ANOTHER POINT IN preparation [for the ministry] is the prompt putting into use, both in the daily life and, if [so called] for the ministry, public service, that which is received and learned.”
In the late spring of 1916 three of the young ministers, who had been students in Mrs. R.’s Bible class, began to hold street meetings in Kenosha, Wisconsin, then a city of 40,000 with no Pentecostal work. These they conducted regularly every Saturday night for five months. Interest was evident. God blessed. Then the Lord indicated that Mr. and Mrs.George Finnern should go there to live and to open a mission, assisted by others from time to time. Thus on October 7, 1916, the Peniel Mission was opened.
The way in which God had found these two servants, Katharine and George Finnern, and had prepared them for this ministry had indeed been supernatural. Mrs. Finnern was one of the girls whose parents Mrs. R. had spoken to, telling them to pray through for the salvation of their daughters.’ Thus in a very direct way, Katherine was the fruit of Mrs. R.’s personal ministry. Now she in turn was going out to seek the lost.
Almost four years before this, early in 1913, Mr. Finnern had come to the Faith Homes for the first time. He had been ministering for some time in the city of Milwaukee when one day the Lord spoke to his soul these words, “I want you to go to Zion City.” The same day, so he found out, the Lord also spoke to his wife, “I want you to go to Zion City.” All of this was rather puzzling and startling to the two of them. Aside from the fact that they had met a minister who lived in Zion City, they knew no one in this place and knew no reason for them to go there. They had never even heard of the Faith Homes.
At this time Mr. Finnern’s senior associate was in the city of Wausau, many miles from Milwaukee. Upon his return, he surprised Mr. Finnern by telling him that while away, the Lord had said to him, “I want George to go to Zion City.” Now Mr. Finnern was shocked! But in the mouth of three independent witnesses he concluded that this must be of the Lord. (Mr. Finnern did not know at the time how truly remarkable it was for his brother minister to get this word from the Lord in the first place, let alone pass it on, for the fact was, he was not at all in sympathy with the Faith Homes.)
Twenty-nine below zero was not exactly the most conducive temperature to take a trip to a place of which one knew nothing and the reason for which one did not have the slightest idea. To make matters worse, once the Finnerns became guests in the Faith Homes, things happened which puzzled them greatly. The ministry and meetings were new and strange. At their first morning meeting a minister began to speak by saying, “The Lord wants me to say —“ Mr. Finnern could by no means accept that at face value! Who could say that? Then other ministers made similar statements. What was this?
Questions multiplied until at the end of their second day, Mr. Finnern prayed in desperation, “Shew me about this thing, whether it is right or not.” Confused and perplexed he went to sleep.
The next day, still wondering and still looking to God for the answer to his questions, certainly not desiring to get into any fanaticism, he turned to His Bible, where the Holy Spirit directed his attention to such passages as these:
“We speak wisdom among them that are perfect” (I Cor. 2:6), and
“Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me —“ (II Cor. 13:3).
That was something he had not noticed before. So Christ spoke in Paul! Well, at least such an experience was in the Bible. But was what he was hearing scriptural? Was it genuine? He was by no means fully persuaded.
Now although Mr. Finnern was in the Pentecostal ministry, he had never broken through to the full liberty of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. For three and a half years he had been earnestly seeking to be filled with the Spirit.
During the course of one of the morning meetings Mr. Finnern, who was sitting in one of the back rooms of the Meeting House, felt a tap on his shoulder. Looking up, he saw Mr. Mitchell standing at his side. “Mr. Finnern, will you do what the Lord tells you to do?”
“Yes, I’ll do what the Lord tells me to do,” Mr. Finnern replied, not at all committing himself to do what Mr. Mitchell might suggest, but reserving the right to judge whether he felt the forthcoming proposition was really of the Lord.
“If Mr. Finnern will come into the front room,” Mr. Mitchell then went on, “and kneel down by a chair there, the Lord will bring him through to tongues.” Well, that was simple and plausible. Furthermore, this was what his heart had been longing for—and it was something that he could prove. Mr. Finnern obeyed.
Once in the front room, Mr. Mitchell solemnly announced to the congregation: “Brother Finnern from Milwaukee wants the baptism of the Holy Ghost. If everybody will pray, the Lord will baptize him.”
Earnestly, the entire congregation lifted up their voices with one accord and asked that he might be filled with the Holy Spirit. Mr. Mitchell, Elder Brooks, and Mrs. Robinson together laid their hands on him. “Other tongues” welled up from his inmost being. Then Mrs. R. said, “If Mr. Finnern will stand up, the Lord wants to preach through him in tongues.”
He did, and mighty, powerful tongues burst from his mouth. Clearly and with perfect liberty he preached in tongues which Mrs. R. interpreted.
For all this corroboration, his doubts were not yet resolved. Just about a year later, Mr. Finnern again went to the Homes. (In the intervening months his first wife had died.) For three days and nights before he went there, the words kept ringing in his soul, “I want you to go to Zion City.” Unable to resist longer, he had followed this inner bidding. Upon his arrival in the city, however, he became heavy-hearted and greatly afraid. As he neared the Home, he asked the Lord to corroborate unmistakably his leading: “If I am right, send someone to me to tell I am in Your will.”
The service was already in progress; the meeting rooms were crowded to capacity; the only available place to sit was on the stairs leading to the second floor. There he went. After a time, Mrs. R. left her place on the platform and came to the visitor. Gently laying her hands on the stiff young minister’s head, she quietly said, “The Lord sent me to tell you, you are in His will being here.”
Some time later Mrs. R., most unexpectedly, said to Mrs. Judd, “The Lord wants Mr. Finnern in Zion.”
Businesslike Mrs. Judd immediately asked, “Shall we send him a special delivery letter, a long distance telephone call, or a telegram?”
“Do nothing,” the Lord replied over the lips of His servant. “I will get him here.”
Shortly, without any suggestion or outside help, Mr. Finnern came by the leading of the Lord in his own soul. The following September he and Katherine Boland were married and came to live in the Homes. Two years of intensive teaching and training followed.
One of the great lessons which the Lord taught Mr. Finnern was his great need of praising the Lord. “I had been in the ministry already for five years,” recalls Mr. Finnern, “had been used of God in preaching the gospel to the unsaved and ministering to the sick, and had been baptized in the Holy Spirit for two years before I realized the great need in my own life for praising the Lord and the victories and blessing that come therefrom.
“At that time the Lord brought me in contact with Mrs. Robinson who had a large gift of discernment and also the ability to teach individuals in the power of the Holy Spirit concerning their personal needs. By this ministry, the Holy Spirit revealed to me that for twenty years I had given in to shadows, depressions, and discouragements. Not only did I have a blue Monday, but seven days were blue sometimes.
“For these attitudes there is a very descriptive term, ‘dumps,’ for that is exactly what happens to an individual when he yields to any of these feelings. People so often excuse these feelings with the thought, ‘That’s natural. Everybody has them.’ They do not see how awful, how diabolical these feelings are. Why are they wrong? Shadows, depressions, dumps are contrary to the will and Word of God which commands us to rejoice always. They are contrary to being spiritual, for the fruit of the Spirit is joy and peace.
“The Lord showed me that I should pray daily and mightily to be delivered from this condition. As I prayed, however, I saw my terrible condition instead of the Lord, and my difficulties increased doubly. God in His mercy continued to help me by His servant and showed me that I must praise as well as pray, and I began a rigid schedule of praising the Lord with a loud voice daily for twenty or thirty minutes. I was also taught that when anything went wrong in my life or ministry, even in simple things like missing a street-car or train, I was to say, ‘Hallelujah! Praise the Lord.’
“At first, when I began to praise the Lord, I said, ‘How can I do this? I don’t feel like it. It is hypocritical for me to do so.’ Then the Lord showed me that I should praise Him, not because I felt like it, but because He is worthy of our praise.
“In the course of this fight, the Lord showed me that these feelings were something more than natural. They were from the devil himself. When I got that light, I said, ‘The devil? Then it is the devil who is running me!’ Forthwith I determined to fight more earnestly than ever. My victory did not come all at once, but I persisted until God showed me that I had won the fight.”
As the Finnerns had contemplated starting a mission in Kenosha, the Lord used Mrs. R. to instruct them very carefully about the type of work He wanted them to have in that city. It should be “large, deep life, Pentecostal, evangelistic.” God did not want them to fail to emphasize the Pentecostal message and experience together with the inward and deeper Christian life. At the same time there should be a clear, evangelistic message and aim to win the lost. And while they should not seek numbers for their own sake, they certainly should not be content with a mere handful of people, but should believe God to bring in a large number of souls.
From time to time, especially in their early years when they were getting started, Mrs. R. went to Kenosha to help them personally or in the meetings. Sometimes she went alone, sometimes accompanied by one of her associates, sometimes with a group of young people to give them an opportunity for practical work. On one of the latter occasions, as they were traveling on the electric train taking them from Zion to Kenosha, the Lord led her to speak to the people in the car during the ten-minute trip. In her calm but majestic manner she rose and addressed her fellow passengers who listened very attentively to this little woman as she spoke simply and sweetly of Jesus and His love. There was nothing repulsive about her testifying in this way, for there was a charm and graciousness about her person and message which were absolutely irresistible.
The Finnerns had a difficult time in the early days of seed-sowing and plowing in Kenosha, but little by little the seed sprang up and bore fruit. Some time later Mr. Finnern, unknown to anyone else but his wife, was considering the possibility of going elsewhere to minister. The work was doing well now. Perhaps he should go to some other field of labor. One day, Mrs. R. came to see her young friends. In the course of her conversation, not knowing of his contemplations, she counseled him not to leave Kenosha, adding, “Don’t run away from your success.” They remained there for several years.
During this time the Lord worked in a phenomenal way, even to the stirring of the whole city by the healing of a well-known lame man which had to be acknowledged by the city officials. As a result of this work in Kenosha, about twenty have gone out into all the world to preach the gospel—very successful ministers in various parts of the United States and equally successful missionaries in India, Africa, and South America. Quite a few more have attended Bible schools and then have served the Lord in their home assemblies as Sunday school teachers and workers. And already some of the children of this first generation of converts have gone into the work of the Lord. Thus the ministry and influence of Martha Wing Robinson have borne untold fruit for the Kingdom of God in the lives of those in this one city alone and, in turn, in those who have believed on Christ through their word in this and foreign lands.
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Martha Wing Robinson (1874 - 1936)
Martha held meetings which touched people to return to the work of the service of God. The Robinsons opened a "Faith Home" where people would come for teaching and prayer. Like George Muller they depended on God to provide what was needed for expenses. Thousands came through her home and healings were a regular occurrence. Her husband died in April of 1916, but Martha continued in her ministry. She had a very sharp gift of discernment and regularly told people the secrets of their hearts. She often had directive prophetic words for those under her care. Many young people came to the home for training and went into the mission fields and evangelistic endeavours.Martha Wing Robinson died June 26, 1936. Shortly before she died she stated her life's message "Nothing matters but Christ Jesus." Her whole life was spent in the service of God and for the Glory of His Son Jesus. She had seen many healed, saved, delivered, empowered and sent out. She was truly a mother in Israel. In 1962 Gordon P. Gardiner wrote a book about her life called "Radiant Glory" because that is how she lived her life.