Ern Baxter
| Ern Baxter | |
|---|---|
| Born |
William John Ernest Baxter 1914 Sasketchewan, Canada |
| Died | 1993 (aged 78–79) San Diego, California |
| Citizenship | United States |
William John Ernest (Ern) Baxter (1914–1993) was a Canadian Pentecostal evangelist.
Born in Saskatchewan, Canada, he was baptised into a Presbyterian family. His mother was involved with a holiness church and following his father’s conversion they went into classical Pentecostalism. Their city was visited by a Scandinavian itinerant minister with a "signs and wonders" approach to Christianity. While in the Baxter’s home city, he taught on the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Ern Baxter’s mother was the first in those meetings to receive the "baptism of power." Baxter recalled seeing his father help her into the house drunk in the Spirit. Later in his teenage years, Baxter went through a period where he lost his faith in reaction to the legalism of religion and became seriously ill from pneumonia. Two events brought him back to Christianity – a miracle of healing and the words of a friend: "Ern, being a Christian isn’t about what you do for God, it’s about what God in Christ Jesus has done and will continue to do for you".
On 24 May 1932, he entered full-time ministry as a musician travelling across Canada with a missionary. While travelling, Baxter and his companion came to a conference held in Trossachs in Canada. There Ern Baxter received the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Trossachs was an unusual conference as the delegates were not Pentecostal in the classic sense – they were seeking the experience of the Holy Spirit. This was Ern’s first exposure to what was to become a central passion in his life and ministry – Word and Spirit or Reformed doctrine and charismatic life and power. The morning after he had been baptised in the Holy Spirit he said God spoke to him and called him to the ministry saying, "I want you to preach My Word".
In 1947, Baxter attended a service in Winnipeg where William Branham was speaking. Branham later spoke in Vancouver at meetings that were led by Baxter. Subsequent to the meetings, Branham approached Baxter and told him that he had been praying and the angel of the Lord had spoken to him and told him to invite Ern Baxter to become his companion in ministry. Baxter left Branham sometime in 1953 or 1954, primarily because Branham was starting to preach things that were "seriously wrong".
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