Apostle of Faith. Plumber turned Pentecostal pioneer. A man who read nothing but the Bible — and shook the world with it.
Smith Wigglesworth was born June 8, 1859, in Menston, Yorkshire, England, into a poor working-class family. He began working in the fields at age six and could neither read nor write. His spiritual journey began early — he was converted at eight years old in a Wesleyan Methodist meeting and went on to receive further spiritual experiences through the Salvation Army and the Keswick Convention holiness movement.
At age twenty-three he married Polly Featherstone, a Salvation Army worker and gifted preacher. Polly taught him to read, using the Bible as his only textbook. For the rest of his life, the Bible remained the only book Wigglesworth ever read — and he read it through repeatedly, spending hours in it daily.
After years of earnest but limited ministry in Bradford, England, Wigglesworth traveled to Sunderland in 1907 to seek the baptism of the Holy Spirit at the meetings led by Rev. Alexander Boddy. He received the baptism — evidenced by speaking in tongues — and returned a changed man. The transformation was so radical that his wife Polly, herself a preacher, remarked: "That's not my Smith." From that moment, he launched into a worldwide healing and evangelistic ministry that spanned four decades.
He traveled to Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, South Africa, India, Ceylon, Scandinavia, Switzerland, and beyond. Credible accounts from eyewitnesses record numerous healings of terminal disease, the casting out of demons, and even multiple instances of the dead being raised. He ministered until the very last weeks of his life, dying on March 12, 1947, at age 87 — reportedly while attending the funeral of a friend.
His theology was simple and absolute: the Word of God is final authority; the Holy Spirit is present and active today; faith is not a feeling but an act of the will based on God's Word; divine healing is part of the Atonement. He had no patience for doubt, theological compromise, or spiritual complacency — and the fire that characterized his preaching was matched by the signs that followed it.
A plumber by trade, Wigglesworth ran a modest plumbing business in Bradford. He was known as a sincere but unremarkable lay minister — until his Holy Spirit baptism in 1907 at age 48 changed everything overnight.
Wigglesworth famously read only the Bible his entire life. He considered it the complete and sufficient revelation. Visitors who brought him books or newspapers were politely turned away.
He preached on every inhabited continent, conducting healing crusades in over 25 nations. Meetings in Australia and Scandinavia especially drew thousands and sparked regional revivals.
Documented healings include cancers, blindness, deafness, paralysis, and lameness. Multiple contemporaries including minister Stanley Howard Frodsham recorded eyewitness accounts of the dead being raised.
Received tongues in 1907 at Sunderland under Boddy's ministry. Became a key early voice in the Pentecostal movement and helped spread it throughout Britain and Europe.
Bold, direct, and often physically dramatic. He was known to command the sick to rise, rebuke the devil loudly, and challenge unbelief publicly — yet tender and broken in private prayer.
First published 1913. These sermons were transcribed from Wigglesworth's early ministry, primarily from Pentecostal Testimony and Confidence periodicals. They reflect his raw, unpolished power immediately following his Holy Spirit baptism.
The question is not whether you have faith. Every believer has been given a measure of faith. The question is: what are you doing with it? Are you exercising it? Are you stretching it against impossible circumstances? Faith grows by being used.
')">Like precious faith operates in the knowledge of God. Every time you behold Him more clearly, faith rises. This is why the Word of God is so vital — it is the revelation of God\'s nature, and every revelation of His nature produces faith that moves mountains.
')">God is looking for a people whose prayer life produces shaking. Not just personal blessing but corporate movement. The power that the early church walked in is not a dispensational relic. It is the normal inheritance of every Spirit-filled believer.
')">Paul\'s encounter with the Holy Spirit was not separate from his encounter with the living Christ. The Pentecost baptism is always a baptism into Jesus — into His death, His resurrection, His ongoing ministry through the Spirit.
')">The disciples were told to wait in Jerusalem. They had already been commissioned, already born again, already told the Great Commission. But they were not yet clothed with power from on high. The Commission without the power is an impossibility. The power makes the Commission a certainty.
Do not settle for a powerless Christianity. God has not changed. The Holy Spirit has not been diminished. The baptism that equipped the 120 in the upper room is the same baptism available tonight. Receive it. Act on it. Go in that power.
')">Fix your vision on the Word of God, not on your circumstances. Circumstances are temporary; the Word of God is eternal. Keep the vision and the vision will keep you.
')">Present-time blessings require present-tense faith. Do not say, God healed people in the Bible. Say, God heals people now because He is the same God, the same Christ, the same Spirit. Reach out your hand of faith today.
')">Published 1924. Wigglesworth's most celebrated collection. These sermons were delivered in California and transcribed by stenographers. They represent the full maturity of his healing ministry and Holy Spirit theology.
Your mountain has a name. It may be sickness. It may be poverty. It may be bondage. Whatever it is — God has not given you that mountain to live under. He has given you authority to speak to it. Speak. Act. Believe. He is faithful.
')">You have authority over every work of the enemy in the name of Jesus. The same Spirit that anointed Jesus to deliver captives anoints you. Use the name. Command the release. Expect the deliverance.
')">The name of Jesus is above every name — above sickness, above poverty, above fear, above death itself. At that name, every knee must bow. When you invoke it with genuine faith and authority, the invisible world responds.
')">Jesus did not wait for the man to get into the water. He spoke the word. The healing was not in the water — it was in the Word. Today the Word is still healing. Receive it. Rise. Walk.
')">Stop begging God to heal you as though He is reluctant. He declared His nature: Healer. Come to Him on the basis of what He has revealed Himself to be — and receive.
')">If Christ took your infirmity, it does not belong to you. If He bore your sickness, you do not have to bear it. This is the logic of the Atonement. Just as a believer would be theologically confused to say "I must pay for my sins" when Christ has already paid, so it is equally confused to say "I must bear this sickness" when Christ has already borne it.
Stand on what was accomplished at Calvary. He took it. He bore it. By faith, receive the exchange — your sickness for His wholeness.
')">He has the keys. Sickness does not have authority over you. Death does not have the final word. Our Risen Christ does. Reckon on that reality today.
')">Set your mind on things of the Spirit and you will experience things of the Spirit. The Spirit life begins in the mind\'s orientation. Reorient. Look up. Live in the heavenly realm while walking on the earth.
')">God desires this for every believer. Not just the disciples, not just the first century, not just special ministers. Every believer. Yield completely. Be filled. Stay filled. Overflow.
')">Do not argue about tongues. Receive the baptism, and let the biblical evidence follow. God\'s pattern has not changed because we find it inconvenient or theologically unusual.
')">Desire the gifts. Eagerly covet them — as Paul commands. Not to be seen but to serve. Not to feel spiritual but to make Christ known through supernatural demonstration.
')">Prophecy is not the exclusive territory of special ministers. It is the potential of every Spirit-filled believer. God has things to say to His people through His people. Be yielded enough to be used.
')">Messages drawn from Pentecostal periodicals including Confidence, The Elim Evangel, and Pentecostal Testimony — spanning 1913–1946.
What is your assignment? Every believer has one. The gifts, the calling, the anointing, the open doors — these are not for your comfort alone. They are for the advance of the Kingdom. Work while it is day.
')">Fire purifies and empowers. Many want the power without the fire of purification. But they come together. The same fire that burns out the dross of self-will is the fire that burns through in ministry with signs following.
')">The hope of His coming is a purifying hope. It does not produce passivity but purposeful, urgent holiness. Be ready. Stay ready. Work while He tarries — and watch for His appearing with longing.
')">Your faith — not your willpower, not your eloquence, not your track record — is the victory. Believe God. The believing is the overcoming.
')">Pray for great grace. Not comfortable grace. Not managing grace. Great grace — the kind that makes the impossible ordinary and the skeptic into a believer.
')">Believe it. Act on it. The same Christ who raised Lazarus lives in you by His Spirit. Greater works are not a past promise — they are a present invitation.
')">Do not be satisfied knowing about His resurrection. Know the power of it — in your body, in your ministry, in the dead places in your life. Resurrection power is not reserved for the grave. It works now.
')">Know your calling. Walk in it. Let no circumstance, no opposition, no discouragement cause you to walk beneath it. You have been called — and the One who called you is faithful to complete it.
')">Seven sermons originally published in Pentecostal periodicals and compiled into book form. These represent Wigglesworth's early theology immediately following his Holy Spirit baptism — raw, urgent, and powerful. Covers faith, spiritual power, the Holy Spirit, and the promises of God.
Status: Public Domain. Freely available.
🔗 Internet Archive Read OnlineThe most celebrated of Wigglesworth's works. Eighteen sermons transcribed from his California campaigns. Covers healing, the gifts of the Spirit, faith, deliverance, and the Baptism in the Holy Ghost. This volume alone has been translated into dozens of languages and has never gone out of print.
Status: Public Domain. Freely available.
🔗 Internet Archive Read OnlineThe authorized biography, written by Frodsham — Wigglesworth's close friend, fellow minister, and eyewitness to many miracles. First-hand accounts of healings, raisings from the dead, and the character of the man in private. Essential companion to the sermons.
Status: Copyrighted (Gospel Publishing House). Available in print.
🛒 Amazon857-page comprehensive compilation of sermons gathered from archives worldwide — including many never previously published. The most complete single-volume collection of Wigglesworth's preaching available. Indispensable for serious study.
Status: Copyrighted. Available in print and digital.
🛒 AmazonBoth public domain books are available for free reading and download via the Internet Archive. No account required for basic reading; free account required for borrow feature.
Open Internet Archive Search →The Bible is God's complete and sufficient Word. Every promise is available to every believer. The Word does not change; our confidence in it must grow until we act on it without reservation.
Healing is provided in the Atonement (Isaiah 53, Matthew 8:17). It is the will of God for believers. Faith appropriates it. Doubt delays it. The healer is JESUS CHRIST — the same yesterday, today, and forever.
The Baptism in the HOLY GHOST is a distinct experience subsequent to salvation, evidenced by speaking in tongues, and essential for effective ministry. The gifts of the SPIRIT are for the present church age.
Faith is not emotion. Faith is acting on the Word of GOD regardless of what the senses report. It is not passive trust but active obedience — speaking the word, laying on hands, commanding the enemy, expecting the result.