Quite a few of your brothers and sisters have been inquiring about this matter of prayer and the weather on my behalf. So, before we go to the Word of God and share tonight, I would like to make an announcement.
I have just passed from the critical stage of asking and pleading into that triumphant phase of thanksgiving. Since the weather will not adjust to me, I find that I will adjust to the weather.
As a matter of fact, a little chorus came to me today that I tried a few years ago to teach some of the brothers and sisters down in Raleigh. I think I would like to teach you all this little chorus, because it deals with the weather.
It’s a happy day,
And I thank God for the weather.
It’s a happy day,
And I’m living it for my Lord.
It’s a happy day,
And things are going to get better,
Living each day by the promises of God’s Word.
Let us sing it once more, and then we will have no problems anymore in the conference regarding the weather whatsoever. We are just triumphant in the Lord.
It’s a happy day,
And I thank God for the weather.
It’s a happy day,
And I’m living it for my Lord.
It’s a happy day,
And things are going to get better,
Living each day by the promises of God’s Word.
Hallelujah.
Now, will you turn with me to Romans 8:26-27? We will be sharing tonight on the matter of prayer and the Holy Spirit.
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;
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.
Let us turn to the Lord.
Lord, we thank You and praise You this evening that we can be together in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Lord, we know that You are in the midst of us according to Your promises. We thank You that we know that apart from You we can do nothing.
Lord, we realize this even tonight. But we also thank You that You have said that through Him we can do all things. Lord, we stand tonight in our own weakness, but also in that strength which is ours through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
We ask You, Lord, to make that a reality: that we may indeed hear Your Word and be able to speak within Your authority and in Your power. In Jesus’ name, may You be glorified tonight. This is our desire, for You alone are worthy. In Jesus’ name, amen.
I believe that one reason many brothers and sisters have difficulty getting into a deeper experience in prayer is that we have such a lack of understanding concerning the operation of the Person of the Holy Spirit in prayer.
What we need, when we really want to get into the prayer life, is not a method. Many Christians are looking for methods, but we do not need a method. What we need is an encounter with the Person of the Holy Spirit. He alone is able to lead us into prayer and teach us to pray.
I think we can divide Christians into three categories in the matter of prayer.
There are those who know their weakness, and so they do not pray. They realize that they are weak and are not able to pray. In other words, they know not. We may call them “know-not Christians.”
They make their lack of knowledge and their lack of ability an excuse for not praying. This was never what the Lord wanted. He has said that apart from Him we can do nothing, and we are weak. We do not know how to pray. But He has said something more: through Him we can do all things, including prayer.
The Spirit comes to help our weakness. Therefore, it is not sufficient, in the eyes of the Lord, to remain a know-not Christian.
Then, of course, there is another category: those who know how. I think this is an expression invented in the United States: “know-how.” We speak of giving know-how to the underdeveloped world, and there are some Christians who are know-how Christians. They just know how to do it.
So they pray. But in the eyes of the Lord, they do not pray, because what they are doing is not reckoned as prayer at all. They may be using natural ability. Perhaps they are able to make themselves clear. They have fine language. But this is not prayer.
The first category has a basic problem. It is not that they are weak, but that they have a lack of faith in the Person and workings of the Holy Spirit. This is the basic lack of those I call know-not Christians.
Those who know how have another basic lack in their lives: they ignore the Person and workings of the Holy Spirit.
Then there is a third category, and that is the category I call “know-Him Christians.” They know Him. They know the Person of the Holy Spirit, and they know how to trust Him entirely for their prayer life.
This is the kind of Christian the Lord wants to make every one of us: a know-Him Christian regarding prayer. We may indeed know that wonderful Person of the Holy Spirit, who is able to lead us and supply us with everything we need in order to pray.
I will never forget when the Lord really opened my eyes and showed me that one problem I had regarding my prayer life was that it was centered around me. Whenever there was a big need, I could get down on my knees and start praying, because it was a personal need.
Even if there was a need in the church or in the family, I could pray. But at times when there was no need, I did not pray, because what motivated me was the need.
One day the Lord told me that this is not the motivation for prayer. The motivation for prayer is to be Spirit-motivated, not need-motivated: to know Him, the living Person of the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of grace and supplication, the Spirit of grace and prayer.
Oh, how exciting it is to discover the Person of the Holy Spirit in this matter of prayer, and to come alive to the fact that He is with us. He has come to abide with us, and He dwells within us.
I would say, finally, that every born-again believer can pray, can pray as long as the Lord wants him to pray, and can pray as well as the Lord wants him to pray.
There are no excuses whatsoever that we can use regarding prayer. We cannot keep saying, “Well, I am too weak, and I do not know what to pray, so I stay home from the prayer meeting because I am so weak.” All the rest of the friends may think you are spiritual, but you are a know-not Christian. That is what you are.
We cannot tell the Lord that we cannot pray and have no ability. We have come to put the emphasis on the negative side. This is never what the Lord meant us to do. He wants us to see that it is true: we cannot pray, we do not know what to pray about, and we are certainly weak.
But the Spirit comes and helps our weakness. Hallelujah! He really does. There is no time when you and I cannot find the place of praying. If we have the desire to pray, He will be there immediately to assist us and help us.
I love that expression, that name of the Holy Spirit: He is the Helper. He is the Helper. He is the great Teacher. Did not the Lord tell us that He will guide us into all truth? That includes the truth about prayer and intercession.
We do not need to look for outward help—any method, any prayer book, or any system that can help us fill out the time when we go to a prayer meeting.
I shall never forget when the Lord began to speak to us about having all-night prayer. We had that privilege several times in the work in Copenhagen: to stay together throughout the whole night.
When we announced that the Lord had put this upon our hearts, a lot of brothers and sisters came and said, “Well, what bothers us is not that we will become weak and that it will be a little difficult the next morning.”
There could be a problem, but listen to what the Lord says in Romans 8:11. This is one of the promises I have laid hold of when we have been in extended times of prayer—all-night prayer.
But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you,
He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall give life also to your mortal bodies
through His Spirit that dwelleth in you.
Isn’t that wonderful? He can even quicken our bodies so that we are able to pray all night through and not have any loss of strength or power if we are to go to work the next morning. I have experienced it myself. He is able to quicken our mortal bodies.
But that was not the only reason some of the brothers and sisters were worried about these all-night prayers. They said, “How on earth are we going to be able to fill out that whole time?” One brother said to me, “All I have got is one prayer. Do you want me to repeat it every fifteen minutes?”
This is part of our problem. We are looking for a send-up prayer that we can shoot toward heaven every now and then. Brothers and sisters, that is such a lack of trust in the life and workings of the Holy Spirit.
He is able, I tell you, to burden us in such a way that you will not believe how seven hours can go by. You look at your watch and say, “My word, is it six o’clock in the morning? We have only just started!”
He can burden our hearts in such a way that we cannot get away from praying. Oh, there are such marvelous opportunities and experiences ahead of us, such adventures in prayer, if we could only see beyond our inadequacy, beyond our weakness, and get out of the fear of being weak.
Look to the Lord. Do not look to your weakness. Look to the One who is the Helper and can help us in a most amazing way in prayer.
We do not have to look for any formula of prayer. There is no such thing in the Word of God as a method of prayer. Not even the Lord’s Prayer is meant to be a standard prayer that we merely repeat.
A man from the Lutheran church in Denmark once asked me whether I was not greatly excited by the thought that every Sunday, in about two thousand Lutheran churches, this wonderful prayer would be said. I looked at him and said, “No, I am not sure that it impresses me at all.”
Prayer has nothing to do with a system, a method, or a standard prayer. Prayer is a matter of spirit. It is not even words sometimes. You do not even have to have words. It is a matter of spirit.
Listen to these words in Romans 8:26: “With groanings too deep for words.” It is a matter of spirit; it is not a matter of words.
If you turn to Matthew 6, you will see that there is something we call prayer that the Lord does not reckon to be prayer. Matthew 6:7:
And in praying use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do:
for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
Meaningless repetition has nothing to do with prayer. I do not think that anything fantastic is going to happen in Denmark because we have a repetition of a prayer in our churches every Sunday.
It is not a matter of many words. Sometimes it is not even a matter of words. It is a matter of prayer in the Spirit. This is what Scripture calls prayer.
If you go to James 4, you will see that we have these categories described there: those that know not, those that know how, and those that know Him.
James 4 says, “You have not, because you ask not.” These are those who know not. They know they do not know how to pray, so they do not pray. Because they do not pray, they do not have.
Then it goes on in James 4:3:
Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss,
that ye may spend it in your pleasures.
This is the other category: those who know how. They have natural ability and natural desire, and they want things for themselves. This is not prayer, and it is not answered.
But when you go down to verse 5:
Or think ye that the Scripture speaketh in vain?
Doth the Spirit which He made to dwell in us long unto envying?
This is all set in the context of prayer. What the Lord desires, what He is looking for, is the Spirit whom He made to dwell within us. As soon as the Spirit comes forth, then we have prayer. Then it is prayer. Then we know Him.
We know the One who is able to make us pray, and to make us pray in such a way that our prayers touch the heart of the Father.
Meaningless repetition is something we often find when we are sensitive only to our needs and do not know the Spirit. We pray for so many needs that it becomes a problem for some Christians. Whenever they go to their prayer time and begin to pray, all kinds of things come into their minds that they ought to pray for.
I spoke with a Norwegian pastor a few years ago, and he said to me, “I have such a problem in prayer. Whenever I go to seek the Lord and start to pray, all the different subjects of prayer that ought to be covered come to me.”
“Suddenly I realize, ‘Lord, what am I going to speak on next Sunday? Lord, what about the conference coming up? Who am I going to invite? Lord, by the way, how are we going to get the money to pay the rent for the house?’”
All kinds of things come in. They pile up, and it becomes a lot of words.
Oh, we must learn to know the operation of the Holy Spirit in prayer. We must learn to center on Him in prayer so that He will be able to help us and lead us into prayer.
I often think of this matter of prayer in terms of communication. Forgive me, because I have been in telecommunications—telephone and telegraph systems—and I often think of these kinds of communications when I think of prayer.
I think of heaven as a large telegraph station. The dear Lord will forgive me for changing His wonderful paradise into such an earthly place, but it illustrates it for you.
Whenever somebody prays on earth, a telegram is brought through the head office by angels going up and down, as we learned in Sunday school through the ladder of Jacob. They go down to get our prayer telegrams and go back to deliver them into the telegraph office.
There is a responsible angel in charge, and he looks through that fantastic pile of telegrams coming in. Somebody is sending a telegram: “God, send me fifty dollars.” “Lord, help my wife; she is using too much money.” “Lord, I need a new pair of shoes.”
A lot of prayer requests, a lot of prayers, friends. Then the angel looks through that big pile. He is looking for something.
There are three different kinds of telegrams. There is a telegram marked “know not.” There is a telegram marked “know how.” And there is a telegram marked “know Him”—those that have been in touch with the Spirit.
As soon as he gets the telegram marked “know Him,” a prayer through the Spirit, he takes it out of the pile and passes it on to the Father. The Father takes it and delivers it to another angel in charge of the great heavenly storehouse, with all kinds of good and wonderful things.
Then He says, “Please deliver it.” But do you know what happens with all the other telegrams? They go into the largest wastepaper basket, or litter bin, in the whole universe.
There is something we call prayer that is not prayer at all. Everything that is not born of the Spirit cannot touch the throne.
If you are looking for a method, I am afraid you will be greatly disappointed. I have no method to offer. If you are looking for suitable words or phrases, well, we have enough of them, and we learn them from one another.
Sometimes when you go to a prayer meeting, you can hear that they have all picked up the same phrases in prayer. They are all praying the same prayer and praying the same way because they want to be like the pastor. He is praying so beautifully.
We have no method to offer. We really do not know how to pray. Even when we think we do know, we do not know how to pray. We have no way, and we are weak. But the Spirit comes and helps our weakness.
That is the key to entering into a deeper prayer life and an effective prayer life.
Weakness is no problem. It has never been a problem with God. We think it is a problem that we are weak, but it is not a problem with God that we are weak. On the contrary, the basic qualification for becoming a real man or woman of prayer is simply to know that we are weak and stay in our own weakness.
If you are one of these know-not Christians and feel so inadequate that you have withdrawn out of fear from joining prayer and prayer meetings because you really feel weak and do not know how to express yourself, well, congratulations. You are just the one the Lord is looking for.
You are just the one who has the possibility of coming into a real, effective prayer life. Weakness is no problem for God. It never has been.
Weakness can never limit God. He is not limited by human vessels that are weak and inadequate and do not know how to express themselves. There are other things that can limit God in our lives, but not weakness.
Look at Paul. Turn to 2 Corinthians 12:9-10.
And He hath said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee:
for My power is made perfect in weakness.
Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weaknesses,
that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Wherefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities,
in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake:
for when I am weak, then am I strong.
Weakness is no limitation for God. On the contrary, it is a possibility for God to operate in us. I would rather be a know-not than a know-how in prayer. I would rather be in that position of being aware of my own weakness and knowing that I am not able to pray.
But most of all, I would be a know-Him Christian. When Paul speaks about his weakness, he does not stop there. He goes on and says, “When I am weak, then am I strong.” He is finding the possibilities of the Lord to work in him and through him.
Paul has chosen that position. He has come into a situation where he has learned to trust the Holy Spirit. Oh, this is what we need more than anything else: to trust the Holy Spirit.
When Paul preached, he was in the same situation. He had willingly left every external method, natural ability, natural resource, and every part of his educational background that might help him express himself with wonderful words.
He had willingly left the know-how position in order to come down to the know-not position, so that he could come into the know-Him position: “When I am weak, then I am strong.”
We do not know how to pray, but the Spirit helps our weakness. I like the way it is put: He helps our weakness. He never helps our strength. He never helps our ability.
He is not there to polish our prayers so that they become a little more attractive. Not at all. He will not support or sustain anything of our own. He is there to do all the work Himself.
Weakness is no limitation. Praise His name! What a possibility. What a gospel when we think of prayer.
What freedom! How all the burdens are lifted, because we are not the ones who have to strain and pull ourselves together to get into this hard matter of praying and enduring while we grit our teeth and try to go through the whole night in an all-night prayer meeting.
Oh, no, thank God. We can come as empty as we are. Every time I go to a prayer meeting, I feel that I am not able. Sometimes, when we are sitting before the meeting and looking at one another, we almost expect to run away from the whole thing. We do not know what to do with that prayer meeting.
A prayer meeting is sometimes the most difficult meeting to manage because we cannot manage it, and we ought not to manage it. It is the responsibility of the Holy Spirit.
Many times I have sat down in a chair and thought in my heart, “Oh, if I could be home in my bed. I feel so heavy.” But as soon as we bow down and open our hearts to the Lord, oh, how many times I have left a prayer meeting so refreshed, so rejoicing, so glad, so satisfied, and so excited.
Weakness is no limitation, and therefore it cannot be an excuse. You can no longer hide yourself behind your weakness.
The Lord is calling you to a life of prayer not based on your ability but, on the contrary, based on your inability. You have to come to the Lord sometime and say that you trust the Holy Spirit. You trust His ability. You trust the Helper to come into operation in your life, teach you, guide you into all truth, and give you divine supply and energy.
Then you are able to begin to pray and to continue praying as long as the Lord wants you to pray. Even if He wants you to pray all night through, it is possible. It has been possible for me and many others, and it is possible for you because there is a Helper, and He is able.
He knows the will of God, and He can direct us into that will. Not only that, He can direct us into the very burden upon God’s heart and make us partakers of that burden.
I tell you, my friend, you will be so stirred that you may even begin to cry. I have been surprised sometimes when I have looked at myself in prayer. Usually I am a very calm person in prayer and pray very silently.
But sometimes, when the Spirit is interceding in us and leading us into the burden upon God’s heart, we begin to cry unto God and sense those deep groanings that cannot be uttered in words. Oh, what a burden God can give you and me through the Holy Spirit, and that will get us down to the work of prayer.
Not even our own foolishness is a limitation. Look at 1 Corinthians 1:27-28.
But God chose the foolish things of the world,
that He might put to shame them that are wise;
and God chose the weak things of the world,
that He might put to shame the things that are strong;
and the base things of the world, and the things that are despised, did God choose,
yea and the things that are not, that He might bring to nought the things that are.
Perhaps you are foolish. That is no excuse either. You may be weak, but you may also be foolish. But that is no excuse. He has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame those things that are something.
God is not looking for you to present fine prayers or a strong ability. He has the wonderful supply. He can make you whatever He wants to make you through that blessed Holy Spirit, the Spirit of grace and supplication.
It is neither weakness nor foolishness, lack of understanding, nor not knowing that hinders God. It is natural cleverness that can hinder God. It is past experience that can hinder God. It is man-made systems, methods, and standard ideas of how to pray. All the churches are full of these things. These can hinder God.
There are other things that can hinder God. If we grieve that Holy Spirit, we are not able to pray. Many times in my life, I have known that the most sensitive part of my Christian life is my prayer life.
If something is not as it ought to be between me and the Lord, or between me and my brothers and sisters, immediately it is felt in the prayer life.
Sometimes something happens in the family. I have a nice family, a wonderful wife, and a wonderful marriage. We have been married for more than twenty years. But now and then we have trouble over one of the children, or perhaps in our own relationship.
Sometimes a little word that is too harsh or too hard has been uttered, often on the way out of the house when I am going somewhere to minister. Then, when I arrive at the place of ministry and seek the Lord’s face, I feel that something is not released in me. I cannot pray.
The only thing I can do is get the telephone. Even if I have been quite a distance away, there is something called a long-distance call. I get to that telephone, lift up the receiver, call home, and say these little words: “Forgive me, darling. I am sorry.”
This is what can hinder prayer. Do you know that this is what Peter tells us in 1 Peter 3:7?
Ye husbands, in like manner, dwell with your wives according to knowledge,
giving honor unto the woman, as unto the weaker vessel,
as being also joint-heirs of the grace of life;
to the end that your prayers be not hindered.
Weakness is no hindrance, thank God. Natural inability is no hindrance. Foolishness is no hindrance. Lack of understanding is no hindrance. But to grieve that sensitive Holy Spirit—that will finish us as far as prayer is concerned.
There is another matter concerning our brothers and sisters, found in Mark 11. The Lord is teaching on prayer in Mark 11:24-25.
Therefore I say unto you, All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for,
believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
And whensoever ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against any one;
that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.
These are the real hindrances to prayer in our lives. The Spirit helps us, and as long as the Spirit can work freely in us—first of all, by our trusting Him, really trusting Him and believing that the Spirit is within and able to help us in prayer—and as long as we have a pure conscience before the Lord and before one another, then we are ready and able to pray and give ourselves to prayer.
The Spirit helps us. Now, how does the Spirit help us? What is the Spirit going to do?
We must consider ourselves to be vessels, instruments for prayer. The Spirit is going to use us. We are not the ones at the center; we are instruments that the Spirit is going to use.
What will the Spirit do? The Spirit will take of that which belongs to the Lord Jesus, and He will give it unto us.
This is something we often think of when we are witnessing for the Lord, preaching, or teaching His Word: we need the Holy Spirit to come and take of that which is Christ and give it unto us, so that we may share what has been given to us by the Spirit.
But this also applies to prayer. The Spirit will take of that which is Christ and give it unto us.
Do you know that there is One who is praying as no one could ever pray, day and night? That is that wonderful High Priest, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the great Intercessor, interceding day and night before the Father for all the saints.
There is such powerful, such strong prayer and intercession coming before the Father from His dear Son. How is the Spirit going to help us in prayer? The Spirit is going to take of that which is Christ, take of His burden in prayer and intercession, and give it unto us.
Oh, how marvelous that is: that we become co-intercessors with the Lord Jesus Himself, that we become partakers of His prayer ministry, His ministry of intercession. Somehow, a little of that burning fire which is in the Lord Jesus Christ can fall into our hearts, and we can join with Him in praying and interceding before our Father for all the saints.
This is how the Spirit helps us. This is why it says that when the Spirit helps us, He makes us partakers of those groanings that are so deep they cannot be uttered in words. He guides us into the very prayers and intercession of the High Priest Himself.
Oh, brothers and sisters, we have such small ideas of what prayer and intercession are. Our prayers are centered around our needs, and when we begin to pray, the needs pile up.
It is like someone speaking to us on the telephone who keeps speaking and speaking and speaking, and nobody at the other end can get a word in.
A lady phoned me some months ago. When I lifted the receiver, she began telling me about her daughter. She had been downtown, met a certain person, and did I know that person was going to be married soon? They were all invited to the wedding, and so on and so on.
While she was talking, I tried to say something, but I did not get a chance. It was like a machine gun. She kept on for ten or fifteen minutes, and then suddenly she said, “Well, that was what I wanted to say to you. I must go now.”
Then I said, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. I think you have got the wrong number.”
Well, I do feel that sometimes the Lord is sitting at that great switchboard in heaven, and all the calls are coming in. The line is connected to the Lord, and then we begin: “Lord, help my wife. Help my children. Lord, bless my wallet. Bless my dog. Help me, Lord; I am going broke.”
We speak, and we speak, and we speak, and the Lord is trying to say, “Oh, wait a minute. There is just something I would like to add here.” But we never give Him any opportunity to speak to us.
Oh, we have such small ideas about what prayer is about. But when the Spirit comes and helps us, He guides us into a much greater prayer perspective.
He makes us partakers of the intercession and prayer ministry of the Lord Jesus Himself. Even if we thought, when we went down to pray, that we ought to pray for this and that, as we wait upon the Lord and allow the Spirit to lead and guide us, we end up praying for something else.
God has something upon His heart too. God has something deep in His heart that He would like to share with us. God has something that appears to make Him almost desperate in His love for lost humanity, in His longing and desire to see His spiritual house built and Zion become a reality.
When the Spirit leads us and comes to help us, we become partakers of His prayer ministry.
If you study the Lord’s Prayer, you will see that this is the place where the Lord says that we do not have to tell Him all these needs we have, describe them in detail, or tell Him our life story—what we have been doing from morning until night.
“Lord, this morning I went out at six o’clock. I went to the baker’s shop. I met this person, and then I had lunch. Then I met this sister and that brother. We had this meeting, Lord,” and so on and so forth. We tell Him our whole life story, and He knows everything about it even before we experience it.
He knows our needs. We do not have to tell Him all these things.
The great prayer the Lord gave us opens with:
Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done.
It is a God-centered prayer. The emphasis is not upon me, not upon our needs at least, but upon Him.
When the Holy Spirit is leading us, He makes us partakers of the burden that is upon our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let us go to Zechariah 12 and see another Scripture. This is where the Holy Spirit is named “the Spirit of grace and supplication.” Zechariah 12:10:
And I will pour upon the house of David,
and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
the Spirit of grace and of supplication;
and they shall look unto Me whom they have pierced;
and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son,
and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born.
The Spirit of grace and supplication. The Spirit comes and helps us. How does He help us? He takes that which is Christ and gives it unto us.
How does He take that which is of Christ and give it to us? He guides us to the only place for grace: the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It is at the foot of that cross that we partake in the burden of God. It is there that prayer does not become a matter of pulling oneself together or finding the best words we can, but prayer becomes a rushing of water inside—something moving deep within us.
It is no longer a matter of finding the best words we can find, taking the words, and putting them together into a beautiful prayer. It becomes something deep within, including groanings so deep that sometimes we stop speaking because we simply cannot find the words.
Oh, prayer is a matter of grace in the first place. None of us can ever become a great warrior in prayer if we have not come to that place of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ and seen Him, and beheld Him who was pierced.
At that place of grace, the Spirit of grace turns into a spirit of supplication and a spirit of prayer—so irresistible, so burdened, so fervent, so strong—that we cannot but pray.
Some think that when we pray for sinners in the world, what ought to motivate us is that we really see the needs of these poor sinners. But I tell you, we cannot through that way come into a real ministry of intercession for a lost world. This is not enough.
We have to come to that place where the Holy Spirit draws the veil from our eyes and we behold the Lord Jesus Christ in His agony for sinners—seeing Him in His pain and realizing that He died to reconcile every creature, every human being, and died to forgive not only our sins but the sins of the whole world.
When we come by that Spirit of grace to that place of grace, and we look into that marvelous love of God, seeing how He loved the world so deeply that He offered His Son and the blood of His Son to pay for that guilt and debt, it is never then a question of how we should pray.
It becomes like a rush of water within us. It becomes such a power within us.
It is as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15:
For the love of Christ constraineth us;
because we thus judge, that One died for all, therefore all died;
and He died for all, that they that live should no longer live unto themselves,
but unto Him who for their sakes died and rose again.
The words “the love of Christ constraineth us” are translated in other versions as “the love of Christ controls us.” I have been told that the original meaning carries the idea of a rushing river or flood.
When Paul felt captive to preach the gospel to sinners, and his heart burned to present the gospel to the Gentile world, it was certainly not because he had some natural compassion for his fellow human beings.
No, it was because he had been led to that place where, by the Spirit of grace, he beheld the Son of God—He who died for all mankind, who offered up His life for every human being, and who took and bore the guilt and penalty of all sin upon His body.
When he saw it, oh, brothers and sisters, it was not a question of offering a tiny, fine little prayer. He became so burdened that he said, “Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel.”
We can say the same. When the Spirit of God leads us to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, opening our eyes so that we see His agony, pain, blood, cross, and love for a lost world, we become intercessors for America, Britain, and Denmark.
That wonderful missionary, Zinzendorf, never became a missionary because he felt sorry for those people down there.
No. Once he went into a little village church to pray and seek the Lord. Having spent some time in prayer, he opened his eyes and saw, at the end of the church, a painting of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.
Somehow he was taken captive by that vision. The eyes of the Lord seemed to look down upon him. Underneath that cross was written:
This have I done for thee.
What hast thou done for Me?
When he rose from that time of prayer, the call of the Lord burned in his heart. He could never get away from it.
Oh, the Holy Spirit is able to make us missionaries, evangelists, praying people, and intercessors, because He takes that which is Christ, reveals it unto us, and gives us of that burden.
I shall never forget how the Lord led me into intercession for Denmark and for a few other countries. I never had any particular burden for unsaved people until I had the encounter with the Holy Spirit that I will speak of now.
I am so glad that Paul did not say that the love of me constrains me. I am so glad, because Paul did not love people by nature, and neither do I. We are weak. We do not know how. But there is something called the love of Christ.
There is such a supply of love by the Holy Spirit that we can partake in His love.
I was invited to preach in tent meetings in my early days as an evangelist. When I came to that town in summertime, the pastor of the large Pentecostal church could not receive me because he had gone to see some friends.
They put me in a hotel room and said they would be back within twenty-four hours. Then we would fellowship, and then we would begin the meetings. I was so glad to have that time, because I got down to pray right away and seek the Lord for the coming ministry.
As I prayed, I felt such an emptiness within. I felt such weakness. I felt that I was not able at all to feel anything for the people to whom I was going to minister.
So I turned to the Lord and said, “Lord, please help me. I cannot go into that ministry unless You touch me. You must do something for me. I cannot take it by myself. I have no way, Lord. I have no power. I have no compassion for souls.”
“You must do something, Lord. I will never be able to do something for You unless You do something in me.” That is true. It is the Spirit of grace that leads us into the spirit of prayer.
The Lord came to me in one of those few times in your lifetime when you have a special encounter with the Lord. I actually saw in a vision the Lord at the cross.
He did not speak to me. There was no need for Him to speak to me. All I saw was sufficient. I began to cry and weep before the Lord.
After one or two hours, I started to go down into the city to get something to drink. As I crossed the large square—it was the midsummer festival—I saw young people coming with big crates of beer, alcohol, and liquor. I saw them sitting in the restaurants.
Suddenly, it appeared to me that hell was painted upon their faces. It became so real to me that all these people would be lost forever without Christ.
I stood there paralyzed in that square. People passed me by, and some were looking around, perhaps trying to find a handkerchief or something to help me. I just ran back to my room.
I got down on my knees and said, “Lord, Lord, I cannot bear it. It is becoming too heavy for me. Lord, I cannot stand that burden. I cannot know that these people without You are lost for eternity.”
I prayed, and I prayed, and I prayed. I cried, and I sweat. In the morning I had to ask the Lord to take away that burden, because I could not stand it anymore. It was unbearable.
I suddenly realized the burden that is within the heart of God for a lost world: so strong, so filled with fire and compassion, that I can understand that there are within the Holy Spirit groanings that cannot be uttered.
By the way, it is the same thing when we speak of the church. We speak of the unity of the church, of being built up together, and we see all the divisions.
Brothers and sisters, merely looking through all the divisions will not make a deeper impression upon us. It will not make us pray for God to have His Zion and to have His church built in our age.
We must come to that place of grace and realize that He not only died to forgive the sins of people, but He died to make all the Lord’s people one in Him.
I tell you, brother and sister, if the Holy Spirit brings you to that place of grace and you behold the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, beginning to realize that He gave His life to obtain that unity and bring all His people into one, you will never be able to escape intercession for all the saints.
It will come upon you as a burden. You will cry to God that He will indeed melt together His people and knit together His people.
It is when the Spirit of grace can lead us to that place of grace that the spirit of prayer operates within us and through us. Oh, may the Lord help us to depend on the Holy Spirit.
Now, brothers and sisters, He is here. He is able to lead us right now. He can make you an intercessor right now. You can partake of His burden right now.
Do not hide yourself anymore behind your weakness and your inability. Do not rely on your know-how. But get to know, in a deeper way, Him who is able—Him who helps our weakness and intercedes for the saints in us according to the will of God, with groanings so strong that they cannot be uttered.
In His name, let us pray.
Lord, we ask that You should make us know-Him Christians in our prayer life. Oh God, touch our lives. Oh Lord, do something for us, that we may rise up and do something for You.
Lord, we realize that we need that divine touch. We do realize that we are weak, Father, and that we do not know how to pray. Lord, we look unto that wonderful, blessed, heavenly Helper—the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, that blessed Holy Spirit.
Oh, Holy Spirit, fall upon us. Come upon us. Work within us in these days. Burden us with Your prayer. Come with Your intercession.
Lord, give us a share in Your burden. Give us to be partakers of Your fire. Lord, we need it. We are sick and tired of all our own work.
Lord, we are sick and tired of all the small prayers when we have such a great God who sacrificed Himself. Lord, we want to come to You. We want You to make us a people of prayer and intercession.
We want You to make us vessels and instruments of the Holy Spirit. Lord, have mercy upon us. Lord, we pray. Thank You that You are able. We praise You in Jesus’ name. Amen.