Romans 8, read verses 26 and
27 with me. Just a moment. Okay, let's read verses 26 and
27. Likewise, the Holy Spirit also
helpeth our infirmities. For we know not what we should
pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession
for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth
the hearts knoweth, that's God, knoweth what is the mind of the
Spirit, because he maketh intercession to the saints according to the
will of God. So many things here in Romans
8, and we're taking our time, as we should. Paul wrote in Romans 15, whatsoever
things were written aforetime were written for our learning,
that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might
have hope. And we just looked at that, didn't
we? We're saved by hope. And these things are written
for our learning that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures,
this is how we learn. This is how the Lord teaches
us, from His Word and experience. We experience His Word. We experience
the truth of what He's already said. We learn it. And these
things are written. Things like, verse 1, there's
no condemnation. They're there in Christ. For
our comfort, no condemnation. He talks about here in this chapter
the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Verse 14, as many as are led
by the Spirit. They're the sons of God. That's
for our comfort. We don't know where to go. We
don't know where to turn. But He does, and He leads us.
All of His people. Adoption. We looked at that.
Spirit of adoption. He's written these things Comfort. We have a heavenly Father who
adopted us and by whom we're born again. And if God is our
Father, we don't have anything to worry
about. We will worry, but we don't have anything to worry
about. And here, He gives us the promise of the Holy Spirit
to help us to pray. God's people are told to pray.
Our Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ prayed. Now, why would He pray? Huh? He knows the end from the
beginning. He is God and Manifestation.
Why would He pray? Well, He did. That's enough,
isn't it? He lived by faith. Though He
knew all things were working together for good. Though He
knew all things were according to God's purpose. Good, evil,
whatever it was. Though he knew the end from the
beginning, he prayed constantly, without ceasing. So what does
that say about us? He prayed. Here in these two
verses, I wanted us to devote some time, just these two verses.
It's going to be a real comfort to us. The promise of the Holy
Spirit to help us to pray. We're told to pray. To help us
to pray, to seek His will, and to do His will. There is no happiness
outside of God's will. And we may know His will. Did
not your father tell you what his will was when you were a
child? Huh? You didn't want to do it necessarily,
but he told you. Huh? We've got His real will right
here, written down. Everything. It's already there.
If we only seek to do it. Well, all of God's true people,
His children, pray. Like children, our children,
call upon us. Talk to us. Cry to us. From the
time they're born until they're old, they cry unto us, don't
they? They call upon us. They need us. They ask us for
help, don't they? It doesn't matter how old they
get. If we were more like God, we would never get impatient
with it. But all of God's true people, they pray. They pray. Verses 22 and 23, he says, We
know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain
together until now, and not only they, that is, animals, everything,
even plants, that ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of
the Spirit, born of the Spirit, born of God, We ourselves groan
within ourselves, waiting for the adoption to wit, that is,
the redemption of our body, and we're saved by hope. And so we
pray. We're waiting, we're groaning,
we're crying, and we pray without ceasing. All of God's people
pray without ceasing, one way or another. Pray and study, and I urge every
man in here to join us down there before the worship service on
Wednesday evening. It's a good time together and
we're praying, asking the Lord to bless us. The men pray down there, and
you don't have to pray to join us down there. But the men do
pray, and it's a burden on men. It's a burden. You want to know
what to pray, don't you? Well, how often do you feel like
you've prayed with any ability at all? Do you ever feel like
that? Never. We all feel so unfit to
lead our brethren in prayer. We feel unable, don't we? Don't
know what to pray. And so we keep praying the same
things, don't we? Every man prays the same things. Because there's one thing they
need. Lord, help us. Lord, be merciful to them. Lord,
meet with us. Lord, speak to us through your
word. Lord, we want to worship you. Isn't that it? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Forgive
us. Forgive us. Amen. That's about
it. Isn't it? What else is there? Save our children. One of the
men came up to me, one of our big men, came up. I consider him a man, not just
an appearance, but a man. Came up after he prayed, and
big tears running down his face. He said, I don't know how to
pray. And I quoted this verse to him,
and it seemed of him. We don't know what to pray for,
but the Holy Spirit, He knows. He knows what you're trying to
ask. He knows what you ask Him is. He knows what you need to
ask. So this is for Him. This is for
that fellow that said, I don't know what to pray for. Well,
this is for you. And this is for every one of you that feels
the same way. We want God's will, don't we?
Yet we struggle with our flesh. Our flesh is against the Spirit. It lusts against the Spirit.
Our flesh wants what it wants. And we just can't hardly help
it, can we? Well, He knows that. He knows
our frame. And it gives us this promise
of the Spirit's help. We need help. Verse 26 says,
The Spirit helpeth our infirmity. Infirmity means weakness. It means unsoundness, infirm. Something that's not firm is
something that's unsound. It's got some weaknesses, some
weak tendencies. Oh, do we have weak tendencies?
From the top of our head, our mind, to our walk, to our feet.
Weak tendencies. Sickness. Infermity means sick. Sometimes I think my whole head
is sick. My heart is faint. James 5. Go over to James chapter
5. He deals with prayer, doesn't
he? James chapter 5. Look at verse
13 and 14. It is any among you afflicted,
infirm? Let him pray. Any happy? Sing. We forget to sing under the Lord,
don't we? If things are going well. Any
sick among you? Alright. You got a bulletin. I forgot to give a bulletin.
Somebody give me a bulletin. Look at this article by Thomas
Matten in our bulletin. This is wonderful. The first
article. Look at it. This is just wonderful. And these
men the Lord raised up years ago. I love them. But he, from this verse we just
read, he says the only way to relieve distress is this. God
afflicts us, and all affliction, whatever happens, is of the Lord.
You know that? We're going to look at that in
the next hour. All things work together. He's working them. He's doing them. Good, evil. Is that right? Yeah. He afflicts us not so that
we will swallow our grief or just accept it, but vent them
in prayer. Do you ever feel the need to
vent, women? To vent to your husband? Let
off steam or just got somebody, you need somebody to listen to
you. Well, these things are sent for us to pray. So much of the
time, to our shame, we're not calling on Him. And we have no
other way, read it, we have no other way to relieve ourselves
in any distress but by serious, sincere addresses of prayer to
God. Are you reading it? This is the
means appointed by God to procure our comfort to the distressed
mind. It procures our safety to those
who are in danger. Are you in danger? Well, who
is our shield? One. This is the only means to
relieve them that are in want, need, strength to them that are
weak. Are you weak? In short, the only means for
obtaining good and removing evil, whether it's temptations, dangers,
enemies, sin, sorrows, fears, cares, poverty, shame, sickness,
God is our only help. against these things. Prayer
is the means to obtain relief from him. Yes, all grace and
strength and the greatest mercies that we desire and stand in need
of. He is God. The only place to
turn. Remember Jehoshaphat and the
people, the little ones standing before the Lord? They said, we
don't know what to do. We're at our wits end. We don't
know where to turn. Our enemies are all around us.
Help us. Willie? He's faithful. We know not. Look at James 4. Is it still
there? James 4, verses 1 through 3. We just went through this
whole book. We need to go through it again.
James 4. From whence come wars and fighting
among you? Where do most of our struggles
and problems come from? Read on. Do they not come from
your own lusts and your memories? You lust and have not. You want something and you kill
and desire it. I'll just die if I don't get
that. Oh, man. You cannot obtain it. Fight and
war causes all kind of friction within and without. You have
not because you ask not. When you ask, you ask and you
receive not. You ask amiss. You ask for the
wrong thing. Consume it on your own lust. This is what I want. Lord, this
is what I want. wrong attitude. But he knows
that. He knows that. Before you said
it, he knew it. There's not a word in my... Psalm
139. Who does not love Psalm 139?
There's not a word in my mouth, you don't know it all together.
You know my thoughts are fired up. You know what I'm going to
say before I say it. Ain't that wonderful? Like we know our children. And our text says we know not
what we should pray for as we ought. And so we ask amiss. We ask for the wrong thing. Thomas
Matten said this also. He said, we often beg a mischief
to ourselves instead of a blessing. We often beg a mischief to ourselves
instead of a blessing. In other words, we often beg
and seek something that's not good for us instead of a blessing. Here's how our Lord Jesus Christ
prayed. Not my will, but thy will be
done. Father, if it be possible for
this cup to pass from, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, come what may. Not my will, but
thy will. So we need help, don't we? Alright? Like little children,
we have our hearts often set on something or someone. And we ask the Lord to bless
it. What we've already decided that we're going to do. Anybody. Everybody. We have our minds
and our hearts set on something and say, this is what I'm going
to do. Bless it. That's not the thing to do. That's
not the way to go. And God may give us that thing
or that person and teach us a severe and painful lesson. So we get
it. We get what we want. And we say
it must be God's will or it wouldn't have happened. We're blaming
God for doing what we intend to do all along. And so he had it. And boy, we end up hurting,
don't we? And we hurt others. And we're
taught a severe lesson. And there's so many examples
in Scriptures of God's people doing this. They all did it.
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Jacob. Oh, happy is he that hath
the God of Jacob for his help. Jacob ran. Scared. He came to Bethel, the house
of God. Should have stayed right there and never left. Nope. I'm going to put down a ramp.
I'm going down there where I can make money. And boy, he did.
He got rich, but he had nothing but trouble. And all his twelve
sons and wives and children and grandchildren had nothing but
trouble. The story of Dinah is in that. Nothing but trouble. For the whole time he was there.
Was that God's will? No, it's God's will, revealed
will for him to stay right there at Bethel. Well, he went. Well, it all worked out. Look,
I'm making money. Yeah. Must be God's will. Everything's succeeding. We don't have much wisdom. You
know where Jacob ended up? Bethel. Right back where he started. And wished, what's your name? Wesley. He wished he'd never
gone to Badarin. Wished he'd never been there.
Came back from places he wished he'd never been. Must be God's will. It's working
out. Yeah, after you're hurt, and
the hurt of others. But God, but God is so merciful
and gracious and will teach us such a chastening and bring you
back now. Do you understand? This is my
will. This is my will. God's will,
God's word. is our happiness. Better to wait.
You know, patience is always better than impulse, isn't it?
Always. Impulse is always wrong. Isn't it? No. What does the scriptures
teach us more than anything else? Wait on the Lord. Wait, I say. What is the hardest thing on
earth for a human being to do? Wait. Why? I want that. True prayer is patiently waiting. It's calling on the Lord, presenting
our petition. Lord, You know I want this. I'm
not having this. He knows anyway. Why hide it?
Lord, I want this. But I don't want this if it's
not Your will for me to have this. So You wait. And He'll make it clear. He'll
either show you the wisdom of not You know, the danger of it,
and make you quit wanting it. Or remove it, or something. Or
give it to you, in time, if it's His will. What parent will not
answer an importunate child? Prayer is importunate, meaning
you keep praying, keep praying, keep praying until you know He
hears you. He always hears. But sometimes He acts like He
doesn't hear us, doesn't He? Huh? Why? Why is it heaven's
brass? David says, heaven's brass? Lord,
why won't you hear me? Why does he do that? To prove
your sincerity. We often say, I prayed for it. Lord bless it. And we'd head
off. And that's our excuse. That's our, I prayed about it. Listen to this. Go with me. Daniel
chapter 10. Daniel chapter 10. Brethren,
I'm talking to myself more than you. I'm the chief offender in
this room. Daniel said, chapter 9, he said,
I set my face unto the Lord God to seek by prayer and supplication
with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. Doesn't that make you
ashamed of our little two-bit prayers? I prayed unto the Lord
my God and made my confession and said, O Lord, the great and
dreadful God. But chapter 10, verse 2, in those
days I, Daniel, was mourning three full weeks. I ate no pleasant bread. Neither came flesh nor wine in
my mouth. What's happening? He's got to
know the Lord's will in mind here. He's going to pray until
he answers him. Read on. Neither did I anoint
myself at all till three whole weeks were fulfilled. In verse
5, then I lifted up my eyes and looked, and behold, I saw a woman. Our sister said to me after something
particularly traumatic, and it was a knee-jerk reaction, and
she said she was going to do something, reaction, and she
said, I pray about it, I think this is the Lord's will, this
is what I'm going to do. And it hadn't been two days. Two
days. And I thought, you pray about
it. Give it three weeks of constant
prayer. And then you can say, I prayed
about it. Now, in our text, go back to
that. Romans 8. Romans 8. See, we need to wait,
don't we? Verse 25. We hope for that, we
see not. Then we do with patience, wait
for it. We need to wait. Wait on the
Lord. Because what we always do when
we run ahead, And he doesn't make it plain to us immediately,
we get in trouble. Always. Every time. Every time. I taught my dog, the first thing
I taught my dog was to heal. Why? So I could show my mastery
over him? No. To keep him from running out
in the street in front of me. To keep him from running headlong
into danger. If he stays by my side, he's
safe. But if he runs ahead, his life's
in danger. That's why. Sure, I can master
a dog. Who can't? I'm not proving that. It's for
his good. Wait. You walk beside me. He'll. Well, the Holy Spirit, now this
is teaching us that not that the Holy Spirit prays for us.
I know it says He maketh intercession for us, but does it not say that
there's one mediator between man and God? The man, Christ
Jesus. Does it say that? Whoever lives
to make intercession for us. Doesn't it say that? That Christ
is the intercessor. He said, I go to the Father for
you, pray to the Father for you. Isn't He the intercessor? The
Holy Spirit, the Father, these three are one. But didn't Christ
say, you pray to the Father? He hears you. Didn't He? He said after this, they said,
Lord, teach us to pray. He said, OK, pray this. Here,
you pray. The Father hears you. Because He heard me. You see,
there's one saving prayer, and that's our Lord's high priestly
prayer in John 17. That's the prayer that saves
souls right there. That's the prayer that the Father
heard on behalf of all of God's people. like the Old Testament
high priest would go into the Holy of Holies with incense.
That represents the prayer of Christ himself, who alone, one
man, entered into the Holy of Holies, not without blood, but
with his own precious blood. And his prayers on the cross,
with his blood, made intercession for other saints. And God the
Father forgave every single person Jesus Christ prayed for on that
cross. It wasn't our prayers that saved us, it was his. But
he tells us, and he tells us to pray. You pray. In my name,
whatever you ask in my name, I'm the intercessor. Well, the
Holy Spirit and Christ are one. They have the same mind. The
Father, what he's teaching us here, and every man I have confidence
in his wisdom said the same thing. That the Holy Spirit is teaching
us to pray. Leading us. And this is what
it means to pray in the Spirit. In Jude 20, verse 20, it says
he teaches us to pray in the Spirit, praying in the Holy Ghost. Now,
all these fools out in the world, in all this so-called Holy Spirit
religion, what they say praying in the Spirit is gibbedabba gibbedibba
gibbedibba. Do you impress with that? That's phony, it's fake, it's
false, it's satanic. God's not in that. It's some
kind of fake, phony facade of ultra-spirituality
that impresses weak, silly people. And they can't prove it. They
can't prove that what you just said is not true. speaking in
the Spirit. Can they? I can, by God's Word. 1 Corinthians 14 talks about
that. I didn't want to get on that. But here's what I'm not going
to get on. Here's what it is to pray in the Spirit. Alright? This is what it means to pray
in the Spirit. Christ told us to pray, and the
Father hears us. And led by the Spirit, verse
26, it says, We know not what we should pray for, but the Spirit
itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot
be uttered. Does that mean the Holy Spirit
is groaning? No, we are. The Holy Spirit stirs up in us Remember Christ
said when He has come, the Comforter, He'll convict us of sin. Never
quits doing that. He's the Holy Spirit. And when
we don't act holy, that means consecrated to God, but rather
worldly, He's going to convict us. And after we do something
so worldly and go after it, we go, oh... Huh? Oh... Oh, that's wronging. That's prayer. That's when God's hearing you. We're not heard for our much
speaking. The Pharisees for pretense, our Lord said, make many prayers. They love to be heard. And I've
heard them, brethren. I've heard Pharisees pray. And
I've heard men pray. And it was impressive. Oh, they sound so good. Sound so pious. We're not heard
because we know how to pray. We're not heard because of our
manner of speaking. Do you think impressive words
are impressive to God? Come on. Hannah, in the scripture,
didn't say a word. She was in that temple. What
did she do? She was in that temple. Her mouth was moving, but not
a word was coming out. And Eli was not in a good shape
back then. And he said, put away the wine.
What are you doing drinking wine at this time of day? She said,
I'm not drinking wine. I'm troubled. And I didn't know
what to say and all I could do. That's praying in the Spirit. We're not heard for our much
speaking. We're not heard for our manner of speaking. We're
heard for Christ's sake. We're heard in the name of Christ.
And we're heard for sincere hearts cry for help. Sincere hearts cry for help.
Our Lord groaned, didn't He, when He was at Lazarus' tomb, remember, it says
they came to him and said, Lord, if you'd been here, if my brother
hadn't died, it says he'd crawl on that spirit. And when he came
to the tomb, they were all saying to him, couldn't this man who
opened the eyes of the blind cause that this man didn't die?
And he says he'd crawl. This is what the Holy Spirit
is saying. True prayer. Sincerity. Better to have a heart
without words than words without heart. Better to have a heart
without words, like Hannah, than words without heart. You mothers, did you not hear
your child's every cry when they were young? You heard them all,
didn't you? If you had more than one. Let's
say you had three or four. All right, you get to the third
or fourth, you're pretty wise as to when a cry is sincere and
when it's not. Aren't you? Oh, she's just fussing. She'll quit. Huh? You know, Mom, you never heard
of me ever. I was the fourth. No, she'd been
through it. She'd heard too much. Heard too
much. He'd get over it. And you know, depending on the
personality of the child, that some children cry at the drop
of a hat. Some of them are so, you call
it tender. No, it's just weak. And they cry. Well, my daughter
would cry. I'd just look at her, stern. She'd cry. And you know,
at first, it just tore my heart out. But after a while, I thought,
did your parent ever tell you this? If you don't quit your
crying, I'm going to give you something to cry about. Your
dad ever tell you that, Steven? Oh, how many times? Why? Because
we thought our tears would, you know, jerk sympathy out of us.
Shit. You don't need to cry. You need
to stop crying. Act like a man. There's a time to cry when you
absolutely... Help! And there's other times
you're just fussing. Even little babies cry. They're
just sinful and they'll cry and they're not getting their way.
Wah! If you jump and run, give them a pacifier. Give them a
smack. Huh? What about us? We're the worst babies of all.
We're supposed to be grown-ups. If you don't stop crying, I'll
give you something to cry about. If you want to hear a message
like you've never heard before, you jot this down. That man right
there preached from weep not for me. If you never hear another
message, you go listen to that. Hear me out now. I don't recommend
too many messages, but that's one. Weep not for me, but now
weep for yourselves and for your children. And in that message,
he brought out so clearly how so much weeping is just so much
weeping. That doesn't hold water with
God necessarily. Or wait with God? We need to
quit ourselves like men. Accept the punishment. Why do men mourn over the... That's a message you need to
hear. I'm telling you, I've heard it three or four times. Don't
want to hear it again. Let's go close with Psalm 38. Psalm 38. Groaning. We're talking about
groanings. Holy Spirit prayer. This is where the Holy Spirit
leads us to the point where all we can do is groan. We don't
know what to say. We don't know what to pray for.
We're just groaning. Look at it. Psalm 38. David. The Lord had David write this
psalm. Is this not one of your favorites?
Right beside Psalm 51, isn't it? Those who know it. Verse 6. I am bowed down greatly. I go
mourning all the day long. My loins, why David? My loins
are filled with a loathsome disease. This is Holy Spirit conviction
and groaning. There is no soundness in my flesh.
I am feeble. I am sore, broken. I have roared
by reason of the disquietness of my heart, the discontent,
the trouble. Lord, all my desire is before
Thee, and my groaning is not hid from Thee. Do any of you, during the day,
just let out a groan, a sigh, a groan? Do you not? And the
person that hears it says, what's wrong? Something you're seeing, or something
troubles, or something just comes to mind, and you just, oh. The
Lord heard it. He hears that. Read on. My heart panteth. My heart. My strength faileth. The light
of mine eyes, that is my understanding, it's gone. My lovers, my friends,
they stand to look for my sore, my stroke, my trouble. My kinsmen
stand afar. They don't know what's wrong
with me. Well, if they're believers, they do. I mean, they don't know
what particular thing, but they go through it too. Only fellow
believers can enter into this psalm. Read on. Those that seek after my life
lay snares for me. You know, this is the cry of
Christ Himself. Those that seek my heart speak
mischievous things, imagine deceits all the day long. That's Satan
and his seed of the world. But as a deaf man, I heard not,
tried not to, tried not to hear. As a dumb man, I tried not to
say anything. One Psalm, Kelly, he said, I
kept my mouth, for good or evil, I'm not going to say a thing.
And he said, he bust out. And I sure wish I'd kept my mouth. Oh, verse 14, I was like a man
that didn't hear. If only I had listened. Verse 14, in whose mouth is no
reproof. In thee, O Lord, do I hope thou
wilt hear, O Lord my God. I said, hear me, lest otherwise
they that rejoice against me over me, and when my foot slippeth,
they'll magnify themselves against me. I'm ready to halt, ready
to quit, ready to fail. My sorrow is continually before
me. I will declare my iniquity. I'm sorry for my sin, but my
enemy Within and without, they're strong,
they're lively, they hate me wrongfully and multiply. They
render evil for good, they're my adversary, because I follow
that which is good. And we do. Forsake me not, O
Lord, my God. Be not far from me. Hurry, make
haste to help me, O Lord, of my salvation. That's groaning. That's Holy Spirit prayer. Did
you not hear every true cry of your child? Did you not? Did
you not come running when they really cried? Did you not? Couldn't
get their passion up. That's praying in the spirit.
Okay. I love you.