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Hello, I'm Robert Seren. I want to welcome you to one of the most interesting studies that you may have in your entire life. We'll be looking at men and women that God chose at different times to challenge the religious condition of a generation and to challenge the cultural social situations of the time they lived in. We call these men and women God's generals.
This series will be looking at people that God chose to use in the healing ministry as their main focus. But before we get into all their great life stories and all the lessons we're going to learn, I want to take you on a personal journey of how we came to this point in time of having this series called God's Generals. This is not just something that I dreamed up one day because I liked history or I liked certain things. It was an assignment that God gave me when I was a little boy.
I was watching television one day in my home and the Lord Jesus Christ came walking through the front door of my house without opening the door and took a two or three steps toward me where I was sitting on the sofa and it looked like the whole room moved out to be 5 600 yards in the distance where you could hear the sound of the TV just lightly in the distance. And the Lord said to me, "Study the lives of my generals. know why they succeeded and why some failed because there will come a generation who will need to know what I will show you if you'll be faithful to do what I ask you to do this day. In those days there'll be a drought of my spirit. Visions will be small and my purpose shall be almost forgotten in the activity of the church in the time that I'm speaking of."
And the vision kept going and he said in this vision that through this teaching we'll be able to help save gifts, unwrap gifts and also make people aware that they have a gift. So that is what I believe is going to happen to you during this series called God's Journal the Healing Evangelist.
These are times and seasons in the earth that God looks down from heaven and he looks for a person. He looks for a man or a woman or a couple that he can use, that he can impregnate them with with his purpose for that time and then anoint them and equip them and release them as an explosion throughout the nations of the world. So, we are moving to a time that we're going to have to be bold again and quit being so politically correct. It's time to be biblically correct and spiritually sound, ready to move. This is your time. Are you ready for our first lesson?
I'm excited to tell you the story of the man named FF Bosworth. This man right here, he he's the oldest person that we're going to be talking about in this series called God's Journals, a healing evangelist. His name was Fred Francis Bosworth. His life would span the beginning of the healing ministry of John Alexander Dowy all the way to Maria Woodworth Eder and the great first Assembly of God church in Dallas, Texas that she had when Bosworth was the pastor and it lasted for 6 months. It's a story you don't want to miss.
Bosworth is probably known by some of you as the man that wrote the classic book Christ the Healer. It is the best all-time great book on the healing ministry of Jesus Christ today. And I would encourage you to buy you a copy and to buy everybody on your staff one of those books to read so you can read and learn what brought healing and salvation to nearly hundreds of thousands of people in his life.
The story of FF Bosworth begins when he was born in January the 17th in 1877 in Utica, Nebraska. Can you believe something good came out of Nebraska? For all you that live in Nebraska, Bosworth was born in your great state. He would die in the great state of Florida in 1958.
As a young boy, he was a strong, steadfast kind of personality as a child. He was not easily uh run away or distracted. He was kind of a steadfast, focused, determined young man. And he became interested as a young man. I should say little boy would be the better term. little boy when he went to a Civil War reunion with one of his family members and uh he saw this great military band, the brass band playing and he fell in love with the cornet. He wanted to play that so much, but he had no money because his family wasn't rich or wellto-do or famous. They were just an average family living in Nebraska. So, he worked and saved money and did things enough to buy his own little cornet and learned how to play it. He became so good at it that he soon was able to be a part of the Nebraska State Band. No one taught him. He taught himself. Isn't that kind of nice? And he was so good at it, he was given a seat in the Nebraska State Band.
His brother uh and him, they got a little bit older and teenagers, they wanted to make their living. So, they would get on the railroad and ride the rails, they call it, as traveling salespeople. Well, that didn't work too much uh to make them a lot of money. But when you're young, riding the the railroads, you know, jumping on the train and getting out and trying to sell stuff, the adventure of the cell, the adventure of the journey, all was exciting to his brother and himself.
FF Bosworth meets a beautiful lady named Mrs. Green, older than he was, but she was a Methodist and invited the young Bosworth lad to go to church with her. For three days, they went to church. The first two services, he said, I sat politely and listened. Nothing moved me. didn't feel much about it. But the third night, something happened and BFF Bosworth found salvation that night. Thank God for Mrs. Green, who had the gumption to get up and ask a young man named Bosworth to go to church with her for three days. The first two days he was polite, and the third day, the power of God saved his soul. And now Bosworth is a bornagain Christian, and he's on his way to heaven. and he's excited about it.
All of a sudden, as he got a little bit older, just a couple years, something tragic would happen to Bosworth's life. He would contract TB. He had this terrible disease. If you've noticed during this series, almost every person that we talk about here had to deal with tuberculosis. It was the plague of the time that modern medicine had not made the cure and the medicine to help people recover from TB. So when you got TB, it was like a death sentence. And young Bosworth was told that he had TB and he decided he did not want to die alone. He got on a train and left where he was and went down to Fitzgerald, Georgia, where his friend was living at that time. The train ride, he said, almost killed him. You know, you're fighting tuberculosis and these are not bullet trains from Japan. These aren't nice first class sleeping trains. These are old timey 1800s trains going across America. He got there, his family picked him up at the train station and it took him weeks to get him to just back to normal health. Even though he was fighting TB enough to where they he could talk, he could he could eat properly, but he still was dying.
So he goes to another Methodist meeting. Thank God for the Methodists, especially them that are alive with the Bible and the Holy Ghost. He goes out of the house because when you have TV, you're staying in, you're weak. And so he rarely went outside, but he decided to leave the house and go to this Methodist meeting where a lady named Miss Maddie Perry, God bless Mattie Perry, who was a Methodist healing evangelist, who prayed for him that night, when she looked at him, she says, "You're too young to die." I I almost picture kind like a Francis Hunter or a big personality, a Methodist healing lady preacher. You're too young to die. Lays hands on Bosworth. And God restores him and heals him to where the doctor declares, "You got lungs, brand new lungs. You're okay." God healed him supernaturally. His encounter with the hidden Christ had just been made. And guess through who? a woman preacher.
Now, let me take a moment for all of you here that say, "I don't like women preachers." Well, get over it. Women preachers are a part of God's plan, and we like women preachers. The Bible says in the last days that God shall anoint your daughters to prophesy. And if I understand things right, daughters mean women. So, we're in the last days. Let women preach. Let women pray. Let women build churches. Let women obey God. If you're a woman and you're watching me today and you're in a church that doesn't like women preachers, here's my word to you. Leave that dead dumb thing and go someplace else. You can't obey the spirit of God in a church that tolerates you, that puts a ce on you that is not a biblical ceiling. Get out from among them and get among folks that say yes and that'll support you, pray for you, and work with you. You can't ride a mule that don't want to go anywhere. get on a stallion and ride into the promise and the works of God and and enjoy your life.
So this great lady, God bless her. May we honor her today, reached out her hand in the name of Jesus and the healing Christ touched Bosworth and TB died and his lungs were restored. All of a sudden, the first time this great healing ministry was touched by the presence of God was by a woman in a Methodist church. Hallelu.
We we have here that after he was healed, he decided to stay with his family in Fitzdale, Georgia. So he had to get a job. So he worked for a while as a a postmaster. Bosworth then worked for a while as a town clerk and then he became a banker. Not bad occupations. You can see that he had class and education and he knew how to work be a good worker. And during the time after he got healed and he was working these jobs, he marries at 23 years of age as Stella and he returns at that time to his musical career. He liked playing in the bands. He liked that kind of part. So he goes back into that world of work and is very excited. And then something wonderful happens to him. A magazine called the leaves of healing which is the publicational voice of John Alexander Dowi's ministry in Zionoise came across their their path. They both read the magazine and were thrilled about the healings they had reported that happened in Zion at Dowi's ministry and and that they had a city and you could move there. So Bosworth and his wife decided, we're going to just pack up our bags and move to Zion, Illinois to learn about the healing ministry under Dowi and to be a part of this great Christian utopian city. And they moved there, got a house, and he became a bookkeeper when he moved to Zion, Illinois.
So Zionoise, he shows up in. And guess what? His house, as I was told, was on the same street that one of the other great generals lived too. John G. Lake had just moved his family to Zion, Illinois. And I'm told that they ended up on the same street in Zion, Illinois. Two great healing evangelists becomes friends. Bosworth, you know, comes to Zion and he gets a part of the musical team in the church and the musical team is, as Bosworth said, needed some help. And so he got in there and Dowi saw that Bosworth had a great talent and skill and hired him to be the the paid leader of the band. And pretty soon the band had over 47 members in it. So you know bands don't grow if the lead guy's not good. So you can tell that he's that good with 47 members in it. Possworth and the band would travel with Dow as he would go to Madison Square Garden in New York City for his great healing salvation campaign. be a part of all the musical part of the ministry.
And there was a lady in Zion that had gone to a meeting where the man named Charles Parm had been preaching about Bible days are here again. Faith like the apostles has returned with all of its gifts and graces and she'd received the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking with tongues under Charles Parm's ministry. She came back to Zion. Now, Zion City is one of those great cities that is known for revival and healing. It's one of those God big city moments. It's boom, it's famous. It's great. She comes to town and Dowi hears about this tongues stuff, the tongues movement as it was called in those days. And I don't want none of that in my city. FF Bosworth would later be the man that would host Charles PM when he would come to Zion Illinois and says come on you can hold your meeting in my house. John G Lake came Bosworth's home. People came from around Zion and Charles Parham began to bring the baptism of the Holy Spirit to the hungry Christians in Zion Illinois. Even though Dowi and all the other ones didn't like it, but they liked it.
While Parm was there, he told Bosworth a and John G. Lake about the great Isuza Street revival. They were so enthused about it. Now, they had not received the Holy Spirit yet themselves, but they were excited. They were they were believing, but hadn't received yet. So Lake and Bosworth decided to get on a train and go from Zion, Illinois, Chicago area, and go all the way to Los Angeles to see the revival for themselves. When they get there, they discover that the leader of this great revival was none other than an African-American man named William J. Seymour, whose parents were slaves when he was born in Centville, Louisiana. He's one of the few African-Americans after the freedom came to them. He said, "I'm not living in the South anymore." And and Daddy Seymour left the South and moved to Indianapolis, Indiana. Long story short, he goes to Palmer's Bible School, goes to California, and God gives him the platform to help the springboard, the Holy Spirit renewal and return to the earth in full measure from that little mission in Isuza Street under his leadership. He went around the world. on every one of us that speaks in tongues today, we should say thanks to Daddy Seymour who had the ability to govern revival. You know, when a revival is moving, there is no racism. When revival is in power, there is no gender conflict. When the revival is in full thrust, there is no disrespect to the one that's educated or not educated, the one that may be wealthy or not wealthy. When revival is a foot, there is an equisation and a beauty of unity that even a child can stand up and speak the word of the Lord or move by the spirit of God and everybody there would receive and submit to it. That's a part of a sign of a great revival. They saw that at the beautiful mission called Isuza Street.
While there, FF Bos received the Holy Spirit and begin to speak with tongues. So now Bosworth is saved. He knows about healing and now he's spiritfilled and he speaks with tongues. The great healing evangelist is about to explode in new ways all over North America.
So the young Pentecostal movement is going. He leaves Zion Illinois because Dowi makes so many blunderous mistakes for the end of his life. And just to illustrate for you what that meant, Dowi believed that he was Elijah the restorer. Now let me give you an understanding. Nobody watching me. Nor was he Elijah the restorer. There was one Elijah. He was in the Bible and it's not you. And so it's amazing how people get kind of weird in their thinking. And Dowi begin to have fixations on things that he should not have and his ministry ended with scandal and issues. So Bosworth had left early so those things would not affect him. But he would learn how to follow the faith of Dowi without all the doctrines of Dowi. You know, it's important that you learn how to separate the good from the bad. And all the years I've studied the great generals, some of them made some terrible mistakes and recovered. Praise the Lord. And some never recovered. It's very sad. And so those people usually are thrown out and thrown to the curb. I don't think you should throw them out. You can learn from people's successes and you can learn from their mistakes and you can be honest without being judgmental. And I hope that's what you're enjoying about this series to tell the truth. I hope you can tell I like everybody I'm talking about. Not mad at any of them. Brother D would die with scandal and sadness around his name. But he helped train over 150 Pentecostal ministers that would pioneer this great revival. and we learned how to heal the sick under Dowi's ministry and then Bosworth and then John G Lake. Wow, what a great heritage to have. And this is just half of his life.
Bosworth was a compassionate man. He tells a story one time that he was asked to preach in Texas and there was a white congregation asking him to come and preach and also to speak for the the black or the African-American congregation. those days, racism and segregation, the Jim Crow laws were quite dominant at that time. And Bosworth would preach for both the the African-American community and the white community and had no problem. They wanted to come together. He wasn't a racist. He was trying to bring the gospel to both groups and trying to do things. And so he had success in both groups. And on his way to the pastor's home to stay the night, a white mob came and beat him up and told him to get out of town and broke his wrist and kicked him black and blue and and he missed his train. He had to walk nine miles with a broken wrist and his suitcase to get to the next train to be able to go back to where he belonged. He wrote his mother a beautiful letter and counted this whole experience a great honor. a great honor to be beat up for Jesus, to be beat up because he preached the gospel to every creature. He said, "I think I have grown in my stature in Christ for being one that has suffered for the cause of Christ this way." Would you view it the same way? I hope you would. Bosworth did.
Great men and women of God do not allow culture to dictate where they preach, what they preach, and how they minister. We are in the kingdom. We may be in this world, but we operate under the kingdom principles of Jehovah. And Bosworth was just like that.
In 1912, he moved to Dallas, Texas, and he starts the first Assembly of God church in Dallas, Texas. and a very wonderful lady named Maria or Mariah Woodworth Eder would come to preach for him. Now, he wasn't that known yet. He was known a little bit, but not yet. But what's about to happen is going to make Bosworth and Mother Edder uh a new Pentecostal personality with some fame behind them. Mother Edder now was a the grandmother of the Pentecostal movement. She had all nine gifts of the spirit flowing through her ministry before the Isuza Street outpouring. She was praying for the sick. Her tent would seat close to 20,000. She had traveled. Now she's coming to Dallas to preach for this young pastor named FF Bosworth and stays 6 months. You know, I can't get some folks to stay six hours for a meeting. I don't know how in the world these people would come and stay six months every night and every day for six months. Some folks are exhausted after a Sunday morning and take two days to recover. I think there's something wrong with this picture. I think you need to get a revival of some kind going inside of your spirit. You have a lot of work for God. Now, just talk about it. And so, she comes with six weeks, revival breaks out, signs, wonders, and miracles hit the newspaper. And the whole city of Dallas is shaken. And the young Pentecostal movement realizes that God has visited Dallas, Texas in this new Assemblies of God church pastored by FF Bosworth. Wow. He is now accepted as a a great man of God. Mother Eder had a revival there. That combination there helped him even more in his healing ministry. And he sits out and starts praying for the sick himself after he he eventually I should say eventually resigns from the church. Not because there was a problem. He just felt led that the Lord wanted him to go on the healing crusade teams. You'll see here some of the advertisements of the big campaigns he'd have around America.
Now, his preaching style was not like mine. I have more drama and I jump around and I raise and lower my voice and he was more of a steady type of man that would preach like a lawyer fact by fact like a Charles Finny sermon and he would come in and preach on healing and pray for the sick.
>> FF Bosworth had a gift of healing and great success in particular in praying for people who were deaf. David Duplly reports that in 1928 he attended an FF Bosworth meeting and he was a witness when they brought in children from a school for the deaf. And Bosworth prayed for each child individually and each child instantly began hearing perfectly. And a comical outcome of this was that they had to shut down the school for the deaf because they no longer had any students. Such is the wonder of our God.
In the 1940s when the healing revival broke out, he was pretty well retired, but he came out of retirement to mentor William Brandham, TL Osbbor, and Oral Roberts, and to teach and to pour into them the truths he had learned in praying for the sick, particularly in holding mass healing meetings. And in 1958, FF Bosworth went to be with the Lord.
I had the opportunity to talk with Bosworth's granddaughter and she told me this of Bosworth. She said, "My grandfather was different than the majority of ministers today. So many seek an experience with God. My grandfather never sought an experience with God. He sought to walk with God. Many myths have arisen concerning my grandfather, such as the idea that he never experienced sickness. But he had bouts of sicknesses like everyone else does. But he sought God until he was healed. FF Bosworth was a perfectly ordinary man who walked with an extraordinary God."
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1947 dons. Most people think that a man at Bosworth's age in 1947 should retire. So they moved to Miami, Florida to get retired. Don't move to my state of Florida to retire. I want to change you. Come here and get fired up to go back and do something again and live out the light of part of your days being productive and not just surviving.
While in Miami, Florida, a great man of God named William Brennham came to Miami. They had heard about the miracles under Brandham's ministry but had never seen anything like that. So Bosworth and his wife went out to the meeting and because Bodor's is now famous and they know who he is, Brandham wanted to see him. And so they spoke together. Bosworth sat there and saw the phenomenal gift of healing and the prophetic insights that Brennham had and thought, "This is amazing." And Bosworth and Brennham come together as a team. Brennham hires Bosworth to be a part of his ministry team. Brennham wasn't a great preacher. He had great gifts of healings and miracles and prophetic prophetic giftings. It was phenomenal, but wasn't a great preacher. Bosworth was a great preacher. And this is how Brandham began his ministry and made it very successfully in the beginning years of his life. He'd have like Gordon Lindsay and he'd have like FF Bosworth get up in the day and preach and teach and then Brandon would come on and do the miracles. What a great combination having Bosworth preach the sermon and Brandham do all the miracles.
Something significant happens. They are they invite William Brandham to go to South Africa. Bosworth's a part of the team. They go to South Africa and they're seeing crowds of 75,000 a night with crowds of uh 10,000 getting saved. Bos had never seen anything like that. And the miracles were astounding. And he realized something new had happened. A new move would come. It could be wholesale healing which meant you could stand on the platform and pray for the crowd and God's power would sweep across the crowd and heal without touching them or having personal contact. Brother Bosworth was so excited about this that within a little while he would resign from working with Brennham and continue his own healing campaigns to Africa, to Cuba, to Japan. And that's the way Bosworth would end his life still doing mass healing crusades in these nations. And he did not die. And they say, "Well, you know, I'm old now. I want to quit." His last campaign, he preached in Japan. He came home from Florida and died in 1958, January the 23rd.
This is how the great man Bosworth lived his life and helped the Pentecostal movement understand the word. He taught it well. He lived well. And we can follow his faith. We can follow his life. We can drink of the cup that he left us to drink of. And may you be blessed by reading his great book called Christ the Healer.
I want to end with a little voice clip of FF Bosworth speaking at a Brenham campaign.
>> I just went back and urged brother Brandham to leave me out and come in and go to work. But he said uh you go in and speak a few words. So I do that reluctantly. I think we ought to get him in right away early while the people are restful. I say only just a few words to encourage those. I have a message here but not time for that. But we'll say uh that God's will in the matter of healing everyone here tonight is just as clearly revealed in the Bible as it is his will to forgive any sinner of his sins tonight. And I have proven many many thousands of times that by the simple presentation of nothing but the the written word the Bible that any incurable man or woman I say incurable from the standpoint of of just the human side can by the simple presentation of the written word be brought to the same state of certainty and assurance and freedom from fear before anything happens. as any sinner can be brought to the same state of mind with reference to the healing of his soul. If that isn't true, I never would preach on the subject of divine healing. Faith presupposes that the sick person has found foolproof reasons for what they expect.
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