Smith Wigglesworth’s ‘Only Believe’ was one of the inspiring books I read soon after coming to faith. The humble Bradford plumber became widely known as the ‘Apostle of faith’. The publisher describes the book as “An exploration of the power of active belief and how to develop simple, childlike faith in God and His Word”.
Wigglesworth’s exploits seem to exemplify the words of Mark’s Gospel.
“And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on people who are ill, and they will get well” (Mark 16:17-18)
Summer healings
The summer of 2002 saw the beginning of five amazing years in my classic car business. This comprised surprising, unexpected, extraordinary, supernatural, almost daily experiences which changed my life and those of many others – ultimately causing me to leave a conventional business life to pursue a magnificent adventure with the Lord.
That summer a young student from St Andrews University, interested in classic cars, joined me for work experience. One morning we took a trip to Beverley in our car transporter truck. I’d taken a phone call from a gentleman whose friend was very ill and needed to dispose of a rare 1950s Healey Tickford saloon. The car was in a poor state – and so it seemed was the owner. He was very ill with oesophageal cancer.
I left a conventional business life to pursue a magnificent adventure with the Lord.
After agreeing a price, the owner talked about his life in the merchant Navy and his late wife with whom he had lived in Greece. It seemed he had to come back to England for NHS treatment. I asked if he was a Christian. “You wouldn’t call me devout, lad,” was his response. I told him the story of Jesus teaching Nicodemus from John chapter 3, explaining what was required to give his life to Christ. I went on to pray with him and then we loaded up the truck and left. This was not the sort of work experience the student had expected!
Later, I decided to send the sick man a Bible. About three months later, whilst working in the showroom, I met a husband and wife who appeared to be from the farming community. “Can I help you?”, I asked. “I hope so”, was the reply – “I understand you’re a Christian healer”. For a moment I was completely taken aback. My puzzled response was “I’m a Christian called Szkiler”. Then the man explained: “About three months ago, you prayed for a man in Beverley who had cancer of the oesophagus, and he’s healed. I have cancer of the oesophagus, and I’m hoping that you’ll do the same for me.”
Whilst praising God for the man’s healing, I confess that in that moment, my previously mostly separate business and faith lives collided. “I’ll just tell you what I told the other chap,” I said. In those days, my office was an old bus in the middle of a wooden barn. Sitting the couple down in the bus, I shared the gospel with them, and I prayed for the man.
Such stories remind us that our God really is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.
Months later, I visited North Riding Garages in Pickering, then a Mercedes-Benz dealer. They wanted a price for a black Morgan being offered as part exchange. On entering the showroom, a lady was staring at me. “I know you, don’t I?” It was the lady I had met with her sick husband months earlier. “Car man, classic cars!” I nodded and looked across at her husband who was examining the new Mercedes models, looking well and pink as a lobster. “I’ve told him you know. I’ve told him where his healing has come from”, his wife explained.
Divine appointments
Those two encounters were the beginning of five roller-coaster years during which around two thirds of the people I met in the course of business were recently bereaved, long-term ill or terminally ill. It sounds impossible, but almost daily I was in business situations where I was trying to discern whether to pray with people, lay on hands or in simple language offer them the gospel. Sometimes I didn’t have any unction to lay on hands or even speak of healing. Often, with prayerful thoughts I was asking the Lord what was needed in that situation.
Introducing Jesus in a business conversation was rejected at times but often had surprising results. The wife of one elderly man disposing of his pre-war Wolseleys whispered to me, “He’s in heart failure”, as her husband breathlessly pulled off the car covers. He later gave me this advice. “I spent my life training salesmen. If you want to be successful, don’t mix your faith with your business”. My answer astonished him. “I’ll trade a life of success for a life of significance”. Then I shared what I believe was a ‘word of knowledge’. “The Lord has just told me you’re Jewish.” The shocked man asked how I could have possibly known that. His mother had been Jewish but was not brought up in the Jewish faith. The Lord had created the opportunity I needed.
The Lord had created the opportunity I needed.
Another customer sold me his ultra-rare 1930s Daimler Straight Eight Vanden Plas pillarless saloon. I offered a price for cash or a slightly higher figure if I brokered a sale on his behalf. He needed to sell outright, because his doctor had told him to ‘put his affairs in order’. These were typical encounters I was having almost daily and even my own family were for a time sceptical about what I told them, perhaps also concerned about me.
God incidences
In Paignton, the buyer of an MGB – a man perhaps in his early seventies – told me about the plight of his ‘friend’, a young single mum who was suffering from M.S. On learning I was a Christian, he insisted I call her up and pray for her. I had run out of driver tachograph hours and whilst resting I asked the Lord about this in prayer. A married man, making an unsolicited call to a single lady didn’t feel right to me.
I felt prompted to read from 1st Corinthians, and I began to learn of wisdom that can come from the Holy Spirit, which would seem nonsense to the world. I plucked up courage to call Joanne, introduced myself and explained that I had met her friend, been asked to pray for her and that this only made sense if right now she was seeking the Lord. She was indeed.
As our world is engulfed in a rising tide of evil, we may need great faith and boldness to lead many to Christ, yet we are assured of God’s help.
That evening in Newton Abbott I discovered that Joanne was newly born-again, that my customer had been behaving inappropriately toward her and her daughter and she’d been praying about what to do – perhaps disassociating herself from this man, moving house and job nearer to her new church. After a cup of tea and chat we prayed and I gave her my advice. We discussed our unusual meeting and I explained that when we need help and there’s no one at hand, sometimes the Holy Spirit will just bring someone seemingly from nowhere to help us.
Weeks later, recounting the unusual story of this young mum to another couple after delivering their classic MG to Glossop, a young lady opposite said, “I’ve got M.S. and right now I’m seeking the Lord, but my husband won’t let me go to the fellowship here as I would need to be carried.” Another divine appointment.
As a relatively inexperienced Christian, inspired by giants of the faith like Smith Wigglesworth, I was quite literally taking some of the things I read in the Bible about the exploits of the disciples in the time of Jesus. When these encounters took place, I would pray in my mind for guidance, that the Holy Spirit would give me the right words for that situation.
The most extraordinary outcomes usually happened in an environment where the gospel was being preached – like the day when a customer came to sell his Daimler DS 420 limousines. He looked unwell and he told me he was facing ten hours of maxillofacial surgery for cancer later that week. He feared he would not survive the operation, yet here he was hearing the gospel from a car salesman. He prayed the sinner’s prayer, inviting Christ into his life, assured of his salvation.
The world has changed, and our old ‘normal’ way of life has gone forever, but we have a great hope and the greatest Helper.
The reluctant convert
One meeting etched on my memory was buying a Model T Ford on the East coast from an owner who had stomach cancer. As usual, I shared my faith, and tried to lead the man to the Lord, but this time was rejected. A year later his daughter phoned the business looking for the “classic car dealer who is a Christian”. Her father, now very ill and near the end of his life wanted me to visit. He was “ready”. As I left the house, the whole family were out on the front doorstep smiling, including dad – who had just given his life to Christ.
Driving from their house, whilst I could clearly see the road ahead, superimposed was an image of what appeared to be angels dancing in a circle. What was this? These words came into my mind. “Angels rejoice in heaven as another soul joins the Kingdom of God” (see Luke 15:7).
Our helper, the Holy Spirit
Such stories remind us that our God really is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. They are a reminder of what Smith Wigglesworth knew so well, “if we will only believe, miracles can happen”. The world has changed, and our old ‘normal’ way of life has gone forever, but we have a great hope and the greatest Helper.
As our world is engulfed in a rising tide of evil, we may need great faith and boldness to lead many to Christ, yet we are assured of God’s help; for, as Jesus reminds us:
“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever – the Spirit of truth” (Jn 14:15-17).