J. A. Wood

"Up to this time, the first nine years of my ministry, I had practically ignored the doctrine of entire sanctification, and while blest with great revivals on all my charges, none of my members either sought or professed that blessing. I taught growth in grace, and Christian culture, and an indefinite gradualism. I disliked to hear the Wesleyan truth preached, and opposed those who preached it, and especially those who professed it."

The Methodist Conference had discerned his condition and so had quietly transferred him to oversee one of their best churches that was blessed with many who walked in His Rest. The longer he was there the more convicted he was that his hearers had much more than he did.

"I was so dissatisfied with myself, with my work, and had such hard times in the pulpit, that I went to my Elder, Dr. Rounds, and begged him to release me from the charge. God be praised that he did not do it! During that summer I lay many an hour on the floor of my study praying God to come to my help and give me more freedom in my work, and yet was too proud to tell my church the conflict and trial I was passing through. I learned afterward that the spiritually-minded in the church discerned my condition and were praying for me night and day."

"During six days of that meeting, with thirty or more of my members professing full salvation, I said nothing on the subject, and yet my soul was in great distress over it. We came to the last afternoon of the meeting, and Dr. Rounds was to preach. He asked me to exhort after his sermon. Before I took my seat in the stand, I had a fearful struggle, and I could hold out no longer. One of my best members had just said to me "Oh, Brother Wood, if you will take a stand for full salvation, God will bless you, and lots of your people." I promised the Lord that at the close of the sermon I would go into our prayer tent, confess my need of entire sanctification and ask my church to pray for me, and I would go back to Binghamton and stand up for full salvation, where that truth had been trailing in the dust during my ministry. In an instant the Rubicon was passed. The moment of submission was the moment of victory. There was such a conscious giving away in my heart that it appeared as if something had torn loose in me, and an indescribable quietness pervaded my whole being. I walked up into the pulpit and took my seat back of Dr. Rounds. There were about forty preachers on the stand, and some three thousand people in the congregation."

Boy! Was he ever in for it!!

"From Binghamton I was sent to Brooklyn, a small country circuit in Susquehanna County, Pa.; sent there, as I had reason to believe, because of the open stand I had taken on the subject of entire sanctification. After God fully sanctified my soul the opponents of that work predicted the end of my usefulness and revival work, as I had run off on the hobby of sanctification. I was supplied with plenty of advice by the preachers and officials, to go slow, be prudent and not press the subject, or I would divide my churches, and do great harm. It was at the beginning of our civil war, and there were but few revivals in the conference, but the Lord gave me three blessed revivals at Brooklyn, and it was a year of victory."

He went on to become a renowned revivalist as well as authour of the acclaimed book "Perfect Love". Within the sounds of the guns of the Civil War he was bringing many to full sanctification, which had become little known at the time. He became one of the vessels responsible for bringing "The Great Awakening" after the war.
 
 

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