The following excerpt is taken from The Blood and the Glory by Billye Brim:
The Blood and the Outpouring
First the Blood
…”His Spirit answers to the blood.”
Every outpouring of the Holy Spirit was and will be in answer to the Blood of Jesus the Messiah.
The Blood and the Latter Rain Outpouring
Wigglesworth received his baptism in the Holy Spirit at Sunderland. Again, you can see the place of the blood in those days in his own account in his biography, The Apostle of Faith:
For four days I wanted nothing but God. But after that, I felt I should leave for my home, and I went to the Episcopal vicarage to say good-bye. I said to Mrs. Boddy, the vicar’s wife: “I am going away, but I have not received the tongues yet.” She answered, “It is not the tongues you need, but the Baptism.” “I have received the Baptism, Sister,” I protested, “but I would like to have you lay hands on me before I leave.” She laid her hands on me and then had to go out of the room.
The fire fell. It was a wonderful time as I was there with God alone. He bathed me in power. I was conscious of the cleansing of the precious Blood, and I cried out: “Clean! Clean! Clean!” I was filled with the joy of the consciousness of the cleansing. I was given a vision in which I saw the Lord Jesus Christ. I beheld the empty cross, and I saw Him exactly at the right hand of God the father. I could speak no longer in English but I began to praise Him in other tongues as the Spirit of God gave me utterance. I knew then, although I might have received anointings previously, that now, at last, I had received the real baptism in the Holy Spirit as they received on the day of Pentecost.
The Anointing for Power
Maria Woodworth-Etter
Sister Etter placed great faith in the blood to prepare the way for the power to work. Her own account of a great meeting in Los Angeles illustrates this:
The world-wide camp meeting was no doubt the largest gathering of baptized saints in these last days. I had…the 10 o’clock meetings, which would have lasted all day and night, for the power of God was poured out so wonderfully, but I had to close at 2 o’clock for other services…
As they led me to the steps that went off the large platform, I stopped and looked at the many hungry, anxious souls; then the power of God came on me, I raised my hands to heaven and stood there, as the Holy Ghost swept over the multitudes. I said, the Lord is going to save a lot of you dear people just now. All who want to be saved just now, while I stand here and sprinkle the blood of Jesus on you, by “Living Faith,” come forward. There was a rush from all directions to the platform. They began to weep and shout and scores were converting, without getting on their knees, except those who fell down under the Almighty power of God…
Another day as I came off the platform many that could not get near while I was praying for the sick, stood, looking so sad, crowding around me as near as they could, trying to touch my hands or speak. I stopped to look at them. The power fell on me and swept over them. I raised my hands and told them all to look to Jesus, to look up, to lif their hands and faces to God, that I would sprinkle the blood of the Lamb over them, that they would all be healed. Oh, glory to god. The healing power swept over. Many miracles of healings were wrought, people were saved and baptized.
The Blood and The Last Outpouring
Here is Wigglesworth’s account of what happened from the time he boarded the train to return home to Bradford after having received the baptism in the Holy Spirit at Boddy’s place in Sunderland:
The first thing I did was to telegraph to my home saying, “I have received the baptism in the Holy Ghost and have spoken in tongues.” On the train to my home town, the devil began questioning, “Are you going to take this to Bradford?” As regards my feelings at the moment, I had nothing to take, but the just do not live by feelings but by faith. So I shouted out on the railroad coach to everybody’s amazement, “Yes, I’m taking it!” A great joy filled me as I made this declaration, but somehow I knew from that moment it would be a great fight all the time.
When I arrived home one of my sons said to me, “Father, have you been speaking in tongues?” I replied, “Yes, George.” “Then let’s hear you,” he said…
My wife said to me, “So you’ve been speaking with tongues, have you?”
I replied, “Yes.”
“Well,” she said, “I want you to understand that I am as much baptized as you are and I don’t speak in tongues.”
I saw that the contest was beginning right at home.
“I have been preaching for twenty years,” she continued, “and you have sat beside me on the platform, but on Sunday you will preach yourself, and I’ll see what there us in it.”
She kept her word. On Sunday she took a seat at the back of the building. We had always sat together on the platform until that day. So the contest had begun right in the church.
There were three steps up to the platform, and as I went up those three steps the Lord gave me the passage in Isaiah 61:1, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.”
I was no preacher, but hearing the voice of my Lord speaking those words to me, I began. I cannot now remember what I said, but my wife was terribly disturbed. The bench on which she sat would seat nine people and she moved about on it until she had sat on every part of it. Then she said in a voice that all around her could hear, “That’s not my Smith, Lord, that’s not my Smith!”
I was giving out the last hymn when the secretary of the mission stood up and said, “I was what our leader has received.”
The strange thing was that when he was about to sit down he missed his seat and went right down on the floor. Then my oldest son arose and said he wanted what his father had, and he, too, took his seat right down on the floor. In a short while there were eleven people right on the floor of that mission. The strangest thing was that they were all laughing in the Spirit and laughing at one another. The Lord had really turned again the captivity of Zion and the mouth of His children was being filled with laughter according to the word of the Lord in Psalm 126:1,2.
The former and latter rain outpouring in upon us.
There are the last of the last days.
We must make much of the Blood for two purposes. To overcome Satan in his endtime wrath. But much more importantly, to prepare us for God’s Glory in his end time revelation through His Glorious Church.
I have included so much from witnesses of the outpouring at the beginning of the century. This is because these old-timers understood truth about the blood and the power which somehow slipped away. It must return for the greater outpouring we are about to know at the end of the century.
I believe we need to return singing about the Blood. Real singing to give the Blood its place in our approach to God. Not merely to singing just a token song in a service, but to singing a while in honor of the Blood. The old-timers said that when they sang about the Blood for a while “a cleansing wave” seemed to sweep over them preceding a wave of the Spirit in power.
The Spirit answers to the blood.
The Spirit of Glory must complete our preparation now for the Lord of Glory!