Kathryn Kuhlman: ‘Healed by the Power of Holy Spirit’

“The power of the baptism of the Holy Spirit cannot be overestimated.”

— Smith Wigglesworth

One day in the Seventies I found myself sitting in the large Gothic-cathedral-type sanctuary of Tulsa’s First United Methodist Church.

Somehow this seemed an odd setting in which to fulfill the purpose for which we were gathered together. I — along with several thousand other people — had arrived a few hours early to hear and see the ministry of the Holy Spirit through Miss Kathryn Kuhlman.

Even though almost three hours early, my girlfriend and I had to sit several rows from the back of the church. The anticipation was incredible. Until that day, I do not believe I can remember being part of a more expectant crowd.

I had never witnessed this ministry about which I had heard so much, and I hungered to see real miracles. I longed with every fiber of my being to see the reality of God. The hours seemed to fly by as I eagerly anticipated the events to come that day.

Finally the preliminary part of the meeting was over and Miss Kuhlman came onto the platform. I was almost shocked to see a thin, frail-looking woman in a flowing, chiffon gown. My shock almost instantly gave way to horror, as I heard what I considered to be an overly theatrical, almost melodramatic voice.

At first, I found it impossible to get past what I considered the physical limitations of God’s servant. However, suddenly, my reservations were swept away in the incredible revelation this marvelous woman began to share.

I will never forget the way she expounded on an intimacy with the Holy Spirit that I had rarely heard about. The presence of that same Holy Spirit seemed to increase with each passing moment, until it reached climactic proportions. Then she dramatically began to “shift gears.”

Instead of talking about the Holy Spirit, she seemed to be taking instructions from Him. The supernatural gifts of the word of knowledge seemed to flow from her as the Holy Spirit whispered in her ear.

She would point and say, “A woman in a yellow dress in this section of the auditorium is being healed of cancer of the stomach. A middle-aged man in the back is having a cleansing of his body, and his arteries are being cleaned out.”

On and on she would go. It appeared that believers and skeptics alike were being healed by the incredible power of God. Even hearing and seeing all that, it startled me when, in her characteristic style, she pointed a long, bony finger in my direction. My heart began to beat heavily as she continued to operate in the supernatural anointing of the Holy Spirit.

She called out the next revelation of God, and it was in the very back section of the church where I was sitting. The moment was so electric I did not hear the ailment she identified. However, almost instantly, a dialogue began behind my friend and me while Miss Kuhlman proceeded with the service. The couple sitting behind us began to interact in very loud whispers.

The wife said, “That’s you! Go on up to the front.” (It was Miss Kuhlman’s custom to bring to the platform those who had been healed to give their testimonies.)

The husband reacted defiantly, “I’m not going anywhere. This stuff is fake.”

The entire section of the church was astir as the couple’s conversation could not help but be overheard. It was all I could do not to turn around and ask them what they were experiencing. The service continued as if the event had never taken place, but about ten minutes later, Miss Kuhlman again pointed to the section in which I was sitting.

She said, “I called this sickness out earlier, and you did not respond. You have a heart condition” (she explained it in some detail), “and you need to come forward now to receive your healing.”

Again, almost instantly, the husband and wife began to interact.

“That’s you!” the wife said. “You better go forward.”

Almost angrily this time, the husband responded, “I told you this stuff is fake. I’m not going anywhere.”

The entire event went unnoticed by the majority of people in the auditorium, but virtually every person in the vicinity of this couple could overhear them. The conversation, however, was not unnoticed by the Holy Spirit. In five to ten minutes, Miss Kuhlman once again came back to the situation.

“This is the third time I have called out this healing,” she said. “You have a heart condition.” (Again she amplified upon the condition to which she was referring.) “If you do not come forward right now, you won’t be healed.”

With some more prodding from his wife, the man reluctantly moved to the front of the auditorium. I was now straining my neck to see what God was going to do in the life of this skeptic. In what was a short framework of time, I watched as he was interviewed by an attendant and ushered to the platform.

Miss Kuhlman finally turned to him and stretched out her hand. When she was about five feet away from him, he suddenly — and I might add, unexpectedly — was overcome by the power of God and “slain in the Spirit” (a common manifestation in Miss Kuhlman’s meetings). He slumped to the floor as if dead and lay there for about fifteen minutes.

The meeting continued with numerous reports of healings, but my eyes remained riveted upon my new-found “acquaintance.” When a short time had elapsed, he staggered to his feet, Miss Kuhlman approached him, and he went down again.

Almost as if it were choreographed, this happened almost identically a third time some minutes later. The man struggled to his feet the fourth time, and Miss Kuhlman again approached him. He put up his hands as if to say, “Please, lady, I’ve had enough.” This time, however, he did not go down, and my curiosity would be satisfied as the evangelist interviewed the man.

Miss Kuhlman looked at him and said, “My goodness, sir, it seems as if you needed something from God today.”

Almost stunned, the man could only emphatically shake his head to the delight of the crowd.

She then proceeded to ask, “Sir, do you believe this is real?”

Again, all the humbled man could do was shake his head with equal emphasis. She then looked at him with eyes of compassion and asked, “What do you do for a living?”

With almost an embarrassed stance, he responded, “I’m a Baptist minister.”

“Oh!” she asked, “Do you think you are ready to share this with your congregation?”

All the shocked minister could do was shake his head in a funny little manner, as the congregation howled and applauded its approval. He finally testified that he felt as if his entire body had been given an “overhaul,” and he knew he had been touched by God.

That was the first time I had ever seen such a manifestation of the Holy Spirit in my young Christian life. The next year at Oral Roberts University when Kathryn Kuhlman came to Tulsa again, I sang in the choir, although I could not “carry a tune in a bucket.” I joined the choir just so I could be near the power of God.

Again, the same wonderful presence of God filled the auditorium of the Mabee Center on campus. In one moment, Miss Kuhlman turned back to where the choir was sitting and simply waved her hand. The power of the Holy Spirit was so strong that several hundred of us in that section were “slain in the Spirit” at one time.

The Baptism Is More Than “Tongues”

That was a pivotal time in my Christian life, because it created an irrepressible hunger for the kind of power and relationship with the Holy Spirit that Kathryn Kuhlman experienced. It seems a foregone conclusion that any examination of Pentecostal or Charismatic revivals should have the baptism with the Holy Spirit as a “given.” Yet so much of what takes place seems to have the effect of reducing Holy Spirit baptism to a believer’s speaking in tongues.

While I value tongues as an inestimable gift from God, the baptism with the Holy Spirit is much more than that. It is the explosion of power in a believer’s life — power for miracles and conviction.

The early revivalists saw the baptism with the Holy Spirit as far more than the subsequent experience to salvation and a new tool of communication with God. The relationship with the Holy Spirit became the launching pad for their miracle ministries. It was “the baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire” of Matthew 3:11.

John G. Lake related this relationship to an intense hunger.

He said:

When I approached this matter of the baptism [with the Holy Spirit], I did so with great care, but I approached it as a hungry soul. My heart was hungry for God.

For six months after his experience with the Holy Ghost, the Spirit revealed to Lake things in his life that required repentance, confession, or restitution. Not only did Lake receive tongues and power, but he received the fire of God to cleanse him and create God-given passions within him.

This was not a self-indulgent preoccupation with past wounds, but a surrender of his life to the rejuvenating revelation of the Holy Spirit. He dealt only with those things the Spirit of God brought to his attention.

Perhaps most important, however, was that after the Holy Spirit had purged his life, He created a new power in Lake, and God’s healing was of a more potent order. Now there came an ability to discern and cast out demons.

The miracle power of God was so prolific that tens of thousands were drawn to Lake’s meetings in Africa. One Johannesburg man was so attracted that he came to the services although everyone in the crowd knew him to be a man of “reproachable character.” The power of God was so strong in the meeting that the man realized he had to make a clean slate of his secret sins.

During the meeting, which lasted until 4:00 a.m., the man ran to the altar and drew from his pockets a watch and a sum of money. Throwing these to one side, within minutes he was baptized with the Spirit and had begun speaking in tongues. Those present recognized the language as German.

Later, it was related that the money he had thrown aside was funds he had cheated out of unsuspecting rail passengers as trainmaster. He had charged them more than was required for their tickets. The watch was one that had fallen out of someone’s suitcase and had not been returned by the man.

Such manifestations in Lake’s ministry became commonplace after he was baptized with the Spirit.

Dr. Cyndylan Jones pointed out that the question, ...Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?...(Acts 19:2 KJV) was at the forefront of the Welsh Revival. Gordon Lindsay wrote:

What happened in Wales would become an object lesson for the entire church in every land. If true members of Christ in every nation — be they few or many — were to each receive what God means by a baptism in the Holy Ghost and fire, signs and wonders would follow. [Emphasis mine.] It has been truly said that the world cannot be “revived,” for it is dead. A worldwide revival, therefore, means the quickening of the people of God.

Lindsay’s words are the captivating force of recapturing miracle-working power in a prolific manner. If every member of the Body of Christ would receive what God means by a baptism with the Holy Spirit, then fire, signs, and wonders would erupt. Smith Wigglesworth was transformed from a bumbling, stuttering owner of a plumbing business into a vessel of faith, once he was baptized with the Holy Spirit. No longer was he relegated to leading a pony through the neighborhood to take little children to Sunday school. He became a “holy rage” released upon anything that was not like God.

This relationship with the Holy Spirit also revolutionized Charles Finney. Here is his personal experience with the Spirit, which occurred before he entered the ministry, as he related it in his own words:

...The Holy Spirit descended upon me in a manner that seemed to go through my body and soul. I could feel the impression, like a wave of electricity going through and through me. It seemed like the very breath of God. I can recall distinctly that it seemed to fan me like immense wings. No words can express the wonderful love that was shed abroad in my heart  I literally bellowed out unutterable gushings of my heart. The waves came over me and over me, one after another until I recollect I cried out, “I shall die if the waves continue to pass over me.” I said, “I cannot bear it any more.” Yet I had no fear of death.

The following morning after his wonderful baptism of power, there came a marvelous call to the ministry of love. All day long each encounter with the lost led to powerful convictions and conversions. His boss was the first man Finney spoke to after this experience, and the man was struck with such conviction that he was converted a few days later.

The baptism with the Holy Spirit is the inception of a relationship with God that transforms any ordinary person into the realm of the supernatural. Smith Wigglesworth would say, “We may be nothing, but in God, we can be mighty.” His tapping of this spiritual secret set him apart from others who might have had greater natural ability or capacity.

If anyone understood the ongoing relationship with the Holy Spirit, it was Evan Roberts. It was said of him that he was extremely sensitive to the leadings of the Spirit, and this sensitivity was to be the identifying characteristic of his entire ministry.

A London newspaper would say of him, “He seems more sensitive to the influence of the Holy Spirit than almost any Christian of our time.”

Roberts carried a sense of God’s presence with him. He was guided and led by the Holy Spirit to Whom he was completely yielded. He was moved as God moved him. Another newspaper put it this way:

...Evan Roberts, who speaks in Welsh, opens his discourse by saying that he is in communion with the Spirit of God. The preacher soon after launches out into a fervent, and at times, impassioned oration. His statements have had the most stirring effects upon his listeners.

What we need in the Church today is a real outpouring of the Holy Spirit and fire — an outpouring of fire to purge us from anything that blocks our way to the power of God.