Category: Daily Devotionals – Smith Wigglesworth

December 13

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. — 1 Corinthians 13:1

Scripture reading: 1 Corinthians 13

Did you ever read a verse like this? It is the state of being brought into a treasury. Do you know what a treasury is? A treasury holds or handles priceless things.

God puts you into the treasury to hold or handle the precious gifts of the Spirit. Therefore, so that you may not fail to handle them correctly, He gives you a picture of how you may handle them.

What a high position of authority, of grace, the Lord speaks about in this verse! “Speak with the tongues of men and of angels.” Oh, isn‘t that wonderful!

There are men who have such wonderful qualifications for speaking. Their knowledge in the natural realm is so outstanding that many people go to hear their eloquent addresses because the language in them is so beautiful. Yet, through the baptism in the Holy Spirit, God puts you right in the midst of them and says that He has given you the capability to speak like men, with power of thought and language at your disposal, so that you can say anything.

People are failing God all the time all over the world because they are taken up with their own eloquence, and God is not in it. They are lost with the pretentiousness of their great authority over language, and they use it on purpose to tickle the ears and the sensations of the people, and it profits nothing. It is nothing. It will wither up, and the people who use it will wither up.

Yet God has said there is a way. Now, how would language “of men and of angels” come to prosper?

When you wept through to victory before, you were able to do anything. You were so undone that unless God helped you to do it, you couldn‘t do it. You were so broken in spirit that your whole body seemed to be at an end unless God reinstated you. Then the unction came, and every word was glorifying Jesus. Every sentence lifted the people, and they felt as they listened, “Surely God is in this place! He has sent His Word and healed us.” (See Psalm 107:20.) They saw no man there except Jesus. Jesus was so manifested that they all said, “Oh, wasn‘t Jesus speaking to our hearts this morning!”

If you minister in this way, you will never become nothing. Tongues of men and angels alone will come to nothing. Yet if you speak with tongues of men and angels that are bathed in the love of God until it is to Him alone that you speak, then it will be written down forever in the history of the glory. So let the Lord help us to know how to act in the Holy Spirit.

Thought for today: When you are used only for and desire only the glory of God, your acts and life, ministry, and power will be recorded endlessly in the glory of heaven—for the Acts of the Apostles are being recorded in the glory.

December 12

Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. — Philippians 2:8

Scripture reading: Philippians 2:1–18

It is very important to minister in the gifts of the Spirit in the proper way. There is no anointing like the unction that comes out of death, when we are dead with Christ. It is this position that makes us live with Him. If we have been conformed to His death, then, in that same death, like Paul, we will be made like Him in His resurrection power (Philippians 3:10–11).

But do not forget that Jesus was coequal with the Father and that He made Himself of no reputation when he became man and came to earth (Philippians 2:6–7). He did not come out and say that He was this, that, or the other. No, that was not His position. Jesus had all the gifts. He could have stood up and said to Peter and John and James and the rest of them, when the dead son was being carried through the gate of the city of Nain (see Luke 7:11–15), “Stand to one side, Peter. Clear out of the way, John. Make room for Me, Thomas. Don‘t you know who I am? I am coequal with the Father. I have all power, I have all gifts, I have all graces. Stand to one side; I will show you how to raise the dead!”

Is that how He did it? No! Never. Then what made it come to pass? He was observant. The disciples were there, but they did not have the same observance. What did He see? He saw the widow and knew that she was carrying to burial that day all her help, all her life. Her love was bound up in that son. There she was, broken and bent over with sorrow, all her hopes blighted.

Jesus had compassion upon her, and the compassion of Jesus was greater than death. His compassion was so marvelous that it went beyond the powers of death and all the powers of demons. Isn‘t He a lovely Jesus? Isn‘t He a precious Savior?

Thought for today: Observance comes from an inward holy flame kindled by God.

December 11

Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD! — Psalm 150:6

Scripture reading: Psalm 150

If you ever get to the place where you cannot praise the Lord, it is a calamity in your life and it is a calamity to the people who are around you. If you want to take blessing into homes and make all the people around you know that you have something more than an ordinary life, you must know that God has come to supplant you and put within you a perfect praise.

God has a great place for us, so that His will may be done and we may be subject to His perfect will. When that comes to pass, no one can tell what may happen, for Jesus reached the highest place when He said, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me” (John 6:38). So there is something in a place of yielding where God can have us for His own.

God desires that we would lose ourselves in Him in a way we have never done before. I want to provoke you to love so that you will come into this place of blessing.

Beloved, believe today that God has a way for you. Perhaps you have never come that way before. God has a way beyond all your ways of thought. He has a plan for you.

There is a great need today. People are hungry for truth. People are thirsting, wanting to know God better. There are thousands “in the valley of decision” (Joel 3:14), wanting someone to take them right into the depths of God.

Are you ready to pray? You say, “What should I ask for?”

You may not know what to ask for, but if you begin, the Spirit knows the desire of your heart, and He will pray according to the mind of God. You do not know, but God knows everything, and He is acquainted with you altogether and desires to promote you.

So I say, “Are you ready?” You say, “What for?” Are you ready to come promptly into the presence of God so that you may ask this day as you have never asked before? Ask in faith, doubting nothing, but believing that God is on the throne waiting to anoint you afresh today.

Are you ready? What for? Are you ready to be brought into the banquet house of God, even as Esther came in before King Ahasuerus? God will put out the scepter, and all that your heart desires He will give to you. (See Esther 5–7.)

Father, in Jesus‘ name we come before You believing in Your almightiness, that the power of Your hand does move us, chasten us. Build us. Let the Word of God sink into our hearts this day. Make us, O God, worthy of the name we bear, that we may go about as real, holy saints of God. Just as if You were on the earth, fill us with Your anointing, Your power, and Your grace. Amen.

Thought for today: God wants you to be blessed so that you will be a blessing.

December 10

Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. — 1 Corinthians 10:12

Scripture reading: Philippians 3:3–21

There are people today who have lived holy lives, preached sanctification, and their language of tongues has been helpful, but something has come in the way. They have lost their zeal and fire, but they still hold onto the language. This can take place in anyone‘s life.

I would like you to know that the speaker is no good unless he judges himself every day. If I do not judge myself, I will be judged (1 Corinthians 11:31). It is no good to me if I look good to you. If there were one thing between me and God, I would not dare to speak to others unless I knew that God had made me holy, for they who bear the vessels of the Lord must be holy unto the Lord (Isaiah 52:11). And I praise God because I know:

His blood can make the vilest clean,
His blood can make the vilest clean,
His blood avails for me,
His blood avails for me.

You cannot assume that someone is still living in the center of God‘s holy will. Because I am only a man, it is possible that I may have grieved the Spirit. If I were to speak in a formal language without unction, that would not move the people. In this type of situation, someone in the place—and this is what tongues are for—someone in the place who is hungry for God and cannot rest because he is not getting the cream of the truth would begin travailing and groaning in the Spirit and speaking in tongues. Another person would travail in the same way, receiving the interpretation of these tongues, and would arise and give that interpretation, thus lifting the people where the prophet could not because he was out of the will of God.

Thought for today: It is not sufficient for me to have your good word; I must have the Master‘s good word.

December 9

Desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak with tongues. Let all things be done decently and in order. — 1 Corinthians 14:39–40

Scripture reading: I Thessalonians 5:11–24

In 1 Corinthians 14:30 we read, “If anything is revealed to another who sits by, let the first keep silent.” I hope that someday the church will so completely come into its beauty that if I am preaching and you have a revelation on that very thing, a deep revelation from God, and if you stand, I will stop preaching at that moment. Why? Because the Scripture says that if, when a prophet is speaking, anything is revealed to someone in the audience, let the first hold his peace and then let that other one speak.

Then the Scripture says, “For you can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all may be encouraged” (v. 31). This refers to the one who is preaching. He may be led to hold his peace while one in the midst of the congregation speaks his line of thought that is divinely appointed; then, after he finishes, another may have a prophecy, and he may get up, and so on, until you may have several who have prophesied and you have such revelations in this manner that the whole church is ablaze. I believe that God is going to help us so that we might be sound in mind, right in thought, holy in judgment, separated unto God, and one in the Spirit.

Allow me to say this, and then you judge it afterward. You are not in the right place if you do not judge what I say. You are not to swallow everything I say; you are to judge everything I say by the Scriptures. But you must always use righteous judgment. Righteous judgment is not judging through condemnation, but it is judging something according to the Word of God. In this way, the church may receive edification so that all the people may be built up according to the Word of God.

Perhaps not everyone will affirm what I have to say about this. However, I truly believe, because God has revealed it to me, that the words “Let there be two or at the most three, each in turn” (v. 27) mean that often the speaker will not have finished his message after giving the first insight. So often I have seen in an assembly of believers that the first person has spoken and the Spirit of the Lord has been mightily upon him, but the anointing is such that he did not finish his message with his first insight of truth, and he realizes that he is not through with that message. He speaks in the Spirit again, and we feel that the tide is higher. Then he speaks a third time, and the tide is higher still, and then he stops.

This has led me to believe that “each in turn” (1 Corinthians 14:27) means that one person may be permitted to speak in tongues three times in one meeting. In our conferences in England, we very often have nine utterances in tongues, but there will only be three people speaking. You can have nine, but it is not necessary unless the Lord is prompting it. Sometimes I find that the Spirit will take us through in prophecy in such a way that there will not be more than one, sometimes two people speaking. If I am correct, and I believe I am correct when I say this, when we are full of prophecy, the Spirit has taken our hearts and has moved them by His power. When this happens to me, I speak as fast as I can, but I am not expressing my own thoughts. The Holy Spirit is the thought, the language, and everything; the power of the Spirit is speaking. And when the power of the Holy Spirit is speaking like this, there is no need for tongues or interpretation because you are getting right from the throne the very language of the heart and the man. Then when the person‘s language gives out, the Spirit will speak and the Lord will give tongues and interpretation, and that will lift the whole place.

“At the most three.” Don‘t say four or five, but three at the most. The Holy Spirit says it.

Thought for today: Righteous judgment is not focused on criticism, but righteous judgment judges the truth of something.

December 8

Desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak with tongues. Let all things be done decently and in order. — 1 Corinthians 14:39–40

Scripture reading: 1 Corinthians 14:1–25

You are not to consider, under any circumstances, that, because you have a spiritual gift, it is right for you to use that gift, unless the unction of the Spirit is upon you. Unless you adhere to this word, every assembly where you are will be broken up, and you will cause trouble. Until you come to a right understanding of the Scriptures, you will never be pleasing to God.

You have to be very careful that you never use tongues and interpretation in confusion with prophecy. When prophecy is going forth and the truth is being heard and all the people are receiving it with joy and are being built up, then there is no room for tongues or interpretation. But just at the time when the language in my heart seems too big to express, then tongues come forth and God looses the whole thing, and we get a new purpose in that.

So you who have this wonderful gift of tongues must see to it that you never break in where the Spirit is having perfect right-of-way. But when the Spirit is working with you and you know there is a line of truth that the Lord desires to express, then let the name of God be glorified.

You see, God wants everything to be in perfect order by the Spirit. That is why Paul said, “If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be two or at the most three” (1 Corinthians 14:27). You will never find me speaking if three have spoken before me. And you will never find me interpreting any word in tongues if three have spoken already. This is in order to keep the bonds of peace in the body so
that the people will not be weary, because there are some people who have known nothing about what is right.

Unless you come to the Word of God, you will be in confusion and you will be in judgment. God does not want you to be in confusion or in judgment, but He wants you to be built up by the Scriptures, for the Scriptures are clear.

If the Lord reveals truth to me, and if I have said anything previously in relation to this that has not been absolutely scriptural, I will no longer say it. I allow God‘s Word to be my judge. If I find that anything I have said is not scriptural, I repent before God. As God is my Judge, I never say anything unless I believe it is the sincere truth. But if I find out later that it is not exactly in the most perfect keeping with the Word of God, I never say it again.

Thought for today: May the Lord help us to be true to God first; then, if we are true to God, we will be true to ourselves.

December 7

Therefore tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but to unbelievers. — 1 Corinthians 14:22

Scripture reading: 1 Corinthians 14:26–40

Why has God brought this gift of tongues into operation? There is a reason. If there were not a reason, it would not be there. Why did God design it? You must see with me that the gift of tongues was never in evidence before the Holy Spirit came. The old dispensation was very wonderful in prophetic utterances. Every person, whoever he is, who receives the Holy Spirit will have prophetic utterances in the Spirit unto God or in a human language supernaturally coming forth, so that all the people will know that it is the Spirit.

This is the reason we want all the people filled with the Holy Spirit: they are to be prophetic. When a prophecy is given, it means that God has a thought, a word in season, that has never been in season before—things both new and old. The Holy Spirit brings things to pass!

So when God fulfilled the promise, when the time was appointed, the Holy Spirit came and filled the apostles. The gift that had never been in operation before came into operation that wonderful day in the Upper Room, and for the first time in all of history, men were speaking in a new order; it was not an old language, but language that was to be interpreted.

This is profound because we recognize that God is speaking. No man understands it. The Spirit is speaking, and the Spirit opens the revelation that they will have, without adulteration.

Tongues are a wonderful display of this; they are to revive the people; they are to give new depths of thought.

If you ever want to know why the Holy Spirit was greatly needed, you will find it in the third chapter of Ephesians. You will be amazed. The language is wonderful. Paul said that he was “the least of all the saints” (Ephesians 3:8), yet God had called him to be a “minister” (v. 7). His language is wonderful, yet he felt in his heart and life that there was something greater, that the Spirit had him, and he bowed his knees unto the Father (v. 14).

You cannot find in all the Scriptures words with such profound fruit as those that ring through the verses of Paul‘s remarkable prayer in the Holy Spirit. He prayed “that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19), and “that you…may be able to comprehend with all the saints” (vv. 17–18). He prayed that you may be able to ask and think, and think and ask, and that it will not only be abundantly but that it will also be “exceeding abundantly above all that” you can “ask or think” (v. 20). There is a man closing down and the Holy Spirit praying.

Thought for today: The Holy Spirit did not come to exalt you; He came so that you could exalt the Lord.

December 6

For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. — Romans 12:3

Scripture reading: Mark 13:21–37

As soon as I got to York, people came around me and said, “Oh, we‘ve got him! We‘ve got him! The only thing that is needed now is that we want him to receive the Holy Spirit, and as soon as he receives, we will know we have got him.” They were talking about a certain young man in whom they saw unusual potential to be a great spiritual leader. When that young man spoke in tongues, they almost went wild. They shouted, they wept, they prayed. Oh, they were so excited!

The leaders said they were overjoyed at the fact of this man‘s baptism. I said, “Be still; the Lord will do His own work.”

In a short time, he was through in the Spirit, and everybody was rejoicing and applauding. They fell into great error there. God has never yet allowed any human being to be applauded for doing the Lord‘s work.

This young man was in the power of the Holy Spirit, and it was lovely. But they came around him, shaking his hand and saying, “Now we have the greatest teacher there is.”

Was this wrong? It was perfectly right, yet it was the worst thing they could have done; they should have been thankful in their hearts. I want to tell you that the Devil never knows your thoughts, and if you won‘t let your thoughts out in public, you will be safe. He can suggest a thought; he can suggest thoughts of evil. But that is not sin; all these things are from outside of you. The Devil can suggest evil things for you to receive, but if you are pure, it is like water off a duck‘s back.

One woman came up and said, “I wouldn‘t be surprised if you were another John the Baptist.”

Again, before we left, this woman came up and said, “Will you believe? It is a prophecy I have received that you have to be John the Baptist.”

Thank God, he put it off. But how satanic, how devilish, how unrighteous, and how untrue her words were!

That night, as he was walking home along a country road, another voice came, louder than the woman‘s, right in the open air: “You are John the Baptist!”

Again the young man was able to guard it off. In the middle of the night, he was awakened out of his sleep, and this voice came again: “Rise, get up. You are John the Baptist. Declare it!”

And the poor man this time was not able to deal with it. He did not know what I am now telling you. I tell you with a sorrowful heart that for hours that morning he was walking around York, shouting, “I am John the Baptist!” Nothing could be done. He had to be detained.

Who did it? Why, the people, of course. You have no right to come around me or anybody else and say, “You are wonderful!” That is satanic. I tell you, we have plenty of the Devil to deal with without your causing a thousand demons to come and help. We need common sense.

How could that young man have been delivered? He could have said, “Did Jesus come in the flesh?” The demon power would have said no, and then the Comforter would have come.

Lord, bring us to a place of humility and brokenheartedness where we will see the danger of satanic powers.

Don‘t think that the Devil is a big ugly monster; he comes as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). He comes at a time when you have done well, and he tells you about it. He comes to make you feel you are somebody. The Devil is an exalted demon. Oh, look at the Master.

Thought for today: May God give us the mindset of the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3–12) where we will be broken and humble and in the dust; then God will raise us and place us in a high place.

December 5

For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. — Romans 12:3

Scripture reading: Mark 13:5–20

Lots of people are brought down by the same thing that ruined the life of a young Christian I want to tell you about. For many years after I was baptized, the Lord graciously helped me. I laid hands upon people, and they received the Holy Spirit. I thank God that that power has not stopped. I believe in asking God, in lifting up holy hands and saying, “Father, grant that whoever I place my hands upon will receive the Holy Spirit.”

People have called me from various places to come and help them when they have had people they wanted to receive the Holy Spirit. Once a group from York, England, sent word saying that they had fourteen people whom they wanted to have baptized in the Holy Spirit, and would I come? They had all been saved since the last time I was there.

So I went. I have never in all my life met a group of people who were so intoxicated with the Spirit. The power of God was upon them. Right in the midst of them was a young man who had developed such a gift of teaching and leading the people forward with God through the power of the Spirit that they said they did not believe there was another man like him in all of England.

I rejoiced with them over this young man. When Jesus began His ministry, He laid hands upon eleven who turned out to be the most marvelous men, yet they were all younger then He. When Paul was brought into the knowledge of the truth, he was a young man. Jesus began the great ministry of worldwide revival with young life. World War I showed us that no man over forty years of age was good enough for that war. They had to have young blood that could stand the stress of frost, heat, and all kinds of things.

Thought for today: God wants young people filled with the power of God to go into the harvest field, because they can stand the stress.

December 4

You are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the wicked one. — 1 John 2:14

Scripture reading: 1 John 2:14–29

There are evil thoughts, and there are thoughts of evil. Evil thoughts are suggestive of the Evil One. We must be able to understand what evil is and how to deal with it. The Word of God makes us strong. All evil powers are weak. “Young men, you are strong because you know the Word.” (See 1 John 2:14.)

Where do thoughts of evil come from? They come from the unclean believer, the man who is not entirely sanctified. Remember that the Devil does not know your thoughts; that is where the Devil is held. But God knows your thoughts; God knows all things. Satan can only suggest evil thoughts to try to arouse your carnal nature.

Yet if you are disturbed by evil thoughts, if you are troubled or depressed, then you are in a wonderful place. If you never tell anybody about your evil thoughts, and you are not disturbed about them, the carnal powers have never been destroyed in you. But if you tell anybody, then it is proof that you are clean; it is because you are clean that you weep. If you are not disturbed, if you have no conviction, it is because of your uncleansed heart; you have let sin come in.

How can the believer believe so that he will not be tormented? How can we be master of the situation? We must know this Scripture: “Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God” (1 John 4:2). Did Jesus come in the flesh? Mary produced a Son in the likeness of God. In a similar way, the eternal seed that came into us when we believed produces a life, a person, which is “Christ in [us]” (Col. 1:27) and which rises up in us until the reflection of the Son of God is in everything we do. Mary produced a Son for redemption. God‘s seed in us produces a son of perfect redemption, until we live in Him and move by Him, and our whole nature becomes a perfect Son of God in us (Acts 17:28). In the name of Jesus, cast self out, and you will be instantly free.

Thought for today: There is nothing strong in the Devil; the weakest believer dethrones the Enemy when he mentions Jesus.