'For the Kingdom of God is not in word, but in power,' (1 Corinthians 4.20).
This is the essence of the Bible - people doing the 'job'. The Bible is a practical Book, a book of action, an adventure story: Creation, Israel, the prophets, the stories, the Kings, the nation - the fights - the prophecies relating to Israel and Christ.
I believe in action. God has called us into the Kingdom, and if you are a born-again, baptised, Spirit-filled believer, God has done that for a reason. God doesn’t save you and call you so that you can sit at ease – we are saved to serve! Not just to have a wonderful life. In the 1960's, God gave me a strong challenge one morning after preaching to my church in Dewsbury: He said, shut up, stop telling others what to do… go out and do it yourself… live by faith, demonstrate it works, then come back and tell others how do it.
The Apostle James wrote, 'Show me your faith by your works.' What do you believe? Even the devil believes in God. We must demonstrate our faith in God by the way we live.
I grew up with George Jeffreys and was dedicated by him as a baby. I knew the miracles in his and in Smith Wigglesworth’s lives. But all my life, I have believed there is more Power available from God than anything yet seen on earth.
I grew up surrounded by what those who had received the Holy Spirit’s Power had achieved – the miracles – the thousands saved. Yet as I read the prophecies of Joel Chapter 2, I sensed there was an even greater Power available – which Joel calls the Latter Rain. But GREATER than the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the begin- ning of the 20th Century, which everyone assumed WAS the Latter Rain.
Aged 14, I had received the Baptism of Fire after a year of prayer and fasting – but in my heart I believed that there was MORE. No one, not even the first disciples had ever seen the real Power I saw in parts of the Old Testament. I wanted to see how much Power the God of the Bible really had, the God who created the whole universe from nothing and formed man from dust. That’s why, in 1961, I risked my life to get to Jerusalem for the Conference on the Day of Pentecost which was to be held for the first time in 2000 years in the Upper Room in Jerusalem. I was simply believing that I could receive what Joel referred to in Chapter 2.
When I first received the Holy Spirit, I had asked for the Gift of Faith – now I wanted to see how far God could/would reveal His Power – if I stepped out in faith. God has more miraculous Power available than any living person including Moses, Elijah, David and the Old Testament prophets has yet seen. Even the Apostles and first disciples in the New Testament have only tapped the surface.
It's like a sailor setting out into a vast ocean in a tiny boat – the vastness of God’s Power is unbelievable. God’s Power is ten thousand times more powerful than anyone can imagine. Why has no one ever realised that, with the Holy Spirit, God’s Power is an unexplored ocean? Like Christopher Columbus, I want to go where no one had ever gone before. I am a sailor, and I want the Holy Spirit to fill the sails of my tiny boat and take me into a spiritual world unknown and unexplored!
My adventure going to Jerusalem in 1961 was the start. Going where no man had gone before. The first in the world to make the unknown and dangerous overland crossing behind the Iron Curtain, through the communist countries and Arab nations on a war-footing with Israel, I received a medal from the Israeli Government when I arrived, and I was on TV when I got home!
Now, aged 93, I have not reached the limits of God’s Power HERE, ON EARTH! But the faith driving me is not in my head, it’s in my heart.
'Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward,' (Hebrews 10.35). Don't cast away your confidence, your hope and trust in God. Do the work of the evangelist, and you will see the reward, the promises of God fulfilled. The Bible says that 'the just will live by faith', don't draw back; faith is active, it is not a theory, it's how you live; I've done the impossible with God: my first overland trip to Israel in 1961, released from a communist prison, healed of cancer twice - I refuse to sit passively. Remember, the Kingdom of God is not demonstrated by your words, but by your actions!