my forehead, or mind and heart. He touched my mouth with his thumb and finger, showing me he would put words in my mouth, and give me wisdom to explain these things as fast as he gave them to me, that this was, and is his due time when we must know these things. He put his loving arms around me, showing his loving care and protection, that He gave me a new lease of life for this work, which was to be devoted to this preparation work of warning the people, and getting the Bride ready.
I have been very near death several times, but the memory of the wonderful vision has inspired me to new life. I have been wonderfully enlightened during all these years. I understand all these things better every day, as God is leading me to separate the Wheat from the Tares with his word and by His Spirit. Christ, the Great Reaper in white, clothed in power, is with me in this great Harvest Work. He gives me the light every day. The time is very short! The Lord is showing me many things on this line. I never loved the blessed loving Father so much as now. I never had an idea that his plans were so great and glorious. Oh! praise His Name forever.
The Lord revealed to me in this vision many vicissitudes and changes that I would pass through in the following four years of my life. These revelations have and are being fulfilled.
NOTES IN 1916
It has been fifteen years since the Lord gave me this vision. Read it carefully and see if you do not see the Hand of God, and know that God gave the vision. See how the Lord gave me courage to prophecy how He was going to use me to write another book and send it out quickly. In four months time we had out, ten thousand of the sixth volume of a new book called “The Acts of the Holy Ghost.”
This book has gone almost over the entire world, and different parts of it has been translated into several languages, and the Lord has blessed the book, far beyond all expectations, in enlightening and convicting and stirring up people of all classes to seek more of God. We get letters from all parts of the world asking for help for both soul and body. We get thousands of handkerchiefs, asking us to pray over them; and like God worked special miracles through the hands of Paul, in so much that they sent handkerchiefs and aprons and they went out from Paul’s body. Devils were cast out and they were healed; so He is working to-day the same way, and we receive letters from across the seas and also from the Atlantic to the Pacific shouting, “Glory to God! I am healed and filled with God!”
Many times they are healed while we are praying for them, and many times while they are reading the letter the power of God falls on them and they apply the handkerchief; they are healed immediately and very often they are converted, and some have received the. Baptism of the Holy Ghost and at the same time many of the worst diseases and the worst cripples are made to leap and praise God for perfect healing.
In the last two years and a half I have travelled over twenty-two thousand miles. This is the month of May, and I have received calls from twenty-seven States and one from Washington, D. C., and two calls from Canada, to hold conventions or camp meetings for one month or more, and many from small places in these states.
Please read carefully the different accounts of the meetings and see the wonderful work God hath wrought, and you will have to confess that God gave the vision and that the vision and the prophecy have come true. Then be very careful how you receive these great and marvellous works of God, for He hath taken one of the weakest of all to confound the mighty so that no flesh shall glory.
God is continually revealing to His children the Mysteries of the Kingdom, which are hidden from the “Wise and Prudent.” (Matt. 11:25) “God’s children have Supernatural Revelations and see Visions: otherwise the Bible could not be the Word of God, for it is (inter alia) the result and record of visions.”
Someone said that they thought that those who said they had had a vision just imagined it. If that is so, after the Crucifixion, Mary did not see Christ, but, only imagined it, and when she saw the two angels, she just imagined that also; and when Jesus appeared to her, why she just imagined that. If that is so, the apostles who testified that they saw Him, only imagined they saw Him, and after that, when Jesus was seen by the five hundred brethren, seen by all of them at the same time; why those five hundred men just imagined it, imagined all together, at precisely the same time (1 Cor. 15, 6). And everyone that saw Jesus after His Resurrection from the dead just imagined it. On what grounds then do you believe that Jesus rose from the dead if you reject supernatural testimony? Spiritual things are spiritually discerned.
After receiving the New Birth into the Spiritual Kingdom, God’s children know those things which are Mysteries, and for ever secret, and hidden from the eyes of the simply natural, unregenerate men, however wise, learned and intelligent they may be, and to whatever high degree of acumen and understanding they may have attained.
When Elisha’s servant at Dothan saw that the city was compassed round by a host, both with horses and chariots, he came to his master, and said, “Alas, my master, how shall we do?” Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes that he may see.” And behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire about Elisha. If Elisha’s servant could see, why not we?
Paul had a vision in the Temple; Peter on the housetop had a vision; John the Revelator had visions, and numerous others.
One of the elementary, and fundamental doctrines, of the Christian religion is “The Immutability of the Omnipotent God,” or in ordinary parlance, it is the fixed belief that God has not changed, and will not change, in his dealings with mankind, as long as this dispensation lasts; that He is All Powerful, and that He has not lost any of His power during the centuries that have elapsed since the days of the early church. That He is still faithful and true, to fulfill all that He has promised to do, on the conditions specified in His Word. That He has: not lost any of the love that He once had for mankind; and that under the same circumstances and conditions will do as much for us as He ever did for anyone else.
“We repeat that the doctrine and belief in “The Immutability of an Omnipotent God” is one of the Fundamental Doctrines of the Christian Religion, which has been adhered to all down the ages, by the Christian Church of all denominations; and that no one can deny that God reveals Himself in Visions to His servants, and remain an orthodox Christian.” See Sermon on Visions and Trances.
VISIONS OF ELDER H. C. MEARS
I saw the awful destruction of the world. It was thundering and lightning. It was raining and hailing. The water was all gushing in all directions. There were crowds of people, but it seemed as though there was not a saint on the earth. It was dark physically and spiritually. There were great armies of people, and multitudes of soldiers dressed in uniforms. There were also people running and rushing in the streets in every direction.
I also saw bolts falling from heaven which struck the houses, and they flew to pieces in every direction.
At another time there were a great many of us here all worshipping God. We were all in white, but some seemed whiter than others. Those that were white were translated and went up, and the others, that were not white enough, looked and longed to go up, but were not white enough to be caught away from the Great Tribulation, to meet the Lord in the air. I recognized a few of them.
There are some of you not white enough before God, while you are claiming to be His followers. I learned from this that some of you professing Christians would be left behind.
One night I saw the beast mentioned in the thirteenth chapter of Revelations. At another time. I saw Enoch and Elijah, the two witnesses. Their names were written on them. Oh, the power that they had. We were lifted up above the world. There were fires of Judgment flashing all over the world. Oh, the groaning and wailing that there was at that time!
A wonderful power raised up at last, and those prophets seemed to be killed. They dropped and lay, and then a cry was made. Later I saw them get up. Another time I saw an angel, as he passed along, sealing the servants of God. He said, “Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.”
Another time I was away from here in the Spirit, and was in the City of Jerusalem. I have seen pictures of that place, and I was there. There I saw the Saviour dying on the Cross, amidst a great crowd. Oh! The pain that was on His face! I shed tears looking at Him.
Again, I saw my Saviour, sitting upon a dazzling Throne; and saw the blazing, sparkling Crown upon the Head of Him who bled and died for me.
Many of the saints in the Dallas meeting had visions of Christ as a glorious King, coming in His Royal Majesty with all the Hosts of Heaven for His Bride, and of the changing and rapture of the Redeemed of the Lord. They saw them rise with shouts of gladness, mingled with the music of Heaven. And some had glorious visions of the Marriage Supper, and saw the table with the feast spread, and the brightness of the saints as they gathered around. Jesus was seen coming on a white horse with the banner, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, with all His saints riding on white horses, with the armies of Heaven coming back to earth again, to the great Battle of Armageddon, to the supper of the great Jehovah, where the Anti-Christ and his army will be destroyed and Christ will set up His Everlasting Kingdom, and the saints will reign as kings and priests for a thousand years.
The Lord is revealing things to come both on earth and in Heaven. In all our meetings, the fire of God is seen on heads like cloven tongues, and lights are seen over and around the platform by many, both saints and sinners. Jesus has been seen walking and standing in the midst.
All these terrible wars that have shaken the whole world in the last two years and almost covered the lovely lands of Europe with blood and slain, were prophesied in the Dallas meeting, less than a year beforehand and many other things that have come to pass.
The Lord greatly used Bro. Mears; he had visions of many large meetings that I would hold soon in this country from the Atlantic to the Pacific, in the large cities, on the mountains, and in the valleys, in the largest buildings and also in large tents. He saw the crowds standing round and perceived them coming to Christ by hundreds, and saw the slain of the Lord like a battleground; also, the sick were being healed by scores and hundreds.
Oh! I thought that could not be possible! Surely I could never travel and endure so much hardness and responsibility? but it has all been fulfilled. I have traveled over twenty-two thousand miles since I was in Dallas. And he also prophesied about the book called, “Acts of the Holy Ghost.” He said God would greatly bless it and that it would be sent quickly to all parts of the world. Ten thousand copies have been scattered over land and sea, and now, at the call of the people and the leading of the Lord, I am sending out a new book, which is the seventh volume, entitled, “Signs and Wonders that God Hath Wrought.”
Written at Dallas, Texas
It could be truly said, as Peter said on the day of Pentecost, this that you see, and hear, and feel, is the promise of the Father, the wonder working Holy Ghost.
With great “signs and wonders” the Lord has stretched forth His hand in working mighty miracles; healing all manner of diseases; casting out demons; laying the people out as dead; many of the meetings look like a battlefield; sinners struck down in their sins; and saints lying like Peter and Paul as dead; the saints have been given great visions and revelations and . prophecies from heaven. :
The Holy Ghost has been seen as cloven tongues, as rays of | light, and as a great cloud of glory over the pulpit and the altar, and the Lord has been seen by many walking through the tent and about the altar.
Thousands of people are stirred and are writing to us for help, both spiritual and physical. The Macedonian cry is, “Come, come and help us or send help.”
God has called the saints, the brethren in the ministry, and the evangelists and workers from all parts. They have all fallen in line, and rejoiced in the unity, and love, and power of God in our midst, and went away feeling convinced of the need of more power of the Living God in us, and through us, and in our midst. At the end of five months as we are about to close our work here, the interest which has been increasing from the first, is now deeper and the presence of God is more manifest than ever.
As we are expecting to leave soon, the people are improving the opportunity and rushing here from all parts.
There are twelve just arrived from Canada, one from England; and others are on their way.
The Lord showed a brother in a vision that the Bands of Angels that sung at the birth of Jesus was singing through the saints.
The Lord is manifesting His presence more and more to His children, and encouraging us in every way that we may be ready, and be weaned away from the world, and be ready for His soon coming.
I have every reason to praise the Lord that He has wonderfully sustained me during these five months; I have been laboring very hard, not only in the meetings, but outside of meetings.
I would say to the reader that the contents of my books are as a drop in the ocean compared to the many meetings and wonderful things that have never been mentioned and no account given of them.
I am sending books forth in the name of the Lord. The Lord showed me that I must make haste and get the books out, for He is going to send them all over the world. They will not only be used to help to gather the saints together and prepare for the Marriage, and the great work of the future, but it will be a great help to those who are left to go through the Tribulation.
I ask the prayers of all the saints that shall read these lines
that I may be kept continually in His will, and covered with His
mighty love and power; that God through me can finish the
work that He has called me to do that He may have all the glory.
MRS. WOODWORTH-ETTER.
December 12th, 1912.