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About the Book
"Decree" by Patricia King is a guide to understanding and utilizing the power of speaking and declaring God's promises over your life. Through personal anecdotes and biblical teachings, King encourages readers to speak positive declarations and affirmations to manifest change and transformation in their lives. The book emphasizes the importance of aligning one's words with God's truth to see breakthrough and fulfillment in various areas of life.
Maria Woodworth-Etter
Maria Woodworth-Etterās Early life
Mariaās early life was plagued with tragedies. Her father died of sunstroke when she was 11 years old leaving her mother with eight children to provide for. She married at 16 but fought a continual battle with ill-health, losing five of her six children. During her sickness she had visions of children in heaven and the lost suffering in hell.
She promised God, that if He would heal her, she would serve Him completely. She asked God for same apostolic power He gave the disciples and was gloriously baptized in the Holy Spirit. āIt felt like liquid fire, and there were angels all around.ā
The call to preach
Despite her personal struggles with āwomen in ministryā and the prevailent hostile attitudes to female preachers, she felt compelled by God to accept the invitation to preach in the United Brethren in Christ (Friends) in 1876 and later associated with the Methodist Holiness church.
Evangelism with signs and wonders
Though simply evangelistic in the early days she was unusually successful and in 1885 supernatural signs began to accompany her ministry. Her ministry resurrected dead churches, brought salvation to thousands of unconverted and encouraged believers to seek a deeper walk with God.
She descibes one of her meetings
She described an 1883 meeting in Fairview, Ohio: āI felt impressed God was going to restore love and harmony in the church..ā¦ All present came to the altar, made a full consecration, and prayed for a baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire. That night it came. Fifteen same to the altar screaming for mercy.
Men and women fell and lay like dead. I felt it was the work of God, but did not know how to explain it or what to say. I was a little frightened . . . after lying for two hours all, one after another, sprang to their feet as quick as a flash with shining faces and shouted all over the house. I had never seen such bright conversions or such shoutingā¦.
The ministers and old saints wept and praised the Lord ā¦..they said it was the Pentecost power, that the Lord was visiting them in great mercy and power ā¦..(they) experienced visions of heaven and hell, collapsed on the floor as if theyād been shot or had died.ā Subsequently, thousands were healed of a wide variety of sicknesses and diseases and many believers, even ministers, received mighty baptisms of the Holy Spirit. She soon became a national phenomenon.
1,000 seater tent
In 1889, she purchased a tent that could seat eight thousand people and set it up in Oakland, California. āThe power of God was over all the congregation; and around in the city of Oakland. The Holy Ghost would fall on the people while we were preaching. The multitude would be held still, like as though death was in their midst.
Many of the most intelligent and best dressed men would fall back in their seats, with their hands held up to God. being held under the mighty power of God. Men and women fell, all over the tent, like trees in a storm; some would have visions of God. Most all of them came out shouting the praises of God.ā
She declared that if 19th-century believers would meet Godās conditions, as the 120 did on the Day of Pentecost, they would have the same results. āA mighty revival would break out that would shake the world, and thousands of souls would be saved. The displays of Godās power on the Day of Pentecost were only a sample of what God designed should follow through the ages. Instead of looking back to Pentecost, let us always be expecting it to come, especially in these days.ā
Her views of Pentecostalism
Initially she had grave concerns about the burgeoning Pentecostal movement, mainly because of some unbalanced teaching and reported extremism. Soon she came to believe it was an authentic move of the Holy Spirit and was enthusiastically welcomed within its ranks. She became both a model and a mentor for the fledgling movement. This association elicited another wave of revival between 1912 and her death in 1924 as she ministered throughout the country and her books were read across the world.
Etter Tabenacle
In 1918, she built Etter Tabernacle as her home church base and affiliated with the Assemblies of God. In her closing years she still ministered with a powerful anointing despite struggling with gastritis and dropsy. On occasion she would be carried to the podium, preach with extraordinary power, then be carried home again!
Her demise
Her health continued to decline and she died on September 16, 1924. She is buried in a grave in Indianapolis next to her daughter and son-in-law. Her inscription reads āThou showest unto thousands lovingkindness.ā
In conclusion
Without doubt Maria Woodworth-Etter was an amazing woman blessed with an astonishing ministry. Rev. Stanley Smith ā one of the famous āCambridge Sevenā and for many years a worker with āThe China Inland Missionā wrote this about her autobiography:
āI cannot let this opportunity go by without again bringing to the notice of my readers, āActs of the Holy Ghost,ā or āLife and Experiences of Mrs. M. B. Woodworth-Etter.ā It is a book I value next to the Bible. In special seasons of waiting on God I have found it helpful to have the New Testament on one side of me and Mrs. Etterās book on the other; this latter is a present-day record of āthe Actsā multiplied.
Mrs. Etter is a woman who has had a ministry of healing since 1885, her call as an evangelist being some years previous to this. I venture to think that this ministry is unparalleled in the history of the Church, for which I give all the glory to the Lord Jesus Christ, as Mrs. Etter would, I know, wish me to do. This ministry should be made known, for the glory of the Triune God and the good of believers.ā
We agree and pray that such an anointing will rest upon Godās end-time people so that āthis Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in all the world before the end comes!ā Matthew 24:14
Tony Cauchi
The Ordinary People God Chose - Learning to Love the Local Church
Iām not athletic. Iām not competitive. I donāt like to sweat. I have trouble remembering the rules of games. The only organized sport on my lifeās rĆ©sumĆ© is two years of collegiate synchronized swimming ā a singular exception that only proves the rule. But for someone who doesnāt like sporting events, I end up watching a lot of them. Iāve shivered on wooden bleachers during snowy college football games. Iāve sunburned in the outfield at minor (and major) league baseball games. Iāve covered my ears during deafening basketball games. Iāve flinched and winced at ice hockey games. Iāve arrived early for batting practice, and Iāve stayed late for the fireworks. And I donāt just watch. I wear the team colors. I sing the team song. I bite my fingernails in the bottom of the ninth. When we win, I rejoice. When we lose, Iām genuinely disappointed. My surprising conduct has an explanation: I love people who love sports. The people in my family delight in goals and strikes and penalty shots, and so, over time, Iāve learned to take pleasure in those things too. What they love, I want to love. At times, the local church can seem to us like a sporting event to a non-athlete, or a baking show to a microwave cook, or a book club to someone who doesnāt like to read. It can seem like a big fuss over something insignificant and lots of work with unimpressive results. Week after week, the unremarkable people of our local congregations gather to do the same things in the same way, followed by stale coffee served at plastic tables in a damp basement. We may wonder, Why bother? The answer requires us to look beyond our own experiences and inclinations ā it requires us to look to God himself. Having been redeemed by the blood of Christ and changed by the work of the Spirit, we love God. What God loves, we therefore want to love. And God loves the church. Our First Love We didnāt always love God, of course. To begin with, we hated him. The Bible describes us as enemies (Romans 5:10), strangers (Ephesians 2:12), rebels (Ezekiel 20:38), and haters (Romans 1:30); impure (Ephesians 5:5), disobedient (Ephesians 2:2), hopeless (Ephesians 2:12), and ignorant (Romans 10:3). Our sins justly placed us under his wrath and displeasure (Ephesians 2:3). We rejected God, despised his authority, and ignored his good law. We were neither lovely nor loving. But he loved us. In the counsels of eternity, he set his love on us, and in time, he sent his beloved Son to die for us so that we might enter into a loving relationship with him. He brought us out of slavery into the joyful circle of his family and made us his privileged children. Because he loved us, we now love him. Our love for God is comprehensive: involving heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30). It controls us (2 Corinthians 5:14), and it compels us (John 14:15). Our days and hours and minutes are taken up with this love. Like the psalmist, we look around us and proclaim that there is nothing in all the earth we desire apart from God (Psalm 73:25). He is our first love, and he is our great love. Godās Great Love Itās appropriate, then, that we would ask ourselves, What does God love? For anyone who has ever sat in the creaking pews ā or folding chairs ā of a local congregation on Sunday morning, the answer might be surprising: God loves the church. Listen to what Paul tells the Ephesians: Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:25ā27) The glorious purpose of Godās eternal plan of redemption is the gathering and perfecting of his people. Jesus came for the sake of the church. More than thirty times in the New Testament, the church is called ābeloved.ā This is not because the ordinary and sometimes awkward people who gather on Sundays are themselves lovely, but because they are bound to someone who is. Christ is the one whom the Father āloved . . . before the foundation of the worldā (John 17:24). He is the beloved Son. And as people who were created in him, redeemed by him, united to him, and given to him, we find our identity in him. Christ is the beloved, and in him, the church is beloved too. Loving the People God Loves Of all the games I watch, the sporting events where I have the greatest investment are the ones where my own kids are playing. When Iām in the bleachers at their basketball games or beside the dugout at their baseball games, I canāt take my eyes off the action. It might be Saturday morning T-ball, but itās always the big game to me. When someone I love is on the team, Iām all in. Likewise, if the one our soul loves has committed himself to the church, it changes everything about our own commitment. āBeloved,ā writes John, āif God so loved us, we also ought to love one anotherā (1 John 4:11). This means that we will seek to make Godās great love for the church our own. We begin on Sunday by regularly showing up to worship together (Hebrews 10:24). Itās our highest privilege to gather with the people of God before the face of God. In the church, we also work to promote one anotherās holiness, to show affection for one another, to bear one anotherās needs, to encourage one anotherās gifts, and to join in the cause of the gospel together. The people of our church are often outwardly unremarkable, but in the mutual love of the local church, we affirm the love that God has for us. Thankfully, we donāt have to muster up love for the church on our own strength. Before he went to the cross to redeem his people, Christ prayed for the church. He petitioned the Father āthat the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in themā (John 17:26). Surrounded by the ordinary and yet extraordinary, sinful and yet holy, weak and yet ultimately triumphant people of God, we look for the Fatherās gracious answer to the Sonās request. And when the God who is love (1 John 4:8) dwells in us by his Spirit, we have everything we need to love the church. Article by Megan Hill
