Report on the New Order of Latter Rain
Walterbeutter.com 1950 REPORT ON THE LATTER RAIN MOVEMENT …What we call groupism—that is to say, we’re this group and you’re your group, and somebody else is somebody else’s group. We emphasize that the Body of Christ is not divided. Now Pentecost is not divided—we’re merely scattered. The Russians have their headquarters in Moscow; the Catholic Church has its headquarters in Rome.
Well, where are the headquarters of Pentecost? The answer was heaven—heaven is our headquarters. Pentecost was not started by any one man; God sent the Holy Ghost in various places at the same time, so our headquarters is in heaven. As to preachers, we asked them, “Where do you get your instructions from?” And he emphasized, “Preachers should get their instructions from headquarters—heaven.” He also reported that the Pentecostal blessing is no more confined to the Pentecostal people.
Pentecost is getting into other denominations, particularly Baptists are receiving the full gospel and getting the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. He said, “It’s no more our baptism, it’s overflowing into other denominations. He likewise reported, “What God is doing now is to shape the various full gospel groups together. Heretofore there have been 3 leaders of 3 different groups (1 each) that have been in the way of the Full Gospel Assemblies getting together and that God has been shaking 3 of them out of office.” If I recall correctly, and I’m quite sure I do, he said, “One of these leaders was not re-elected, another resigned from office, and a third chose not to run for office again.
Since these 3 leaders are out of the way, God has been succeeding in shaping these various groups together so that more and more unifying effort and progress is going on among the full gospel churches.” So they’re losing their idea of separation more and more and regard each other as being of the body. A word about the movement itself—what they call out there the healing move. They state very emphatically that they did not come to divide the body. They claim that they are part of the full gospel churches, only a part, that they are not the whole.
One of them said, “There is no room among us for big I’s and little you’s.” They do not feel they have everything, but they do feel that they have something to contribute to the churches. What they feel they have is a healing ministry, the dynamics, the supernatural, which they seem to feel, in fact do feel, that Pentecost has lost for one reason or another. They feel their calling is to supply that lack. They agreed that they are not teachers and do make their mistakes.
I’m using partly their own words now: By the way the group centers around the Voice of Healing and has nothing to do with Healing Waters Magazine at all. The Voice of Healing, I would say they are made up anywhere from jackasses to college men. Now the first term—that’s their own term. There was a brother there, Jack Coe who calls himself a jackass.
That’s right brother! He was there. He was just a farm boy from Oklahoma or a cowboy or a boy of some kind. Just a nobody and a know nothing, an orphan, and God picked him up.
I don’t think he can speak one sentence without making one mistake in English anyhow, but he’s got the power of God. That’s the one end. On the other hand you have college men. An outstanding one, in my judgment, was Brother Yatus, who had a marvelous gift of oratory and you could tell that here is a mind that has been trained.
But it’s nice to see that God still uses all kinds of people. He uses those who are educated, and He uses those who are not educated. He doesn’t use all who are not educated, He doesn’t use all who are educated. God needs all kinds of people to meet all kinds of people.
That’s about the situation. This Jack Coe was grand. He gave us a splendid message one afternoon, I believe it was, when he related the experience that God gave him when he got saved and got the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. He left the congregation up in the clouds with a big boisterous shouting and praising.
He just talked you right into glory. I admired the nerve of those fellows. My they got courage. When this jackass (as he calls himself)—when he first started out, he just started out, and now he has the biggest tent of any healing evangelist in America.
The tent seats 8,000 people. That’s a lot of tent, 8,000 people, and he started from nothing. Walterbeutter.com One day he read the scriptures, They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. And he looked around and found out that there are promises that God heals the sick and makes the lame walk, and the blind see, and the deaf hear, and he told his folks, “We’re going to have a healing meeting tomorrow night.” I think he said tomorrow night.
Anyhow he announced a healing meeting, just announced it that’s all. One of the ladies said to him, “But Jack, aren’t you afraid?” “Why no.” “But suppose it doesn’t work?” “It will work.” “But suppose it doesn’t work?” “But it’s going to work.” “But Jack, suppose it doesn’t work.” “Well it’s got to work. God said so. He said they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover, so what else can they do but recover?” He started his healing night.
There weren’t any lame that walked because there weren’t any there, fortunately. But as he prayed for the sick, a blind woman (or blind girl) came along. Somebody led a blind woman along. When he saw her coming, he said to himself, “Uh oh.” When she got up to him he said, “Sister, you better go back to the end of the line.” (Laughter) From that moment on he was scarred.
He lost his nerve. He said, “As I prayed for the people, I really prayed for that woman at the end of the line.” That’s all he could see. He prayed for them alright, but deep down the cry of his heart was, “Oh God, what about that woman back there?” Finally she was three people away, and then he said, “Oh Lord, what will I do?” He got scarred. As he prayed for people down in his heart he talked to God, “Oh God, what about this woman?” God challenged him (I don’t recall his exact words but in effect), “Well, what did I say in My Word?” “You said You would heal them.” “Well, alright.” So finally the woman came up and what else could he do but pray for her.
He said, “To my amazement, her eyes were opened and she saw.” He just started out on sheer nerve, just on the naked Word and that was the beginning. Since then God has used him in a very mighty way. Somebody challenged him with his tent. In fact somebody said to him, “All you fellows are doing is go to the big city where you get the crowd and the money.” He picked it up as a challenge and took this 8,000 seating capacity tent to a town of 3,500, 90 miles away from the biggest city.
He said, “We’ll see whether we can hold a tent meeting out here or not. I’ll show you; I’ll go to the small places too.” And the people came to the tent and said, “If all the population of the town were going to this tent, they’d have room for all their horses and mules and cows and there would still be room. You’ll never fill this tent.” He said, “Within one week’s time the tent was filled with people and they were standing outside looking in. I don’t know where they came from, but they simply came from everywhere.
God moved and the word spread and people came.” It’s surprising what people will do and how far people will go to a place where the power of God is really manifest. You know what, that is what Pentecost needs—that is what we need. We have advertisement, and use this, and use brass bands, and say, “Come and hear so and so, and here is a jumping somebody who can play 2 instruments—one with each foot, takes another and wiggles his ears with them, blows in one with his nose, one with his mouth, the rest he tinkles with his fingers.
Come and hear him.” We try to attract people like that. Now that’s an exaggeration, a hyperbole. It doesn’t work. Here those fellows have nothing, very few specials if any.
This is a demonstration of the power of God and people come from everywhere and seemingly from nowhere showing that the supernatural element is what’s attracting people. To be sure that’s what God has provided for in His Word—that’s our advertisement, the supernatural, nothing else. Are you interested in a word about advertising methods? Alright.
About their advertising negatively: they express themselves as being against attraction. I wouldn’t want to say that they felt they were wrong or Walterbeutter.com that they had no use for them, but I say “against” in the sense that there is something far better than attracting people, as one of them put it, with a 3-ring circus. The truth is some of our meetings are nothing but circus. I have seen some of them if you haven’t.
They feel we are substituting prayer with entertainment. I think they got something there. More and more we’re introducing entertainment in order to appeal to the people and get them interested and get them to come instead of using prayer. One of them suggested that some have tried to attract people by playing Bible tunes on beer bottles.
You can announce that and people might say, “Come on, let’s see the fellow who can play Onward Christian Soldiers on a beer bottle.” Well, suppose he does bring one or two into the church, well what of it? It doesn’t bring them to the Lord, does it? One of these evangelist who lived better, when he first started out wanted to find a way of attracting people so he went out and bought a book on how to perform tricks. After he studied all the tricks, he found out that he was tricked, the tricks just didn’t trick the people as well as he thought they should.
Then he went into chalk talk and tried to paint pictures for the people while somebody preached in the place. He said, “If all you can do is give chalk talks, by all means give them, if that’s the best you got, but there is something far better, and that is supernatural deliverance of people. Then he tried some instruments, was going to play some instruments, and he learned to play 2 of them. He had a whole carload and lined them up on the platform.
He played only 2, but the others were there. They were there for window dressing, for appearance; it made it look as though, “Well, he’s a big evangelist. He can play anything from foodadoodle to fixahootie or something.” So he got his instruments and that didn’t work. Finally he discovered or decided that what he must do is to seek God.
He started to pray, and he started to fast. After a week of fasting and prayer, God saved 100 souls, so he gave up his carload of instruments, his book on how to perform tricks and all the rest of the things and decided that the Bible key to the Gospel, to the attraction of people was supernatural deliverance of the people. Along this line one of them mentioned that in one of the healing lines, they brought a little girl who had a plastic eye. The father brought her to be prayed for and asked the evangelist, “Shall I take the plastic eye out?” The evangelist said, “I’ll tell you, take her home tonight and you pray and I will pray that God will show us what to do.” So next time he brought the girl back again—the next night, and they apparently got their directions.
I don’t recall that part, but anyhow they took the plastic eye out and prayed for that girl, and God created right there a tiny winsy little eye, just a little bit of an eye. I don’t know if they knew at the time what it was, but He created it. When he spoke he said that after 5 weeks had gone by, that eye had grown to be half the size of a normal eye and was still growing. From all appearances God created a tiny little eye that’s growing and growing and I have no doubt will grow into a fully mature eye.
When people see things like that; when God does things like that it just inspires your faith. I learned a lot out there. I could go on at considerable length, but apparently one of our greatest difficulties is that we expect God to do the thing altogether fully right away. Apparently many of those healings—God heals alright, but then through a gradual process completes the healing.
They mentioned a number of people who couldn’t hear, couldn’t see or had other things wrong with them where over weeks the person got better all the time. In fact, one of those evangelist got blinded accidently. God had been dealing with him to go into the ministry and he ignored it. Finally he got blinded at a job accidentally and had excruciating pain.
When it looked like both his eyes would be lost because they were infected and pus was running out and hurt him terribly, he decided to take his case to God. He didn’t seem to get anywhere. Finally he fasted and prayed, and God said to him, “If you will do My will and go out and minister to the people, I will heal you for my glory,” or words to that effect. There was a condition.
He had to agree to do the will of God, to obey Him—that was the condition. He said, “I will,” and then he went to a meeting and got prayed for and was touched. He felt the power of God go through his eyes and he could see a light. That’s all he could see, just a light.
Then he went home and God spoke to him, “Go to such and such a city and there preach the gospel.” He was still blind though. He had to be driven there. God told him to go and he said he would and was prayed for. He knew he was healed and said, “Lord, I know You healed me,” yet he couldn’t see.
He had a terrible fight of faith. They took him Walterbeutter.com there still blind. He claimed God healed him, but he was blind. He was reading his text, and as he read his text, suddenly he could see his text.
When he finished his text, his sight went again. That went on for 2 weeks. At the end of 2 weeks when the revival was over, Brother Erickson could see. He went to the physician and got his eyes examined and his eyes were perfectly normal.
Here was a case where the man actually was healed, as far as the power of God and His word were concerned, yet the actual manifestation of the symptoms were contingent upon his obeying the Lord. He went 2 weeks through a campaign and he could see only the scripture, but he went right ahead. At the end he saw. Well folks say, “Why couldn’t he see right away?” Well who are we to question that?
Many a time God has to do a work in our hearts that’s far more important than the healing. Many Christians don’t see that. All they’re after (I’m preaching now) is the healing, but God sees something more important. God says, “Alright, very well I’ll heal you, but how about so and so.” If we balk and say “No,” or if we say “Alright,” God heals.
God is not healing us for ourselves, God is healing us for His own glory. See? I’m persuaded many a times conditions stand between a healing of a person simply because they refuse to submit to the Lord. So Brother Erickson is an outstanding case and they have many like that where God touches and as time goes on the healing gradually progresses.
I’ll criticize some for that after I have as many results as they do and a few more, then I start finding fault. Don’t you think that’ll be alright then? Of course I don’t do that. They regard healing as a means to an end, not an end in itself, but the manifestation of the power of God for the salvation of souls and they use the scripture (or refer to it) He sent them out whither he himself would come.
They make reference to Brother Lindsey going to South America ahead of Brother Erickson. They claim the ground is not prepared for a healing revival until some miracles have taken place. He sent Brother Lindsey down to Peru (I believe it was) and he contacted the pastors or missionaries and said, “Now Brother Erickson is coming. We want to prepare the way for him.
Let’s pick out some hard cases, some real sick people, some cripples, somebody that can be healed to get the people interested.” Then they picked out a deaf mute, laid their hands on the person and prayed for the party and God healed that person completely, so much so that a riot started. The thing just went all over the place. By the time Brother Erickson got there with the message of revival, salvation and healing, the revival was already going strong.
They had as many as 20-25 thousand people attending on some of their nights, at least on one night. I don’t recall if they said it was all or many nights. That large congregation—they must have stirred up a hornet’s nest. In fact, the priest came with a gun.
He wanted to shoot Brother Erickson, so before you go to Peru, you better be sure you’re in the will of God, otherwise you might get shot at. They got very much stirred up, so much so that when they wanted to have a healing line, they had riots and 4 children got crushed to death in the process. Imagine having a revival where people get killed. That’s quite a mark.
They couldn’t tear out any healing lines. For awhile they had the police give out the healing cards. That didn’t work. There were just too many.
Finally God was healing the people all over the place. Finally they were jailed and were ordered out of the country, but he was there long enough to leave the healing ministry behind. Now the missionaries and some of the native men down there got the vision of the healing ministry and they’re carrying on. The priests are unable to get them out of the country because they’re citizens.
He told us that some of the senators have .now filed petitions with the government to allow religious freedom in opposition to the Catholic Church, of course. They’re the ones who are opposing it. So God evidently is doing quite a bit. I’ll mention here a little bit about the origin of their ministry.
There were some candidates there for the healing ministry, some preachers and I suspect some would-be preachers who thought all they needed was the technical know-how so they too could buy a big tent and go out and have big meetings, but they sure put a damper on that. In fact, some were there to have their hands laid on them to receive the healing ministry, and others wanted to know just how they could go about it. Well they had some very good things to say.
They mentioned, for instance, that God doesn’t use everybody like that. There are in the church first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers; after that helps and governments, healings, tongues and Walterbeutter.com interpretations, etc showing it isn’t a matter of simply going into the healing ministry. It’s a matter of finding our place in the Body, the idea being: to what has God called us. They warned against the spirit of competition: because so and so is doing it, I’m going to do it.
They emphasized getting your experience from God. Don’t come to us for the healing ministry, get it from God. Do you know what I noticed? I noticed that seemingly every one of those men got their healing ministry in a great crisis—every one of them.
They didn’t simply get it, they paid for it. As far as I know, as I recall of their testimonies, every one of them had gone through a serious sickness, very serious. That may not be true of all, but that’s my recollection. I’m sure it’s not necessary to have to go through it, Christ didn’t go through it.
I don’t think the apostles went through it, but nevertheless many of these fellows God just got when they were hopelessly lost from a physical point of view. God spoke and they consecrated their lives to Him. They claim that prayer and fasting is a very big factor. They emphasized that a lot: prayer and fasting.
When they meet with hard cases—I don’t think they do it always, but often they give themselves to fasting and prayer. There was for instance, one woman who was blind, one of them prayed for her 4 times and she received no deliverance. Then he fasted and prayed for her condition for a whole week. He laid hands on her again and immediately she was delivered.
They emphasized that very much. Apparently, we just don’t pray enough; we do not fast enough; we don’t mean enough business with God. Those men are paying a terrible price for their ministry, a very great price. Some of them are away from their families for a very long time.
They don’t have an easy life. They meet with a lot of opposition, a lot of criticism, unjust criticism to be sure. For instance, Brother Lindsey and others have been questioned about the money they must be making on the Voice of Healing. They replied and came out with the fact that neither Brother Lindsey nor Brother Moore received one cent from the Voice of Healing.
If I got it correctly, Brother Lindsey mentioned precisely for the reason so they would not lay themselves open to charges of profiteering. Both of them refused any financial remuneration from the paper. In fact, I got the impression that the paper doesn’t pay for itself. Wherever they were challenged, as far as I’m concerned while I was there, I thought their answers were above board in every case.
To my satisfaction they cleared themselves splendidly. I must say I have the highest regard for those men. They make their mistakes, but they seem to be really on the level. That’s my impression.
Here they gave a splendid scripture that I think is going to remain a jewel with me for life I believe. Speaking of those who had come there for a healing ministry, Brother Lindsey made this statement, A man’s gift maketh a way for him. Do you get it? A man’s gift maketh a way for him, the idea being if you have the gift, that will give you open doors.
If you have a ministry it will make a way for you. You’ll be in demand, you’ll be asked for. How true that is! That’s good for any would-be preacher of any kind in every Bible school.
There are folks who want to be an evangelist; I want to be so and so; I want to be a general superintendent. They make a better supper attendant. By the way that reminds me, lest I forget (that has to go on record brother): a Chinese meal 2 weeks from tonight. Will you bear that in mind?
Two weeks from tonight we have our Chinese meal. I better talk about that a little later. Will you remind me please when we come to a break? Otherwise the brother will throw his record on my head.
Isn’t that a good passage though? To all the would-be preachers, a man’s gift maketh a way for him. So if you belong to a church and you feel the Lord’s called you to preach, and the preacher isn’t asking you and you get sore at him because he never lets you lead the meeting or preach while he’s absent. Well, you just let that thing work and behave yourself and eventually your gift will be recognized.
If you have the gift, it will make a way for you eventually. Right? That is very good advice. I wonder how some of them felt, but they should have felt really good.
They also emphasized, “Do not seek somebody else’s gift. Get your own.” I watched those fellows closely, as closely as I could because I went there to learn. You see I’m such an ignoramus myself. They seem to work along different lines.
God is a wonderful God of infinite variety, and it would be sheer folly to copy any one of those men. You’ve got to get your own. Walterbeutter.com I watched one of them pray for the sick. He prayed one way.
I watched another one and he did it a different way. I remember him saying to a party, “You have a pain in your body in such and such a place, haven’t you?” The man said, “Yes I do.” That was Brother Yakers. He said, “I know that you have that pain because when I pray for the sick, God lets me feel the pain that people have in my body in the same place, so I know what to pray for” He still asks them what’s wrong with them, but God lets him feel their pain.
That’s how he discerns what’s wrong with the people. Others are entirely different. Others the Lord reveals, to some He doesn’t reveal and they ask the people what’s wrong with them. I noticed this: you don’t simply walk up and stand there like a bump on a log and somebody pray for you.
You’ve got to tell them what’s wrong with you. That’s one must, and I have long felt that that is an essentiality to success. They just confirmed it. So if anybody here should feel that God is dealing with you along that line, don’t copy anybody, go to God, leave your meals alone for a few weeks and seek God with all your might and see what comes of it.
A word about their last feelings, the meetings in particular. Are you folks still interested? Is it alright to go on? Alright.
Apparently, they have been greatly criticized for their mass efforts. People feel that picked fruit is better fruit and lasts longer, but I rather think—they didn’t say it, but I got the impression they’d rather poo hoo the idea, and I feel like helping them. I used to talk this picked fruit idea, but I think it’s a funny excuse. It just doesn’t get you around in God’s orchard.
They feel that the time is so short before the coming of the Lord, and the masses of people are still unevangelized and will never be reached, no hope of them reaching the masses of people without a mass ministry. I think that’s true, so that the masses can only be reached by a mass ministry. Furthermore, these men claim—and they’re very emphatic—that God has commissioned them for a mass ministry. That’s part of their calling that they were asked to take this gospel of healing, this gospel of deliverance to the multitudes.
In fact, to some of them in a vision, the Lord or an angel has appeared and would tell them, “You’ll preach before great crowds and you’ll take this to the masses, and many souls will be saved.” It’s part of their mission. I thought to myself because I know they’re opposed by some, and they’re opposed by some preachers too, even some groups in fact. I am firmly convinced that if anybody or any group tries to stop those fellows, they’re not stopped; they’re not stoppable.
They have such a conviction, and they’re so certain of themselves as to their calling and their ministry that I think if the whole Pentecostal movement would gang up on them, you couldn’t stop them. I don’t believe there’s a ghost of a chance. As for me, I’d just as soon push them than stop them. Many would like to stop them if they could for no other reason perhaps than sheer jealousy.
It would appear that if others who want to stop them if they would go down before God and seek God’s face, maybe they would get something. Of course, this is an easier thing to do, and yet I don’t believe it will succeed. Speaking of the masses, they insist God saves and heals in large numbers. Brother Erickson mentioned that in one meeting there were 500 people filled with the Holy Ghost and spoke with other tongues as the Spirit gave utterance.
That’s quite something! Now you compare that with some of our Assemblies: if you have a Baptism once a week, you’re not doing too bad. There are churches who don’t have one Baptism in the Holy Ghost in a year and these fellows get it by the hundreds, of course in mass meetings by the hundreds in a night sometimes. I don’t think that’s regular either, but at least it has gone as high as 500 and if it happens once, you have to go a long ways before you find a church that has 500 people baptized in 50 years.
That may be a little exaggerated, but say quite a number of years, so if God is doing this—they claim He is, and apparently He is. What are you going to say? I say, “Praise the Lord. Let’s have more of it.” You might say, “Well Beuttler, you’re sold on it.” “To tell you the truth, I am.
For that reason, if you don’t want me to come back to night school anymore then I’ll go somewhere else.” That’s just my way of being funny. I feel better when I’m funny. They had quite a bit to say one morning about the preparation for these mass meetings. This perhaps is not so much applicable to you, and I’m going to skip a few things here.
I think I ought to, but just let me say Walterbeutter.com here that according to them, these mass meetings require very much work on the part of pastors of congregations. There is very much preparation One of the men out there in Kansas City is planning a campaign next Fall. They are already preparing for the meeting. They’re already organizing and training 1000 personal workers 9 months before the meeting.
They say it’s very much work if you want to get the benefit, but it means a lot of work. One factor that rates heavily is when they can find churches who recognize each other even though they belong to different groups. If they agree we are God’s people even though we might have some doctrinal differences of opinions, if they work together that helps them a lot. They mentioned Dallas, Texas where there are no less than 63 different Pentecostal churches and they cooperated together in one of these mass campaigns and met with phenomenal success.
In fact, one of them said that the revival just shook the city. When you get 63 Pentecostal churches coming together, that’s a revival in itself without a healing campaign. Isn’t that right? Apparently much of the secret lies in that spirit of cooperation and prayer on the part of preachers and people alike, as though preachers weren’t people, but you know what I mean.
They mentioned that the key to Billy Sunday’s success was the fact that he organized prayer meetings all over the city months ahead of his coming. Imagine a big campaign coming to Philadelphia. Some campaigns turn out to be cam pains alright, but others turn out to be revivals. Think of one of them coming to Philadelphia in Highway and in McKeen Street and in all the churches they organize prayer meetings, and organize prayer meetings in different homes.
Wouldn’t that be something? That’s the key. Ladies get together and say, “Let’s have a ladies prayer meeting in my home and next week it’ll be in your home,” and here is a dozen or 24 that ends up part of the group, and churches praying and putting out prayer chains several months ahead of the coming of the man, of the meetings. That would mean something!
That’s a whole lot better than playing on beer bottles isn’t it? That’s better than painting big banners and marching a brass band down Broad Street playing, Onward Christian Soldiers, go to church, come hear and see the whirlwind from the west. And when it’s the west: come and hear the whirlwind from the east, the international radio artist and super balloon and what-not. No that isn’t a prayer meeting.
Do you believe me? I’m sure that’s it, but when you talk prayer, people’s faces get long except yours. Yours looks alright. People say, “Well we thought you’d come and bring it.” But that isn’t the way it works.
Maybe that’s a good thing for your next campaign if you ever have any—to think of prayer, form prayer groups right among yourselves, those folks that have nothing to do. You know what I mean, people getting together. Imagine folks coming together in your services for united prayer meetings. Wouldn’t that be something?
My, that would take the roof off. Well you might say, “We want the roof on.” Sure you do. One of them was accused of going only to the big churches, the big cities for the money, and while that isn’t altogether true, that is to say that they do it. Apparently they do have to, largely for the big centers, one reason being one man mentioned it cost him $600 a week whether he has any meetings or not.
His overhead expenses are $600 a week. That’s a lot of money paying help in moving his tent and equipment and all of that. That’s quite a bit isn’t it? Here are some reasons why healings do not last and churches do not benefit.
Some of those things would concern mainly pastors so I’ll skip that, but I think one thing at least I could mention, and that is our lack of understanding of the truth of divine healing. Of course that isn’t the people’s fault, that’s the ministry’s fault for lack of teaching. They decry the fact there is so little teaching on divine healing so that people don’t know how to believe. They mentioned particularly symptoms.
You get prayed for and the power of God touches you and the next thing you find your symptoms are still there. They give quite a bit of that. now and then, among other things we are to take a positive stand on the word of God irrespective of symptoms. They are very strong on that. They say that one of the great secrets of getting healed is to act as though they were healed, that is to say: you get prayed for, God touches you, symptoms or no symptoms, act as though you were healed.
That is to say: if you have ulcers and can’t eat anything, you get prayed for, then go home and you need to eat in the name of the Lord. Don’t sit around and say, “I wonder how it feels; I wonder whether I’ll get a stomach ache; I wonder if I’ll vomit.” While you’re wondering you lose your healing, see. But people just don’t know. Walterbeutter.com Apparently there’s very much to learn.
They’re very strong on taking a positive stand and do the things that you should do if you were healed; act upon that. They insist. That’s why they make people do things: do so and so, can you see; can you hear; say this or do that. They got to watch it.
If you don’t act, you’re running the risk of losing it right then and there. They mentioned the question of the healing of deaf and dumb and deplored the fact of the lack of understanding of the public. Again, they don’t blame the public. By implication, it’s the preachers who are to be blamed there, I would say.
For instance: they say that when a deaf and dumb person gets healed, you can’t expect them to speak. They don’t get the language. I couldn’t say they never do, but at least it’s often they do not, although I haven’t heard any one of them say, to my recollection, that people get the language. Apparently God doesn’t give them the language.
All they can do is make a sound. They can make a sound now, umm. They can talk by making a sound. One of them said, “When a deaf and dumb person gets prayed for and all they can do is make a sound, the whole congregation ought to stand and roar in praise to God.” Well, but he can’t speak, but he will learn to speak.
It’s like a baby that within weeks sometimes and months those people are able to hear now and pick up the language just like anybody else, but they never heard anything, they never heard the words. How can they possibly know the language? They don’t know language; they don’t know whether you speak English, French or German, Russian or Italian. They don’t know what you’re speaking.
It’s all new to them. They have to copy them, and little by little they pick them up and put the meanings together and they talk. When they make a sound, they’re healed, but they got to learn to speak. They have results that way.
I think that might suffice for that. I’ll tell you what I have left. I have something left on fasting and praying and on healing. Would you like to hear that too?
According to them, and I’m convinced they are right, and it’s scriptural, that fasting produces great results. In fact, they feel that fasting combined with prayer is the only way to the deliverance of certain cases. You will find if you talk to folk who fasted and prayed for specific purposes that they are unanimous in this that some cases will not budge without this activity. We have Jesus Christ to substantiate that, don’t we?
This kind goeth not out but by fasting and prayer. They talked about prolonged fasts and gave this advice: prolonged fasts demands personal leadings. There was one brother there to whom God spoke and asked him to fast and pray for 40 days. Now that’s a long time.
You just try it for a day and find out how long 40 days must be. He was going to give up several times along the way, and God reminded him that he promised to obey. So he obeyed and had very phenomenal results in his ministry with many conversions, baptisms and healings resulting from that. In the process I believe he said he lost 70 pounds.
That’s quite a bit of weight. He said it takes you just about as long to recover from a long fast as the length of the time of the fast itself. If you fast 4 weeks, it will take you approximately 4 weeks to recover from that fast physically. That’s how he put it, and he should know.
He seemed to have been an authority out there. They mentioned that fasting should be in secret, not like one lady that one of them referred to who boasted and said, “I’m in my 10th day now, then I’m in my 11th day,” and kind of boasted in such and such a day. Of course we know all of that from the scripture, but people don’t learn from the scriptures always. They spoke very strongly for fasting in secret.
Don’t act as though you’re fasting. Try to cover it up. One of them mentioned there are circumstances where you cannot hide it. Your family will know it; your associates where you work might know it; you can’t hide it always, but at least you can do your best not to draw any more attention to it then is absolutely unavoidable, and certainly not for any purpose of boasting.
That’s a matter before God and they’ll be an open reward. They said what I have long believed: that the open reward is not something that God is going to reward us for when we get to heaven. There may be a reward there, but that’s not the point. The open reward is that when we fast and pray in secret, there is going to be an accompanying blessing that’s going to be open.
The people see the blessing and the ministry, the life, the stamp—whatever it is, that’s the open part. People don’t see what’s behind it, and you don’t advertise that either. Walterbeutter.com They didn’t speak against telling people your experience that you fasted a certain length of time, and such and such a thing was the result after it’s over, not boastfully of course, giving God the glory. But while you’re going through, the less people know about it, the better off you are.
They also suggest that long fasts presuppose a desperate need. According to them, long fasts should not be the norm, justified only where there’s a great need that demands it. Even then they suggest, in fact they’re quite strong, that you need divine guidance, let God guide you. If it’s a matter of fasting for a meal or maybe for a day or just a short time, you do that on your own.
You don’t need to be guided on that although it may happen to you as it happened to me that God led me to. I’ve never been on a long fast, just a few days, but you may feel that you ought to, but you don’t have to wait for that. You have a hunger for God; you want more of God; you want something from God; you want guidance—well alright, you’re earnest of heart: never mind supper. I’m going to shut myself in my room and seek God.
I’m going to fast and pray this evening. It helps a lot; it helps you to concentrate on your prayer if your stomach doesn’t take too much of your attention. That’s what you’re up against, but this fasting puts a real something—fiber—into your prayer, a determination. There’s a relation.
They abrogated this very heartily. Of course it eventually does something to your waistline, but many people are glad for that anyhow. Then somebody asked the question, “What shall I do when I fast? Can I go on as usual?” They said, “Well, you ought not be running around shopping.” Of course it’s not a case of any legal fasting: you know walking around with an empty stomach that growls at you and gets belligerent, and you say, “Oh God, look at my stomach.
Did you hear that? God I’m doing that for You, now You better bless me.” That would be work wouldn’t it? It’s not a matter of legalism at all. God doesn’t bless us for our empty stomach at all—not a bit.
That would be work. The only thing is that we’re so earnest, so determined to seek God that we’re fasting to concentrate on what we’re after so that fasting is really an adjunct of prayer and not merely a matter of legalistic performance. So they advise when you fast, don’t go around shopping and run around doing this, that and the other thing, but be in business for God. Shut yourself away.
Go into a room, seek God. After all, fasting must be accompanied by prayer or it’s useless. There’s nothing to it otherwise. Then they mentioned that sometimes circumstances demand that you work.
For instance, you want the Baptism and you fast and pray. You have a job and have to go to work so you do your work and do your praying while you work. You pray as much as you can while you work; it can be done; it can be did—that’s a Beuttlerism. You go on with your work and you get absorbed, but underneath there’s a burden; there is a something there.
If you’re not eating lunch, folks may ask, “Why don’t you eat?” Well, it’s up to you to give them some answer, but at any rate, you can’t quit your job for that necessarily. So in some circumstances it’s alright to go about your work, but do only what is absolutely necessary. It may be that God will show you that you’ll do only the most necessary things and give yourself to God. That’s how our girl Myra got healed when Wife fasted and prayed.
There was work to do and the Lord spoke to her, “Do only the necessary things.” All the rest was to be given to prayer. It’s remarkable how God does guidance if we really mean business with God. I’ve had some remarkable experiences within the last 3 days and that’s the truth. They warned against the extreme, the idea being that some people feel they ought to fast and then they want everybody else to fast.
I’ve bumped into that. We had a boy in EBI one year who said to me, “Brother Beuttler, God wants me to pray all night. Will you tell the students to pray with me all night?” Well, that’s none of their business. He thought because he should pray all night, and I doubt that he should have, but because he should pray all night that doesn’t mean I should pray all night.
I’ve got other things to do. Sometimes people feel they ought to fast and they want the whole church to fast. If God leads you to fast, He leads you to fast and nobody else, as far as you’re concerned. If He leads others to fast, He leads them to fast.
If God leads you to fast, don’t ask me to fast just because you have to fast, you fast. That’s right, isn’t it? Very often they want to put the burden on other people. So they mentioned this, Not all can receive this saying.
If God deals with you a certain way, or with me a certain way, that doesn’t mean He deals with you the same way or with me the same way. God deals with us differently. Walterbeutter.com I know one preacher is very strong on fasting. I believe he’s overdoing it.
Whenever he goes to a church, or did go to a church (he had a breakdown since), he would buttonhole the pastor, “Now you got to fast, come on pastor let’s go over to the church, we’ve got to fast.” I know one of them packed up a lunch on the sly and stuck it in his pocket. He put it down somewhere in the room where he was going to get it after. While the other fellow was praying, he was going to sneak into that room and eat his sandwich. I know the pastor well.
When he got there to eat his sandwich, lo and behold, the mice had it. (Laughter) The next time he took some candy along and I forgot, something went wrong with the candy, whatever the fellow did, he just couldn’t do it. He never told the other preacher, but he told me now. They mentioned that Christ Himself fasted for 40 days, and yet when the people were hungry, (Remember the people were without food for 3 days?), He said to the disciples, Give ye them to eat, the idea being: Jesus did not say, “Well never mind, they can stand it.
I stood it for 40 days therefore they’ve gone only 3 days—I’ve gone 40. Let them be hungry.” No, Give ye them to eat—all men cannot receive this saying. If God asks you to fast 40 days, that doesn’t mean I have to, and vise versa. We must be individually led by God.
To me, this is very sound teaching. I don’t know what you think of it, but I’ll tell you what I think of it. I just believe its right. Then again, fasting should be based on the word without being copied.
That’s another thought that they confirmed to my heart. In fact, I’m writing on that thought at school right now. It’s based on the word, not copied, the idea being, inasmuch as Cornelius fasted for 4 days and then an angel appeared, does that mean you and I can fast 4 days and we’ll see an angel. Of course not, that would be ridiculous.
There are principles there; there are principles throughout the word. Base your fasting on the word, but do not copy the word. That’s very sound. That leaves us a few minutes for the subject of healing.
I’ll have to crowd it a little bit. This healing is not faith healing, but divine healing. It makes a difference. Under this subject they mentioned casting out of spirits.
There are still a lot of Pentecostal people who don’t believe in evil spirits. Isn’t that something? They don’t believe in it. I got into trouble already up in school for teaching the doctrine of evil spirits, that is, I didn’t get in trouble at school, I got in trouble with pastors.
I can’t help it. I’ll be teaching it again and enlarging the subject besides. That’s just what the devil would like: keep quiet about him. Wouldn’t that suit him fine?
I’m not going to do it. They say now, for instance, that evil spirits do not possess believer’s souls. I sure agree with that. When you’re saved, you’re saved, and your soul is the Lords, and I don’t think the devil can possess it while we believe.
But they do say that demons get hold of the body. Of course they do. You’ll find Pentecost folk who deny that, but I do know that demons do get hold of the body. Then also say they could not get hold of our body if we believe.
They threw a very interesting sideline on the experience of Job. What I say here I haven’t fully settled in my own heart how right they are. I haven’t settled it, but they have a thought there at least worthy of consideration. They claim the reason Job got sick was because he lived in fear.
I’m only reporting; I’m not 100% concurring with it, but there’s something there. Fear opens us up to disease, no question on that. You fear polio; you fear cancer; you fear sickness. Fear and faith are two opposites.
I wouldn’t say fear brings sickness, but I would admit: fear makes it easier for Satan to afflict us. I’m sure it’s an avenue which he uses. They claim that fear brings us the thing we are afraid of. Fear is an awful thing.
They say Satan could not touch our bodies if we believe, that is to say, through faith we could keep sickness from us. Now there’s a lot to that. You’ve got to walk in obedience; you have to do the will of God at every turn, to be sure, but nevertheless theoretically, a person that believes, they believe, does not even have to take sickness. But where sickness has come, its better to get prayed for or get delivered before sickness gets rooted in us, takes hold of us.
They feel that at the very first sign of sickness, right away we ought to take our stand before the thing grips us. Then it’s much more difficult, even for them, to dislodge. Then God gives us a spirit of dominion. I believe they got that from a certain book.
It’s a good book as far as it goes. With a spirit of dominion, God gives us authority over sickness and over demons. They Walterbeutter.com mentioned a sister out of whom they cast a spirit and she testified and claimed that God had delivered her. They asked her, “How did she know?” She said, “I’m only drinking 14 cups of tea now.” They asked, “How many did you drink before?” She said, “From 30-40 cups of tea a day.” One of them said, “You must have been drinking tea all the time?” She said, “That’s right, I drank tea all day long—30-40 cups of tea a day.” She got delivered.
Think of that! It brought her down to 14. Looks like she could stand another shot. (Laughter) I would say they are taking a very, what I would consider (and I’m sticking my neck out with them, but that’s my nature) a very wholesome stand on the subject of demons and sickness.
They do not seem to hold as some do that every sickness is demon possession. That’s one thing I could never, never see. If I got a swollen finger, there’s a little demon in that finger that’s got to be cast out. I just can’t see it.
Or if I got an abscess there from a splinter, that’s a demon. If I have to have a finger amputated that they’re amputating a demon. That never appealed to me. They make a great difference here that I concur with, have believed right along, but never said much about it.
People are possessed by demons alright, and demons will take hold of parts of their body—any part for that matter. That is often true, but in most cases, people are simply sick. We know that disease is of the enemy, but according to them, every sickness is not demon possession, but demon oppression. A demon was behind it in some way, but it isn’t that the demon is sitting in your body and you’ve got to cast him out.
For instance: a fever. I don’t see there is such a thing as a fever demon. I wouldn’t say that demons cannot produce a fever, but you know what I mean: demon possession. There’s something wrong in the body demanding not the casting out of demons, but simply the healing of the body.
Those of you who were with Brother Branham: He prayed for people for God to heal them, and yet when he cast out the demon, it was a different thing again. He had people bow their head and they had to be careful. When he prayed for their healing, that wasn’t the case. They made that differentiation.
They do not call every sickness or ailment demon possession, to which I personally heartily concur. They mentioned a few causes of sickness. I think I could find more. Neither did they say that’s all there were, but they mentioned heredity.
Many of the things that bother us, we inherit. Then there is sin; there is overwork. (I’ve overworked my speaker. It feels like a big apple in there.) They mentioned preachers particularly who have so many breakdowns: so many of the preachers are sick.
They say one of the great sins among preachers is overwork. They keep on running, running, running. They do not observe the Lord of rest. Very often people don’t let them.
They think pastors have to be a jack of all trades, got to keep on the move every day of the week and every week of the month, every month of the year. Just keep on going and trust the Lord. There is no such thing. You break the laws of health; you break the laws of rest, then you break down your body, and God doesn’t help you.
The natural law is the law of God. If you don’t take care of yourself, you cannot expect to stay well. Divine healing is not going to save you from it. That’s their position, and they have something there.
One of them mentioned that sometimes sickness is permitted by God to see just what is in us. Sickness will sometimes bring out what is in us. We find that in school life. Sometimes we pass a regulation that some people rebel to or they lose the victory.
I know one of them said in my presence, “You know that rule is enough to make you to lose your sanctification.” I said, “Oh, no. That only shows you haven’t got any.” That’s the truth. Folks say, “You know that makes me lose all my patience.” “Oh, no! It only shows up that there isn’t any.” So God sometimes (for want of an expression) allows sickness to just see what’s going to come out in it.
Do we still believe God; do we trust God; do we still honor Him; do we still believe in healing? You can take that or leave it as you like, I’m reporting. Then again, sickness is used to change the attitude toward people. Some people are so critical of other people.
They have no patience with people when they’re sick. If they go to the doctor, they confine them to everlasting fire and brimstone. If they take medicine or take an aspirin, they’re terribly sinning, and oh so and so, this and that and the other. They develop a critical, judging spirit.
One of them suggested sometimes God Walterbeutter.com lets those fellows get sick to bring them down to where they belong, and let them feel what it is to be sick to humble them and change their attitude toward other people. That could well be, couldn’t it? Then again, God may allow it to give you compassion for the sick. Some people are so hard and so (what shall I say?) self something.
They advertise their own health, “Why I’ve got the faith. I’m never sick. What’s wrong with you? You must have sinned.
You got no business to be sick.” Well maybe none of us have any business to get sick, but it looks like we get sick whether we got any business to get sick or not. When God sees such a person with a hard, critical spirit, He may bring them down on their back to change their attitude toward their fellow Christians. I suppose that could be. One of them suggested that.
Then healing is not for an emergency merely; it’s for health. The idea being we should not be satisfied to get healed when we’re sick. We should grow with this thing, with God and with faith that we stay well. I guess there are very few of us here tonight who can boast of such an attainment.
I’m not one of them that is one of those who can boast in that, nevertheless I will admit that seems to be the ideal and the top provision of God. There’s a great need to build faith in people. That’s why they have their preparation meetings to which some people object. They say, “Well, Jesus didn’t,” but I think we find enough in the New Testament that Jesus did prepare people.
He sent His disciples ahead whither he himself would come preaching the kingdom of God. There was something. Anyhow they get results that way. Possibly they need preparation meetings because there is so little preaching on divine healing in the churches, so the people don’t even know what divine healing is, how it works, what to believe, what to do, how to trust.
So they have to do what perhaps should be done in the churches or they wouldn’t have to do it. I believe that is correct. There is a need to build faith. They build faith through the word.
Faith comes through the word. They claim, “We cannot heal.” I think it was Brother Erickson, or perhaps Brother Osborne whom God used to perform many miracles, yet one day he prayed for a headache and he couldn’t get rid of it. The headache wouldn’t go and he said that’s one of the easy things to pray for, but it wouldn’t go, so he said, “See, I can’t heal.” What I noticed with them, all of them including Branham when I was in New York: If you have no faith, you don’t get healed.
They don’t want you to come up and get prayed for if you don’t have faith. It just doesn’t work. The way the picture looks: God gave them power. God’s given them the ministry of healing; it’s there to be used, but if you come up and you do not have faith, the thing with them is it just doesn’t work.
They may say a prayer, but it doesn’t work and you go away sick. I noticed in Brother Branham’s meeting in New York: a person would not be healed until they had faith. Some of you who were there remember that. One lady—I think she had cancer.
He told her she would die soon. She waited a long time for faith to come up, for faith to rise, the demon was still there until finally there was a message in tongues and interpretation. Faith rose and when faith reached a certain level, Brother Branham motioned like this. Here is the cue; here is the ministry; your faith has to come up to this level.
When it comes up to that level, then stand back and you’re healed. None of them claim that they can heal without your faith, so they’ve got to build faith and the ministry. If you have faith they’ll pray for you and you’ll get healed. If you don’t have faith, you don’t get healed.
They build their faith through the word: Faith through the word, healing through faith. People come and say, “You’ve got the gift, you pray for me.” No, they’ve got the gift, they’ve got the ministry, but you’ve got to feed on the word and allow the words to grow in your heart and faith coming up, or you don’t get anywhere. Folks have criticized them, “Well, not everybody’s getting healed. When Jesus was here, everybody got healed.” I’ll tell you, “Jesus didn’t try to heal everybody.
In Capernaum He didn’t.” He could not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief. While they admit that as far as we know everyone that Jesus prayed for got healed, and I rather think it was so… After all we aren’t Jesus, but we thank God that a great many are getting healed, and we might just as well thank the Lord with them. Well, that’s the end of my story
This message is one of the sixty-six surviving transcripts of Walter Beuttler's teaching. To hear his voice, visit the Messages page. To read the story of his life — from the Brooklyn Bridge to the school of the Spirit — see Who Was Walter Beuttler? The True Story of the Man Who Knew God.
The Man Who Knew God
Walter Beuttler was never famous, yet he carried God's presence to more than a hundred countries. His students said that when he walked into a room, the air changed. This is the first full account of a friendship with God that was specific, sustained, and costly. Read the story of his life →