Smith Wigglesworth on Sonship

On 2nd June 1924 at a Pentecostal camp meeting in Berkley, California, Smith Wigglesworth preached this message that was entitled Sonship In that message, Wigglesworth said:

Let us read this morning the third chapter of the First Epistle of John. This is one of those remarkable passages which is exhaustless. So whatever time the Lord may permit us to be together this morning we shall find that we are still in a place this divine proposition of God. God wants all His stand these words which have been written.

It is the believer’s attitude, his inspiration, his divine ability, a place where he rests in faith, a place where God has done something marvelous for him. He has taken him out of the world. It is a remarkable word that Jesus said, “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world…They are not of the world…” (John 17:15,16). It is a great truth for us to understand. And in this glorious position of God’s own we come to a place where we know with confidence, we say it without fear of contradiction of our own heart or even the contradiction of outside voices, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God.”

Beloved, I want us to examine ourselves as the Word comes forth as there are any amount of Scriptures which are definitely purposed of God that we should inherit them but we do not come into line to claim them. Remember this, there are any amount of things you may quote without having the essential of the reality of the production of them. I want us to have something more than the literal word. Words are of no importance without they have unction of the assurance of the abiding of those words. Let me say a few things which are contained in the Scriptures that ought to be ours. Here is one. Beloved, now are we the sons of God…” (1 John 3:2). That is Scripture. That is divine. That is for us, but it is another thing altogether to have it. Here is another word: “…he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous” (1 John 3:7). There is also another word I want to give you. It is also a word which is used by most believers: “…greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4). That is quoted by many people, but may God reveal unto us the meaning is something more than saying it. You can quote these words and you know all the time you are failures without being in the place of victory.

Any person that has come to the place of this word, “…greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world,” which is a divine proposition, is mightier than all the powers of darkness, is mightier than the power of disease, mightier than his own self. There is something reigning supremely great in him more than in the world when he is in that place. But beloved, we must come to the place of a knowledge. It is not sufficient for you to quote the Word of God. You never come to a place of righteousness, of truth, until you are in possession of these things which I am giving you by the Word.

TONGUES AND INTERPRETATION: “God, who has divinely brought forth the Word by the power of His might through His Son, gave it displacement in the human soul that the human may be dried up, withered by God, coming in by the force of living power.”

Beloved, God wants us to be something more than ordinary people. Remember this, whosoever you are, if you are ordinary you have not touched the ideal principles of God. The only thing that God has for a man is to be extraordinary God has no room for an ordinary man. There are millions of ordinary people in the world. They are only counted as nations, as people. But when God lays hold of a man He makes him extraordinary in personality, power, unction, thought and activity.

“Beloved, now are we the sons of God.” It is a divine plan. It is a divine will in the plan. God has not anything He does not mean us to possess. God means us to possess all these things. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God.” God has such purposes to perform in us that He has a great desire to utter these words in our heart that we may rise, that we may claim, that we may be ambitious, that we may be covetous, that there may be something in us that nothing can satisfy us without we not only tow the line but live in the line and claim the whole thing as ours. God must have it to be so.

You will never reach ideal purposes on any line without that Word becomes the epistle. You become the living epistle by the power of the Holy Ghost – nay, you become the living force of the epistle of the revelation of God, the incarnation of the personality of His presence in the human soul till you know you are sons. Son-likeness, son-desires, son- expressions, son-activities. Look at Him! See Him! He is the most beautiful of all. He is the most glorious, God-impassionated, a body filled with all the flilness of God, coming forth in the glory of the majesty of His Father, and He stands in the earth, flesh. Ah, but look! Read with me Romans 8:3. It is a good word to concenetrate on for a moment.

“For what the law could not do, in that it was weakened through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. “

There is our very image, natural weakness. Jesus made of a woman, flesh after our flesh. Look at Hebrews 2:14, for there will be an expression of beatitude tbr you. Hearken!

“For asmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power ofdeath, that is the devil.”

Oh, I like that thought! The manifestation of the power of God. God came and indwelt that flesh, that weakness, that law for you. He came in, changed it, lived in it, moved in it and they beheld Him as the Son of God.

TONGUES AND INTERPRETATION: “Yes, it was the purpose of almightiness to swing through weakness and just quicken it by His mighty power till flesh became the habitation of God in the Spirit.”

Beloved, there is the principle, there is the remarkable position of every soul in this place to be so inhabited by Jesus that you become a living personality of God’s ideal Son. It is very remarkable, it is very beautiful. God has these divine plans for us because so many people believe because they are natural they are always to be in the place of weakness. Beloved, your weaknesses have to be swallowed up with the ideal of Him who never failed. Every time He was tried He came out victorious. Every time He was oppressed – never mind, it did not matter what happened. He “ was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). A purpose there that He might be able to succor all who were tempted and tried and oppressed in any way. He was the great embodiment of personality from God to the human life to unveil us in our weaknesses to behold His mightiness through us that we might be strong in the lord. Praise the Lord!

SONG: It’s all right now, it’s all right now; For Jesus is my Savior and it’s all nght now.

Beloved, there is something very definitely appropnate for this morning’s address in that. It is always all right when He is almighty. Then we are all right. The Word of God says: Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our lard Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Romans 5:1-2 It is a great position. It is to be saved by this immensity of power, this great inflow of life, this great fullness of God. This wonderful inhabiting of the Spirit to come right into the human soul and shake the husks away, shake the mind! Oh how many people have lost out because the mind and the head are too big! If only God could cut our heads off and get to the heart! The head is too big, the mind is too active, and the whole thing is too natural, therefore God cannot get His way. May God sweep through us today and show us that the only thing that is ever going to help us is the heart. “For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness…“, (Romans 10:10). It is the heart where we believe in faith. It is the heart that is inhabited by the Spirit. It is the heart that is moved by God. The mind is always secondary. The tongue is the third position. The heart conceives, the mind reflects, and the mouth is operated. But you must not try to reverse the order. Some people are all tongue, neither head nor heart. But when He comes in, there is perfect order. It is as right as rain. Look how it comes! The heart, the conception; the heart, the inflowing; the heart, the great place of ventilating till it flows through and quickens the members of the mind, till the reflection is wonderhil. And then the operation of the tongue brings out the glory of the Lord.

TONGUES AND INTERPRETATION: “Oh, it was the love that flowed from Calvary that moved with compassion for the mighty need of the world’s cry. It entered the heart of the Father and unveiled His love to the world, gave us His Son in affection and the work was done.”

Praise the Lord! Then it is done. It is perfectly done. The Scriptures are peffect, the sacrifice is peffect, the revelation is peffect, and everything is so divinely adjusted by almightiness that every person who comes into infinite revelation touched of God sees that the whole canon of Scripture is perfect from the beginning to the end. There is not a single thing in the Scriptures that clashes or comes up against the Spirit and makes trouble. When the whole life is surged by the power of God, the Word becomes the personality of the subject. We become the subjects of the Spirit of the living God, and we are moved by the almightiness of God till we live and move and have our being with this flow of God’s integrity. What a wonderful adjustment for weaknesses! Do you believe it is possible? “…God is able to make all grace abound…” (2 Corinthians 9:8). God is able to so shake us through, to send a wind and blow the chaff away till it will never be seen anymore. God isso able to refine us that everybody in the place will shout today. Oh, if something would happen to cause you all to shout!

SONG: It is better to shout than to doubt, it is better to rise than to fall, it is better to let the glory out, than to have no glory at all.

“Beloved, now are we the sons of God.” I don’t want to leave the subject till I feel God has given you a rising tide of expectancy or adaptability within your soul which will bring you into the very place God has made for you. It is as easy as possible if you can touch it by faith this morning. I am the last man to say anything about fasting, or about praying, or about anything that has been a source of blessing to others. But I have learned by personal experience that I can get more out of one moment’s faith than I can get out of a month’s yelling. I can get more by believing God a moment than I can get by screaming for a month. Also I am positive that blessing comes out of fasting when the fasting is done in the right way. But I find so many people that make up their mind to fast and they finish off with a thick head, and troubled bones, and sleepy conditions. I am as satisfied as possible that that is no way to fast. But there is a way to fast and I find it in so many Scriptures.

Praying and fasting, the Spirit leading you to pray. The Spirit lays hold of you till you forget even the hour or the day, and you are so caught up by the power of the Spirit tat you want nothing, not even meat or drink. Absolutely Holy Ghost fasting. Nay, praying and fasting. Then God gets His plan through because He has you through. So the Lord of hosts, I trust, will so encamp round about us with songs of deliverance, and give us inward revelations till the whole of our being shall be absolutely on the rising tide.

I can understand now clearer than ever the 24th Psalm: “Lift up your heads, 0 ye gate!…” . Human gates, human hindrances, human thoughts, human trying. “Lift up your heads, 0 ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.” Let Him in! Oh, if He comes m, what a wonderful Jesus! Ah, you say, He is in. My word! I believe that if God could only get right in, you would be so far out you would never get in anymore. The difficulty is, some people are on the edge waiting to see which way to go. Brother, you will get blown off May God the Holy Ghost wake us up to see we must rise with the tide. Who dares believe God this morning? Who dares claim his rights? What are the rights? “Now are we the sons of God.” Absolutely the position of rest, the position of faith. Perfect trust, perfect habitation, no disturbance, peace like a river. Look at the face of God. Hallelujah! The very Word itself that comes to judge comes to help. Look! The law came as a judgment, but when the Spirit comes and breathes through the law He comes to lift us higher and higher Oh, Hallelujah! We must go a little flirther. God comes to us and says, “I will make it all right if you dare believe it.” It is so in everything.

May the great things of God that come to us with such revelation, only can come in as we are unclothed and then clothed upon that our nakedmess disappears. Nakedness is everything that is coinciding with worldly evil. If you can be attracted by anything earthly, you have missed the greatest association that God has for you. If it is your home, your bank, your associations, any human thing, if it can attract you from God, you are not a son in this respect. I will prove it by the next words: Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifyeth himself… 1 John 3:3

Hallelujah! So you see, beloved, the importance of coming into line with God’s Word. Let us confront the Word, let us confront God and see if this thing really is so. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God.” Sonship! What is the reality of it? God gives it as clear as anything. If sonship, heirship; if heirship, joint heirship. But look at the tremendous, gigantic power of almightiness behind sonship. Son, power, joint power, all power. There you come into k. Will you shiver on> the edge of it like the boys do at the bath? Or will you take a plunge into omnipotence and find the waters are not as cold as people told you? Dare you let the warmth of the power of God make you see your inheritance in the Spirit? Nay, nay, something better than that! Oh, the joylulness, the expressiveness, the inward motion, the divine inflow, the habitation of the Spirit. God in the soul making the whole body cry out for the living God! Glory! Glory! Glory! Wanting God! Wanting fellowship in the Spirit! Wanting the walk with Him! Wanting communion with Him! Everything else is no good. You want the association with God, and God says, “I will come and wa lkI with you. I will sup with you and you with Me, and I will live in you.” A joyful hallelujah! Attahing to a spiritual majority, a fullness of Christ, I a place where God becomes the perfect Father and the Holy Ghost has a rightful place now as never before. The Holy Ghost breathes through and says, “You are My Father, You are My Father.” The Spirit crieth, “Abba Father, My Father.” Oh, it is wonderful! And God the Holy Ghost grant to us this morning that richness of His pleasure, that unfolding of His will, that consciousness of beaming of His countenance upon us. There is no condemnation; the law of the Spirit of life making us free from the law of sin and death. Glory! The Spirit is having perfect way because if we see it as clear as God intends us to see k, we will all be made so much riper, looking forward to the Blessed One who is commg again. Here we are face to face with facts. God has shown us different aspects of the Spirit, He has shown us the pavilion of splendor, He has unfolded to us the power of the relationship of sonship. He has shown us that they that are sons of God have likeness unto it, they have activity in it, they are claiming the rights by it. They speak and it is done. They are binding the things that are loose and loosing the things that are bound. And the perfection of sonship is being so manifested there is absolutely a rising tide of the sons of God.

SONG: I know the Lord, I know the Lord, I know the Lord’s laid His hands on me, Oh, I know the Lord, I know the Lord, I know the Lord’s laid His hands on me.

Do you believe it? Let us see you act it. Beloved, God the Holy Ghost has a perfect plan for us to make us a movement. There is a difference between a movement and a monument. A movement is something that is always active. A monument is something that is fixed at a corner and neither speaks nor moves, but there is a tremendous lot of humbug and nonsense to get k there. It is silent and does nothing. A movement is where God has come into the very being of a person, where he becomes active for God. He is God’s property; God’s mouthpiece, God’s eyes, God’s hands. We read, “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:23). The sanctification of the eyes, of the hands, of the mouth, of the ears; to be so operated that you live only for the habitation of the Spirit, a wonderhil place for God to bring us to. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be…” (1 John 3:2). There is the greatest thought in the Scriptures. On what lines? Heirs, joint heirs, revelations, dispensation of God in the man till the man becomes the habitation of God, and He walks up and down in the world as God. He is filled, moved, intensified till he is on the wing. It would not take a trumpet for he is already on the wing and he will land very soon. He would hear the voice no matter how many street cars were passing. We read in 1 Corinthians 2:9 “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

Everything that is going to help you, you have to make yours. “God hath prepared for them.” He has laid it up already. You don’t want a stepladder to get it. It is laid up to be handed out to you when you become joined with Him. When you walk with Him He will either drop everything He has on you or take you where you are to remain forever. Enoch could not understand all the weights of glory so He stripped hirn and took him into it as soon as He could. Beloved, it is impossible to esumate the loving-kindness of God or the measureless mind of God in our finite condition. When we come into like-mindedness with the Word, instead of looking at the Word we begin to see what God has for us in the Word. This is a very exhaustless subject but I pray God He will make us an exhaustless people. I want something to happen on the line of this verse:

SONG: Me with a quenchiess thirst inspire, A longing, infinite desire Fill my craving heart. Less than Thyself You do not give, Thy might within me now to live. Come, all Thou hast.

God, just come and make me so that there is not a possibility for me to ever be satisfied but to have a quenchless thirst for the living God! And then I shall not be overtaken. Then I shall be ready. Then I shall have eyes which beam, filled with the extremity of delight looking at the Mastet You ask, “What, we see the Master?” Here, look at Him! His Word is Spirit – and life-giving. This is the breath, the Word of Jesus. Through the Holy Ghost men have written and spoken. Here is the life, here is the witness, here is the truth, here is the Son of God revealed from flith to faith, from heart to heart, from vision to vision, till we all come into per&ct unity of fellowship into the ailness of Christ. There it is, beloved. Look! “Now are we the sons of God.” If you are there we can take a step flirther. But if you are not there you may hear but not cross oven But there is something about the Word of God which says that if there is a hearing of faith it shall profit, but if there is a hearing not mixed with faith it shall not profit. You can hear this Word on the lines of fitith.

“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” 1 John 3:2 The future is what you are today. The future is not what you are going to be tomorrow. This is the day when God makes the future possible. When God can get something through you today, tomorrow is filled with further illumination of God’s possibility for you. Dare you come into the place of ommpotence? Of wonderment? Dare you step into line with God’s possibility and say, “I am ready for all Thou hast for me“? It will mean a clean life. It will mean a holy life. It will mean a separated life. It will disjoin you from everything. It will mean your heart is so perfect, your prospects are so divinely separated that you say to the world, “Goodbye!” Hear what Paul said, “I conferred not with flesh and blood,” that he might inherit this great possession that God has laid up for us.

TONGUES AND INTERPRETATION: “Holiness is the habitation of Thy house. Purity, righteousness and truth are God’s glorified position in the Spirit. The great desire of the Master is to make sons of God, for many sons He will gather into glory.”

Listen to what God has to say. Everything must be absolutely the Word, so I only speak to you by the Word. Let us read Hebrews 2:6-10. “But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindifil of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than the anges; thou crown edst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands: Thou hast put all things in subjectton under his fret. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings“. Oh, this second chapter of Hebrews is one of the mighty, glorified positions for the children of God! God would have me herald, like a great trumpet call, my voice to sound in every heart. Brother, the design is to bring you as a son clothed with the power of the gifts and graces, ministries and operations; to bring you into glory clothed upon with a majesty of heaven for He shall bring many sons unto glory, son-likeness, son perfection. Oh, this is like heaven to me! My very body is filled with heaven this morning. Oh, what an exhaustless position we are in! Therefore, seeing these things are so, what manner of persons ought we to be. How? In looking, in hasting, and keeping our eyes upon Him that we may be ready for the rapture. Oh, brothers, sisters, what immensity of pleasure God has for us in these meetings! What unbounded conditions of sober- mindedness God is bringing us to that we may be able to apprehend that for which God has apprehended us in the Spirit. Oh, that we may look not on the things that are, but with eyes of chaste virgin purity see- ing only the invisible Son! And so having our whole bodies illuminated by the power of the Holy Spirit we grow in grace, from grace to grace, in filith, from faith to faith, in personality of son-likeness till there is not any difference between us and Him. Let me give you the Word if you can receive it: “As He is, so are we in this world.” What a word! Who dare believe it? God only can take us on to such heights and depths and lengths and breadths in the Spifit. Brother, sister, are you prepared to go all the way? Are you willing fbr heights and depths and lengths and breadths? Are you willing for your heart to have only one attraction? Are you willing to have only one lover? Are you willing for Him to become the very perfect Bridegroom? For I understand the more bride-like we are, the more we love to hear the Bridegroom’s voice, and the less bride-like we are, the less we long for His Word. If you cannot rest without it, if it becomes your meat day and night, if you eat and drink of it, His life will be in you and when He appears you will go. Help us, Jesus! How many are prepared to be unmantled before the King? Prepared to yield to His call, yield to His will, yield to His desires? Keep your hands up. Everybody knows in this meeting just how far you have missed the plan. The Word has gone forth, the Spirit has been quickening you. How many are going to say, “At all costs I will go through!” Who says so? who means it? Are you determined? Is your soul on the wing? Come for ward and make a full consecration to God right in this sawdust here, every one of you. It is between you and God this morning. It is nothing to do with your next door neighbor. You are going now to get in the presence of God. Make a breast of everything in the presence of God!