Life and Work of Mrs M.B. Woodworth-Etter
Pages 489-493, Chapter LXI: 'Try the Spirits'
Sermon Preached to Ministers and Workers at Montwait, Mass.

Sometimes we know it is not God, but we want to have our own way. If we have the Holy Ghost we can prove the spirits, because everything the Holy Ghost does is confirmed by the Word. We do not want to trust to tongues and interpretations. You must measure things by the word. We must measure tongues and demonstrations by the Word, and if they do not agree with the Word, we must not accept them; everything must be measured by the Word.

We do know God and the voice of God, but the devil can come as an angel of light. When you are in the Holy Ghost, that is the time the devil tries to get in and lead you astray. The Holy Ghost is revealing some secret things; at the same time the devil comes in, and if you are not careful, you will listen to what he has to say and follow him.

Once I was having a wonderful vision, and right in the midst of it, the devil said to me, "You are going to die." I was very poorly and was worked nearly to death and I listened to the devil for a minute; then I stopped to hear what God wanted to teach me.

I said, "What is this God is showing me? Does this agree with what God is showing?" I saw there was a big difference. God touched my forehead, the seat of intellect and reason: my mouth, signifying courage and power to give forth the message, and I could not die if I was to do this; if I was to give the peopIe His message, I was not going to die.

There was someone in the meeting here God was blessing. He wanted to use her, but the devil came in and made her think she could do any outrageous thing and it would be of God.

See how the devil can lead us off. She was talking in tongues and praying, and she said, "Lord, if you want me to kill anyone, I will do it; if you want me to set the camp on fire, I will do it."

That is the way in spiritualism; the Holy Ghost never does anything like that; He does not come to kill and knock people's heads off; He deals with them in love and tenderness. People have even offered up children in sacrifice. If you listen to God, the devil will he put to one side.

These things hurt the Pentecostal movement; God is in it, but the devil is in it, too. Many people are honest, but they do not understand. God shows great things that are going to happen and the devil comes in and makes them set a date.

Daniel did not understand the vision he had, for some time; an angel appeared to him to make him understand the vision. Be careful the devil does not come in, and give you another meaning all together different from what God wants you to have.

So many prophesy this or that, and it never comes true; the prophecy was not according to the word of God. Some one gives a person a message and he believes God sent it, when it is not according to the Word.

When God calls you out for His work, He will take care of you, give you something to eat and clothe you; there are so many who run before they are sent; better not go at all. Sometimes the devil uses tongues to upset things generally; the devil can speak in tongues, and your flesh can.

When God speaks in tongues, it means something, and you want to look for interpretation. God says ask for interpretation. Sometimes God gives it through someone else, but give the person who speaks in tongues a chance to interpret. Be careful you do not give an interpretation in your own spirit; this hurts the work everywhere. Let us try the spirits and not get in the flesh.

Some people if they do not like anyone, will give a message in tongues, or a rebuke and nearly knock the person's head off. This is the work of the devil. Then someone will get up - some people are so silly - and say, "Don't lay hands on that; it is the Holy Ghost"; and no one dares to touch it, and the devil has the whole thing.

It goes out that the leader sanctions all that, and people do not want to have anything to do with it. The leader may have discernment but some one will pull his coat-tail and say, "Don't lay hands on that." Instead of being so afraid, let us search the scriptures. God never told anyone to rebuke in an ugly tone.

There was a great work being done in the West. One woman, especially, said the United States was going to be destroyed, and they should go to Japan. They went. People who could not spare the money helped them; they went to escape the wreck.

The whole thing was of the devil. The United States were not destroyed; they could not speak the Japanese language; they were stranded and a number backslid; they tried to raise money for a great building, but never accomplished it. They had been doing a good work here, but other spirits got in.

God gave me a special commission to take the precious from the vile; and I do not want you to get into the snare of the devil. So many young people, after their baptism, give up work and go to preaching. In a few days they tell all they know, then tell something they don't know; bread and butter does not come in, and many of them backslide.

Don't take up with every vision that comes along. In the Pentecostal movement in some places, they have discarded the Word of God. They 'don't want a leader', and God always had a leader; when there is none, the devil takes the chair. God hath set some pastors and teachers. (Eph. iv.)

How does any one know when God calls them to the ministry? Some one has said that when God calls anyone to do His work, you can hardly get him into the pulpit; but when the devil calls him, you can't keep him out of it.

Hold up Jesus and try to get the people so full of the Holy Ghost that they will live in unity **We do not want to lay hands on anyone suddenly** If we do anything in a spirit of contention the first thing we know everything is in a jumble and we have done more harm in one meeting than can be imagined Hold up Jesus and the Resurrection Let us walk in the light as He is in the light Christ is the great Headlight and I am on the stretch for more light than I ever saw in my life, you have fellowship when you walk in the light. We are the lower lights and He will show us what to do next.

Be careful not to lay hands suddenly on anyone. Regarding the recent disturbance here,[presumably some kind of opposition from a group of "boys"] we profess to be saints and we want to show forth the Spirit of Christ. We must be firm, but kind. Do not speak roughly. The crowd want to see. I would have nearly broken my neck when I was young to see what you are seeing.

When they became noisy, it would have been useless to attempt to use force; it would only have ended in a fight, and the plan of the enemy would have been accomplished. God led me in the only way by which the **disturbance could be quelled, and order restored**; God fought for us. Do not speak roughly to the boys; each one is some mother's boy God can smite with conviction; the battle is His, not ours.

"Try the spirits." In one of our meetings there was a colored woman who had wonderful experience spiritually; that is the kind the devil gets after. One day she commenced to go about on her knees, twisting about like a serpent. GOD does not tell anyone to do that. She spoke in tongues; then she said, "I don't want to do it ; I don't want to do it."

Every one knew it was not of God; and I said to her, "that is not God; the enemy has got hold of you." At first, she didn't want to give up, but the next day God showed her and she asked to be delivered. The devil had got in and made her do things that were not right, to kill her influence.

A woman came to me and said. "I am afraid this spirit on me is not of God; I was baptized in the Holy Ghost; I went into a mission where they did everything by tongues and they got me so mixed up, I did not know where I was; then, this spirit got hold of me; it shakes my head and makes my head ache."

THAT IS SPIRITUALISM. Some people, when they pray for anyone and lay on hands, throw the slime off. That is spiritualism. Don't ever do anything like that. When you lay hands on a person, God takes care of the evil spirit. If you are filled with the Holy Ghost, the devil is outside you; keep him out. BE CAREFUL WHO LAYS HANDS ON YOU, FOR THE DEVIL IS COUNTERFEITING GOD'S WORK. For two years, that woman could not give a testimony. God rebuked the shaking spirit, the power of God came in her hands and in her voice, and she gave a testimony for God.

That is what ails the Pentecostal movement; so much of this has crept in. Some people take every foolish thing for the Holy Ghost. There are two extremes; one keeps the Holy Ghost from working, except in a certain channel: and the other thinks everything is of the Holy Ghost; "don't lay hands on it." One is as bad as the other. Let everything be done by the word of God.

We are living in the last days and there has got to be a higher standard for the Pentecostal movement. Christ is coming, and we cannot move along in the old rut. God is sifting us today and we have got to rise above errors; we have to rise tip and go forward. By the grace of God we will. Praise His Name!

Eph 5:15-18, “Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not befoolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit…”

One of the trademarks of Pentecostals is that we acknowledge the work ofthe Spirit in the lives of believers, and seek to be sensitive to His direction whether it is in the order of service or the order of our lives. The history of Pentecost is full of men and women who were full of the Holy Spirit.

We hear the stories of people like Alfred Howard Carter who would write and publish detailed prophesies given to him by the Lord to see every letter of it come to pass. We hear of great testimonies of miracles from the healing ministries of A.G. Ward, Smith Wigglesworth, and Maria Woodworth-Etter. We comment out of respect that these men and women were people of the Spirit, full of the Holy Ghost. But what does being “full of the Holy Spirit” mean, and how can we become “full of the Holy Spirit”?

When we think of ministries that were filled with signs and wonders, and healings and miracles, and how these ministers were “full of the Spirit” that the ministers were not in control of their lives, that the Spirit sovereignly filled them to overflowing. But without getting too theological, you are no less filled with the Spirit than any one of them.

The question is not the Spirit limiting how much of Him you have-- it is you.

You

Just as being drunk affects your life in every area, so does being full of the Spirit. Your outlook on life, your desires, your attitude, everything about you will reflect the presence of the Spirit in your life, and the work of the Spirit is to point

to Jesus. Christ put His Spirit within us to free us from slavery to sin and to free us to an intimate relationship with God.

We cannot please God without His Spirit working in our lives. The Spirit convicts us of sin, that which disconnects us from God, and shows us how to please Him. The Spirit tenderly calls us to draw closer to Him, to lovingly serve and honor Him in everything that we do. He empowers us to be holy, to live holy.

God repeatedly told Moses and the people of Israel to “be holy for I the Lord your God am holy”. Someone once said that “where the Lord guides, He provides”, and “God’s voice won’t call you to a place that His grace cannot keep you”. In essence, God will give you the ability to do what He tells you to do.

Ideally, though not always the case, just as a mother and father are to be examples to their children of what is right and wrong, to show them what is acceptable behavior and what is not, so God calls His children to be like Him--holy. That is why the Spirit of God is known as the Holy Spirit. God is holy, pure, unstained, and right in everything that He does and says.

He does not lie, cheat, steal, murmur, or complain. He does not have hidden agendas for His own personal gain, or ulterior motives covered by a deceitful guise. He is not a man that He should lie, He will not steal, because everything belongs to Him anyway, He will not complain because He is longsuffering and

patient. God is love, God is truth, God is light and in Him is no shadow of turning.

He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. God’s ways are not our ways, however. He knows that we are weak, and made from dust, but as long as we determine to steady ourselves when we trip, and pick ourselves up when we fall, He will help us along the path of righteousness. He gives us His Spirit to help us grow in His likeness, to form us into the image of Jesus.

The fruit of the Spirit, the evidence that you are filled with the Spirit, is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” Galatians 5:22-23 tells us. The degree to which you are filled with the Spirit, is the degree to which your life is yielded to Him, the extent to which you are full of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Along with forming the image of Christ on the inside of us, the Spirit empowers us to demonstrate the work of Christ. The Spirit’s work is both inward and outward. If it were just about changing our hearts, then the world would file Christianity with the other good deed creeds of the world.

The Spirit is evidenced by how much we look like Jesus, and how much we act like Jesus. Jesus said in John 14:12, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; 

because I go to the Father.” We know the works of Jesus: "You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him” Acts 10:38 says.

Jesus also promised in Mark 16:17-18 that "these signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speakwith new tongues; they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover." The Early Church experienced many miracles, we see the many times that Paul raised people from the dead, cast out demons, was visited by angels, brought down the jailhouse with his singing, and how his life was supernaturally spared though multitudes wanted him dead. Signs and wonders did not stop with the Book of Acts, but continued down the centuries until our present time.

How much of your life are you yielding to the Spirit? How full of Him are you? Are you allowing Him to permeate your attitudes, emotions, what you say, and how you act? Are you allowing Him to heal the sick through you, to work miracles for His glory? You may desire all these things, but aren’t sure how to be continually full of the Spirit. I believe that there are three key ingredients to be full of the Holy Spirit.

The Word of God acts like a mirror to point out to us our weaknesses and our fault. It makes us come face to face with the reality that we are not as good as we would like to pretend. It shows us the ugliness of our sin, and as we yield to the Spirit, we repent; we stop and ask forgiveness, and turn around, and start walking in the opposite direction. He gives us what is necessary to be holy, to act, think, feel, say, and do what pleases Him.

The Word will show us what pleases the Lord and the Spirit will help us to do them. We read His Word in 2 Cor. 9:7 that God loves a cheerful giver, and as we give way to the Spirit, He enables us to give. God tells us in Luke 6:28 that we should forgive those who mistreat us, and to bless and pray for those who stomp on us for their own benefit. The Spirit helps us to forgive, helps us to pray blessings.

Jesus calls us to be servants in Mark 10:35 just as He came to the earth to serve and to give, so, as we allow Him, His Spirit forms within us a servant’s heart. 

These examples in Scripture are hard for us to follow, but as we allow the Spirit to fill us, as we give ourselves to Him to do what He desires, He works within us the ability and the desire to do them.

This applies to healing and miracles. Romans 10:17 tells us that faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Faith reaches out and takes hold of what the Word says as true and acts on it. Faith is not faith, until something is done about it. Jesus told many people that it was their faith that made them well. James tells us that the prayer of faith heals the sick. We see that the sick person must have faith, and that the pray-er also must have faith. You will not be a person of miracles if you are not a person of faith, and you will never be a person of faith unless you are full of the Word.

You must immerse yourself with the Word of God. Read the accounts of Jesus’ miracles over and over until you have the desire to pray for the sick. Reading the testimonies from healing ministries will encourage your faith as well. Hearing that someone else was healed yesterday, will help you have faith for what you are believing God for today (whether you’re the sick one, or the one praying for the sick). If you study the lives of the men and women who had great healing ministries you will discover that they were people of the Word. A life full of the Word of God is a life full of the Spirit.

We must not think that prayer is word mumbled over dinner in a public restaurant, or something the pastor does on Sunday mornings, and it must not be something we do as last resort in any situation. We must live a lifestyle of prayer. We must spend time with Him daily in devotions, but we must also keep that same prayerful attitude the rest of the day.

Praying, a time of devotion, is nothing more than spending time with the Lord. You will notice that you will become like whatever you surround yourself with. When you spend time with the Lord, it is in that loving atmosphere that  the Spirit will transform you from glory to glory, from less like Jesus to more and more like Jesus. It is in that place of prayer that the voice of Jesus becomes more and more clear. You start to become conformed more to His image. Your heart begins to grieve over what His heart grieves over, it begins to be pleased in the things that pleases His heart.

Men and women of prayer have always been people of the supernatural. Through prayer, you open yourself up to the Spirit of Christ, who then strengthens your faith. The more you spend personal time with Jesus, the more you begin to see Him as He is.

The more prayer you have in your life, the more power you will have because you bring the Spirit with you into every situation. Faith may move the mountains of sickness, brokenness, and death, but faith cannot be released until we pray. Healing, deliverance, provision in times of need, and other supernatural occurrences cannot be brought about except that we are people of prayer. “We have not, because we ask not”.

We allow the Spirit to fill us to the degree that our lives are filled with the Word, prayer, and with fasting. Fasting goes along with prayer. Jesus told His

disciples that they did not have the deliverance ministry they had been called to because they did not live a lifestyle of fasting.

We have to understand that fasting is a discipline of self-denial. Fasting is not easy, but is necessary. Why? Because goes against a very strong natural desire of the flesh. When you fast you are saying “No” to your flesh, and “Yes” to the Spirit. You fast with the desire of decreasing that Jesus may increase. As you  fast your flesh will come to the surface and you may be surprised by your  emotions, thoughts, and actions, but don’t worry. The Lord uses this time to show you what you are really like, what is really deep down inside, and it may surprise you. By seeing who you are, you repent of the ugliness out of the desire to be more like Jesus.

Scripture says that if you sow to the flesh you will reap corruption, but that if you will sow to the Spirit you will reap everlasting life. Denying the flesh, fasting sows to the Spirit, and allows Him to have more of your life. Sowing to the pleasures of the flesh allows the Enemy to get a hold on your life. Fasting will loosen his grip.

Not only will it destroy the work of the Enemy in your life, but it will also destroy the work of the Enemy in the lives of those you pray for. Pastor Charles Bennett once said, “I’ve never seen a minister who was mightily used in the Gifts of the Spirit who did not fast and pray.” Jesus lived a life of prayer and fasting, the Apostles lived a life 

of prayer and fasting, and everyone who has ever been mightily used of God have lived a life of prayer and fasting. As we empty ourselves of ourselves, He will fill us with the presence and power of His Spirit.

There are no shortcuts. It goes beyond reading a book, listening to a Cd series, and getting hands laid on us. Living full of the Spirit requires day to day consecration and dedication in following Christ. So, if we commit ourselves daily to Christ and His Word, and we combine prayer and fasting into a lifestyle, the Spirit of Christ will find an empty vessel with whom He can fill full!

However, John Crowder has been decieved into believing that what he is experiencing (Toronto Blessing/Brownsville-Pensacola/Rodney Howard Browne/The River/Todd Bentley/third wave manifestations) are good and godly. Hence why he is crying for 'More, Lord'!   He really does  think they come from God and are a blessing and are beneficial and worthy of attention.  Not only is he experiencing odd and unscriptural things (that are in fact actually mocking and distracting and hindering him), but he teaches and prophesies odd and unscriptural things too and is experiencing 'another Jesus'. But unlike some false prophets and false teachers, I do not think he intentionally makes it up, and I do not think he misleads intentionally, and he thinks it is the real Jesus he is experiencing. But nobody said that some deceived people and false prophets cannot be very sincere. John Crowder is much like I think John Lacy may have been - a sincere and passionate man after God who was passionately led off course http://endtimespropheticwords.wordpress.com/2008/05/03/a-hungry-man-running-after-god-on-amazing-spiritual-experiences/

John Crowder has a ministry called 'The New Mystics'. Although I recognise 'seer' and 'mystic' is the latest buzzword in charismatic circles, and it probably makes them sound different and cool (to some), I still wonder why any genuine Christian prophetic ministry would want to call themselves 'the new mystics' when the biblical word 'prophet' has always been more than adequate - if that is indeed what they are. And what's with the 'new' when it should  be the same 'old time' gospel message proclaimed as 2000 years ago? But he is right to call himself 'new' as it is  a new message - one that contradicts and replaces the gospel with another Jesus, a new Jesus, an interfaith Jesus who points to Rome. Mysticism has always been linked with Roman Catholicism, and even before I knew that is what he called himself, I noted the Catholic almost mocking mannerisms (that I am sure he was not aware he was doing and were quite subconscious) - and by Catholic manifestations, I mean the crossing himself and the 'papal' blessing with his fingers, which is quite obvious when you watch it on the video. (The bilocation he mentions is also Catholic mysticism straight out of Padre Pio's textbook)

Then as well as discovering his ministry name, I discovered that as well as being associated with the usual false prophets, apostles, heretics and apostates (Todd Bentley, Joshua Mills and John Sandford) John Crowder is also associated with the new breed of stigmatics such as Lucy Rael. Todd Bentley and Matt Sorger (a Bentley associate), among others endorse his book 'The New Mystics' ,  which on the cover advocates the lives and teachings of a diverse bunch - William Branham, William Seymour, Aimee Semple McPherson, George Whitefield, Sundar Singh, Brother Lawrence, Teresa of Avila, Madame Guyon, Charles Finney, Smith Wigglesworth, Maria Woodworth-Etter, St John of the Cross and Jonathan Edwards - indicating a complete lack of discernment as many heretics are included in this list - a high percentage of Catholics of course. 

I have often said where I think this antichrist anointing with its antichrist apostles and antichrist prophets is pointing -  to Rome. Perhaps this video gives us one more little sign of it.

It makes me deeply sad, as I see a very passionate but deceived man. It reminds me that the ones who will do Satan's work in the 'new move' are not all unrepentant brazen charlatans,  liars, merchandisers, and thieves. They will not all be aware of the identity of the true god they serve. They will think of themselves passionately in love with God, when in fact they sleep with a harlot and commit spiritual adultery and serve and follow demons masquerading as angels of light. Like millions of others before them, in other counterfeit moves, they will think   they do God's work.  What can I say to any man, but test the spirits so you are not one of them.

Testimonies of Signs and Wonders: Evangelistic Crusades of Maria Beulah Woodworth-Etter in Moline, Rock Island, Illinois and Davenport, Iowa in the Years 1902-1903-1907, or Redigging the Wells of Holy Spirit Renewal: Our Forgotten Heritage in the Quad Cities, compiled by Kenneth Richard Kline-Walczak. Revised version. Davenport, IA: The Author, 2006.

Maria Woodworth-Etter, among the most prominent of the healing evangelists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, became one of the best known Holiness preachers to embrace Pentecostalism. Her popularity was due in large part to her practice of faith healing and other charismatic gifts, which began occuring in her meetings in about 1885. Her ministry attracted large crowds, fierce detractors and fervent supporters, as well as widespread coverage in newspapers from coast to coast. Newspaper editors, who often deemed the excitement and large crowds sparked by the woman evangelist to be worthy of critique, helped to spread her fame. The standard biography of Woodworth-Etter, Maria Woodworth-Etter, For Such a Time as This (Bridge-Logos, 2005), was authored by former Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center Director Wayne E. Warner.

Now Kenneth Kline-Walczak has cataloged Woodworth-Etter's influence in one corner of the world -- the Quad Cities on the Iowa-Illinois border. His book consists largely of an impressive collection of articles (1884-1907) about Woodworth-Etter from regional newspapers, assembled in chronological order and reprinted for the purpose of introducing the region's readers to its Pentecostal past. The compiler also includes a helpful guide to the people and places mentioned in the articles. Kline-Walczak's detailed research will aid not only historians, but also people in the Quad Cities as they seek to recover the sacred stories of God's work among them in previous generations.

Reviewed by Darrin Rodgers

Paperback, xxvi, 194 pages, illustrated. $20, plus $4.00 shipping. Order from: Ken Kline, P.O. Box 162, Hillsdale, IL 61257 (email: woodworth65@yahoo.com ; phone: 563-210-3282).

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