Latest / Philosophy and Faith / 08 - Praying in the Power of the Holy Ghost - The Spiritual Life - Andrew Murray
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Praying in the power of the Holy Ghost. I want
- 0:05Speaker 1: to speak to you this morning on prayer. Those of
- 0:08Speaker 1: you who are students preparing for the work of making
- 0:10Speaker 1: known the Gospel of Christ can hardly realize the part
- 0:14Speaker 1: prayer ought to play in your studies. People think a
- 0:18Speaker 1: great deal of study. They study Latin, Greek, logic and
- 0:22Speaker 1: science of all sorts. They will study music and theology
- 0:26Speaker 1: and anything that will help them in the work of
- 0:29Speaker 1: the ministry or in service of the Gospel. And yet
- 0:32Speaker 1: very often forget what is the It is a solemn
- 0:36Speaker 1: thing to say, what is the most important part of
- 0:39Speaker 1: the preparation for the work of serving God. That is prayer.
- 0:44Speaker 1: And prayer is an art, a spiritual art that has
- 0:48Speaker 1: to be studied like anything else. You know, we don't
- 0:51Speaker 1: become perfect in anything without a great deal of exercise.
- 0:56Speaker 1: When a person is learning to play the piano, he
- 0:58Speaker 1: spends it may be an hour every day, sometimes many hours,
- 1:03Speaker 1: all for the sake of being perfect in his art.
- 1:06Speaker 1: Do not let us think we can learn the art
- 1:08Speaker 1: of prayer without a great deal of exercise. Just think
- 1:12Speaker 1: what its importance is in preaching, in visiting, in speaking,
- 1:16Speaker 1: in dealing with men. When God's Word tells me that
- 1:20Speaker 1: all my dealing is helpless except God's power from heaven works.
- 1:25Speaker 1: And the Word tells me that the power will work
- 1:27Speaker 1: in answer to the much prayer of faith, praying with importunity,
- 1:32Speaker 1: and that alone Paul may plant apoll us water, but
- 1:37Speaker 1: God giveth the increase. Someone has said that farmers are
- 1:42Speaker 1: a people who ought to learn to trust God. They
- 1:45Speaker 1: can sow their corn, but must wait on God to
- 1:48Speaker 1: give sunshine or rain for growth and increase. This is
- 1:52Speaker 1: specially true for people who are going to work for God.
- 1:55Speaker 1: I may plow, I may sow, I may work as
- 1:58Speaker 1: hard as man can work, but God gives the increase.
- 2:02Speaker 1: And God gives the increase in answer to prayer. And
- 2:06Speaker 1: so for two reasons, dear students, you all ought to
- 2:10Speaker 1: be men and women of prayer. One reason is for
- 2:14Speaker 1: your own spiritual life. If the Holy Spirit is to
- 2:17Speaker 1: live in your life, it must come by prayer. The
- 2:21Speaker 1: other is for the sake of those among whom you work.
- 2:25Speaker 1: If the Holy Ghost is to work in them through
- 2:27Speaker 1: the Word, it must come by prayer. And do not
- 2:31Speaker 1: think after I become a minister, missionary, or teacher, then
- 2:35Speaker 1: I will begin to pray then I will learn to pray,
- 2:38Speaker 1: because I shall then feel the need. You say, I
- 2:41Speaker 1: cannot find time to pray now. I have so many
- 2:45Speaker 1: lessons to prepare. I need every moment for study. I
- 2:48Speaker 1: cannot be behind in my class. I cannot give time
- 2:51Speaker 1: to prayer. Oh beware, remember, the same devil that teaches
- 2:56Speaker 1: you this now will find you three years hence, when
- 2:59Speaker 1: your work is much heavier, he will tell you the
- 3:02Speaker 1: same that you have so much to do that you
- 3:04Speaker 1: cannot find time to pray. Remember the unconverted man says,
- 3:10Speaker 1: conversion is easy tomorrow, but hard to day. Even so,
- 3:15Speaker 1: prayer that now is difficult appears easy in the future,
- 3:19Speaker 1: alas you will find it in the future just as
- 3:22Speaker 1: hard as now. I pray that you, students preparing for
- 3:26Speaker 1: Christ's work, ask God to teach you how to pray.
- 3:30Speaker 1: He cannot do that unless you give time to it.
- 3:33Speaker 1: Reading a book about prayer, listening to lectures and talking
- 3:36Speaker 1: about it is very good, but it won't teach you
- 3:39Speaker 1: to pray. You get nothing without exercise, without practice. I
- 3:45Speaker 1: might listen to a professor of music for a year
- 3:47Speaker 1: playing the most beautiful music, but that won't teach me
- 3:51Speaker 1: to play. So take care that you don't get beautiful
- 3:55Speaker 1: thoughts about prayer. Take care that you don't get beautiful
- 3:58Speaker 1: scripture truths about pray, pray, and yet don't put them
- 4:01Speaker 1: into practice. By actually praying. The words that I want
- 4:06Speaker 1: to speak on will put prayer before us in a
- 4:08Speaker 1: wonderful way. It stands connected with the work of the
- 4:12Speaker 1: Holy Ghost. They are found in the eighth chapter of
- 4:15Speaker 1: Romans twenty third verse. Let us read from the twenty
- 4:19Speaker 1: second verse. For we know that the whole creation groaneth
- 4:24Speaker 1: and traveileth in pain together until now, Paul says, through
- 4:29Speaker 1: our creation there is a groan of suffering and crying
- 4:32Speaker 1: for deliverance to God. And not only this creation is groaning,
- 4:36Speaker 1: but we ourselves, which have the first fruits of the
- 4:39Speaker 1: spirit grown within ourselves, waiting for the adoption to wit
- 4:43Speaker 1: the redemption of the body. And also verses twenty six
- 4:47Speaker 1: and twenty seven. Now in these two last verses I
- 4:51Speaker 1: have read, I think you will find four precious thoughts
- 4:54Speaker 1: about prayer. One we are ignorant and do not know
- 4:59Speaker 1: how to pray. Two, the Holy Spirit is our helper
- 5:03Speaker 1: in prayer. Three, the Holy Spirit prays for us, not
- 5:07Speaker 1: always in words or thoughts that we can understand, but
- 5:10Speaker 1: with unutterable groanings, longings that cannot be expressed. Four That God,
- 5:17Speaker 1: who searches the heart, finds out what the mind of
- 5:20Speaker 1: the spirit is, who always prays according to God's will,
- 5:24Speaker 1: and God gives us the answer. In the first place,
- 5:29Speaker 1: we are ignorant and know not how to pray. When
- 5:33Speaker 1: I have got to do a thing, and I am ignorant,
- 5:35Speaker 1: it is of great importance that I should know my ignorance.
- 5:39Speaker 1: If I were to ask a teacher of music to
- 5:41Speaker 1: teach me to play on the piano, and I sat
- 5:43Speaker 1: down with the idea that I could do it, it
- 5:46Speaker 1: would hinder him terribly. But if I sat down in
- 5:49Speaker 1: my ignorance and said, please teach me how, then I
- 5:54Speaker 1: am in the right position to be taught. So there
- 5:57Speaker 1: are a great many who have the idea that they can.
- 6:01Speaker 1: They say, our mother taught us to pray, our minister
- 6:04Speaker 1: taught us to pray. I know of many things I
- 6:07Speaker 1: have gotten from God. They think everyone can pray. How
- 6:12Speaker 1: often we think we know how to pray, and go
- 6:14Speaker 1: on for years with the idea that we are praying
- 6:17Speaker 1: right now. If you are ever to become powerful in prayer.
- 6:22Speaker 1: The first thing in prayer must be that you fall
- 6:24Speaker 1: down before God under a sense of your ignorance, and say,
- 6:29Speaker 1: I cannot pray as I ought. Ere you begin to pray,
- 6:33Speaker 1: just quietly, say do I know what prayer is? Do
- 6:38Speaker 1: I know what it is to meet the Great God?
- 6:40Speaker 1: Do I know how to take hold of God and
- 6:43Speaker 1: hold him fast? Do I know how to take hold
- 6:46Speaker 1: of his strength? Do I know what the full fellowship
- 6:49Speaker 1: and communion of God is? Begin to sit still until
- 6:54Speaker 1: you realize his holy presence and feel how little you
- 6:58Speaker 1: are fit to speak to him. Lord, I know not
- 7:01Speaker 1: how to pray. I may know many things to pray for,
- 7:05Speaker 1: but not what I need most. My prayer may be right, Lord,
- 7:09Speaker 1: deliver me from pride and self will, and yet I
- 7:13Speaker 1: may not know how sadly I need pride to be removed.
- 7:18Speaker 1: Perhaps God wants me to be delivered from pride, and
- 7:21Speaker 1: I pray for that. And yet I have never seen
- 7:24Speaker 1: myself as God sees me. I have never been truly
- 7:27Speaker 1: convicted of my pride. So you can pray for other
- 7:32Speaker 1: things and never come to the real point of what
- 7:34Speaker 1: you need. You need before everything in prayer, a deep
- 7:38Speaker 1: consciousness of your ignorance. What a wonderful blessing. If I
- 7:43Speaker 1: come into this ignorance, the Holy Spirit will be my
- 7:46Speaker 1: helper in prayer. This blessed ignorance is one of the
- 7:50Speaker 1: most remarkable elements of faith. Abraham went out not knowing
- 7:55Speaker 1: whither he went. It was a beautiful ignorance. It taught
- 8:00Speaker 1: him to trust God. Look at the disciples. They once
- 8:04Speaker 1: came to ask Jesus to give them a place on
- 8:06Speaker 1: the throne. He said, you know not what you ask.
- 8:11Speaker 1: He brought them at once to the point you think
- 8:14Speaker 1: you are asking for what you need. No, you are foolish.
- 8:18Speaker 1: You know not what you ask. Very often we pray
- 8:21Speaker 1: for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and we don't
- 8:24Speaker 1: know what we are praying for. It is of the
- 8:27Speaker 1: utmost importance that you know what you are praying for.
- 8:31Speaker 1: I may utter thoughts that are true, and yet my
- 8:34Speaker 1: heart may not know what I ask. So from the
- 8:38Speaker 1: very beginning there should be in our prayers a sense
- 8:41Speaker 1: of deep ignorance. Paul says, no man knoweth the things
- 8:46Speaker 1: of God, but the Spirit of God. None of you
- 8:50Speaker 1: can tell me what I am thinking about. You do
- 8:52Speaker 1: not know what is in my heart. No one can
- 8:56Speaker 1: tell what is in the mind of God, but the
- 8:58Speaker 1: Spirit of God. If I come and pray from what
- 9:02Speaker 1: I have learned out of a book or out of
- 9:04Speaker 1: my experience, that is not enough. I want to be
- 9:08Speaker 1: taught by the Spirit of God to pray as I
- 9:11Speaker 1: ought in unison with the will of God. Oh listen,
- 9:16Speaker 1: The Holy Spirit cannot teach you until all your self
- 9:20Speaker 1: conceit and self confidence is taken away, and you get
- 9:23Speaker 1: broken down into a nothingness that says, Lord, I know nothing.
- 9:29Speaker 1: Thus will you learn to be quiet before God and
- 9:32Speaker 1: in your ignorance to wait on God to teach you. Second,
- 9:38Speaker 1: what a blessed thought that the Holy Spirit is given
- 9:41Speaker 1: to help our infirmities, and that he prays in us.
- 9:45Speaker 1: What a blessed thought. You are believers in the Holy Trinity, Father, Son,
- 9:50Speaker 1: and Holy Ghost. The Father he sits upon the throne
- 9:54Speaker 1: as God, the Son sits on his right hand as
- 9:58Speaker 1: mediator and intercessor. He lives ever to pray. Think of
- 10:02Speaker 1: that the Son, in his glory has got no other
- 10:06Speaker 1: work but praying. His whole being, his presence before God
- 10:10Speaker 1: as the Lamb that was slain, is one unceasing prayer.
- 10:15Speaker 1: And we read that that is the reason he can
- 10:17Speaker 1: save completely, because he ever liveth to pray. He is
- 10:22Speaker 1: the King in glory, but his highest work is prayer.
- 10:26Speaker 1: And continually there goes up to the Father. From him
- 10:29Speaker 1: a stream of intercession. Father, bless thy children, bless my
- 10:34Speaker 1: people on earth. And unceasingly there comes from the Father
- 10:39Speaker 1: in answer a stream of blessing. And unceasingly from the
- 10:43Speaker 1: Son there streams out the flow of the Holy Spirit
- 10:46Speaker 1: to bring the blessing to us. And the Spirit is
- 10:50Speaker 1: in the heart of the believer to teach what this
- 10:52Speaker 1: blessing is that Christ has for them, to teach them
- 10:55Speaker 1: all that is prepared for them. But when we are
- 10:59Speaker 1: self satisfied and imagine that we know how to pray,
- 11:02Speaker 1: then we cannot wait for the Holy Spirit to teach us,
- 11:05Speaker 1: and we lose all the wonderful gifts he could reveal
- 11:09Speaker 1: to us. Just think what it means the Father on
- 11:13Speaker 1: the throne to give the Son at his right hand
- 11:16Speaker 1: to bless and down in your heart and mind the
- 11:19Speaker 1: Holy Spirit, the third person of the blessed Trinity, proceeding
- 11:23Speaker 1: from the Father. It is God giving, Christ praying, and
- 11:27Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit receiving and imparting, teaching you to pray
- 11:32Speaker 1: in perfect harmony with God and Christ. Have we actually
- 11:36Speaker 1: believed I have the Holy Spirit to help my infirmities
- 11:40Speaker 1: in prayer? Alas, No, When we have felt our ignorance,
- 11:45Speaker 1: felt we don't know how to pray, we have begun
- 11:48Speaker 1: mourning and have become discouraged. We have kept away from
- 11:51Speaker 1: our closet because we did not know how to pray
- 11:54Speaker 1: as we wished. I tell you, brother, that is the
- 11:58Speaker 1: very best time to go and pray. When you pray
- 12:01Speaker 1: so glibly and easily, it is very much human feeling
- 12:05Speaker 1: and human words, and the power of the Holy Ghost
- 12:08Speaker 1: is not there. When you feel you cannot pray, set
- 12:12Speaker 1: yourself before God and say I cannot pray. Prayer is
- 12:17Speaker 1: too high for me. Let the Holy Spirit help my
- 12:20Speaker 1: infirmities and come and pray in me. What a blessed
- 12:25Speaker 1: truth it is the Holy Spirit prays in me and
- 12:28Speaker 1: for me. He it is of whom we heard yesterday
- 12:31Speaker 1: and the day before that. The Holy Spirit takes charge
- 12:35Speaker 1: of our whole life and dwells in our hearts. If
- 12:39Speaker 1: you will only take time to use your heavenly helper,
- 12:42Speaker 1: he will do his work effectively. If I have a
- 12:46Speaker 1: helper in any work. For example, in leading the singing
- 12:49Speaker 1: this morning, I have a helper in Professor Towner. What
- 12:53Speaker 1: do I do when it is time for singing? I
- 12:56Speaker 1: give up to him and trust him for the music
- 12:58Speaker 1: in the meeting. To this Holy Spirit, if he is
- 13:02Speaker 1: to be my helper, I must give way. I must
- 13:05Speaker 1: stand aside. How little we have acknowledged that the Holy
- 13:10Speaker 1: Spirit has helped our infirmities. If you are to get
- 13:14Speaker 1: the help of the Spirit, let me give you one lesson,
- 13:17Speaker 1: and let me urge this upon you. When you are
- 13:19Speaker 1: in your closet to pray alone, you should always take
- 13:23Speaker 1: plenty of silent time before your prayers and in between
- 13:26Speaker 1: your prayer. It is a solemn thing to think that
- 13:30Speaker 1: I Am going to exercise power on heaven and bring
- 13:33Speaker 1: down here heavenly blessings upon myself and others. And I
- 13:36Speaker 1: ought to be very quiet before God. Think of God,
- 13:41Speaker 1: the three one God, as engaged in your prayer. Let
- 13:46Speaker 1: us always spend a few minutes at least in worship
- 13:49Speaker 1: until our faith realizes here is the Almighty God waiting
- 13:54Speaker 1: to bless me. He is longing to fill me with
- 13:57Speaker 1: his Holy Spirit. This faith will not come unless we
- 14:01Speaker 1: take time to think about it. The Everlasting God is
- 14:05Speaker 1: waiting to bless me. Let me believe God will bless
- 14:10Speaker 1: Just be quiet and sink down into nothingness, and let
- 14:14Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit pray in you. The Holy Spirit will
- 14:17Speaker 1: do it. The Father has given you his spirit on
- 14:20Speaker 1: purpose to do it. He will pray in you again.
- 14:25Speaker 1: When you have prayed, be quiet a little and just
- 14:28Speaker 1: sit still until your heart gets fully into the faith
- 14:31Speaker 1: that the Holy Spirit is doing his work in you
- 14:34Speaker 1: just now. He is given to you actually and really
- 14:38Speaker 1: to be your teacher and helper in prayer. When you
- 14:42Speaker 1: feel very ignorant and helpless, pray. A lady once asked
- 14:46Speaker 1: a minister for help. She had lost the joy of
- 14:49Speaker 1: secret prayer. She asked what she had to do to
- 14:53Speaker 1: get it back. She had done her best in striving
- 14:56Speaker 1: but had failed. He said, you went the wrong way
- 15:00Speaker 1: about it. When you are unconverted. You tried to do
- 15:03Speaker 1: everything right and did not succeed. How did you get life?
- 15:07Speaker 1: I just trusted Jesus. She said, that's what you've got
- 15:11Speaker 1: to do again. When you have no inclination to pray,
- 15:15Speaker 1: when your heart is very cold, just go to Jesus
- 15:18Speaker 1: and say thou hast appointed prayer as the means to
- 15:21Speaker 1: come to THEE. And my heart is cold, thy heart
- 15:25Speaker 1: is full of love. Here I come in my feebleness.
- 15:29Speaker 1: If you will abide in His presence, he will meet you,
- 15:32Speaker 1: and the Spirit will teach you to trust and to pray.
- 15:36Speaker 1: The Holy Spirit is given to help our infirmities. We
- 15:41Speaker 1: must take care of making a mistake. People often think
- 15:45Speaker 1: that when the Holy Spirit comes and teaches them to pray,
- 15:48Speaker 1: there will be a great burning rush of feeling, and
- 15:51Speaker 1: they will pray such beautiful prayers. Feeling may indeed stir
- 15:56Speaker 1: and help you, But many times it is superficial. Let
- 16:00Speaker 1: me read the words of the text again. But the
- 16:04Speaker 1: Spirit maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered.
- 16:09Speaker 1: That is what the Spirit loves to do. He loves
- 16:12Speaker 1: to keep us in our ignorance, so that our mind
- 16:14Speaker 1: cannot run away and occupy itself with the beautiful thoughts
- 16:18Speaker 1: from the Holy Spirit. He goes deeper than our thoughts
- 16:21Speaker 1: and minds, into the heart, and he prays there with groanings,
- 16:25Speaker 1: with longings that cannot be expressed in words. He gives
- 16:29Speaker 1: us a deep and inexpressible yearning, a deep thirst for God,
- 16:34Speaker 1: and for God's glory. Oh, my friends, we are proud
- 16:38Speaker 1: of nothing so much as our minds, our intellects, and
- 16:41Speaker 1: our thoughts. We want to understand everything and to know everything.
- 16:47Speaker 1: You listen to a sermon and guess a beautiful thought,
- 16:50Speaker 1: You tell your friends of it, you keep it to
- 16:52Speaker 1: read over again. You have got something for your intellect,
- 16:56Speaker 1: but it has not got into your heart. A blind
- 17:00Speaker 1: man can understand talk about the sun and light and
- 17:03Speaker 1: know a great deal about it. The most ignorant man
- 17:07Speaker 1: who has seen the sun knows more. A great many
- 17:11Speaker 1: people know a great deal about prayer, but it does
- 17:14Speaker 1: not help them to pray. We want our hearts filled
- 17:18Speaker 1: with the Holy Spirit, and he will bring us into
- 17:20Speaker 1: the life of prayer. If the Holy Spirit alone can
- 17:24Speaker 1: teach us to pray, have we not reason to confess
- 17:27Speaker 1: that we have often prayed in the flesh. Oh, May
- 17:31Speaker 1: the Blessed Teacher himself live and breathe in us, that
- 17:34Speaker 1: we may know how to pray. May the Holy Spirit,
- 17:38Speaker 1: about whom we have been speaking and thinking these last
- 17:41Speaker 1: few days, be to us a spirit of prayer, as
- 17:44Speaker 1: he is in us, a spirit of holiness and of
- 17:47Speaker 1: power for work, the spirit of love and the spirit
- 17:50Speaker 1: that brings to us all that we had yesterday morning
- 17:53Speaker 1: in the Epistle to the Romans, a spirit of fellowship,
- 17:57Speaker 1: of access to God, a spirit of intercession who gives
- 18:01Speaker 1: us boldness and power with God. Thirdly, the Holy Spirit
- 18:07Speaker 1: makes intercession in us. He prays in and for us
- 18:11Speaker 1: in words and feelings that are as unutterable groanings. After
- 18:17Speaker 1: Paul speaks of him as the Spirit of intercession for
- 18:19Speaker 1: all saints, he says that he makes intercession for the
- 18:23Speaker 1: saints according to the will of God. What that means
- 18:27Speaker 1: we can understand if we look at the twenty third verse.
- 18:31Speaker 1: For the whole creation groaneth all the suffering animals throughout
- 18:36Speaker 1: the world, all the millions of little creatures around us.
- 18:39Speaker 1: These are all groaning for a different state of things.
- 18:44Speaker 1: And not only so, but we ourselves groan within ourselves,
- 18:48Speaker 1: though we have the first fruits of the spirit waiting
- 18:50Speaker 1: for the adoption to wit the redemption of the Body.
- 18:55Speaker 1: Paul says believers should look forward to the full redemption
- 18:59Speaker 1: when the body we shall be redeemed and made like
- 19:02Speaker 1: Christ's glorious body, and all believers gathered into one creation
- 19:07Speaker 1: groans for its universal redemption. The Spirit groans not only
- 19:12Speaker 1: for the individual, but the united redemption of all saints.
- 19:17Speaker 1: There is a great groaning in creation and a great
- 19:20Speaker 1: groaning by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers.
- 19:23Speaker 1: And these are things we cannot pray for as we ought,
- 19:26Speaker 1: But God hears the unutterable groanings of the Holy Spirit.
- 19:31Speaker 1: The Spirit makes intercession in us for all saints. It
- 19:35Speaker 1: is your highest privilege, as priests of God, to be intercessors.
- 19:40Speaker 1: Oh the value of the intercession. When I pray for
- 19:44Speaker 1: other people who may be at a distance, or when
- 19:46Speaker 1: we gather in a small prayer meeting, I sometimes say,
- 19:49Speaker 1: what utter folly this would be if God's word did
- 19:52Speaker 1: not teach it. Here are fifty people praying for something
- 19:56Speaker 1: in China, or Africa or England, and these fifty feeble
- 20:00Speaker 1: ones believe that they can actually stir the Almighty, Everlasting
- 20:04Speaker 1: God to action by their prayers, and that in answer
- 20:08Speaker 1: to their prayers, he would do something that he would
- 20:11Speaker 1: not have done if they had not prayed. This can
- 20:15Speaker 1: only be true because the Holy Spirit dwells in the believer,
- 20:18Speaker 1: and his prayer in us is from God as much
- 20:21Speaker 1: as the answer. Children of God, yield yourselves up to
- 20:26Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit as the spirit of intercession. Study your
- 20:29Speaker 1: work of intercession. If all believers were only to give
- 20:33Speaker 1: an hour a day for interceding for the Church of God, Oh,
- 20:38Speaker 1: pray for the Church of God. If you would have
- 20:42Speaker 1: your eyes opened, Think of the state of Christendom. Take
- 20:45Speaker 1: London with its five million, only one million of these
- 20:49Speaker 1: go to church, four millions who practically are not Christians.
- 20:54Speaker 1: Think of Chicago with one million and a half, and
- 20:57Speaker 1: you have only two hundred thousand people going to church.
- 21:01Speaker 1: Just imagine think of those who do go to church.
- 21:05Speaker 1: Out of these, how many go through mere formality, how
- 21:09Speaker 1: many who are living in sin, how many who are
- 21:11Speaker 1: not converted, and how many who are worldly. Think that
- 21:16Speaker 1: this is not only true of London and Chicago, but
- 21:19Speaker 1: of all the world upon you and me. God has
- 21:23Speaker 1: left the responsibility of praying and taking hold of him.
- 21:27Speaker 1: He has told us not to let him go, and
- 21:30Speaker 1: has given us wonderful promises. Take time to pray. If
- 21:35Speaker 1: we will give up ourselves to intercession, God will bless.
- 21:39Speaker 1: I would like to ask every one here do you
- 21:42Speaker 1: pray for the Church of Christ in the United States?
- 21:45Speaker 1: You talk about its worldliness, so much higher criticism and error.
- 21:50Speaker 1: You talk about these, but do you go to God
- 21:53Speaker 1: and cry Lord visit thy church. Oh, do cry to Him, Lord,
- 22:00Speaker 1: strengthen all thy people who are trying to live true
- 22:02Speaker 1: to thee. It is one spirit and one body. And
- 22:06Speaker 1: if you will give way to the Holy Spirit, he
- 22:08Speaker 1: will teach you to pray for the church. Paul says
- 22:12Speaker 1: to the Ephesians, praying always with all prayer and supplication
- 22:16Speaker 1: in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and
- 22:20Speaker 1: supplication for all saints, and for me that utterance may
- 22:24Speaker 1: be given unto me. The Holy Spirit is not a
- 22:29Speaker 1: selfish spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, and
- 22:32Speaker 1: it is one spirit and one body. May God make
- 22:37Speaker 1: you young men and women. May God make all of us
- 22:40Speaker 1: men and women of intercession filled with the power of
- 22:43Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit, for this our highest and holiest work,
- 22:47Speaker 1: to intercede for all saints. Fourthly, last, we have the
- 22:53Speaker 1: wonderful promise at the end of the verse. He that
- 22:57Speaker 1: searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit,
- 23:00Speaker 1: because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the
- 23:04Speaker 1: will of God. Just think of that God is to
- 23:08Speaker 1: come and search out our hearts. But have we not
- 23:11Speaker 1: said in words what we want? Yes, But God is
- 23:15Speaker 1: not deceived with words. God knows that the earnest Christian
- 23:19Speaker 1: often prays in earnest words, and his heart does not
- 23:23Speaker 1: truly and fully will what he has said, or at
- 23:26Speaker 1: the bottom of his heart there may be needs he
- 23:28Speaker 1: has not expressed. God goes deep into the heart and
- 23:33Speaker 1: finds out what the Holy Spirit says. The mind of
- 23:36Speaker 1: the Spirit prays according to the will of God. My
- 23:41Speaker 1: beloved friends, it is a solemn thing to pray. I
- 23:44Speaker 1: do beseech you to take time to practice prayer, and
- 23:47Speaker 1: in your prayer every time, learn more and more to
- 23:51Speaker 1: yield yourself up to the Holy Spirit, and say to
- 23:54Speaker 1: him that you set the very depths of your heart
- 23:56Speaker 1: open to him. If your inmost being is humbly and
- 24:00Speaker 1: patiently made subject to him, he can take and make
- 24:04Speaker 1: you not a prayer machine, but a vessel in which
- 24:07Speaker 1: he lives and in which he works his prayers down
- 24:10Speaker 1: into your desires and will, So that you pray in
- 24:13Speaker 1: the Spirit, and the Spirit prays in you. May all
- 24:18Speaker 1: of us learn the blessed privilege of intercession in the
- 24:21Speaker 1: power of the Holy Ghost. May all of us know
- 24:24Speaker 1: the joy of having God search our hearts and answering
- 24:28Speaker 1: us abundantly according to what He finds there of the
- 24:31Speaker 1: need of the spirit, May all of us know what
- 24:34Speaker 1: it is to cry to God with unutterable and unceasing
- 24:38Speaker 1: longings for all saints, that He might indeed visit and
- 24:42Speaker 1: revive his people.