The Dumb Shall Speak
“So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (Romans 10:17)
There are no barriers to the power of the Word of God. This power has nothing to do with human faith or belief. One cannot say, “I will believe so and so in order that I might achieve this or that result,” because faith is not under our control. It is under the control of the Word of God.
After my experience on the 21st, something happened which will prove this point. I was still working with the Department of Agriculture as assistant accountant. At that time, we kept our Sunday meetings in the pay-office. One Sunday morning, the woman who was healed on the 21st brought in her boy, interrupted the message and said, “I heard that you received power. Heal this boy!” What she really heard was that I spoke in tongues, but she put it in the way that I received power. She was convinced of this power, because when I had unwittingly cast a devil out of her those few nights before, I apparently turned her back from what seemed a certain death. At this announcement in front of those who were attending the service, I became absolutely embarrassed. I knew the boy. He was a messenger in the office where I was working. He would carry a glass of water to one desk, a cup of tea to another, and do whatever we told him to do. But he could not talk. He was born dumb. He could make sounds like, “Oh-oh-oh-oh,” but that was all. He could not form a word. I felt my absolute inadequacy under the circumstances. I had nothing to heal the boy. I felt wretched, but God had told me before that whenever I was in trouble I should call to Him and He would help me. I, therefore, held my forehead in my hand and quietly said to the Lord, “My God, what am I going to do?” He quickly answered, “You are not going to do anything – I AM going to heal him!”
The words ‘I AM’ carry a special power. Every time I hear God say, “I AM!” I always feel this power. I looked it up in the Hebrew language for I wanted to know what Moses actually said to Pharaoh when he said, “I AM is sending me.” The Hebrew says, “Hâyâh Hâyâh,” which means, “I AM I AM.” We translate it as, “I am that I am,” but he just said, “I AM I AM.” In other words, “I AM the only existing One. There is nobody else besides Me. I AM.” From the moment He said to me, “I AM,” I felt like I was being an actor on the stage – pretending that I was doing something, yet having God do all the work.
You know, when I heard, “I AM,” that word brought a faith in me that was absolute! Have you ever felt absolute faith? Faith where you say, “I wonder if this is going to work,” or, “Maybe it’s going to work,” is not absolute faith. This faith was so absolute that a great relief and joy came into me – I didn’t have to do anything! God was going to heal this dumb boy! I didn’t know why he couldn’t speak. At that time I didn’t know that he had no tongue. I only knew that we would call him dummy, because he didn’t talk.
I prayed for the boy’s healing and ordered the dumb and deaf spirit to leave him. Again, the Lord spoke to me, “Tell him to speak.” I, therefore, said, “In the name of Jesus, Clifton Berry, speak!” Nothing happened. So I said to God, “What now, God?” Again, the Lord spoke to me, “Tell him what to say.” Obviously, if somebody is dumb, he would not know what to say! I said, “Clifton, say, ‘Jesus’.” The boy slowly turned around, looked me in the eyes, and said, “Jesus!” When he said, “Jesus,” it was as if an electrical shock went through the whole room. People screamed and ran in every direction calling a crowd. The boy’s mother rushed forward and elbowed her way through shouting, “Be quiet! Be quiet everybody!” She took charge of the disorder until everybody got quiet. She said that it was physically impossible for the boy to speak. “I took this boy to the doctor,” she said. “He is sixteen years of age. He never talked, because he was born deformed in his mouth and he had no tongue. Now, the doctor said he would never talk. They cannot operate on him to make a tongue for him, because he is too old. No doctor can make him talk, but I hear him talk! I want to see his mouth.” At that moment a doubt came into me. I thought to myself, “Maybe God made an incision in his mouth and his mouth is now full of blood.” In my abject terror and unbelief, I did not want her to open his mouth. However, she opened it anyway just to find out that Clifton Berry had received a brand new tongue without any incision. He had a perfect tongue as if he was born with it! God Almighty created a new tongue right before our eyes! From the time he said, “Jesus,” he has never stopped talking.
What law caused that miracle to happen? “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:2) There is a higher law than the law of natural things and this higher law is the law of faith. The Bible says that if you have faith, you can move mountains (Matthew 17:20) and also that without faith it is impossible to please God. (Hebrews 11:6)
There was no faith on my part. The faith of Bertha Berry, his mother, was not properly placed in God, but in me. Nevertheless, the word that God spoke to me was the creative force that gave Clifton a new tongue. There was a faith that could do what neither doctors nor any natural process down on the natural plane could have accomplished. In addition to that, it did an eternal work in the hearts of those who saw it.
God did this miracle for His glory and for the foundation of the church. It was not so much to heal the boy, but it was to heal the whole work in that area. There were people who were against the Gospel and who were saying that we were sorcerers; they were afraid of us. It shut their mouths. As we were a farm community, the whole farm, all the officers as well as everybody else, began to get saved. Immediately, a revival started and nobody could stop the power of God moving from that time on.
