W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest

appointments on the Pacific Coast, and through the great interior, which I had promised to serve before
returning home. Therefore, instead of obeying the order of my dear cousin of the healing art, I went at once to
the Great Physician, and turned over the cancer to Him. I realized my utter dependence on the Holy Ghost to
inspire my faith for present healing, but He did it and I so realized.
I went on preaching in Oregon and let the bandage stay till it wore off, which was about a month.
Then I looked in vain for my cancer. It had disappeared, and left only the scar, which I carry today, the souvenir
of my unwelcome visitor. I found quite a test of my faith in the healing of this cancer.
I actually had to heroically face the music and take the bit in my teeth, soliloquizing, “Jesus, I believe you were
healed this cancer,” and there abide and refuse to doubt. Then I was enabled to appropriate His current axiom,
during His ministry, Matt. 9:29, “As your faith is, so be it unto you.” There is no mistake as to the great Bible
doctrine of bodily healing. You will find it in the commission which our Lord gave the twelve Apostles, and also
in that of the seventy disciples. He commands them all to heal the sick, as well as to cast out demons.
When I was embarking from New York for my around the world tour, I was advised to carry a little cholera
medicine, as it is so common in the countries I contemplated visiting. The Lord had given me wonderful health
till I reached Rangoon, Burma, a country celebrated for the prevalence of that terrible destroyer. Two of my
young men had suffered with it in India. Sure enough it struck me suddenly and unexpectedly. I at once took the
medicine, but am satisfied it did not stay in my stomach a minute, as the eructation was such that it was utterly
impossible to receive anything internally. I need not attempt to describe the sufferings characteristic of cholera.
Therefore I will leave you to your own imagination, and advise you to ask the Lord to save you from an attack.
When it seemed to me that I was certainly face to face with the King of Terrors, (who had no terror for me), the
Texas boys took hold of me and cried to God for my healing. As they held on, one of them spoke out and said
that he had heard from Heaven that I was healed, and the other two soon joined him in their testimony. Cholera
does its work quickly, and there was no time to hunt a physician. Eleven days subsequently, when I was
convalescing quite slowly, much impeded by the climate, as I was not only in the torrid zone, but had by this
time reached the Equator, where the heat was almost killing me in the terribly prostrate condition in which
cholera had left me, God made Dr.West, presiding elder at Singapore, a great blessing to my feeble body. Well
can I say, “In Thee we live, and move, and have our being.” As I am now seventy-three years old, my bodily
organs are failing, and if He did not keep His hand on this frail tenement night and day, I would break down and
die. Oh, how wonderfully He keeps me, and enables me to do more work than almost any young man. I am a
continual astonishment to myself: but it is all His keeping power.
During all of my ministry, especially since the Lord sanctified me thirty-eight years ago, I have constantly
served Him in the ministry of bodily healing, as well as soul saving. Throughout the South I have preached
much in the malarial regions, where distressing fevers of every kind abound. The Lord has everywhere used me
in the ministry of healing. In countless instances I have prayed for the people burning with fever, and it abated at
once, and they got up and came to meeting.
I was called to hold a protracted meeting in Central Georgia. When I began I found a goodly number beautifully
clear in regeneration, but not sanctified. I began at once to preach that glorious doctrine, corroborating it by my
testimony to the experience, when the pastor spoke out in the presence of all the people, boldly antagonizing
me. Of course I did not strive with him a moment, as I had to respect his office and authority; but I inwardly
turned him over to God and cried, though inaudibly, to God to put His hand on him and help me out of the
difficulty. I realized my audience in Heaven and entered into inward rest, feeling assured that God would
manage the man and conserve His own cause. In twenty-four hours we missed him out of the meetings, and the
news came that he was sick. I went to see him. He saluted me kindly and said, “Bro. Godbey, I am attacked with
this bad fever and will not likely be with you any more in the meetings.” I said, “My dear brother, Jesus is here
today and ready to rebuke your fever as He did that which burnt Peter's mother-in-law.” I fell on my knees and
putting my hand on him turned him over to the blessed Omnipotent Healer. While I was praying I felt the
abatement of the fever, as his body began to cool off and the perspiration to come out.
I went away to the meeting and had only passed through the introductory songs and prayers when he arrived and