In Tribute to Kathryn Kuhlman - Part 1 — Kathryn Kuhlman

This is tape KK14 in the Springs of Living Water Tape Library.

There are four steps that lead up to a little landing where the door opens on the stage of Carnegie Auditorium North Side. There's a black doorknob on the door. I have walked up those four steps and have stood on that little landing with my hand on that black doorknob.

Kathryn Kuhlman has closed. Because I knew when I opened that door I would have to walk out on that stage. And I knew that sitting out of there in that auditorium were people who have traveled hundreds of miles.

People out there from every walk of life. People who have made sacrifices to be in that miracle. Because it was their last resort and could do nothing more for them. This is the last resort. Who go into one of those miracle services and will believe God.

I knew that sitting out there in that audience would be a father who had taken off work. And would come with his wife with a little child. They tried everything. Perhaps it was cancer in that child's body.

And that child was more precious to them than anything. Almost the last resort. I knew as I stood on that last step with my hand on that black doorknob that there were people sitting out there in that audience who had come in great pain making an almost insurmountable effort to get there.

Many, whether they had spoken it or they had not had said within themselves, if I can just get, I know. On that last step. Only God knows. God the Father knows. My thought more than once had walked down those four steps.

It would have been the easiest thing in the world. Run from it all. Cause Catherine Kuhlman herself knew better than anyone else in the whole world that she had no healing. That she had no healing power.

Nobody knew it any better than I knew myself. I know myself. I have my own weaknesses, my own failures. I'm just a sinner saved by the grace of God like any other Christian. Like in one of God's children.

Dependence on the Holy Spirit Rather Than Personal Power

I knew standing on that top step that I had no power to heal. If my life depended upon it, I had no power to heal a single person out there in that audience. Oh, the helplessness of it all. The utter helplessness.

Complete dependence on the power of the Holy Spirit. Do you know what I'm talking about? Do you really know what I'm talking about? Sure. The other day when someone came into my office and said, Catherine Kuhlman, you know that men who have great influence in many of our leading denominational churches, consider your ministry of the Holy Spirit one of the purest ministries today.

Thank you. That's so nice of you to say that. I'm almost disappointed. He said, well, aren't you thrilled? Aren't you excited? Don't you consider that a wonderful compliment? And I said, of course I appreciate that.

But you know, after one has gone through much sacrifice, after one has fought so long to stay so yielded to the Holy Spirit, that when one is handed the trophy, it really doesn't mean paid the price much, paid a big price.

I was compelling myself, open that door and walk out on the platform. I go out smiling, and sometimes I'm reminded by those in the audience that I walk so quickly. I'm told that I walk so fast. Whether it's from behind the curtains of the great stage of the Shrine Auditorium, or through that door of Carnegie Auditorium, or wherever it is, I'm not aware of the fact that I am walking that quickly.

I think I do it spontaneously because I know that the very second that I stand before that great audience, I'm no longer Katharine Kuhlman. The Holy Spirit takes that which I have yielded unto Him. And when I speak of that which I yield unto Him, it's just a yielded pliable vessel of clay that I give.

It's that simple. But one of the hardest lessons in the whole world to learn is how to yield one's self to the Holy Spirit. It's one of the hardest lessons I've had to learn. I found out a long time ago the Holy Spirit is not a person that I can use.

The lesson, if only the Holy Spirit could get you to learn. He is not a person. He is not a power that I can use. And that's all that I furnish. I'm just taking the lid off of my heart to you this hour.

I am telling you the truth. Taking the lid off of my heart and bearing things to you. No one will ever fully understand. There is a place where one yields himself completely. When you give your body over to Him completely, your body, your mind, every part of you, your lips, your voice, your consciousness is yielded completely unto Him.

And all that He uses is the yielded vessel. I have never professed any gift of the Spirit. I would not confess to you now that I have. There are those who have said I have the gift of healing. There are those who have said that I have had the gift of healing.

They have said it. But you'll never hear Kathryn Kuhlman profess or contend that if one has been so honored of the Holy Spirit, if the Holy Spirit has so honored that one, has so entrusted that one with a gift, if He so willed to give one a gift or gifts of the Spirit, that one will treat so carefully.

It will be such a truth one will not boast for that one knows it is a trust used carefully, wisely, discreetly. And along with the giving of that gift, there is a responsibility that is so great that it is almost overwhelming.

The Responsibility of Spiritual Gifts and Calling

Time have I stood on that top's hand on that black doorknob wishing that He had called someone else. Time with this tremendous responsibility that is almost overwhelming. The knowledge that He's given me of the Word.

With the knowledge that He has given me of the powers that are. With that with which He's endowed me. That responsibility that goes with that with which He's entrusted to you is so overwhelming. The little woman on that Missouri farm who gathers the eggs at the close of the day from her little hen house, who breathes, who takes care of the family.

Farmer's wife in Missouri. God not called me. Her age of fourteen. She rests so well. The gray streaks of dawn break in the early morning hours. She again goes about her daily duties. A responsibility to her little family.

But oh beloved, the responsibility of one who's been called of God. The responsibility that goes with that with which He's entrusted you with out of the close of a miracle service. And I walk off of that platform.

Oh sure, and those who leave that service say, Miss Kuhlman must feel so well rewarded. Think of those who were healed by the power of God in that great miracle service. And they go out of the service almost with envy.

But beloved, I walk off of that same platform. Did I yield to the Spirit? I had known how to better have cooperated with the Spirit. Maybe another might have been healed. I had known how to follow Him as He was moving in that great...

You're never from under it. You're never, you're never, you're never from under it. In the power of God. It's the mighty power of the Holy Spirit. Which those bodies that were healed in those miracle services is the power of the Holy Spirit.

Only part of that the servant plays, the only part that I play is in yielding my body unto Him. And He works through that body in lifting up His only begotten Son, in lifting up Jesus. But the best being come completely detached from that which happens during a miracle service.

Absolutely. It is almost as though Kathryn Kuhlman, the person of Kathryn Kuhlman is seated with the crowd in the auditorium. As a personality, as a person, I become completely detached from that which the Holy Spirit does.

Endurance Through the Anointing of the Holy Spirit

You marvel. Thousands have marveled the fact that I can go through a service four hours, four and a half hours, five, five and a half hours, I've gone as long as six hours in one service without stopping.

On my feet, never being seated once, I am a woman, in it, of four hours, five, six hours, I can walk off of that platform, that stage, just as I went on at the beginning of that service. Jews have told me that from a medical standpoint it is impossible for any human body to take that beating year in, year out.

A medical man in Pittsburgh told me 15 years ago that the rate that I was going then, my physical body could not take three more years. Here I am, still going strong, and I'll put up against any man's work the work that I do.

I'll put my work that I do in one week up against the work of any man that I know. Seven days a week, 24 hours a day, I can walk off of a platform after a four, five, six hour service, just as refreshed.

In fact, I could turn around and do it all over again, you know? I'll tell you the secret. It's because Kathryn Kuhlman doesn't do it. It's the power of the Holy Spirit. We preach an hour under the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

One hour under the anointing of the Holy Ghost, and I walk off of that stage, that platform, more refreshed than I was when I walked on. I know better than anyone else that it is not Kathryn Kuhlman. It's the power of the Holy Spirit that is refreshing for my own body.

He fills the body with Himself and His own Spirit. There are those who ask regarding the slaying power of the Holy Spirit. If I knew, I would tell you. I'm perfectly honest about it. I knew about the slaying power of the Holy Spirit.

Testimonies of Healing in the Miracle Services

Then I understood it when one Tuesday night a woman stood and said, Miss Kuhlman, last night while you were preaching, I was healed. I paused and I said, that physically healed, as I was preaching, questioned her from the platform and found that as I was preaching, literally a tumor had dissolved in her body.

She said, I was so sure of it. I was so sure of it. I went to my doctor today. He examined me and said, it's true. The tumor is no longer there. So far as I can recollect, that was the first time that anyone had ever been healed just as they sat in a service any time during my ministry.

That was the very first time. Since that time, literally thousands and thousands and thousands have been healed just sitting there in the auditorium. Could it be that someone just coming into a service, sitting there, no one laying hands upon them, no one touching them, they're not in a healing line, but sitting there completely healed of their affliction, their disease.

Ask me to explain it? All I can tell you is that the presence of the Holy Spirit is there to heal. He doesn't need me to lay hands upon you that you might be healed. He doesn't need me to touch you. I have no healing virtue in my hands.

I have no healing virtue that comes from my body. I remind you again, I'm just a sinner saved by the grace of God. But the same Holy Spirit who performed those miracles through the body of Jesus, as Jesus walked this earth as much man as though he were not God, and who admitted that it was the Holy Spirit who doeth these works.

Peter understood. He too acknowledged it was the Spirit of God who performeth the miracles. He is still the same Holy Spirit. And it is the Holy Spirit who heals those bodies out there in that great auditorium.

Many of them. Many, many, many feet from me. So far from me, I cannot see them. Strangers. I never touch them. But they're no strangers. To Him. No. When it comes to the slain power of the Holy Spirit, I still contend that these old physical bodies of ours are not geared for so much power.

Mortal Bodies Awaiting Immortality

And it's just like that. One of these days, this martyr will have put on immortality. One of these days, that which is corruption will have put on incorruption. But now, the old physical body in this state of corruption, this old physical body can just take just so much of the power of the Holy Spirit, so much of this dynamite.

And believe me, it is. It's the greatest power man can know.

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