The Spirit of Supplication
"I will pour upon the house of David the Spirit of grace and of
supplication."--ZECH. xii. 10.
"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. And He that searcheth the hearts
knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh
intercession for the saints according to God."--ROM. viii. 26, 27.
"With all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the
Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplication
for all the saints."--EPH. vi. 18.
"Praying in the Holy Spirit."--JUDE 20.
The Holy Spirit has been given to every child of God to be his life. He
dwells in him, not as a separate Being in one part of his nature, but as
his very life. He is the Divine power or energy by which his life is
maintained and strengthened. All that a believer is called to be or to
do, the Holy Spirit can and will work in him. If he does not know or
yield to the Holy Guest, the Blessed Spirit cannot work, and his life is
a sickly one, full of failure and of sin. As he yields, and waits, and
obeys the leading of the Spirit, God works in him all that is pleasing
in His sight.
This Holy Spirit is, in the first place, a Spirit of prayer. He was
promised as a "Spirit of grace and supplication," the grace for
supplication. He was sent forth into our hearts as "the Spirit of
adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." He enables us to say, in true
faith and growing apprehension of its meaning, Our Father which art in
heaven. "He maketh intercession for the saints according to God." And as
we pray in the Spirit, our worship is as God seeks it to be, "in spirit
and in truth." Prayer is just the breathing of the Spirit in us; power
in prayer comes from the power of the Spirit in us, waited on and
trusted in. Failure in prayer comes from feebleness of the Spirit's work
in us. Our prayer is the index of the measure of the Spirit's work in
us. To pray aright, the life of the Spirit must be right in us. For
praying the effectual, much-availing prayer of the righteous man
everything depends on being full of the Spirit.
There are three very simple lessons that the believer, who would enjoy
the blessing of being taught to pray by the Spirit of prayer, must know.
The first is: _Believe that the Spirit dwells in you_ (Eph. i. 13). Deep
in the inmost recesses of his being, hidden and unfelt, every child of
God has the Holy, Mighty Spirit of God dwelling in him. He knows it by
faith, the faith that, accepting God's word, realises that of which he
sees as yet no sign. "We receive the promise of the Spirit by faith." As
long as we measure our power, for praying aright and perseveringly, by
what we feel, or think we can accomplish, we shall be discouraged when
we hear of how much we ought to pray. But when we quietly believe that,
in the midst of all our conscious weakness, the Holy Spirit as a Spirit
of supplication is dwelling within us, _for the very purpose of enabling
us to pray in such manner and measure as God would have us_, our hearts
will be filled with hope. We shall be strengthened in the assurance
which lies at the very root of a happy and fruitful Christian life, that
_God has made an abundant provision for our being what He wants us to
be_. We shall begin to lose our sense of burden and fear and
discouragement about our ever praying sufficiently, because we see that
the Holy Spirit Himself will pray, is praying, in us.
The second lesson is: _Beware above everything of grieving the Holy
Spirit_ (Eph. iv. 30). If you do, how can He work in you the quiet,
trustful, and blessed sense of that union with Christ which makes your
prayers well pleasing to the Father? Beware of grieving Him by sin, by
unbelief, by selfishness, by unfaithfulness to His voice in conscience.
Do not think grieving Him a necessity: that cuts away the very sinews of
your strength. Do not consider it impossible to obey the command,
"Grieve not the Holy Spirit." He Himself is the very power of God to
make you obedient. The sin that comes up in you against your will, the
tendency to sloth, or pride, or self-will, or passion that rises in the
flesh, your will can, in the power of the Spirit, at once reject, and
cast upon Christ and His blood, and your communion with God is
immediately restored. Accept each day the Holy Spirit as your Leader and
Life and Strength; you can count upon Him to do in your heart all that
ought to be done there. He, the Unseen and Unfelt One, but known by
faith, gives there, unseen and unfelt, the love and the faith and the
power of obedience you need, because He reveals Christ unseen within
you, as actually your Life and Strength. Grieve not the Holy Spirit by
distrusting Him, because you do not feel His presence in you.
Especially in the matter of prayer grieve Him not. Do not expect, when
you trust Christ to bring you into a new, healthy prayer-life, that you
will be able all at once to pray as easily and powerfully and joyfully
as you fain would. No; it may not come at once. But just bow quietly
before God in your ignorance and weakness. That is the best and truest
prayer, to put yourself before God just as you are, and to count on the
hidden Spirit praying in you. "We know not what to pray as we ought";
ignorance, difficulty, struggle, marks our prayer all along. But, "the
Spirit helpeth our infirmities." How? "The Spirit Himself," deeper down
than our thoughts or feelings, "maketh intercession for us with
groanings which cannot be uttered." When you cannot find words, when
your words appear cold and feeble, just believe: The Holy Spirit is
praying in me. Be quiet before God, and give Him time and opportunity;
in due season you will learn to pray. Beware of grieving the Spirit of
prayer, by not honouring Him in patient, trustful surrender to His
intercession in you.
The third lesson: "_Be filled with the Spirit_" (Eph. v. 18). I think
that we have seen the meaning of the great truth: It is only the healthy
spiritual life that can pray aright. The command comes to each of us:
"Be filled with the Spirit." That implies that while some rest content
with the beginning, with a small measure of the Spirit's working, it is
God's will that we should be filled with the Spirit. That means, from
our side, that our whole being ought to be entirely yielded up to the
Holy Spirit, to be possessed and controlled by Him alone. And, from
God's side, that we may count upon and expect the Holy Spirit to take
possession and fill us. Has not our failure in prayer evidently been
owing to our not having accepted the Spirit of prayer to be our life; to
our not having yielded wholly to Him, whom the Father gave as the Spirit
of His Son, to work the life of the Son in us? Let us, to say the very
least, be willing to receive Him, to yield ourselves to God and trust
Him for it. Let us not again wilfully grieve the Holy Spirit by
declining, by neglecting, by hesitating to seek to have Him as fully as
He is willing to give Himself to us. If we have at all seen that prayer
is the great need of our work and of the Church, if we have at all
desired or resolved to pray more, let us turn to the very source of all
power and blessing--let us believe that the Spirit of prayer, even in
His fulness, is for us.
We all admit the place the Father and the Son have in our prayer. It is
to the Father we pray, and from whom we expect the answer. It is in the
merit, and name, and life of the Son, abiding in Him and He in us, that
we trust to be heard. But have we understood that in the Holy Trinity
all the Three Persons have an equal place in prayer, and that the faith
in the Holy Spirit of intercession as praying in us is as indispensable
as the faith in the Father and the Son? How clearly we have this in the
words, "Through Christ we have access by one Spirit to the Father." As
much as prayer must be _to_ the Father, and _through_ the Son, it must
be _by_ the Spirit. And the Spirit can pray in no other way in us, than
as He lives in us. It is only as we give ourselves to the Spirit living
and praying in us, that the glory of the prayer-hearing God, and the
ever-blessed and most effectual mediation of the Son, can be known by us
in their power. (Note D.)
Our last lesson: _Pray in the Spirit for all saints_ (Eph. vi. 18). The
Spirit, who is called "the Spirit of supplication," is also and very
specially the Spirit of intercession. It is said of Him, "the Spirit
Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be
uttered." "He maketh intercession for the saints." It is the same word
as is used of Christ, "who also maketh intercession for us." The thought
is essentially that of mediation--one pleading for another. When the
Spirit of intercession takes full possession of us, all selfishness, as
if we wanted Him separate from His intercession for others, and have Him
for ourselves alone, is banished, and we begin to avail ourselves of our
wonderful privilege to plead for men. We long to live the Christ-life of
self-consuming sacrifice for others, as our heart unceasingly yields
itself to God to obtain His blessing for those around us. Intercession
then becomes, not an incident or an occasional part of our prayers, but
their one great object. Prayer for ourselves then takes its true place,
simply as a means for fitting us better for exercising our ministry of
intercession more effectually.
May I be allowed to speak a very personal word to each of my readers? I
have humbly besought God to give me what I may give them--Divine light
and help truly to forsake the life of failure in prayer, and to enter,
even now, and at once, upon the life of intercession which the Holy
Spirit can enable them to lead. It can be done by a simple act of faith,
claiming the fulness of the Spirit, that is, the full measure of the
Spirit which you are capable in God's sight of receiving, and He is
therefore willing to bestow. Will you not, even now, accept of this by
faith?
Let me remind you of what takes place at conversion. Most of us, you
probably too, for a time sought peace in efforts and struggles to give
up sin and please God. But you did not find it thus. The peace of God's
pardon came by faith, trusting God's word concerning Christ and His
salvation. You had heard of Christ as the gift of His love, you knew
that He was for you too, you had felt the movings and drawings of His
grace; but never till in faith in God's word you accepted Him as God's
gift to you, did you know the peace and joy that He can give. Believing
in Him and His saving love made all the difference, and changed your
relation from one who had ever grieved Him, to one who loved and served
Him. And yet, after a time, you have a thousand times wondered you love
and serve Him so ill.
At the time of your conversion you knew little about the Holy Spirit.
Later on you heard of His dwelling in you, and His being the power of
God in you for all the Father intends you to be, and yet His indwelling
and inworking have been something vague and indefinite, and hardly a
source of joy or strength. At conversion you did not yet know your need
of Him, and still less what you might expect of Him. But your failures
have taught it you. And now you begin to see how you have been grieving
Him, by not trusting and not following Him, by not allowing Him to work
in you all God's pleasure.
All this can be changed. Just as you, after seeking Christ, and praying
to Him, and trying without success to serve Him, found rest in accepting
Him by faith, just so you may even now yield yourself to the full
guidance of the Holy Spirit, and claim and accept Him to work in you
what God would have. Will you not do it? Just accept Him in faith as
Christ's gift, to be the Spirit of your whole life, of your prayer-life
too, and you can count upon Him to take charge. You can then begin,
however feeble you feel, and unable to pray aright, to bow before God in
silence, with the assurance that He will teach you to pray.
My dear brother, as you consciously by faith accepted Christ, to pardon,
you can consciously now in the like faith accept of Christ who gives the
Holy Spirit to do His work in you. "Christ redeemed us that we might
receive the promise of the Spirit by faith." Kneel down, and simply
believe that the Lord Christ, who baptizeth with the Holy Spirit, does
now, in response to your faith, begin in you the blessed life of a full
experience of the power of the indwelling Spirit. Depend most
confidently upon Him, apart from all feeling or experience, as the
Spirit of supplication and intercession to do His work. Renew that act
of faith each morning, each time you pray; trust Him, against all
appearances, to work in you,--be sure He is working,--and He will give
you to know what the joy of the Holy Spirit is as the power of your
life.
"I will pour out the Spirit of supplication." Do you not begin to see
that the mystery of prayer is the mystery of the Divine indwelling. God
in heaven gives His Spirit in our hearts to be there the Divine power
praying in us, and drawing us upward to our God. God is a Spirit, and
nothing but a like life and Spirit within us can hold communion with
Him. It was for this man was created, that God might dwell and work in
Him, and be the life of his life. It was this Divine indwelling that sin
lost. It was this that Christ came to exhibit in His life, to win back
for us in His death, and then to impart to us by coming again from
heaven in the Spirit to live in His disciples. It is this, the
indwelling of God through the Spirit, that alone can explain and enable
us to appropriate the wonderful promises given to prayer. God gives the
Spirit as a Spirit of Supplication, too, to maintain His Divine life
within us as a life out of which prayer ever rises upward.
Without the Holy Spirit no man can call Jesus Lord, or cry, Abba,
Father; no man can worship in spirit and truth, or pray without ceasing.
The Holy Spirit is given the believer to be and do in him all that God
wants him to be or do. He is given him especially as the Spirit of
prayer and supplication. Is it not clear that everything in prayer
depends upon our trusting the Holy Spirit to do His work in us; yielding
ourselves to His leading, depending only and wholly on Him?
We read, "Stephen was a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit." The two
ever go together, in exact proportion to each other. As our faith sees
and trusts the Spirit in us to pray, and waits on Him, He will do His
work; and it is the longing desire, and the earnest supplication, and
the definite faith the Father seeks. Do let us know Him, and in the
faith of Christ who unceasingly gives Him, cultivate the assured
confidence, we can learn to pray as the Father would have us.
A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER