Smith Wigglesworth’s Insight into the Power of Sowing and Reaping
Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, writes to them to walk in the Spirit and live in the Spirit. The key for us believers to overcome and walk victoriously is learning how to walk in the order of the Spirit. He then explained:
“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows that he will also reap. For is a man sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. And let us now grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.”
Galatians 6: 7-9
Are we self-focused and operating by the natural order and, as a result sowing to our own flesh? Or are we yielding to the Spirit and sowing to Him by hearing His Words and doing them? The reality is we are living today in the harvest of our past sowings. If we want to change things, we must start by changing what and how we sow. Secondly it is about learning to be patient and not grow weary as we await the harvest.
Smith Wigglesworth explained:
farmer surveys his land, eagerly scanning the first ears of corn poking through the soil. He knows that first beginnings often indicate the outcome of the harvest. In the same manner, we can be assured of resurrection because Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. And “as He is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). Christ is now getting the church ready for translation. In Peter, we read that we are “begotten… again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Oh, to be changed. What a living hope He gives!
Farmers plan what they are going to harvest so buy the correct seeds and prepare the soil. If they put the wrong nutrients into the soil it can prevent them from planting certain seeds. So, it all depends on the harvest we seek. As we abide in the Secret Place of His Presence, He imparts to us a fresh vision and hope.
“Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work. Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.”
John 4: 34-36
The Lord longs for a harvest on this earth and He waits patiently for it. He has honored us to live at such a time and play a role in the final harvest. We must impact this earth by following the example of the Master. Smith explained of Jesus:
“Wherever Jesus went, the multitudes followed Him, because He lived, moved, breathed, was swallowed up, clothed and filled with God.”
This is such an image of a Secret Place dweller. For if we are to abide and if we are to go deeper, then we must sow ourselves on the altar. In the Secret Place, He must refresh, restore and renew us as we sow ourselves on the altar. For we must have Him if we are bear fruit for His glory.
Smith said:
“We are only at the edge of things, the almighty plan is marvelous for the future. God must do something to increase. A revival to revive within and without all we touch. A floodtide with a cloudburst behind it. Jesus left 120 men to turn the world upside down. The Spirit is upon us to change the situation. We must move on to let God increase in us for the deliverance of multitudes and we must travail through until souls are born and quickened into a new relationship with Heaven. Jesus had divine authority with power, and He left it for us. We must preach truth, holiness and purity in the inward parts.”
What are we sowing into our spirit, and why? Oh, that we would catch the vision of the hour from Heaven and understand that if we are to be effective then we must sow His truth, holiness, and purity into our lives.
Do we hunger and thirst that every fiber of our being would be consumed in Him and by Him? Do we long for Him and that we would so decrease that he would increase? Our heart cry is, “God we must have more of You!” Nothing else will satisfy. Jesus had become hungry and the disciples went to find food, but when they returned Jesus explained:
“I have food to eat of which you do not know.”
John 4: 32
Do we come into the Secret Place and the rich veins of His glory to eat our full? Smith explained:
“I am thirsty for more of God. He was not only holy, but He loved holiness….It is the depths that God gets into that we may reflect Him and manifest a life having Christ enthroned in the heart, drinking into a new fulness, new intuition, for as He is, so are we in this world.”
We must be like Him! We must accurately and beautifully manifest Him to this world. So we must come and sow to the Spirit in the Secret Place. We must sow our time, thoughts, desires, and even our very self on the altar.
Smith explained:
“The Lord is the great promoter of divine possibility, pressing you into the attitude of daring to believe all the Word says. We are to be living epistles of Christ, known and read of all men. The revelation of Christ, past and future, in Him all things consist. He is in us.”
In the Secret Place, we cling to the horns of the altar that all of the old may die and the new that is in Him may come forth. It is following the lead of the Holy Spirit and allowing Him to do such a mighty work in us. It is a call to patience and endurance. It is coming to our weakness of us and then abiding in His strength. It is a sowing of His Word into our spirit. It is a praying day after day in the Spirit as we hold unto the precious promise of the Word. No surrendering and not quitting. But a pressing on and a holding fast.
Smith explained:
“Let us go forth bringing glory to God. Faith is the substance, a mightiness of reality, a deposit of divine nature, God creative within. The moment you believe you are mantled with a new power to lay hold of possibility and make it reality.”
For it is not by our doing, just our surrendering in faith to Him. Just as a farmer sows in hope and feels helpless longing for the harvest, so too do we stand helpless to make things happen. But we stand by faith, knowing that He who promised is able and faithful.
But we are warned that we must not grow weary. Smith explained:
I want you, as the author of Hebrews wonderfully said, to “consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls” (Heb. 12:3). When you are weary and tempted and tried and all men are against you, consider Him who has passed through it all, so that He might be able to help you in the trial as you are passing through it. He will sustain you in the strife. When all things seem to indicate that you have failed, the Lord of Hosts, the God of Jacob, cob, the salvation of our Christ will so reinforce you that you will be stronger than any concrete building that was ever made.
Oh, that we would learn our desperate need of abiding in the Secret Place. Here we are daily refreshed, renewed, and restored. Here He rebuilds and recreates, and reinforces.
Smith added:
Paul was an example for the church. He was filled with the loveliness of the character of the Master through the Spirit’s power. He was zealous that we may walk worthy. This is the day of calling that he spoke about; this is the opportunity of our lifetime. This is the place where God increases strength or opens the door of a new way of ministry.
We must have more of Him so we must sow His Word into our lives, and we must learn how to abide in the Secret Place, daily yielding to the Spirit. Smith said:
If there is anything in your life that in any way resists the power of the Holy Spirit and the entrance of His Word into your heart and life, drop on your knees and cry aloud for mercy.
Let us give no resistance to the Holy Spirit but learn like the Master to walk constantly, sowing our lives to the Holy Spirit. For the Lord has a harvest that He desires we enjoy day after day. For what we sow, we shall surely reap. As we abide in the Secret Place, He does a mighty heart surgery on us that the sow of our heart might produce. Smith said:
The Lord speaks at least twice of the good ground into which seed was sown, which also bore fruit and brought forth some hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty (Matt. 13:8; Mark 4:8). Even in the good ground, the seed yielded different portions of fruit. I maintain truly that there is no limitation to the abundance of a harvest when the ground is perfectly in the hands of the Lord. So we must clearly understand that the Word of God can never come forth with all its primary purposes unless our ground is right. But God will help us, I believe, to see that He can put the ground in perfect order as it is left in His hands.
Today we have become so programmed that we think a five-minute prayer will work and we have lost sight of how to pray through by the Holy Spirit. Smith explained:
“there are wonderful things to be done, when we can be lost in the Spirit until the Spirit prays through to victory.”
He also said:
Get into the glory just as you have gotten into it today, and as the Spirit of God prays through you, you will find that God will grant all the desires of your heart.”
We need to learn how to hold fast in prayer in the Spirit until the breakthrough manifests. We must not quit in the midst of the battle but stay focused on Him and allowing the Spirit to pray through us all the way to the harvest.
