RECKLESS    FAITH!!!!!    

Matthew  8:10 - "When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel."     

     Reckless faith is the only fitting words to describe two great men of God, Smith Wigglesworth and Jack Coe. Both Smith and Jack left behind such a legacy that's still talked about today. Smith is called the modern Apostle of Faith because it's his teachings that still inspire ministers today to seek out the subject of divine healing from the Bible. Jack was often described as "reckless and wild" when it came to his beliefs and preaching. Yet, as unconventional as their methods were, their message was widely received and people would come hundreds of miles out of their way to be about of their meetings.    

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(The following passage on the Wigglesworth's has been researched and written by Minister Korrie McKinney.)

Smith and Polly Wigglesworth

      Bro. Smith Wigglesworth was born in June of 1859, by the age of seven he was working hard next to his father to help make ends meet for the Wigglesworth household. His grandmother took him to church and when he was 8, he accepted Jesus and set out to save souls and the first person that came to Christ through his ministry was his very own mother. When Smith was 16 years old he joined the Salvation Army, which was a new organization at the time, he was excited about the ministry that they had and loved to see new people give their lives to God. He began seeing souls saved by the hundreds! When he would preach he would just weep under the anointing of God. His humbleness lead many souls to Christ. When he was 18, he left factory work to become a plumber in Bradford, where he met Mary Jane Featherstone also known as Polly.

     Polly came from a Methodist family. Her father worked as a temperance lecturer. He was a man of great conviction. He was to inherit a large amount of money, but refused to accept it because it was made through liquor selling. Polly, like her father, was not afraid to speak of the convictions in her life. At 17, Polly ran away from her hometown to make a new start in Bradford. She was a curious girl and one night she was drawn by the sounds and the people of the Salvation Army. She followed them to a run down theater where they were having a service. That night, she met evangelist Gipsy Tillie Smith, and gave her heart to God. When she knew that all her sins had been washed away she stood up and shouted, “Halleluiah, it is done!” In the audience that night sat Smith and as he watched her give her heart to God, he knew that God had sent her to him.

     Polly was on fire for God! She became an officer for the Salvation Army, without the training that was normally required. Smith and Polly consumed themselves in the ministry and developed a close friendship. Polly then went to Scotland with another officer to start a new work in Leith. She was not the type of woman that could be moved or shaken. One day while walking, she received a black eye by an orange that was “donated” to the army. She also befriended a convert who lived on the sixth floor of a tenement house, with her not so accepting husband. When he found them praying together he told Polly to stop praying and she did not, so he picked her up and started walking down the five flights of stairs and as he marched she prayed, “Lord, save this man. Save his soul, Lord.” By the time he reached the last step he was crying out for mercy and came to Christ. She had a way with people. She would sing and testify as she walked down the streets and people would stop to listen, they would open their windows and doors to hear what this woman of God had to sing or say.

     When Polly returned to Bradford she and Smith were married. They were a great team and were always quick to correct each other. They would give each other advice and tips on how to handle each situation that came up. Polly especially always let her husband know what she was thinking and he always took it with a smile. She also taught him how to read and write. Smith said this about his wife, “She was a great soul-winner. I encouraged her to continue her ministry of evangelizing, and I continued my business as a plumber. I had a burden for the parts of Bradford that had no church, and we opened up a work in a small building that I rented. As the children came we always prayed through for them before they were born, that they would belong to God. I used to carry the children to meetings and look after them while she preached. I was no preacher myself, but I was always down at the ‘penitent form’ [alter] to lead souls to Christ. Her work was to put down the net, mine to land the fish. The latter is just as important as the former.”

     Bro. Smith’s plumbing business was in high demand when winter storms hit his town. He began spending more time working and no time with God. Polly did not sit around harping at her husband about his walk with God, but instead she kept evangelizing and praying and tried to make their time together as pleasant as she could. She had many convictions and her zeal for God became an annoyance to her husband. One night she got home from a service later then she normally did and when she came into her house Smith said, “I am the master of this house, and I am not going to have you coming home at so late an hour as this!” and Polly replied, “I know that you are my husband, but Christ is my Master.” Smith had a violent temper at that time and that remark made him very mad and he put her out the back door and locked it. What he didn’t realize is that the front door was unlocked and she went around and came back in the house laughing and he couldn’t help but laugh with her.

     One day while in Leeds, Smith went to a place where there was a Divine Healing meeting. He began to take sick people from Bradford to Leeds to be healed. Polly who was in need of a healing also went to Leeds and received her miracle. Smith struggled with the idea of healing and one night the leaders of the meetings went out of town and left the service to him. He tried to get others to step up and do it but they all refused. He gave in and preached and people were healed, and he no longer doubted. Their work grew in their town so they moved to a larger building on Bowland Street, called “The Bowland Street Mission”. They painted a scroll behind the pulpit that said, “I am the Lord that health thee.” Many people testified that they were healed by those words alone. One day a minister came into the Wigglesworth home and Polly asked, “What would you think of a man who preaches divine healing, yet he himself uses medical means every day?” He responded, “I should say that man did not fully trust the Lord.” The couple then made a promise from that day on there would be no medicine in their house. Smith himself suffered from a sickness since his childhood and was healed by faith. The couple faced many more sicknesses in their lifetime. Two of their sons were very ill and they prayed for them and the boys were healed immediately. Their daughter Alice was deaf in one ear and was never healed, but went on to help her father in the ministry. Smith was healed of appendicitis and later developed kidney stones and told the doctor, “Doc, the God who made this body is the one who can cure it. No knife shall ever cut it as long as I live.” After 6 years he was healed. He also suffered from sciatica and in 1944 he had a stroke but that didn’t stop him he quickly got back out on the field.

     Bro. Smith had heard about the Pentecostals and how they were being baptized in the Holy Ghost and would speak in other tongues. He attended a meeting and he was so hungry for God that he prayed for four days, when he went to leave he was discouraged, a woman prayed for him and he received the Holy Ghost and spoke in tongues and everything changed from that moment on. People would just see him and fall under conviction and come to Christ. He quit his plumbing business and went to full time ministry. He would often preach in tongues and then interpret what he said. Polly was amazed at the change that occurred in her husband. For many years she tried to help him but was never fully successful until God filled him with the Holy Ghost and then his outlook changed and his ministry grew.

     In 1913, Polly died without warning. Smith desperately tried to save her and commanded death to release her. She came back to him and said, “Smith, God wants me.” He then told her that he would not keep her from Him but her death was a great devastation to Smith. He went to her grave and wanted to die too, God told him to go and he said to God, “only if you give me a double portion of the Spirit, my wife’s and mine, I will go and preach the gospel.” God blessed him with his request. Bro. and Sis. Wigglesworth had five children one girl, Alice and four boys. George, his youngest, died in 1915 and after Polly died Alice and her husband began to travel with Smith.

    One day, Bro. Wigglesworth went and prayed for a woman in a hospital, while there she died. He rebuked her death and he stood her body against the wall and said, “In the name of Jesus walk!” and she did. He began teaching and preaching all over the world! The audience was so big he started “wholesale healing.” Everyone who needed healed would lay their hands on themselves and he would pray. Hundreds and hundreds of people would be healed at the same time.

     In 1937, Bro. Smith, while in South Africa, went to the secretary of the Apostolic Faith mission. He prophesied to David du Plessis. At the time David was 31 years old, Bro. Wigglesworth told him of the Charismatic Revival and that he would play an important role as long as he stayed humble and faithful to God. He told him that when he died David could start to think about the revival and in 1947 Bro. David attended the World Pentecostal Conference in Zurich and his influential ministry began just as Smith prophesied.

     Throughout brother and sister Wigglesworth’s ministry, thousands of people where saved and healed and at least 14 raised from the dead. Bro. Smith died in March of 1947. His ministry was based on these four principles, “First, read the Word of God. Second, consume the Word of God until it consumes you. Third, believe the Word of God. Fourth, act on the Word.”

You can find more information about Smith Wigglesworth's at....

www.smithwigglesworth.com

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Jack  Coe

     Jack Coe’s live story is a spiritual, not a physically, story of going from rags to riches. He was born March 11^th, 1918, to Blanche and George Coe of Oklahoma. He had four other brothers and a sister. Yet, the problem didn’t lie with the big family but that Jack’s father had a gambling problem. He left the family the first time when Jack was five. Not long after he left, Jack remember watching a big truck pull into the driveway of the house the family lived in. He watched movers come into their home and take all the furniture that George had gambled away. The next day brought greater pains when a man came to see the house they lived in. Blanche told the man that the house wasn’t for sell…but, he told her he already owned the house! George had lost it to him in a gambling bet. The man told Blanche that she and the kids had to move out of the house.

     Blanche moved to Pennsylvania and worked by day doing laundry and went to nursing school at night. It wasn’t long before George turned back up and begging them for forgiveness, saying that he was a changed man. Blanche returned back to him and they moved back to Oklahoma. However, it wasn’t long before he started gambling again. Blanche decided to take the daughter, leaving the sons with George, and moved out. Jack recalled tales of how many times his brothers and him were left home alone, often without food, while their father spent the night gambling. Blanche returned, but unable to deal with the pressures of all the children, she took her sons to an orphanage. It wasn’t long after being left there that one of Jack’s older brother’s ran away from the orphanage, refusing to live there. Not long after stealing a bike to get away, the young man was hit by a car on the highway and died instantly.

     Jack spent many years in the orphanage, never being adopted. When he turned seventeen, he started drinking and partying. It wasn’t long before Jack’s body began to suffer from all his drinking. He developed ulcers and his heart started beating twice the normal rate. The doctors warned Jack that the very next drink he had could be his last. Jack tried to change his live around, even making promises to God that if He healed him that he would go to church. Yet, they were empty promises. Jack and his mother, whom he had reconciled with, decided to move to Fort Worth, Texas. There he took on a job as a manager for the Singer Sewing Machine Agency. However, it wasn’t long before Jack went back to drinking.

     One night, after a long night of partying, Jack returned home. At about 3:00 A.M., Jack was having trouble sleeping and his heart was brothering him. He heard a voice call out to him…. “This is your last chance. I’ve called you several times, and I’m calling you for the last time.” Jumping out of bed and onto his knees, Jack cried out…. “Oh God, give me until Sunday. I’ll get right with You!” When Sunday came, Jack had no idea of where to go to church at. So, he picked up his phone book and went to the first church he saw which happened to be of the Nazarene faith. He accepted Christ even before the altar call was given. From that moment forward, Jack dived into the Bible, reading it every chance that he got. A year and a half later, Jack went to a Pentecostal revival meeting. The preacher gave a sermon on the gift of the Holy Ghost and how one received it. Towards the end of his message the man pointed to the crowed and shouted out …. “Do you want it???” Jack jumped up from his pew and responded “Sir, if it’s of God….then I want it!” He ran up to the front of the church and several people joined him, a few Jack called “grey-hair prayer warring grandmothers”. After a short time in prayer, Jack was baptized with the Holy Ghost. Not know what else to do, Jack shouted out…. “Hot dog, I’ve got it!!!”

     After several days of begging his mother to come to a service, she came to one unwillingly. Yet, when she heard the preaching with such power and convention, she ran up to altar and received the Holy Ghost. After the service both she and Jack went to the grocery store. The joy within both of them was so great that both broke into singing and one of the store worker heard them. After speaking to Jack, the man accepted Christ as his personal Savior. It was shortly after that when Jack felt the call to be a preacher. He enrolled in the Southwestern Bible Institute under the Assembly of God church. However, the events of Pearl Harbor forced Jack to enlist into the army. Yet he was still faithful in attending church every night off of the base. He would even spend his nights praying for his follow soldiers and his leaders. Jack’s prayers would be so loud, waking other soldiers, and he would often speak in tongues.

     It wasn’t long before his sergeant received so many complaints that he had Jack locked up for a psychiatric evaluation. After a battery of tests, the doctors claimed that Jack suffered from “religious mania”. This happened to Jack seven times before he was given a honorable discharge. It wasn’t long after that that Jack met and married his wife, Juanita.

     In 1944, Jack became deathly sick with the illness malaria. The doctors sent him home to die. However, when Jack prayed the only response God gave him was “preach the gospel”. Jack experienced his first divine healing within himself when God cured him of his sickness. Even before he had fully recovered from the illness, he sent out preaching after being ordained by the Assembly Of God. In 1945, Jack hosted a healing service in Texas where a blind woman was healed. Little did Jack know that this was going to launch him into a ministry that took him across the country.

     People began lining up at the house or hotel where Jack was staying for prayer. Some days his wife had to demand that people leave in order to allow Jack a few hours of sleep. Many times Jack would ignore the needs of his own body to pray for others. This short passage is hardly enough to describe the acts that happened under Jack Coe’s ministry. Yet, his sermons usually revolved around the message of divine healing. Each night was marked by people being saved and the sick being healed. Cancer, tumors, malaria, mental illness, mental disabilities, and all forms of sickness were healed by the power of God. Thousands ran to his meetings to witness and experience a move of God for themselves.

     Jack did many thing that put him apart from other ministers of his time. One was that he was a great encourager of interracial church meetings. He spoke with local ministers wherever he went to included all races in their churches. He had a style all his own when it came to prayer lines by hitting, slapping, or jerking people, pulling them from wheelchairs, and kicking crutched away crutches from people. As extreme as this measure seems to be, they always worked. People walked away, not angry at Jack’s methods, but in joy at their healing.

     In 1946, Jack and Juanita purchased a truck and large tent and went on the road full time. Jack joined forces with Gordon Lindsay to began publication for the “Voice of Healing” magazine. He stayed with it until 1950 when Jack began his own magazine entitled “Herald of Healing” which, within six years, was being sent to over 350,000 people. Jack, who always felt a fondness for children, bought 200 acres of land outside of Waxahachie, Texas to open an orphanage. Jack, Juanita, and their children had four dorms built to house all over 200 orphans. In addition to the orphanage, Jack built a house called the “faith home”. It was here that seriously sick people could come and spend time in prayer with other ministers until they received their healing. The only rule of the house was that no medicines was allowed into any room. It was also during this time that Jack started up his radio program that eventually would be carried by over a 100 stations.

     In 1953, Jack built his own church, the Dallas Revival Center, without the support of the Assembly of God. He felt that the subject of divine healing wasn’t be properly taught and it was one of the many standards the church was built upon. Jack continued to hold tent revivals until his health started taking a turn for the worse. In 1955, Jack said he received a word from God that he had only a year to live. On December 16, 1956, Jack passed away from pneumonia. To this day Jack’s son, Jack Coe Jr., continues to run the ministry and the church that his father started.

     There are many controversies that surround Jack’s ministry. One was that Jack was a very completive person. He went to a Oral Roberts tent meeting in order to measure Oral’s tent and set about having a bigger tent built for himself. After the tent was finished, Jack went around claiming he had the largest tent in the world. Next came in 1953 in what became known as the “religious wars”. The Assembly of God dismissed Jack’s on the grounds that he was living an excessive lifestyle. Jack turned around and had pictures put in major newspapers that described the homes of four major Assembly officials. The pictures showed they lived in homes that were greater then Jack’s. This lead to a constant war of words between Assembly of God preachers and Jack that followed him all the way to his deathbed. Finally, in 1955, Jack was arrested in Miami, Florida for “practicing medicine without a license”. This charge came when the police walked into Jack’s tent revival during one of his prayer lines. When they saw people being healed, they arrested Jack on the spot. During the trail, many great ministers of the time came to Jack’s defense. Some of the ministers began praying on the stand and people started to be healed on the spot. The case was dismissed and Jack went straight to the newspapers and placed ads asking all ministers who had the gifts of divine healing to hold revivals in Miami.

     Whatever problems Jack may have faced in the course of his travels, one fact that can’t be denied is that God moved in his meetings. Jack poured his heart and soul into his ministry and he hardly took time to rest when there was work to be done. If there’s one thing that Jack was guilty of…is that he ignored the concerns of his own body to see the needs of the children of God were met. Regardless of the disagreements of his methods, Jack always worked fully in the gifts and calling that God had given him. He’s fully entitled to the title the world has left him with…..a man of reckless faith!