Praying Through: And Praying in the Holy Spirit
“Men ought always to pray, and not to faint,”’ — LUKE body Gs
“Though he will not rise and give him, because he ts his friend, yet because of his tmportunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.’ — LUKE 1135;.9.
“With all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perse~ verance and supplication for all the saints,’ — Epu.
6:18
I. Prayinc THRouGH
HERE are two passages in the Gospel of Luke which throw a flood of light upon the question,
What sort of praying it is that prevails with God and obtains what it seeks from Him; and also upon the question, Why it is that many prayers of God’s own children come short of obtaining that which we seek of God. The first of these two passages you will find in Luke 11:5-8; our Lord Jesus Himself is the speaker:
“And He said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; For a friend of mine is come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him; and he from within shall answer and say,
Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee? I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his wmportunity he will arise and give him as many as he needeth. And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”
The central lesson in this parable of our Lord’s is, that, When we pray, if we do not obtain the thing the first time we ask for it, we should pray again; and if we do — not obtain it the second time, we should pray a third time; and if we do not obtain tt the hundredth time we pray, we should go on praying until we do get it. We should do much thinking before we ask anything of God and be clear that the thing that we ask is according to His will; we should not rush heedlessly into God’s presence and ask for the first thing that comes into our mind without giving proper thought to the question of whether it is really a thing that we ought to have or not; but when we have decided that we should pray for the thing, we should keep on praying until we get it. The word translated “importunity” in the eighth verse is a deeply significant word. Its primary meaning is “shamelessness,” that is, it sets forth the persistent determination in prayer to God that will not be put to shame by any apparent refusal on God’s part to grant the thing that we ask. This is a very startling way that our Lord Jesus employs to set forth the necessity of “importunity ’’ and persistence in prayer. It is as if the Lord Jesus would have us understand that God would have us draw nigh to Him with a resolute determination to obtain the things that we seek, a determination that will not be put to shame by any seeming refusal or delay on God’s part.
Our Heavenly Father delights in the holy boldness on our part that will not take “no” for an answer. The reason why He delights in it is, because it is an expression of great faith, and nothing pleases God more than faith. We have an illustration of this holy boldness in the woman of Syro-Phoenicia in the fifteenth chapter of Matthew, verses twenty-one to twenty-eight. She came to Jesus Christ for the healing of her daughter. She cried, ‘““Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a demon.” But our Lord seemed to pay no attention whatever to her; as Matthew puts it, “He answered her not a word. And His disciples came [to Him] and besought Him, saying, Send her away for she crieth after us.” In spite of His apparent deafness to her appeal she kept right on crying. Then He turned to her with an apparently more positive rebuff, saying, ““I was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel,’ and she was not of the House of Israel. Then she worshipped Him and kept on calling to Him, saying, “Lord, help me.” And then came what almost appears like a cruel rebuff, when our Lord said, “It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs.” (The word that He used for “dogs” was a peculiar word that meant a little pet dog, and was not at all as harsh as it seems, although it was an apparent refusal to hear her prayer. But, as we shall see, our Lord was simply putting to the test her faith that she might get an even larger blessing.) Then she said, “Yea, Lord: for even the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master’s table.” She would not take “no” for an answer. And then came one of the most wonderful words of commendation that ever fell from the lips of our Lord. This is the way Matthew puts it: “Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it done unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was healed from that hour.” That sort of thing pleases God. He would have us have that faith in His loving kindness and in Himself that even when He seems not to hear will trust Him still to hear.
God does not always give us the things we ask the first time we ask them, but then we should not give up; no, we should keep on praying until we do get. We should not only pray, but we should PRAY THROUGH.
It is deeply significant that this parable to persist in prayer comes almost immediately after the request on the part of the disciples of our Lord, in which they say, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Then follows Luke’s version of the so-called “Lord’s Prayer,” really the disciples’ prayer, and then comes this parable.
The same lesson is taught in a very striking way in the second passage in Luke to which I have already referred, Luke 18:1-8: “And he spake a parable unto them to the end that they ought always to pray, and not to faint; saying, There was in a city a judge, who feared not God, and regarded not man: and there was a widow in that city; and she came oft unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest she wear me out by her continual coming. And the Lord said, Hear what the unrighteous judge saith. And shall not God avenge His elect, that cry to Him day and night, and yet He is long-suffering over them? I say unto you, that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith (literally, “the faith’) on the earth?” What the central lesson in this parable is, we find in the words with which our Lord Jesus opens the parable, which are really the text of the whole parable; these words are, “Men ought always to pray, and not to faint,” the clear meaning of which is, that when we begin to pray we ought to pray on and on until we get the thing that we desire of God. The exact force of the parable is, that if even an unrighteous judge will yield to persistent prayer and grant the thing that he did not wish to grant, how much more will a loving God yield to the persistent cries of His children and give the things that He longs to give all the time, but which it would not be wise to give, would not be for the person’s own good to give, unless they were trained to that persevering faith that will not take “no” for an answer. So we see again that God does not always give us at the first asking what we desire of Him in prayer.
Why is it that God does not give to us the very first time we ask Him, the things that we ask of Him? The answer is plain: God would do more for us, and better for us, than to merely give us that thing. He would do us the far greater good of training us into persistent faith. The things that we get by our other forms of effort than prayer to God, do not always become ours the first time we make an effort to get them; for our own good God compels us to be persistent in our effort, and just so God does not always give us what we ask in prayer the first time we pray. Just as He would train us to be strong men and women along the other lines of effort, so also He would train us to be and make us to be strong men and women of prayer by compelling us to pray hard for the best things. He compels us to “Pray through.”
Many people in these days tell us that we ought not to pray for the same thing a second time. Sometimes they tell us that the way to pray is to ask God for a thing and then “take it” by faith the first time we ask. That is true oftentimes: when we find a thing definitely promised in the Word we ought to rest upon the naked Word of God, and when we have prayed, just as we saw yesterday, know that we have asked something according to God’s will and therefore that the prayer is heard and that we have received; and resting there ask no more but claim the thing as ours. But that is only one side of the truth. The other side of the truth is, that there are times when it is not made clear the first time, nor the second time, nor the third time, that the thing we ask is according to His will and that therefore the prayer is heard and the thing asked granted; and in such a case we ought to pray on and on and on. While doubtless there are times when we are able through faith in the Word, or through the clear leading of the Holy Spirit, to claim a thing the first time that which we have asked it of God; nevertheless, beyond a question there are other times when we must pray again and again and again for the same thing before we get our answer. Those who claim that they have gotten beyond praying twice for the same thing have either gotten beyond our Master, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, or else they have not gotten up to Him; for we are told distinctly regarding Him in Matthew 26: 44, “And he left them again, and went away, and prayed a third time, saying again the same words.” ‘The truth is, they have not yet gotten up to the Master; not that they have gotten beyond Him.
There are those, and there are many of them, who, when they pray for a thing once or twice and do not get it, stop praying; and they call it “submission to the will of God” to pray no longer when God does not grant their request at the first or second asking, and they say, “Well, perhaps it is not God’s will.’ They call that submission to the will of God. But as a rule this is not submission to the will of God: it is spiritual laziness and lack of determination in that most all-important of all human lines of effort, prayer. None of us ever think of calling it submission to the will of God, when we give up after one or two efforts to obtain things by our other efforts than prayer. In those cases we call it lack of strength of character. When the strong man of action starts out to accomplish a thing, if he does not accomplish it the first, or the second, or the hundredth time, he keeps hammering away until he does accomplish it; and just so the strong man of prayer, when he starts to pray for a thing, keeps on praying until he prays it through and obtains what he seeks. How fond we are of calling bad things in our conduct by good names, calling our spiritual inertia and laziness and indifference “submission to the will of God.” We should be very careful about what we ask from God, but when we do begin to pray for a thing we should never give up praying for it until we get it, or until God definitely makes it very clear to us that it is not His will to give it.
I am glad that God does not always give us, the first time we ask, the things that we seek from Him. There is no more blessed training in prayer than that which comes through being compelled to ask again and again and again, even through a long period of years, before one obtains that which he seeks from God. Then when it does come what a sense we have that God really is, and that God really answers prayer.
I recall an experience of my own that was full of blessing to me, and full of encouragement to my faith. In my first pastorate there were two persons whom God put upon my heart and for whose salvation I prayed through my entire pastorate there. But I left that field of labour without seeing either one of them converted. I went to Germany for further study, and then took a new pastorate in Minneapolis, but I kept on praying every day for those two persons. JI went back to the place where I began my ministry to hold a series of meetings, praying every day for the conversion of those two persons. Then one night in that series of meetings, when I gave out the invitation for all who would accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour, those two persons arose side by side. There was no special reason why they should be side by side, for they were not relatives. Oh, and when I saw those two persons for whom I had prayed every day through all those years standing up side by side to accept the Lord Jesus Christ, what an overwhelming sense came over my soul that there is a God, and that He hears prayer if we meet the conditions of prevailing prayer, and follow the method of prevailing prayer taught in His own Word.
We find right here why it is that many prayers fail of accomplishing that which we seek from God. We pray and pray and pray, and are almost up to the verge of the attainment of that for which we are praying, and right then, when God is just about to answer the prayer, we stop and we miss the blessing. For example, in many churches and in many communities there are people who are praying for a revival, and the revival does not come at once, it does not come for some time, and they keep on praying, and they have nearly prayed through, they are right on the verge of attaining what they sought, and if they prayed a little longer the revival would have broken upon them. But they get discouraged, throw up their hands, and quit. Just on the border of the blessing, but they do not cross into the promised land. In January, 1900 or 1901, the Faculty of the Bible Institute of Chicago instituted a late prayer-meeting Saturday nights from nine to ten o’clock, to pray for a world-wide revival. After we had been praying for some time the thing happened that I knew would happen when we began; people came to me, or to my colleague that was most closely identified with me in the conduct of these meetings, and
they would say, “Has the revival come?” “No, not as far as we can see.” ‘‘ When is it coming?” ‘“We don’t know.” “How long are you going to pray?” “Until
it comes.” And come it did, a revival that began there in that prayer-meeting room of the Bible Institute in Chicago and then broke out in far-away China, and Japan, and Australia, and New Zealand, and Tasmania, and India, and swept around the world, with most marvelous manifestations of God’s saving power, not merely through Mr. Alexander and myself, but through a multitude of others in India and Wales and elsewhere. In Wales, for example, under Evan Roberts and others, resulting in one hundred thousand professed conversions in twelve months. And I believe that God is looking to us today to pray through again.
I prayed fifteen long years for the conversion of my oldest brother. He seemed to be getting farther and farther away from any hope of conversion, but I prayed on, and one morning, my first winter in Chicago, after fifteen years of praying, never missing a single day, God said to me as I knelt in prayer, “1 have heard your prayer. You need not pray any more, your brother is going to be converted.” And within two weeks my brother was in my home, shut in with sickness which made it impossible for him to leave my home, shut in for two weeks, and then the day he left accepting Christ over in the Bible Institute in Mr. Moody’s office, where he and I went to talk and pray together.
I told this incident once when I was holding meetings in a certain city. An elderly woman came to me at the close of the meeting and she said, “I have been praying for the conversion of my brother, who is sixty-three years old, for many years; but, a short time ago, I gave up and stopped praying; but,” she added, “I am going to begin my prayers again.” And within two weeks of that time she came to me and said, “I have heard from my brother and he has accepted Christ.” Oh, men and women, pray through; pray through; PRAY: THROUGH. Do not just begin to pray and pray a little while and throw up your hands and quit, but pray, and pray, and pray, until God bends the heavens and comes down.
II. PRAYING IN THE Hoty SPIRIT
There is another passage closely connected with the two that we have just been studying, and that is closely connected with them in thought, to which IJ shall now call your attention. It is found in Ephesians 6:18:
“With all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.”
The three words to which I wish to call your especial attention are these, “In the Spirit.’ We find the same thought in the Epistle of Jude, verses twenty and twenty-one: ‘‘ But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” In those words, “praying in the Holy Spirit,” and “praying in the Holy Ghost,’ we find one of the two greatest secrets of prevailing prayer.
The other of the two greatest secrets of prevailing prayer is found in the words of our Lord Jesus in John 14:13, 14: “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, that will I do.” Those words we studied day before yesterday, “Praying in the name of the Lord Jesus,’ and “Praying in the Holy Ghost” are the two great secrets of prevailing prayer. If anyone should ask me, “What is the great secret of holy living,’ I would say at once, “Living in the Holy Spirit.” If anyone should ask me, “What is the great secret of effective service for Jesus Christ,” I should reply at once, “Serving in the Holy Spirit.” If anyone should ask me, “What is the one greatest secret of profitable Bible study?” I would reply, “Studying in the Holy Spirit.’ And if anyone should ask me, what was the one great all-inclusive secret of prevailing prayer, I should reply, “Praying in the Holy Spirit.’ It is the prayer that the Holy Spirit inspires that God the Father answers.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO PRAY IN THE Hoty Guost?P To pray “in the Holy Ghost,” or to “pray in the Holy Spirit,’ means to pray as the Holy Spirit, our ever present, indwelling Friend, Counsellor, and Guide, the “other Comforter,” whom our Lord Jesus Himself promised us when He Himself left this world (John 14: 15-17, 26), and Who has taken the place of our Lord during His absence from us, inspires us and guides us to pray. Over and over again in what we have studied in these sermons on prayer we have seen our dependence upon the Holy Spirit if we are to pray aright. When we were studying Acts 12:5 in our sermon, “How to Pray so as to Get What We Ask,” we saw it was the Holy Spirit, whose work it was to lead us into the presence of God and to make God real to us, so that we were really praying “unto God;”’ we saw also that it was He who gave us that intense earnestness in prayer that prevails with God. And yesterday when we were studying, How to pray “according to the will of God,” and how to pray “the prayer of faith,” we saw that it was the Holy Spirit who revealed to us what God’s will was as we prayed, and Who led us to pray according to His will so that we might know as we prayed that we had asked something that was according to God’s will, and might know that the prayer was heard.
1. What are the characteristics of the prayer that is ‘in the Holy Spirit,’ the characteristics of the praying which the Holy Spirit inspires?
(1) The first characteristic of the prayer that is in the Holy Spirit is intense earnestness. This we see in Romans 8:26: “And in like manner the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity: for we know not how to pray as we ought; but the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”
As we saw in studying Acts 12:5, the prayer that prevails with God is the prayer into which we throw our whole heart, the prayer of intense earnestness; and it is the Holy Spirit who inspires us to that intense earnestness
€ in prayer. Oh, how cold and formal we are in many of our prayers. How little intense longing there is in our souls to obtain the thing that we ask. We pray even for the salvation of the lost with much indifference, though we ought to realize that if our prayers are not heard they are going to spend eternity in hell. But men and women whose prayer life is under the control of the Holy Spirit, pray with intense earnestness; they cry mightily to God; there is a great burden of prayer in their hearts; they pray sometimes with groanings which cannot be uttered. Mr. Finney tells us about a man named Abel Clary. He says of him, “He had been licensed to preach; but his spirit of prayer was such, he was so burdened with the souls of men, that he was not able to preach much, his whole time and strength being given to prayer. The burden of his soul would frequently be so great that he was unable to stand, and he would writhe and groan in agony. I was well acquainted with him, and knew something of the wonderful spirit of prayer that was upon him. He was a very silent man, as almost all are who have that powerful spirit of prayer.’’ Abel Clary was of great assistance to Mr. Finney, simply by praying, in his work in Rochester, N. Y., where a revival sprang up the report of which resulted in revivals all over the country, and which, it is said, brought one hundred thousand souls to Christ in a year.
Of Mr. Clary’s work in Rochester, Mr. Finney writes, “The first I knew of his being in Rochester, a gentleman who lived about a mile west of the city called on me one day and asked me if I knew a Mr. Abel Clary, a minister. I told him that I knew him well. ‘ Well,’ he said, ‘he is at my house, and has been there for some time, and I don’t know what to think of him.’ I said, ‘I have not seen him at any of our meetings.’ ‘No,’ he replied, ‘he cannot go to meeting, he says. He prays nearly all the time, day and night, and in such agony of mind that I do not know what to make of it. Sometimes he cannot even stand on his knees, but will lie prostrate on the floor, and groan and pray in a manner that quite astonishes me.’ I said to the brother, ‘I understand it: please keep still. It will all come out right; he will surely prevail.’”’ Mr. Finney says of Mr. Clary in another place, “I think it was the second Sabbath that I was at Auburn, at this time I observed in the congregation the solemn face of Mr. Clary. He looked as if he was borne down with an agony of prayer. Being well acquainted with him, and knowing the great gift of God that was upon him, the spirit of prayer, I was very glad to see him there. He sat in the pew with his brother, the doctor, who was also a professor of religion, but who had nothing by experience, I should think, of his brother Abel’s great power with God. At intermission, as soon as I came down from the pulpit, Mr. Clary, with his brother, met me at the pulpit stairs, and the doctor invited me to go home with him and spend the intermission and get some refreshments. I did so.
“After arriving at his house we were soon summoned to the dinner table. We gathered about the table, and Dr. Clary turned to his brother and said, ‘ Brother Abel, will you ask the blessing?’ Brother Abel bowed his head and began, audibly, to ask a blessing. He had uttered but a sentence or two when he broke instantly down, moved suddenly back from the table, and fled to his chamber. The doctor supposed he had been taken suddenly ill, and rose up and followed him. In a few moments he came down and said, ‘Mr. Finney, Brother Abel wants to see you. Said I, ‘ What ails him?’ Said he, ‘I do not know but he says you know. He appears in great distress, but I think it is the state of his mind.’ I understood it ina moment, and went to his room. He lay groaning upon the bed, the Spirit making intercession for him, and in him, with groanings that could not be uttered. I had barely entered the room when he made out to say, ‘ Pray, brother Finney.’ I knelt down and helped him in prayer, by leading his soul out for the conversion of sinners. I continued to pray until his distress passed away, and then I returned to the dinner table.” A wonderful revival broke out in Auburn, hundreds of souls were converted in six weeks.
Oh, that we had people in our Church here, and in our Institute, who knew how to pray like that. I believe that the greatest need of the Church of Jesus Christ in America today, and the Church of Jesus Christ throughout the world, is men and women who pray in the Holy Spirit, with the intense earnestness that He gives, and He alone gives.
(2) The second characteristic of Praying in the Holy Spirit is intelligent praying, perfect wisdom im our praying, praying for things that are according to the will of God. This comes out in the next verse, Romans 8:27:
“And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.” We do not need to stop on that here, for we dwelt upon it yesterday.
(3) The third characteristic of the praying that ts really “Praying in the Holy Spirit,’ 1s complete assurance that God has heard and answered our prayer. This we saw yesterday in studying Mark 11:24, the prayer of faith. It is the prayer that the Holy Spirit inspires that is really “the prayer of faith,’ and the one who so prays knows that he is praying “according to the will of God” and has assurance without a shadow of doubt that God has heard and answered his prayer.
(4) The fourth characteristic of the praying that is really “Praying in the Holy Spirit” is determination in our praying, the determination to get what we ask from God, a persistence m asking until we do get it. This comes out clearly in the passage that we were studying a little while ago, Ephesians 6: 18, listen again: “With all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.’ What a marvelous setting forth, by a piling up of words of deepest significance, the determination and perseverance in prayer that comes from the Holy Spirit having control of our prayer life. We do not need to dwell upon that now; for we have just been talking about it in the earlier part of this chapter. Such are the characteristics of the praying that is really in the Holy Spirit.
Z. We come now to the intensely practical question, and the immediately important question, “How may we pray in the Holy Spirit? That is, how can we make sure that the Spirit of God is guiding us in our prayer, make sure that our prayers are not merely the promptings of our own selfish desires but the sure leadings of the Spirit of God within us? The answer to this all-important question is very plainly set forth in the Word of God.
(1) First of all, If we are to pray in the Spirit, we must surrender our wills and ourselves absolutely and unreservedly to God. This comes out in many places in Scripture. For example, it comes out in Acts 5: 32, where we read: “And we are witnesses of these things; and so is the Holy Spirit, Whom God hath given to them that obey Him.’ Here we are plainly taught that God gives the Holy Spirit “to them that obey Him,” and to them only; and the heart of obedience is in the will, the surrender of the will and the surrender of one’s self to God. Unless we make this absolute surrender God cannot take control of our lives by His Holy Spirit, and He cannot take control of our prayer life any more than any other part of our life. Our surrender to Him must extend to our praying as well as to the other spheres of our activities.
(2) In the second place. If we would pray in the Holy Spirit, we must scrupulously obey God in every department of our lives. Disobedience at any point of our life grieves the Holy Spirit and makes it impossible for Him to control us in our actions, and it is just as impossible for Him to take control of our prayer life as it is to take charge of any other part of our life.
In order to obey God we must study the Word of God every day of our lives to find out what the will of God is, and then whenever we find it do it every time. If we refuse to do it at any point the Holy Spirit cannot keep control of our prayer life, and we cannot “pray in the Holy Spirit.” That comes out very clearly in that wonderful passage that we studied two days ago, our Lord Jesus’ wonderful promise to answer prayer found in John 14:13, 14: ‘“And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my name, that will I do.” And then Jesus went on to say, and by saying it clearly shows the connection between daily obedience and that power in prayer that comes through praying in the Holy Spirit, “If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive; for it beholdeth him not, neither knoweth him: ye know him; for he abideth with you, and shall be in you.”
In other words, the -Lord Jesus says that if we have that love to Him that leads us to obey Him in everything, day by day, then He prays the Father and the Father sends His Holy Spirit to help us in all the emergencies of life, especially in our prayer life, and thus whatsoever we ask in His name is “according to His will,” and, therefore, whatsoever we ask that we get. Oh, how we come again and again and again in our study of all these wonderful promises of God to answer prayer upon the thought that there is no effective praying of any kind possible on our part unless we are studying the Word of God daily to find out the will of God and doting it every time we find it.
(3) In the third place, if we would pray in the Holy Spirit we must realize and keep in mind our own utter inability to pray aright, and our entire dependence upon the Holy Spirit, if we are to pray wisely and prevailingly. Oh, if there is any time when we need to feel our utter dependence upon the Comforter, the ever present Friend and Helper and Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, it is when we pray. We need to feel deeply our dependence upon Him in our living, in our daily warfare with the world, the flesh and the Devil; we need to feel our dependence upon Him in our service for Christ, realizing that it is “not by might nor by power” (not by any natural gifts or abilities of our own), but “By His Spirit,” that we are to accomplish anything for God in this world (Zech. 4:6); we need to feel our dependence upon Him in our Bible study, realizing that He is the only perfect interpreter of the Word, and that He is ready to interpret the Word to us as we study: but above all we need to feel our dependence upon Him when we pray. We will do well if we always bear in mind the inspired words of Paul as found in Romans 8: 26, “We know not how to pray as we ought.” If Paul, that mighty servant of Jesus Christ, that inspired Apostle, that wonderful man of prayer, knew not how to pray as he ought, certainly we do not. But we should also constantly keep in mind the words that immediately follow in that same verse, and the following verse, “But the Spirit himself 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 to the will of God.”’ Oh, when you go to God in prayer, realize that you do not know how to pray as you ought, and bring before yourself and keep before yourself your utter dependence upon the Holy Spirit in every word of prayer.
(4) In the fourth place, If we would pray im the Holy Spirit we must definitely ask God to guide us by His Holy Spirit as we pray. Tell God that you do not know how to pray as you ought, and ask Him to guide you by His Spirit as you pray, and He will.
(5) In the fifth place, Jf we would pray in the Holy Spirit we must count upon God’s answering our prayer to send His Holy Spirit to teach us to pray, we must count upon His sending His Holy Spirit to teach us to pray. We can unhesitatingly count upon God sending Him because in the passage just read, Romans 8: 26, 27, He has definitely promised to do so.
(6) In the sixth place, If we would pray in the Holy Spirit we must keep getting filled with the Holy Spirit.
Paul’s inspired exhortation in Ephesians 5: 18, “Be filled with the Spirit,’ or to translate more literally, “Be getting filled with the Holy Spirit” (it is a continuous process, aS is indicated by the tense of the Greek verb here used), has the most intimate connection with our prayer life. If we are filled with the Spirit we will be guided by the Spirit in our prayers as well as in everything else. A. Spirit filled man will always be a prayerful man, and his prayers will be in the Holy Spirit. The way to be getting continually filled with the Holy Spirit is indicated in what we have just studied under the four preceding heads. If we do the things there indicated we will be continually getting filled with the Spirit of God.
(7) Finally, If we would pray in the Spirit we must study the Word of God daily and earnestly. The written Word of God is the visible instrument through which the invisible Spirit of God works; so if you would keep filled with that Spirit you must keep full of the Word. This comes out very clearly in the passage to which we have just referred, Ephesians 5:18, when we read with it the verse that immediately follows and then compare with Colossians 3:16. Listen to Ephesians 5:18, 19: “Be filled with the Spirit; speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.” Now listen carefully to Colossians 3:16: “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts unto God.” We see here that Paul in Colossians attributes to being filled with the Word exactly the same thing that he attributes to being filled with the Spirit in Ephesians 5:18, 19, and these two Epistles were written at just about the same time. We must never lose sight of the tremendously important fact that the invisible Spirit of God does His work through the visible written Word of God. If we keep ourselves in harmony with the mind of God by a constant daily study of the Word of God, and by scrupulous obedience to the Word of God, the instrument through which the Holy Spirit constantly works, then the Holy Spirit will guide us in our prayers; and only then. If we keep ourselves full of the Holy Spirit’s truth contained in the written Word, the Holy Spirit is far more likely to pray through us. From this point of view, then, there is deepest significance in our Lord’s own words found in John 6:63: “The words that I have spoken unto you, THEY are Spirit, and they are life.’ How often in our study of the most significant and precious passages in the Bible that bear on the subject of how to pray so as to obtain from God the things that we ask of Him in prayer, we have been brought face to face with the great truth that, PREVAILING PRAYER ALWAYS GOES HAND IN HAND WITH PERSISTENT AND OBEDIENT STUDY OF THE Worp oF God.
To sum up what we have discovered today in our study of God’s own Word on the subject of prevailing prayer: If we are to pray the prayer that obtains from our Heavenly Father the things that we ask of Him:
First of all, we must be careful as to what we ask of God, and be sure that it is something that we ought to have, something that is according to His infinitely wise and absolutely holy will, and then when we begin to pray for it to keep on praying for it for days and weeks and months, and if need be for years, until we get it. We “ought always to pray, and not to faint.” We ought to pray through.
In the second place, we must see to it that we pray not out from our own selfish (and 1¢ may be foolish) desires, but under the impulse and inspiration and guidance and control of the Holy Spirit; that we “pray in the Holy Spirit,’ that we let Him pray through us and so we pray in the wisdom and earnestness and intensity and never wearying persistence and resistless power of prayer that He imparts.
Then our prayer will be the mightiest power on earth; for all God has, and all God is, is at the disposal of that kind of praying. That kind of praying can accomplish anything that God Himself can accomplish. That kind of praying partakes of the omnipotence of the God with whom that kind of praying puts us in perfect connection. As you go from here this morning, go with these words burning in your soul, “Praying im the Holy Ghost.’ I long to live in the Holy Ghost; I long to preach and witness in the Holy Ghost; I long to study and understand the Word of God in the Holy Ghost; but above all else I long to pray in the Holy Ghost. I long also that this church as a body should learn to pray in the Holy Ghost, then nothing shall be able to stand against this church as it sweeps on and on, from victory to victory
for God.