Lester Sumrall Quotes

You are what you are because that is what you really want to be! We make decisions and those decisions make us who were are! You can judge anything in the world by this. God builds up and the Devil tears down.

I believe God wants to accomplish His work supernaturally on the face of the earth. He wants to take natural people and work supernaturally through them to bring about a mighty surge of His power, just the way He worked through Howard Carter. I challenge you to make yourself ready for Him to use you in this wonderful moment in which we live today.

Elohim basically means “something (or someone) that is worshipped.

In all the operations of faith recorded in the Bible, there are no failures. The three Hebrew children didn’t come out of the fiery furnace scorched. Faith works. Faith succeeds. The Bible records no defeats related to faith.

Lester Sumrall told a story of a conference he and Smith Wigglesworth were part of. It was the first time Sumrall had met Wigglesworth. Sumrall got up to preach. And he preached and preached. After a while, Wigglesworth came up behind him, put his hand on his shoulder, and said, “Son, it would have been wise for you to have ended fifteen minutes ago, when the Holy Ghost ended.” And he shut down the meeting. So many people go beyond the Holy Spirit.

the last great revival on Planet Earth, we need men like Richey, with deep courage, great faith and tender hearts. We need men like Richey who are able to rise up unselfishly and bless multitudes. We need people who will fling themselves wholeheartedly into every new move. We do not just need the “sons of the prophets” today. We need the prophets themselves!

If you ever visit the Philippines and hear the jungle tribesmen call upon their gods for help, you'll discover that the names of the gods are supposed to have magic power. These people believe that when they invoke the name of a certain god, he must come and do their bidding--whether or not he wants to! Like many pagans, they believe a god is a kind of supernatural serving boy who will jump to help them the moment they snap their fingers. But the true God is not like that. He is the sovereign Ruler of the universe, who expects us to serve Him--not the other way around! So when we call upon the name of God, we are using a "handle" to bring Him to us. He will help us only if we have followed His commandments; He will put His promises into effect only if we have met the conditions of those promises. . . . These [New Testament apostles] were not ordering God around by using His "handle." Not by any means! They received God's blessing only because they were obedient to God in every way, including the manner in which they prayed. God instructed them to pray in His name; that's what we are expected to do as followers of Jesus Christ. But that in itself would not force God to do something against His will, nor would it force Him to bless someone unworthy of a blessing.

The conclusion we must draw is very sad and sobering, and it should serve as a loud warning to our beloved United States. Simply put, the United States will no longer be a world power in the end times. It will not be a significant enough nation to play a major role in the events of those days – that is the obvious answer.” (Jerusalem: Where Empires Die, Lester Sumrall, Sumrall Publishing).

Does the United States have a place in end times prophecy? My first response is no, there is nothing about the U.S. in prophecy. At least nothing that is specific…The question is why? Why would the God of prophecy not refer to the supreme superpower nation in the end times in preparation for the one-world government of the Antichrist?” (Tim LaHaye’s Perspective, August, 1999)          “The absence of any mention (in the end times) of a nation we could say is the United States, therefore, is a cause for great distress among those of us who live in and love this nation. Where will America be at that time? The conclusion we must draw is very sad and sobering, and it should serve as a loud warning to our beloved United States. Simply put, the United States will no longer be a world power in the end times. It will not be a significant enough nation to play a major role in the events of those days – that is the obvious answer.” (Jerusalem: Where Empires Die, Lester Sumrall, Sumrall Publishing).

Faith grows and develops in the same ways our physical bodies grow and develop—by eating good food and exercising properly. The food that faith thrives on is the Word of God (1 Peter 2:2; Romans 10:17), and the faith in our hearts is to be exercised through regular use.

When we have faith in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we can expect the miracle power of God to function.

Both faith and love flow from the heart of God. If you can get hold of both of them, you will have life upon this earth without limitations.

Faith is walking with God. If you get up in the mornings angry and screaming at everybody, you are not demonstrating that you have a bad temper so much as you are demonstrating that you don’t have faith. When you walk with God, you demonstrate His nature.

I asked Smith Wigglesworth, “Wigglesworth, I’ve seen you dozens of times. You always look the same. Why?” He said, “Sumrall, I never ask Smith Wigglesworth how he feels. I tell him.” This was Smith Wigglesworth talking to Smith Wigglesworth. It was a spirit talking to a soul. His spirit within him was talking to his mind, his emotions, and his willpower—telling his mind what to think, his emotions how to feel, and his will what to decide. His spirit was the king of his life, motivated by faith, for if a man ever walked with God, Smith Wigglesworth was that man.

Faith takes on new dimensions in these verses. Yet they are part of the whole. You wouldn’t understand faith if you didn’t see these facets of it. Take, for instance, this statement: out of weakness were made strong (v. 34). Men who had no courage, no strength, no ability—in their weaknesses faith caused them to be the opposite. No longer weak and defeated, they moved into a positive position through the power and strength of faith. They were cowards, but God said, “No, you can do something else. You can fight, and you can win.

The devil will knock you off your faith if you have little sand footings. The two colossal footings which cannot be moved by earthquakes, the devil, or anything of man are these: 1. Know there is a God. 2. Know He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Unless you know God exists, you have no basis for faith. An infidel can’t have faith. A true Marxist communist can’t have faith. An agnostic can’t have faith. The very basis of faith is a knowledge of God’s existence.

You say, “How can I increase my faith?” Know more about God. The secret of having more faith is to know more about God. Faith has a direct relationship with our knowledge of God.

People eulogize Smith Wigglesworth. They call him a prophet of faith. But what they don’t know is he sat almost all day, every day, reading the Bible, praying, and ministering to people. If you had asked him to do something else, he would have thought you were crazy. His knowledge of God was tremendous.

Faith is the greatest power generated on the planet earth and is the number one source of unused energy.

God specifically says that to “every man that is among you” (every Christian) He has given a starting point in faith. We don’t have to generate the first little bit. God gives to each of us a measure of faith with which to begin. What we do with it after that is our own prerogative. How it grows and increases has to do with the way we handle it—not with God. God gives us the starting place. It is up to you and me to pursue it and say, “This faith—I love it! I like it! I will cause it to grow!

Faith has no limitations. You are the only person who can limit faith in your life.

In Christ there is confidence. We relax in Him. We’re not nervous. We’re not saying, “Oh, is it going to happen?” That’s not in the language. It’s going to happen because it has always happened. In faith there is the element of confidence which brings relaxation in God. It’s a matter of just leaning on Him.

Faith is a praise unto God. I am deeply impressed with the area of praise in faith. A young man came to our church in Manila, Philippines, who had raised twelve people from the dead. “That’s not many,” he said. “There are people in Indonesia who have raised a hundred people from the dead.” Across the dinner table in our home I asked him, “Sir, how do you raise the dead?” He said, “We say a very simple prayer: ‘Lord, has this person lived out his days that You ordained? (Seventy at least.) Has he lived out his divine purpose?’ If the Lord says, ‘Yes,’ we bury the body. If the Lord says, ‘No,’ we say, ‘We’ll stop that right now. Death, hear us. We speak to you in the name of the glorious Son of God Who rose from the dead. Death, you leave him now! His life returns. We believe it, in Jesus’ name.’” That’s all they say. Then they hold hands, step back, and begin to sing. They sing until he gets up and joins them.

While in Washington State I saw a tremendous deliverance of an Indian girl. She was terribly immoral, a harlot. She drifted in that night full of the devil and tried to tear up the meeting. She cursed me violently. I prayed for her one time, and God knocked her on the floor. Then I sat down on the altar and began to sing choruses, praising God and thanking Him for the victory. She lay there cursing, blaspheming, and saying, “I’m not coming out. I’m not coming out.” We kept singing. In a few moments the power of God swept over her and swept that mess out of her. She became clean and pure. The next day she was in our morning service as changed as dark to day. It came about through one prayer and then the singing and praising of God. Since faith is a praise unto God, that makes faith lighthearted. If you are struggling with faith with a long face and a sad heart, saying, “I’m trying,” that’s not faith. You’re trying something, but it’s not faith. Faith never tries. Faith commands. Faith expects. Faith receives. And faith praises.

Faith is when God and man choose to walk together in life, to think together, and I’d even say, to laugh together. For the faith life is the happiest life. Faith has no relationship with idleness. It has to do with a man who gets out there and goes for God, and God goes for him.

Dr. Lester Sumrall had a vision from God in which he saw all of humanity walking down a very long, wide highway. He says: God lifted me up until I was looking down upon that uncountable multitude of humankind. He took me far down the highway until I saw the end of the road. It ended abruptly at a precipice towering above a bottomless inferno. When the tremendous unending procession of people came to the end of the highway, I could see them falling off into eternity. As they neared the pit and saw the fate that awaited them, I could see their desperate but vain struggle to push back against the unrelenting pressure of those to the rear. The great surging river of humanity swept them ever forward. God opened my ears to hear the screams of damned souls sinking into hell…. I could see their faces distorted with terror. Their hands flailed wildly, clawing at the air.22

Take dominion over sin. You do not have to be a slave to sin or yield to temptation. In Romans 6:14 Paul said, For sin shall not have dominion over you:for ye are not under the law, but under grace. Stand on that promise. In the face of temptation, say out loud, “Sin shall not have dominion over me. I choose to dominate over this temptation. I have dominion over sin according to the Word of God.” David prayed, Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me (Psalm 119:133). Make God’s Word a part of your very being. Walk according to His Word. Then your steps will be ordered by the Lord, and you will be invested with power and authority.