Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, April 11th, 1880, by
C. H. SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what
we should what pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh
intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that
searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he
maketh intercession for the saints according the to will of God.'Romans
8:26,27.
THE APOSTLE PAUL was writing to a tried and afflicted people, and one
of his objects was to remind them of the rivers of comfort which were
flowing near at hand. He first of all stirred up their pure minds by
way of remembrance as to their sonship,'for saith he as many as are led
by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.' They were, therefore,
encouraged to take part and lot with Christ, the elder brother, with
whom they had become joint heirs; and they were exhorted to suffer with
him, that they might afterwards be glorified with him. All that they
endured came from a Father's hand, and this should comfort them. A
thousand sources of joy are opened in that one blessing of adoption.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have
been begotten into the family of grace.
When Paul had alluded to that consoling subject he turned to the next
ground of comfort'namely, that we are to be sustained under present
trial by hope. There is an amazing glory in reserve for us, and though
as yet we cannot enter upon it, but in harmony with the whole creation
must continue to groan and travail, yet the hope itself should minister
strength to us, and enable us patiently to bear these light
afflictions, which are but for a moment.' This also is a truth full of
sacred refreshment: hope sees a crown in reserve, mansions in
readiness, and Jesus himself preparing a place for us, and by the
rapturous sight she sustains the soul under the sorrows of the hour.
Hope is the grand anchor by whose means we ride out the present storm.
The apostle then turns to a third source of comfort, namely, the
abiding of the Holy Spirit in and with the Lord's people. He uses the
word likewise' to intimate that in the same manner as hope sustains the
soul, so does the Holy Spirit strengthen us under trial. Hope operated
spiritually upon our spiritual faculties, and so does the Holy Spirit,
in some mysterious way, divinely operate upon the new-born faculties of
the believer, so that he is sustained under his infirmities. In his
light shall we see light: I pray, therefore, that we may be helped of
the Spirit while we consider his mysterious operations, that we may not
fall into error or miss precious truth through blindness of heart.
The text speaks of our infirmities,' or as many translators put it in
the singular'of our infirmity.' By this is intended our affliction, and
the weakness which trouble discovers in us. The Holy Spirit helps us to
bear the infirmity of our body and of our mind; he helps us to bear our
cross, whether it be physical pain, or mental depression, or spiritual
conflict, or slander, or poverty, or persecution. He helps our
infirmity; and with a helper so divinely strong we need not fear for
the result. God's grace will be sufficient for us; his strength will be
made perfect in weakness.
I think, dear friends, you will all admit that if a man can pray, his
trouble is at once lightened. When we feel that we have power with God
and can obtain anything we ask for at his hands, then our difficulties
cease to oppress us. We take our burden to our heavenly Father and tell
it out in the accents of childlike confidence, and we come away quite
content to bear whatever his holy will may lay upon us. Prayer is a
great outlet for grief; it draws up the sluices, and abates the
swelling flood, which else might be too strong for us. We bathe our
wound in the lotion of prayer, and the pain is lulled, the fever is
removed. We may be brought into such perturbation of mind, and
perplexity of heart, that we do not know how to pray. We see the
mercy-seat, and we perceive that God will hear us: we have no doubt
about that, for we know that we are his own favoured children, and yet
we hardly know what to desire. We fall into such heaviness of spirit,
and entanglement of thought, that the one remedy of prayer, which we
have always found to be unfailing, appears to be taken from us. Here,
then, in the nick of time, as a very present help in time of trouble,
comes in the Holy Spirit. He draws near to teach us how to pray, and in
this way he helps our infirmity, relieves our suffering, and enables us
to bear the heavy burden without fainting under the load.
At this time our subjects for consideration shall be, firstly, the help
which the Holy Spirit gives; secondly, the prayers which he inspires;
and thirdly, the success which such prayers ore certain to obtain.
I. First, then, let us consider THE HELP WHICH THE HOLY GHOST GIVES.
The help which the Holy Ghost renders to us meets the weakness which we
deplore. As I have already said, if in time of trouble a man can pray,
his burden loses its weight. If the believer can take anything and
everything to God, then he learns to glory in infirmity, and to rejoice
in tribulation; but sometimes we are in such confusion of mind that we
know not what we should pray for as we ought. In a measure, through our
ignorance, we never know what we should pray for until we are taught of
the Spirit of God, but there are times when this beclouding of the soul
is dense indeed, and we do not even know what would help us out of our
trouble if we could obtain it. He see the disease, but the name of the
medicine is not known to us. We look over the many things which we
might ask for of the Lord, and we feel that each of them would be
helpful, but that none of them would precisely meet our case. For
spiritual blessings which we know to be according to the divine will we
could ask with confidence, but perhaps these would not meet our
peculiar circumstances. There are other things for which we are allowed
to ask, but we scarcely know whether, if we had them, they would really
serve our turn, and we also feel a diffidence as to praying for them.
In praying for temporal things we plead with measured voices, ever
referring our petition for revision to the will of the Lord. Moses
prayed that he might enter Canaan, but God denied him; and the man that
was healed asked our Lord that he might be with him, but he received
for answer, Go home to thy friends.' We pray evermore on such matters
with this reserve, Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.' At
times this very spirit of resignation appears to increase our spiritual
difficulty, for we do not wish to ask for anything that would be
contrary to the mind of God and yet we must ask for something. We are
reduced to such straits that we must pray, but what shall be the
particular subject of prayer we cannot for a while make out. Even when
ignorance and perplexity are removed, we know not what we should pray
for as we ought.' When we know the matter of prayer, we yet fail to
pray in a right manner. We ask, but we are afraid that we shall not
have, because we do not exercise the thought, or the faith, which we
judge to be essential to prayer. We cannot at times command even the
earnestness which is the life of supplication: a torpor steals over us,
our heart is chilled, our hand is numbed, and we cannot wrestle with
the angel. We know what to pray for as to objects, but we do not know
what to pray for as we ought' it is the manner of the prayer which
perplexes us, even when the matter is decided upon. How can I pray? My
mind wanders: I chatter like a crane; I roar like a beast in pain; I
moan in the brokenness of my heart, but oh, my God, I know not what it
is my inmost spirit needs; or if I know it, I know not how to frame my
petition aright before thee. I know not how to open my lips in thy
majestic presence: I am so troubled that I cannot speak. My spiritual
distress robs me of the power to pour out my heart before my God. Now,
beloved, it is in such a plight as this that the Holy Ghost aids us
with his divine help. and hence he is a very present help in time of
trouble.'
Coming to our aid in our bewilderment he instructs us. This is one of
his frequent operations upon the mind of the believer: he shall teach
you all things.' He instructs us as to our need, and as to the promises
of God which refer to that need. He shows us where our deficiencies
are, what our sins are, and what our necessities are; he sheds a light
upon our condition, and makes us feel deeply our helplessness,
sinfulness, and dire poverty; and then he casts the same light upon the
promises of the Word, and lays home to the heart that very text which
was intended to meet the occasion'the precise promise which was framed
with foresight of our present distress. In that light he makes the
promise shine in all its truthfulness, certainty, sweetness, and
suitability, so that we, poor trembling sons of men, dare take that
word into our mouth which first came out of God's mouth, and then come
with it as an argument, and plead it before the throne of the heavenly
grace. Our prevalence in prayer lies in the plea, Lord, do as thou hast
said.' How greatly we ought to value the Holy Spirit, because when we
are in the dark he gives us light, and when our perplexed spirit is so
befogged and beclouded that it cannot see its own need, and cannot find
out the appropriate promise in the Scriptures, the Spirit of God comes
in and teaches us all things, and brings all things to our remembrance,
whatsoever our Lord has told us. He guides us in prayer, and thus he
helps our infirmity.
But the blessed Spirit does more than this, he will often direct the
mind to the special subject of prayer. He dwells within us as a
counsellor, and points out to us what it is we should seek at the hands
of God. We do not know why it is so, but we sometimes find our minds
carried as by a strong under current into a particular line of prayer
for some one definite object. It is not merely that our judgment leads
us in that direction, though usually the Spirit of God acts upon us by
enlightening our judgment, but we often feel an unaccountable and
irresistible desire rising again and again within our heart, and this
so presses upon us, that we not only utter the desire before God at our
ordinary times for prayer, but we feel it crying in our hearts all the
day long, almost to the supplanting of all other considerations. At
such times we should thank God for direction and give our desire a
clear road: the Holy Spirit is granting us inward direction as to how
we should reckon upon good success in our pleadings. Such guidance will
the Spirit give to each of you if you will ask him to illuminate you.
He will guide you both negatively and positively. Negatively, he will
forbid you to pray for such and such a thing, even as Paul essayed to
go into Bithynia, but the Spirit suffered him not: and, on other hand,
he will cause you to hear a cry within your soul which shall guide your
petitions, even as he made Paul hear the cry from Macedonia, saying,
Come over and help us.' The Spirit teaches wisely, as no other teacher
can do. Those who obey his promptings shall not walk in darkness. He
leads the spiritual eye to take good and steady aim at the very centre
of the target, and thus we hit the mark in our pleadings.
Nor is this all, for the spirit of God is not sent merely to guide and
help our devotion, but he himself maketh intercession for us' according
to the will of God. By this expression it cannot be meant that the Holy
Spirit ever groans or personally prays; but that he excites intense
desire and created unutterable groanings in us, and these are ascribed
to him. Even as Solomon built the temple because he superintended and
ordained all, and yet I know not that he ever fashioned a timber or
prepared a stone, so doth the Holy Spirit pray and plead within us by
leading us to pray and plead. This he does by arousing our desires. The
Holy Spirit has a wonderful power over renewed hearts, as much power as
the skillful minstrel hath over the strings among which he lays his
accustomed hand. The influences of the Holy Ghost at times pass through
the soul like winds through an Eolian harp, creating and inspiring
sweet notes of gratitude and tones of desire, to which we should have
been strangers if it had not been for his divine visitation. He can
arouse us from our lethargy, he can warm us out of our lukewarmness, he
can enable us when we are on our knees to rise above the ordinary
routine of prayer into that victorious importunity against which
nothing can stand. He can lay certain desires so pressingly upon our
hearts that we can never rest till they are fulfilled. He can make the
zeal for God's house to eat us up, and the passion for God's glory to
be like a fire within our bones; and this is one part of that process
by which in inspiring our prayers he helps our infirmity. True Advocate
is he, and Comforter most effectual. Blessed be his name.
The Holy Spirit also divinely operates in the strengthening of the
faith of believers. That faith is at first of his creating, and
afterwards it is of his sustaining and increasing: and oh, brothers and
sisters, have you not often felt your faith rise in proportion to your
trials? Have you not, like Noah's ark, mounted towards heaven as the
flood deepened around you? You have felt as sure about the promise as
you felt about the trial. The affliction was, as it were, in your very
bones, but the promise was also in your very heart. You could not doubt
the affliction, for you smarted under it, but you might almost as soon
have doubted the divine help, for your confidence was firm and unmoved.
The greatest faith is only what God has a right to expect from us, yet
do we never exhibit it except as the Holy Ghost strengthens our
confidence, and opens up before us the covenant with all its seals and
securities. He it is that leads our soul to cry, though my house be not
so with God, yet hath he made with me an everlasting covenant ordered
in all things and sure.' Blessed be the Divine Spirit then, that since
faith is essential to prevailing prayer, he helps us in supplication by
increasing our faith. Without faith prayer cannot speed, for he that
wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed, and
such an one may not expect anything of the Lord; happy are we when the
Holy Spirit removes our wavering, and enables us like Abraham to
believe without staggering, knowing full well that he who has promised
is able also to perform.
By three figures I will endeavour to describe the work of the Spirit of
God in this matter, though they all fall short, and indeed all that I
can say must fall infinitely short of the glory of his work. The actual
mode of his working upon the mind we may not attempt to explain; it
remains a mystery, and it would be an unholy intrusion to attempt to
remove the veil. There is no difficulty in our believing that as one
human mind operates upon another mind, so does the Holy Spirit
influence our spirits. We are forced to use words if we would influence
our fellow-men, but the Spirit of God can operate upon the human mind
more directly, and communicate with it in silence. Into that matter,
however, we will not dive lest we intrude where our knowledge would be
drowned by our presumption.
My illustrations do not touch the mystery, but set forth the grace. The
Holy Spirit acts to his people somewhat as a prompter to a reciter. A
man has to deliver a piece which he has learned; but his memory is
treacherous, and therefore somewhere out of sight there is a prompter,
so that when the speaker is at a loss and might use a wrong word, a
whisper is heard, which suggests the right one. When the speaker has
almost lost the thread of his discourse he turns his ear, and the
prompter gives him the catch-word and aids his memory. If I may be
allowed the simile, I would say that this represents in part the work
of the Spirit of God in us,'suggesting to us the right desire, and
bringing all things to our remembrance whatsoever Christ has told us.
In prayer we should often come to a dead stand, but he incites,
suggests, and inspires, and so we go onward. In prayer we might grow
weary, but the Comforter encourages and refreshes us with cheering
thoughts. When, indeed, we are in our bewilderment almost driven to
give up prayer, the whisper of his love drops a live coal from off the
altar into our soul, and our hearts glow with greater ardour than
before. Regard the Holy Spirit as your prompter, and let your ear be
opened to his voice.
But he is much more than this. Let me attempt a second simile: he is as
an advocate to one in peril at law. Suppose that a poor man had a great
law-suit, touching his whole estate, and he was forced personally to go
into court and plead his own cause, and speak up for his rights. If he
were an uneducated man he would be in a poor plight. An adversary in
the court might plead against him, and overthrow him, for he could not
answer him. This poor man knows very little about law, and is quite
unable to meet his cunning opponent. Suppose one who was perfect in the
law should take up his cause warmly, and come and live with him, and
use all his knowledge so as to prepare his case for him, draw up his
petitions for him, and fill his mouth with arguments,'would not that be
a grand relief? This counsellor would suggest the line of pleading,
arrange the arguments, and put them into right courtly language. When
the poor man was baffled by a question asked in court, he would run
home and ask his adviser, and he would tell him exactly how to meet the
objector. Suppose, too, that when he had to plead with the judge
himself, this advocate at home should teach him how to behave and what
to urge, and encourage him to hope that he would prevail,'would not
this be a great boon? Who would be the pleader in such a case? The poor
client would plead, but still, when he won the suit, he would trace it
all to the advocate who lived at home, and gave him counsel: indeed, it
would be the advocate pleading for him, even while he pleaded himself.
This is an instructive emblem of a great fact. Within this narrow house
of my body, this tenement of clay, if I be a true believer, there
dwells the Holy Ghost, and when I desire to pray I may ask him what I
should pray for as I ought, and he will help me. He will write the
prayers which I ought to offer upon the tablets of my heart, and I
shall see them there, and so I shall be taught how to plead. It will be
the Spirit's own self pleading in me, and by me, and through me, before
the throne of grace. What a happy man in his law-suit would such a poor
man be, and how happy are you and I that we have the Holy Ghost to be
our Counsellor!
Yet one more illustration: it is that of a father aiding his boy.
Suppose it to be a time of war centuries back. Old English warfare was
then conducted by bowmen to a great extent. Here is a youth who is to
be initiated in the art of archery, and therefore he carries a bow. It
is a strong bow, and therefore very hard to draw; indeed, it requires
more strength than the urchin can summon to bend it. See how his father
teaches him. Put your right hand here, my boy, and place your left hand
so. Now pull'; and as the youth pulls, his father's hands are on his
hands, and the bow is drawn. The lad draws the bow: ay, but it is quite
as much his father, too. We cannot draw the bow of prayer alone.
Sometimes a bow of steel is not broken by our hands, for we cannot even
bend it; and then the Holy Ghost puts his mighty hand over ours, and
covers our weakness so that we draw; and lo, what splendid drawing of
the bow it is them! The bow bends so easily we wonder how it is; away
flies the arrow, and it pierces the very centre of the target, for he
who giveth have won the day, but it was his secret might that made us
strong, and to him be the glory of it.
Thus have I tried to set forth the cheering fact that the Spirit helps
the people of God.
II. Our second subject is THE PRAYER WHICH THE HOLY SPIRIT INSPIRES, or
that part of prayer which is especially and peculiarly the work of the
Spirit of God. The text says, The Spirit itself maketh intercession for
us with groanings which cannot be uttered.' It is not the Spirit that
groans, but we that groan; but as I have shown you, the Spirit excited
the emotion which causes us to groan.
It is clear then the prayers which are indited in us by the spirit of
God are those which arise from our inmost soul. A man's heart is moved
when he groans. A groan is a matter about which there is no hypocrisy.
A groan cometh not from the lips, but from the heart. A groan then is a
part of prayer which we owe to the Holy Ghost, and the same is true of
all the prayer which wells up from the deep fountains of our inner
life. The prophet cried, My bowels, my bowels, I am pained at my very
heart: my heart maketh a noise in me.' This deep ground-swell of
desire, this tidal motion of the life-floods is caused by the Holy
Spirit. His work is never superficial, but always deep and inward.
Such prayers will rise within us when the mind is far too troubled to
let us speak. We know not what we should pray for as we ought, and then
it is that we groan, or utter some other inarticulate sound. Hezekiah
said, like a crane or a swallow did I chatter.' The psalmist said, I am
so troubled that I cannot I have roared by reason of the disquietness
of my heart'; but he added, Lord, all my desire is before thee; and my
groaning is not hid from thee.' The sighing of the prisoner surely
cometh up into the ears of the Lord. There is real prayer in these
groanings that cannot be uttered.' It is the power of the Holy Ghost in
us which creates all real prayer, even that which takes the form of a
groan because the mind is incapable, by reason of its bewilderment and
grief, of clothing its emotion in words. I pray you never think lightly
of the supplications of your anguish. Rather judge that such prayers
are like Jabez, of whom it is written, that he was more honourable than
his brethren, because his mother bare him with sorrow.' That which is
thrown up from the depth of the soul, when it is stirred with a
terrible tempest, is more precious than pearl or coral, for it is the
intercession of the Holy Spirit.
These prayers are sometimes groanings that cannot be uttered,' because
they concern such great things that they cannot be spoken. I want, my
Lord! I want, I want; I cannot tell thee what I want: but I seem to
want all things. If it were some little thing, my narrow capacity could
comprehend and describe it, but I need all covenant blessings. Thou
knowest what I have need of before I ask thee, and though I cannot go
into each item of my need, I know it to be very great, and such as I
myself can never estimate. I groan, for I can do no more. Prayers which
are the offspring of great desires, sublime aspirations, and elevated
designs are surely the work of the Holy Spirit, and their power within
a man is frequently so great that he cannot find expression for them.
Words fail, and even the sighs which try to embody them cannot be
uttered.
But it may be, beloved, that we groan because we are conscious of the
littleness of our desire, and the narrowness of our faith. The trial,
too. may seem too mean to pray about. I have known what it is to feel
as if I could not pray about a certain matter, and yet I have been
obliged to groan about it. A thorn in the flesh may be as painful a
thing as a sword in the bones, and yet we may go and beseech the Lord
thrice about it, and getting no answer we may feel that we know not
what to pray for as we ought; and yet it makes us groan. Yes, and with
that natural groan there may go up an unutterable groaning of the Holy
Spirit. Beloved, what a different view of prayer God has from that
which men think to be the correct one. You may have seen very beautiful
prayers in print, and you may have heard very charming compositions
from the pulpit, but I trust you have not fallen in love with them.
Judge these things rightly. I pray you never think well of fine
prayers, for before the thrice holy God it ill becomes a sinful
suppliant to play the orator. We heard of a certain clergyman who was
said to have given forth the finest prayer ever offered to a Boston
audience.' Just so! The Boston audience received the prayer, and there
it ended. We want the mind of the spirit in prayer, and not he mind of
the flesh. The tail feathers of pride should be pulled out of our
prayers, for they need only the wing feathers of faith; the peacock
feathers of poetical expression are out of place before the throne of
God. Hear me, what remarkably beautiful language he used in prayer!'
What an intellectual treat his prayer was! Yes, yes; but God looks at
the heart. To him fine language is as sounding brass or tinkling
cymbal, but a groan has music in it. We do not like groans: our ears
are much too delicate to tolerate such dreary sounds; but not so the
great Father of spirits. A Methodist brother cries, Amen,' and you say,
I cannot bear such Methodistic noise'; no, but if it comes from the
man's heart God can bear it. When you get upstairs into your chamber
this evening to pray, and find you cannot pray, but have to moan out,
Lord, I am too full of anguish and too perplexed to pray, hear thou the
voice of my roaring,' though you reach to nothing else you will be
really praying. When like David we can say, I opened my mouth and
panted,' we are by no means in an ill state of mind. All fine language
in prayer, and especially all intoning or performing of prayers, must
be abhorrent to God; it is little short of profanity to offer solemn
supplication to God after the manner called intoning.' The sighing of a
true heart is infinitely more acceptable, for it is the work of the
Spirit of God.
We may say of the prayers which the Holy Spirit works in us that they
are prayers of knowledge. Notice, our difficulty is that we know not
what we should pray for; but the Holy Spirit does know, and therefore
he helps us by enabling us to pray intelligently, knowing what we are
asking for, so far as this knowledge is needful to valid prayer. The
text speaks of the mind of the Spirit.' What a mind that must be!'the
mind of that Spirit who arranged all the order which now pervades this
earth! There once was chaos and confusion, but the Holy Spirit brooded
over all, and His mind is the originator of that beautiful arrangement
which we so admire in the visible creation. What a mind his must be!
The Holy Spirit's mind is seen in our intercessions when under his
sacred influence we order our case before the Lord, and plead with holy
wisdom for things convenient and necessary. What wise and admirable
desires must those be which the Spirit of Wisdom himself works in us!
Moreover, the Holy Spirit's intercession creates prayers offered in a
proper manner. I showed you that the difficulty is that we know not
what we should pray for as we ought,' and the Spirit meets that
difficulty by making intercession for us in a right manner. The Holy
Spirit works in us humility, earnestness, intensity, importunity,
faith, and resignation, and all else that is acceptable to God in our
supplications. We know not how to mingle these sacred spices in the
incense of prayer. We, if left to ourselves at our very best, get too
much of one ingredient or another, and spoil the sacred compound, but
the Holy Spirit's intercessions have in them such a blessed blending of
all that is good that they come up as a sweet perfume before the Lord.
Spirit-taught prayers are offered as they ought to be. They are his own
intercession in some respects, for we read that the Holy Spirit not
only helps us to intercede but maketh intercession.' It is twice over
declared in our text that he maketh intercession for us; and the
meaning of this I tried to show when I described a father as putting
his hands upon his child's hands. This is something more than helping
us to pray, something more than encouraging us or directing us,'but I
venture no further, except to say that he puts such force of his own
mind into our poor weak thoughts and desires and hopes, that he himself
maketh intercession for us, working in us to will and to pray according
to his good pleasure.
I want you to notice, however, that these intercessions of the Spirit
are only in the saints. He maketh intercession for us,' and He maketh
intercession for the saints.' Does he do nothing for sinners, then?
Yes, he quickens sinners into spiritual life, and he strives with them
to overcome their sinfulness and turn them into the right way; but in
the saints he works with us and enables us to pray after his mind and
according to the will of God. His intercession is not in or for the
unregenerate. O, unbelievers you must first be made saints or you
cannot feel the Spirit's intercession within you. What need we have to
go to Christ for the blessing of the Holy Ghost, which is peculiar to
the children of God, and can only be ours by faith in Christ Jesus! To
as man as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of
God'; and to the sons of God alone cometh the Spirit of adoption, and
all his helping grace. Unless we are the sons of God the Holy Spirit's
indwelling shall not be ours: we are shut out from the intercession of
the Holy Ghost, ay, and from the intercession of Jesus too, for he hath
said, I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me.'
Thus I have tried to show you the kind of prayer which the Spirit
inspires.
III. Our third and last point is THE SURE SUCCESS OF ALL SUCH PRAYERS.
All the prayers which the Spirit of God inspires in us must succeed,
because, first, there is a meaning in them which God reads and
approves. When the Spirit of God writes a prayer upon a man's heart,
the man himself may be in such a state of mind that he does not
altogether know what it is. His interpretation of it is a groan, and
that is all. Perhaps he does not even get so far as that in expressing
the mind of the Spirit, but he feels greenings which he cannot utter,
he cannot find a door of utterance for his inward grief. Yet our
heavenly Father, who looks immediately upon the heart, reads what the
Spirit of God has indited there, and does not need even our groans to
explain the meaning. He reads the heart itself: he knoweth,' says the
text, what is the mind of the Spirit.' The Spirit is one with the
Father, and the Father knows what the Spirit means. The desires which
the Spirit prompts may be too spiritual for such babes in grace as we
are actually to describe or to express, and yet the Spirit writes the
desire on the renewed mind, and the Father sees it. Now that which God
reads in the heart and approves of'for the word to know' in this case
includes approval as well as the mere act of omniscience'what God sees
and approves of in the heart must succeed. Did not Jesus say, Your
heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of these things before you
ask them'? Did he not tell us this as an encouragement to believe that
we shall receive all needful blessings? So it is with those prayers
which are all broken up, wet with tears, and discordant with those
sighs and inarticulate expressions and heavings of the bosom, and
sobbings of the heart and anguish and bitterness of spirit, our
gracious Lord reads them as a man reads a book, and they are written in
a character which he fully understands. To give a simple figure: if I
were to come into your house I might find there a little child that
cannot yet speak plainly. It cries for something, and it makes very odd
and objectionable noises, combined with signs and movements, which are
almost meaningless to stranger, but his mother understands him, and
attends to his little pleadings. A mother can translate baby-talk: she
comprehends incomprehensible noises. Even so doth our Father in heaven
know all about our poor baby talk, for our prayer is not much better.
He knows and comprehends the cryings, and meanings, and sighings, and
chatterings of his bewildered children. Yea, a tender mother knows her
child's needs before the child knows what it wants. Perhaps the little
one stutters, stammers, and cannot get its words out, but the mother
sees what he would say, and takes the meaning. Even so we know
concerning our great Father:'
He knows the thoughts we mean to speak,
Ere from our opening lips the break.'
Do you therefore rejoice in this, that because the prayers of the
Spirit are known and understood of God, therefore they will be sure to
speed.
The next argument for making us sure that they will speed is this'that
they are the mind of the Spirit.' God the ever blessed is one, and
there can be no division between the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost. These divine persons always work together, and there is a common
desire for the glory of each blessed Person of the Divine Unity, and
therefore it cannot be conceived without profanity, that anything could
be the mind of the Holy Spirit and not be the mind of the Father and
the mind of the Son. The mind of God is one and harmonious; if,
therefore, the Holy Spirit dwells in you, and he move you to any
desire, then his mind is in your prayer, and it is not possible that
the eternal Father should reject your petitions. That prayer which came
from heaven will certainly go back to heaven. If the Holy Ghost prompts
it, the Father must and will accept it, for it is not possible that he
should put a slight upon the ever blessed and adorable Spirit.
But one more word, and that circles the argument, namely, that the work
of the Spirit in the heart is not only the mind of the Spirit which God
knows, but it is also according to the will or mind of God, for he
never maketh intercession in us other than is consistent with the
divine will. Now, the divine will or mind may be viewed two ways.
First, there is the will declared in the proclamations of holiness by
the Ten Commandments. The Spirit of God never prompts us to ask for
anything that is unholy or inconsistent with the precepts of the Lord.
Then secondly, there is the secret mind of God, the will of his eternal
predestination and decree, of which we know nothing; but we do know
this, that the Spirit of God never prompts us to ask anything which is
contrary to the eternal purpose of God. Reflect for a moment: the Holy
Spirit knows all the purposes of God, and when they are about to be
fulfilled, he moves the children of God to pray about them, and so
their prayers keep touch and tally with the divine decrees. Oh would
you not pray confidently if you knew that your prayer corresponded with
the sealed book of destiny? We may safely entreat the Lord to do what
he has ordained to do. A carnal man draws the inference that if God has
ordained an event we need not pray about it, but faith obediently draws
the inference that the God who secretly ordained to give the blessing
has openly commanded that we should pray for it, and therefore faith
obediently prays. Coming events cast their shadows before them, and
when God is about to bless his people his coming favour casts the
shadow of prayer over the church. When he is about to favour an
individual he casts the shadow of hopeful expectation over his soul.
Our prayers, let men laugh at them as they will, and say there is no
power in them, are the indicators of the movement of the wheels of
Providence. Believing supplications are forecasts of the future, He who
prayeth in faith is like the seer of old, he sees that which is to be:
his holy expectancy, like a telescope, brings distant objects near to
him. He is bold to declare that he has the petition which he has asked
of God, and he therefore begins to rejoice and to praise God, even
before the blessing has actually arrived. So it is: prayer prompted by
the Holy Spirit is the footfall of the divine decree.
I conclude by saying, see, my dear hearers, the absolute necessity of
the Holy Spirit, for if the saints know not what they should pray for
as they ought; if consecrated men and women, with Christ suffering in
them, still feel their need of the instruction of the Holy Spirit, how
much more do you who are not saints, and have never given yourselves up
to God, require divine teaching! On, that you would know and feel your
dependence upon the Holy Ghost that he may prompt the once crucified
but now ascended Redeemer that this gift of the Spirit, this promise of
the Father, is shed abroad upon men. May he who comes from Jesus lead
you to Jesus.
And, then O ye people of God, let this last thought abide with
you,'what condescension is this that Divine Person should dwell in you
for ever, and that he should be with you to help your prayers. Listen
to me for a moment. If I read in the Scriptures that in the most heroic
acts of faith God the Holy Ghost helpeth his people, I can understand
it; if I read that in the sweetest music of their songs when they
worship best, and chant their loftiest strains before the Most High
God, the Spirit helpeth them, I can understand it; and even if I hear
that in their wrestling prayers and prevalent intercessions God the
Holy Spirit helpeth them, I can understand it: but I bow with reverent
amazement, my heart sinking into the dust with adoration, when I
reflect that God the Holy Ghost helps us when we cannot speak, but only
groan. Yea, and when we cannot even utter our groanings, he doth not
only help us but he claims as his own particular creation the groanings
that cannot be uttered.' This is condescension indeed! In deigning to
help us in the grief that cannot even vent itself in groaning, he
proves himself to be a true Comforter. O God, my God, thou hast not
forsaken me: thou art not far from me, nor from the voice of my
roaring. Thou didst for awhile leave the Firstborn when he was made a
curse for us, so that he cried in agony, Why hast thou forsaken me?'
but thou wilt not leave one of the many brethren' for whom he died: the
Spirit shall be with them, and when they cannot so much as groan he
will make intercession for them with groanings that cannot be uttered.
God bless you, my beloved brethren, and may you feel the Spirit of the
Lord thus working in you and with you. Amen and amen.
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON'Romans 8:14 to end.
HYMNS FROM OUR OWN HYMN BOOK'1009, 978, 400.
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Fear Not