Rick Joyner: "Honoring Those Who Came Before Us: Mother Etter – The Greatest Christian Life"

From the desk of Steve Shultz:

Maria Woodworth-Etter is said to have been "one of the greatest evangelists of all time" and was also called the "Grandmother of the Pentecostal Movement".

I appreciate Rick Joyner honoring and sharing from the lives of men and women who have gone before us...it's important to know where we've been and what's available to us NOW as he shares:

My purpose in sharing these brief biographies of great Christian lives is to encourage you to go deeper in study of the lives of those who especially inspired you. Their stories can influence us in a way that is like being one of their disciples. The stories of those who walked with God still have power and an impartation, as do many of the Biblical accounts.

There's a lot to learn from the life of Maria Woodworth-Etter... I pray it blesses and inspires you to press in for much more!

Honoring Those Who Came Before

My purpose in sharing these brief biographies of great Christian lives is to encourage you to go deeper in study of the lives of those who especially inspired you. Their stories can influence us in a way that is like being one of their disciples. The stories of those who walked with God still have power and an impartation, as do many of the Biblical accounts.

Studying the history of those who walked with God is one way we obey the commandment to "Honor your fathers and mothers." This is the only commandment with a promise, and it is a great promise – "that it will go well with you, and you can dwell long in the land that the Lord has given to you" (see Deuteronomy 5:16 MVB). We should always keep this in mind. Obeying this one commandment can hugely impact our life and our longevity. Just this is worth the investment of our time, but there is more. By doing this, we can receive an impartation of what they had, and that is priceless.

As we previously covered, the only place in the Bible that explains why Christians get weak, sick, or die prematurely is for "not discerning the body" (see I Corinthians 11:29 MVB). This failure to discern the Lord's body in this text is connected to partaking of the ritual of communion in an unworthy manner. To partake of communion in an unworthy manner is to substitute the ritual for the reality that it represents. In this case, it is partaking of the ritual of communion without actually having communion in our life. The required communion is with the Lord and His Body, the Church. We cannot have one without the other. If we are properly joined to the Head, we will also be rightly joined to His body. Rituals are important reminders, but they are not the reality.

My point is that the Body of Christ is composed of all who have walked with Him, from the first century until now. Even though we cannot physically walk with those who have passed from this life, we can still be connected to and honor them by studying their life and work. In this way we can have communion, or common-union, with the whole Body of Christ.

By studying the life and work of those who have gone before us, we also get a clearer picture of what has led to our own times. We can know our destination, but we must know where we are in order to get there. It is like shopping mall maps that tell you where the stores are located. Those maps would not help much, however, without the little dot that says, "You are here." (Photo via Pixabay)

We will continue this study of great Christian lives, but if any of them touch you, determine to study them further and gain a greater impartation. More than developing a communion with their memory, study them with the Lord and ask Him to show you what things He wants to be a part of your life. Ultimately, it is all about Jesus and how He manifested through those who walked with Him.

Also, as we continue to review some great Christians in history, keep in mind that we could write volumes about most of these people. I'm condensing each to a couple of pages, but even with volumes, we could only cover a snapshot of their life. Even so, that is all we need for the impartation.

Let us also keep in mind that the most important accomplishment of our lives is not what we accomplish, but what we become.

Maria Woodworth-Etter
(1844–1924)

The short list of extraordinary Christians should include Maria Woodworth-Etter. Her radical obedience to Christ challenged some of the most powerful religious prejudices and traditions of her day. She did this not by preaching against them, but by demonstrating their folly through her powerful Christian life. While leading countless multitudes to Christ, she redefined evangelism for the modern age. This positioned the advancing Church for the biggest ingathering of new Believers of all time. 

Born and raised in New Lisbon, Ohio to a non-Christian family, Maria was ten years old when her parents experienced a change and joined a Disciples of Christ church. It was there that Maria first learned about Christ and the Christian faith.

Tragedy struck the family three years later when her father died from a severe sunstroke. Left alone with eight children, Maria's mother worked to support the struggling family with the help of the older children. Around this time, Maria was born again at the age of thirteen.

Immediately, Maria heard God's call to "go to the highways and hedges to call the lost sheep." She responded by dedicating her life to serving the Lord, but the Disciples movement she had met the Lord through did not allow women in ministry. This was disconcerting and eventually caused her to consider marriage so that she and her husband could serve the Lord as missionaries. In 1863, at age nineteen, she married Philo Harris Woodworth.

Maria and Woodworth's marriage was also tragic. They tried to farm but failed, and five of their six children died at young ages, a hard trial for any parent to endure. This left only their oldest, Elizabeth. 

Her Meetings Met Controversy

Then Maria was asked to speak at a Friend's meeting. When she got up to speak, she had a vision of how close the people were to the edge of Hell yet they did not know it. This profoundly moved her. Later as she pondered this vision, she contemplated studying to prepare for the ministry. God then gave Maria a vision in which He told her that souls were perishing and she did not have time for the preparation she wanted to pursue.

After this, Maria felt burdened for the lost day and night. She decided to hold meetings in her local area, and the Lord moved in such a great way that many repented and turned to Him. Two churches were born out of these meetings, and Maria and her husband began a traveling ministry. Her reputation spread as the Lord moved powerfully wherever she ministered.

During this time, Maria felt the Lord calling her to pray for the sick, but she was reticent because she thought it might distract from her evangelistic message. The Lord appeared to her again in a vision and assured her that when she prayed for the sick, even more would be saved. She obeyed and the results were spectacular. Soon as many as twenty-five thousand gathered for her meetings.

Controversy tends to follow such remarkable success either because of religious jealousy or "old wineskins" that are incapable of accepting something new or different. In Maria's case, it was not just the religious community that attacked her, but the secular community as well. In Massachusetts, Maria was arrested for claiming to heal people, but so many witnesses came forward that they had to release her. Then local psychiatrists filed charges that she was delusional because she claimed to see visions. Just as Jesus Himself was continually challenged, criticized, and attacked by adversaries, those who follow Him endure the same. With Maria these attacks were especially vicious, but she persevered relentlessly.

In 1890, a man prophesied the coming of an earthquake and tidal wave to San Francisco in April. As is typical with prophecy, those who heard assumed it referred to April of that year, but the month passed without an earthquake. The man was arrested, which further maligned Maria's ministry. Sixteen years later the earthquake came in April 1906, and many felt the vision was vindicated. Even so, it was obviously mishandled, and Maria's critics used it against her.

The pressure of the ministry also hurt Maria's marriage. In 1891, she and Woodworth divorced due to his infidelity. Woodworth threatened to write a book critical of her ministry if Maria did not pay him alimony, but he died within the year. In 1902, Maria met and married Samuel Etter.

Maria's denomination struggled with what happened in her meetings, especially the way some "swooned" during them. This was later called "being slain in the Spirit." This phenomenon happened in revivals and awakenings for centuries, but no one adequately understood it at that time. However, those who experienced it claimed to have had remarkable experiences with the Lord and were profoundly changed. Even so, the denominational authorities pressured Maria to stop them in her meetings. She did not start or even necessarily want them in her meetings, but neither did she know how to stop them. Then denominational authorities demanded that she discontinue the gatherings. She refused and lost her credentials.

A New Movement Began

This proved fortuitous, as a new movement had begun at a former stable on Azusa Street in Los Angeles. This was the perfect spiritual home for Maria. In 1912, F.F. Bosworth hosted her for a five month long meeting in Dallas, Texas. Word of the extraordinary works of God in those meetings spread abroad. This touched and inspired some future great evangelists in the Pentecostal movement, such as Aimee Semple McPherson and John G. Lake, who called her "Mother Etter."

In August of 1914, Samuel Etter passed away after a long illness just as World War I began. The strain on Maria from not seeing her husband healed and taking care of him while keeping a ministry schedule that had her speaking three times a day wore her down. She became sick herself. At sixty-seven she was ready to go home to her Lord. Then she had another vision in which the Lord showed Himself as the conqueror of sickness and death, and that her time was not up. Soon she was well and back on the road, preaching the Gospel and healing the sick with renewed vision. In 1918, she started a church in Indianapolis that she used as a conference center and a base from which to travel.

In 1924, Maria Woodworth-Etter ended her course. She has been rightly honored not only as a great woman evangelist, but one of the greatest evangelists of all time.

Rick Joyner
MorningStar Ministries
Email: info@morningstarministries.org
Website: morningstarministries.org

Rick Joyner is the founder and executive director of MorningStar Ministries and Heritage International Ministries and is the Senior Pastor of MorningStar Fellowship Church. He is the author of more than forty books, including The Final Quest, A Prophetic History, and Church History. He is also the president of The OAK Initiative, an interdenominational movement that is mobilizing thousands of Christians to be engaged in the great issues of our times, being the salt and light that they are called to be. Rick and his wife, Julie, have five children: Anna, Aaryn, Amber, Ben, and Sam.

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