The Spirit makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. Welcome back to the Hackberry House, a daily podcast devoted to the Word of God and the persecuted church. I'm Bob. This is podcast number 115. It's April 4, 2015. Today we talk about the interceding Spirit of God from a message by Charles Spurgeon. He first quotes Romans 8, likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searches the heart knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. The Apostle Paul wrote to a tried and afflicted people, And one of his purposes was to remind them of the rivers of comfort that were flowing near at hand. Rivers of comfort, like the comfort of sunship. First of all, he stirred up their pure minds by reminding them of their sonship, for he said, as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God, Romans 8, 14. They were therefore encouraged to side with Christ, the elder brother, with whom they had become joint heirs, verse 17. They were exhorted to suffer with him, verse 17, so that afterward they might be glorified with him. All that they endured came from the 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. After Paul had alluded to that consoling subject, he turned to the next ground of comfort, namely that we are to be sustained during our present trials by hope. There is an amazing glory reserved for us, though as yet we cannot enter into it, but in harmony with the whole creation must continue to groan and travail, yet the hope of this itself should minister strength to us and enable us patiently to bear our light affliction, which is but for a moment. This truth is full of sacred refreshment. Hope sees a crown in reserve, mansions in readiness, and Jesus himself preparing a place for us. And by this rapturous sight, hope 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 turned to a third source of comfort, namely the abiding of the Holy Spirit in and with the Lord's people. He used the word likewise to intimate that in the same manner as hope sustains the soul, the Holy Spirit strengthens us under trial. operates spiritually upon our spiritual faculties, and so does the Holy Spirit. In some mysterious way, He divinely operates upon the newborn faculties of the believer so that he is sustained under His infirmities. In His light we will see light. I pray, therefore, that we may be helped by the Spirit while we consider His mysterious operations so that we may not fall into error or miss precious truths through the blindness of our hearts. The text speaks of our infirmities, or, as many translators put it in the singular, of our infirmity. By this is meant our affliction and the weakness that trouble reveals in us. The Holy Spirit helps us to bear the infirmity of our bodies and of our minds. He helps us to bear our cross, whether it is physical pain, mental depression, spiritual conflict, slander, poverty or persecution. He helps our infirmity, and with a helper so divinely strong, we do not need to fear the result. God's grace will be sufficient for us. His strength is made perfect in weakness. I think, dear friends, you will all admit that if a man can pray, his troubles are at once lightened. When we feel that we have power with God and can obtain anything we ask for from His hands, then our difficulties cease to oppress us. We take our burdens to our Heavenly Father and express them 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 slices and abates the swelling flood that otherwise might be too strong for us. We bathe our wounds in the lotion of prayer and the pain is lulled, the fever is removed. Our minds may become so disturbed and our hearts so perplexed 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, yet we hardly know what to desire. We fall into such heaviness of spirit and complexity 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 trouble, comes 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, let us consider first the help that the Holy Spirit gives, second, the prayers that He inspires, and third, the success that such prayers are certain to obtain. First, the help that the Holy Spirit gives. It meets the weakness that we deplore. If in times 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 infirmities 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 by 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. The Holy Spirit sees the disease. but we do not even know the name of the medicine we need. We look over the many things that we might ask for from the Lord and we feel that each of them would be helpful, but that none of them would precisely meet our case. We could ask with confidence for spiritual blessings that we know to be according to the divine will, but perhaps these would not meet our specific circumstances. There are other things for which we are allowed to ask, but we scarcely know whether, if we had them, they'd really meet our needs, and we also feel a reluctance to pray 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 was not permitted to enter Canaan, for God denied him. The man who is healed begged the Lord to be able to go with him, but Jesus gave him this answer, go home to your friends. Regarding future events, we pray about such matters with this reserve. Nevertheless, not what I want, but as you desire, as Jesus prayed. At times, this very spirit of resignation appears to increase our spiritual difficulty, for we don't 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 will be the particular subject of prayer we cannot for a while make out? Even when ignorance and perplexity are removed, we still do not know what we should pray for as we ought. When we know the matter of prayer, we often fail to pray in the right manner. We ask, but we're afraid that we'll not receive because we don't exercise the thought or the faith that we judge to be essential to prayer. At times we cannot command the earnestness that is the life of supplication. A lethargy steals over us. Our heart is chilled, our hand is numbed, and we cannot wrestle with the angel, as did Jacob. We know what material objects to pray for, but we do not know what to pray for as we ought. It's the manner of the prayer that perplexes us even when the matter is decided upon. How can I pray? My mind wanders. I trumpet like a hooping crane. I roar like a beast in pain. I moan in the brokenness of my heart. I do not know what it is my inmost spirit needs. Or if I know it, I don't know how to frame my petition properly before him. I do not know how to open my lips in his majestic presence. I'm 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 Spirit aids us with His divine help. Hence, He is a very present help in trouble. And then instruction. Coming to our aid in our bewilderment, He instructs us. This is one of His frequent operations upon the mind of the believer. He'll teach you all things. He instructs us as to our need And as to the promises of God that refer to that need, He shows us where our deficiencies are and what our sins are and what our needs are. He sheds a light on our condition and makes us feel deeply our helplessness, sinfulness, and dire poverty. Then He casts the same light upon the promises of the Word and lays home to the heart that very text that was intended to meet the occasion, the precise promise that was framed with the foresight of our present distress. And 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 to take that word into our mouths that 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 power in prayer lies in the plea, Lord, do as you have 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 the appropriate promise in the scriptures, the Spirit of God comes in, teaches us all things, and brings to our remembrance everything that our Lord has told us. Then there is guidance. He guides us in prayer. Thus he helps our infirmities. 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 our counselor and points out to us that it is we, what it is that we should seek at the hands of God. We don't know why it is so, but we sometimes find our minds carried as by a strong undercurrent into a particular line of prayer for some definite purpose. It's 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 within our hearts. This so presses upon us that we not only utter the desire before God at our ordinary times for prayer, but also 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 can count on good success in our pleadings. The Spirit will give such guidance to each of you if you'll ask Him to illuminate you. He will guide you both negatively and positively. Negatively, he will forbid you to pray for certain things, like Paul tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit suffered him not. On the other hand, he will cause you to hear a cry within your soul that will guide your petitions, even as he made Paul to hear the cry from Macedonia, saying, come over into Macedonia and help us. The Spirit teaches wisely, as no other teacher can do. Those who obey his promptings will not walk in darkness. He leads the spiritual eye to take good and steady aim at the very center of the target, and thus we hit the mark in our pleadings. We'll continue next time with other things that the Holy Spirit does, things that we had never attributed to him. We think things just kind of happen inside our head. That's not true. The Holy Spirit's working. Let him work. At our very next podcast we will be talking about the persecuted church once more. The cries of that part of the body of Christ that we have just not understood because we haven't experienced it. We may be experiencing it soon. Things keep getting worse almost by the day. in America for Christians. But we haven't yet reached, we haven't yet resisted to blood, as one writer said. And blood is being shed all over our world, Christian blood. Your brothers, your sisters, your family is in dire, dire trouble. God is with them, of course, but they need our help, our prayer, and whatever else we can do. God will show you what that is, I'm sure. Okay, remember that the Spirit makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. Amen.