The Intercessor Above: The Prompter Within
“Jesus is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.”
Rom. VIII. 26.
“The Spirit helpeth our infirmities; for we know not what tee should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered”
Nothing shows so strongly that God is willing to hear and answer prayer as the provision he has made for its acceptable and effectual presentation. However worthless the suppliant, he may present his petition in the name of God’s beloved Son; and however dim his ideas and powerless his expressions, he may obtain as the instigator of his desire and the guide of his devotion, none other than the Spirit of God.
II. Where prayer is offered in Jesus’ name, he maketh intercession with the Father.
Jesus sits on the Father’s right hand, and there he intercedes for his people. This is just the sequel and continuation of Redemption. Just as God’s Providence is the preserving of his creation once he has formed it, so Christ’s intercession is the preserving of his Church now that he has bought it. The Mediator’s presence within the veil secures the perseverance of his people till they too be within it. For Christ maketh intercession for us. He sees some Peter at this moment about to be sifted as wheat, and he prays that his faith fail not. He sees a child of light walking in darkness, or some forlorn disciple like to faint by the way, and he prays the Father, and he sends the Comforter. Pie sees a band of sore-tempted disciples. He espies a Lot in Sodom, or a Daniel in the den — a Joseph in Egypt, or a saint in Sardis, and he says, “Holy Father! keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me. Keep them from the evil.” He sees a believer waxing formal and cold, restraining prayer and disrelishing the word; and he says, “Sanctify them through thy truth;” and then the sickness comes which drives him back to the throne of grace, or the sorrow which sends him to the word again; and finding out a multitude of undetected sins and lacking graces, the believer is sanctified anew. And oh! he rises eagerly from his royal seat; for yonder is a believer dying; he “stands” * up at the right hand of God, for a Stephen is about to fall on sleep, and the Intercessor cries, “Father! I will that they also whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory.” The Father wills, and the Lord Jesus receives that spirit.
But although, so to speak, on the part of God, “all things are ready;” though he sits on his throne of grace, and though the Mediator waits with his golden censer to receive and then to offer up the prayers of sinners here on earth — all things are not ready on the part of the sinner. Diffidence Godward, dimness of perception, coldness of desire, perversity of will, and distraction of spirit, are all so
* Acts vii. 56: G 2 many “infirmities” under which each petitioner labours; and it is for the “help” of these “infirmities” that the God of grace has provided not only an Advocate above but a Prompter within.
III. The Holy Spirit guides the thoughts and instigates the desires — he helps the infirmities of believers when they pray.
1. Guilt on the conscience is one great hinderance to prayer. When sin is recent — when, like Adam skulking among the trees, the bitter-sweet of the forbidden fruit is still present to his taste, and his newly-opened eyes are aghast at his own deformity — it is not natural for the self-condemned transgressor to draw near to God. And it is not till the Spirit of God directs his view to the unnoticed sacrifice, and encourages him to put on the i;obe of God’s providing, that the abashed and trembling criminal can venture back into God’s presence. And it is not till the Spirit of God comes forth into his soul, and begins to cry “Abba” there, that the soul goes forth with alacrity to meet a reconciled God. To reveal the great High Priest, the daysman betwixt Infinite Holiness and human
THE PROMPTER WITHIN. v 77
vileness — to open heaven and display Jesus standing at the right hand of God — to impart confidence in the finished work, and so, amidst abounding guilt, to give hope to prayer — is His work who, when he is come, convinces not only of sin, but of righteousness.*
2. Another great hinderance to prayer is dimness of spiritual perception. When a man of taste or science climbs a mountain in a bright, transparent day, he rejoices in its goodly prospect or curious spoils; but his dog feels no interest in them. He sees the philosopher peering through his telescope, or exploring for the little plants that grow near the summit, or splintering the rocks and putting fragments in the bag; but it never occurs to the spaniel so much as to marvel what his master is finding there. He sits yawning and panting on a sunny knoll, or snaps at the mountain-bee as it comes sailing past him, or chases the conies back into their holes, and scampers down, with noisy glee, as soon as the hungry sojourn is ended. The disparity between the philosopher and his irrational friend is hardly greater than it is between the believer and the worldling
* John xvi. 8.
a 3
when you bring theui together into the domain of faith. “The natural man perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God;” and on the Pisgah of the same revelation whence the believer descries a goodly land, and where he is making the most interesting discoveries, the other sees nothing to arrest his attention. The Word of God and its promises — the throne of grace and its privileges — the things of faith in all their varieties — have no existence to worldly men. And when constrained to bear others company in outward ordinances, they are thankful when the prayer concluded, or the sanctuary closing, sends them back to the world again. But just as the same lover of nature might ascend his favourite eminence on a subsequent day, and find all his goodly prospects intercepted by a baffling mist, so dense that, except a pebble here and there, he can alight on none of its rare productions, and without any opening vista by which he can catch a glimpse of the fair regions around; so the believer may ascend the hill of God — he may open his Bible or enter his closet — and find, alas! that it is a foggy day, the beauteous panorama blotted out, and himself left to grope chillily in the cold and perplexing gloom. But, like a gale of summer wind upspringing and lifting all the fog from the mountain-top, the breath of the Omnipotent Spirit can scatter every cloud, and leave the soul on a pinnacle of widest survey, rejoicing in the purest light of God.
3. A third infirmity of the saints, and a great hinderance to prayer, is the feebleness of affection Godward. Human affection is an intermitting spring. Even though the covert streams which feed it should be always flowing, it is only now and then, when the fountain is filled up to the brim, that there is a momentary overflow. There may be a very deep attachment between the members of a family; and yet it is only on some casual occasion — the day of their reunion after long separation, or the eve of parting, or one of those propitious seasons when people realize how happy is their lot — that the fountain overflows, and they give utterance to their irrepressible emotions. But owing to this deficiency of ardour — this infrequency in their fits of fervent affection — it comes to pass that the members of a harmonious family will be much together, and yet not take full advantage of their opportunities of mutual intercourse, nor grow remarkably in mutual acquaintance or mutual endearment. This infirmity of human affection extends into the realm of faith. There is a real affection on the part of the believer towards his Father in heaven; but it is often latent — often languid — not always welling up and flowing over — and it often requires some special incident of mercy or of judgment to swell it up to that point which makes himself conscious of its presence. Just as separations, threatened or actual, bring out the love of friends to one another, so a decree, like that of Darius interdicting prayer, or a flight, like that of David from the house of God to the land of Jordan, brings out the believer’s love to his Heavenly Father — reveals it to himself. And just as sudden acts of kindness surprise former friends into a fonder and more outspoken affection, so the unlooked-for arrival of some astounding mercy will startle the believer into such thankfulness or self-abasement as will transport him instantly to the throne of grace. But, even apart from any present visitation of judgment or mercy, there are influences which will, from time to time, surcharge the believing soul with gratitude, or adoration, or earnestness after God; and, j ust as in life’s daily tenor there are auspicious moments when memory or an open eye discloses, in all the zest of novelty, the excellence of a familiar friend, so there are genial hours in the believer’s history when the Spirit, the Enlightener and Remembrancer, brings to view such attractions in that all-sufficient Friend whom we so readily forget, that the enraptured soul looks on and wonders, and desires no greater blessedness. Reverting to our original emblem: as the intermitting fountain takes a long interval to fill it in a dry and sultry season, but fills the faster and overflows the oftener as the mountain is bathed in abundant dews, and may at last, amidst the plenteous rain, become a constant stream; so, as the believer’s heart is filled with more rapid love and joy by the Spirit’s plentiful down-pouring, the rare and intermitting spring of supplication flows more frequently, till anon it becomes — not a daily, but — a constant emanation, and that full-souled and heaven-replenished saint has learned to “pray without ceasing.”
4. Another infirmity of the saints is a disposition to ask wrong things. We know not what to pray for as. Ave ought. The blessings for which it is most natural to pray, are those which we least need — temporal mercies. There are often an urgency and importunity for these strangely disproportionate to the earnestness with which we beg the better gifts. Sometimes the believer prays the Lord that the thorn in the flesh may depart from him, far more eagerly than he asks that sufficient grace which will make the thorn no longer painful, or even will enable him to glory in infirmity. Again, amongst spiritual mercies, believers do not always covet most earnestly the best gifts, or the gifts which in their circumstances would be best for them. It was good for Peter and James and John to be on the holy mount, and they prayed to tarry there. But it was good for the world, and eventually good for themselves, that they were obliged to come down. It is natural for believers to covet rapture and elevation more intensely than hard labour and hazardous testimonies for Jesus, and a toilsome pilgrimage through a hostile world; but for both themselves and that world, it is better that they should go down to active service remembering, however, what they heard and saw when they were with Jesus on the mount.
But the Holy Spirit knows the actual state of each. He knows what spiritual blessings the suppliant really needs, and what temporal mercies it would be no eventual blessing for him to attain. If it be a dangerous temporal good, he can wean the soul from the vehement desire of it; or by exhibiting some surpassing heavenly good, can awaken such longings after that as will make the other be forgotten; or by simply reconciling the soul to the adorable will of God, can make it content to merge its own instinctive longings in his majestic sovereignty. Then again he can so reveal to the soul its actual necessities, that praying time will not be expended in imploring undesired mercies, or confessing unfelt deficiency. He knows the things which accord with the will of God, and teaches the petitioner to ask those blessings in asking which he can plead God’s precept or God’s promise.
5. A fifth infirmity of the saints is that, even when asking right things, they do not ask in a manner agreeable to the will of God. Some are haunted by worldly and frivolous thoughts in prayer, and feel as if their minds were never so silly and trifling, so earthly and carnal, as when they attempt to pray. It would seem as if all the vanities of the week came crowding into their minds — as if on signal given — the moment they went upon their knees; and petitions for the most stupendous blessings will be ascending, without force or meaning, through a swarm of idle fancies and vagrant thoughts. Or perhaps, amidst greater composure of spirit, there may be little or no longing after the blessing asked. The suppliant begs it, not so much because he appreciates or desires it, as because he thinks it dutiful to make mention of it; and after a formal enumeration of unsought mercies, he goes his way without having actually lodged one prevailing request — one effectual fervent prayer before the throne of grace. Or perhaps, amidst considerable earnestness and urgency, the believer is embarrassed and distressed by the unsuitableness of his thoughts — his mean conceptions of those unspeakable benefits for which he is entreating, and his unworthy thoughts of that God with whom he has to do. Now, for all these distractions in sacred duties, the remedy lies with the Spirit himself. We can shut to the door; but he can shut the heart and lock out the world and all its phantoms. We can open the Bible and look at the promises; but he can open heaven and show each promise in its glorious fulfilment. We can lift our eyes towards the hills; but he can show us “Him who is invisible,” and can enable our souls to rest on him with the sweetest security for the accomplishment of all that he has spoken. We can task ourselves to stated times of devotion, and resolve that we shall spend a given space in prayer; but he can so enlarge the heart — he can make the spirit so strong in the Lord and in the power of his might — he can fill the mind with such longings after angelic purity — such delight in heavenly things — such vehement aspirations after God; he can intercede within us with those yearnings and groanings which cannot be uttered, so that hours and minutes shall not be counted, and the untiring soul shall continue “instant in prayer.”