In this last direction given us by the apostle—“Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; and for me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am and ambassador in bonds that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak”—we are cast back again simply on God, in entire abiding dependence.
That which is ever the result of conflict and exercise of soul before the Lord in standing against Satan, whether learned through the display of his power or the grace of Jesus, is the knowledge of our own emptiness and the Lord’s fullness. It. is not merely that we gain the victory over Satan, but that in all our conflicts we are continually learners of what the fullness of the grace of God is, through finding out our own emptiness and weakness. The more thoroughly we know this, the more we feel our own nothingness, that we have no strength at all in ourselves, the more simply and entirely we lean for all our strength on God. “My grace is sufficient for thee.” There is nothing so weak that His strength cannot give it might; nothing so empty that His fullness cannot fill. And yet how slow we are to reckon thus upon His grace; how prune to trust to something of our own. Is it not so? Notwithstanding oft-repeated proofs of mercy and loving-kindness, are not our souls still apt, even in the very least thing, to doubt His love?
In conflict we find out practically what is our own nothingness, nay, our worse than nothingness; but, whilst learning this, are brought also to see what is the patience of God’s love toward us, what the riches and fullness of His grace. It is of vast importance that we should thus know God. The character in which, during this present dispensation, we have specially to learn and to do with Him, is that of “the God of all grace.”
Redemption teaches this; for there He deals with us, not as an angry God (though having many things to be angry about), not in exercising judgment against us as sinners, but as “the God of all grace.” The cross, whilst it meets and shows out the righteousness of God, is at the same time the testimony unto His unbounded grace. How infinite the love of God seen there in coming down to meet us in all our wretchedness and sin! “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” But when there was not one thing in us pleasing unto God; when we were foolish, disobedient, deceived, and insulting God, despising His mercy, loving anything in the world rather than Him; then, even then, His love reached us! and how? not only in pitying us, but in giving His Son unto condemnation and wrath for our sakes. “God commendeth His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners CHRIST DIED FOR US!”
Here we learn grace—grace which distances all our thoughts, grace before which we can alone be silent. Here we learn love. “God is love.” “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” We might as well, and much better too, talk of darkness at noonday, as of God’s wrath being toward us, when Jesus died for us as sinners.
But there can never be any self-exaltation in the reception of infinite grace. We are debtors to mercy alone. The blessed place in which we are set, when we know God as love, is that of “vessels of mercy.” The manifest wisdom of God is displayed and made known unto principalities and powers in heavenly places by His grace toward us. We have the reception and enjoyment of that grace in ourselves. Thus, we come to have fellowship and communion with God. The special mark of the saint is, that he has “known and believed” the love that God has to Him. (1 John 4:16) God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love [love with us, margin] made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world.” Jesus has stood in our place, has borne all that we should have had of judgment, and we have all the acceptance He has in the presence of the Father, even whilst here “in this world.”
Jesus said to His disciples, “In the world ye shall have tribulation “(and is it not true, that in our measure we have this now?): “but,” He added, “be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” This dispensation teaches us grace, the next glory. Present grace is that which we need, all that is in Christ for us. We read, “The grace of God which bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world;” and that, “looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” We are brought into fellowship and communion with this grace; we have not merely to know of its existence, but to learn its breadth, and length, and depth, and height. It is as full as the glory, though not the same thing. Through grace the believer sees all his sins removed away; Christ standing between himself and them; therefore as regards them he has rest; but then, whilst here waiting for the Lord, he finds continual conflict and difficulty in his way, and he has to learn all the fullness of the grace that is in God, applying itself to the circumstances in which he is, and about which he is exercised.
We have before spoken of the “Armor” which is provided of God for our use, and of “the weapons of our warfare,” now we come to notice that which will alone give us power to use them aright.
“Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit.” This kind of prayer denotes confidence in God. It is not the cry which, as to a judge, the poor sinner would make under conviction of sin, but the appeal of a child in trial and difficulty unto the known love of its father; the prayer of those who are spiritual, and who find themselves to be in a condition wherein they are thrown simply on God. Again, it is not the seeking to gain strength, in order merely to know that our strength is there, but that we may practically learn what God is, by the power which He exercises toward us and for us.
This “praying always” supposes the person not to be fainting, but to be using the “Armor” in connection with it; “having the loins girt about with truth;” for instance, the soul not resting vaguely on God, but whilst casting itself on Him, reckoning on an answer according to the mind of God as revealed in His word. The saint may not always get a direct answer to his petition. Paul, we know, prayed that the “thorn in the flesh “might depart from him. What was the Lord’s answer? Was it removed? No! “My grace is sufficient for thee; for My strength is made perfect in weakness;” that is to say, “It is better for thee to know the sufficiency of My grace, than to have the thorn taken away.” He got the victory over it, but he did not lose it. He was able to say, “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” It was not sin in which he gloried. People often call their sins, the spirit of unbelief, and the like, infirmities. The things wherein he gloried were-affliction, persecutions, distresses for Christ’s sake, and so forth; for through them he learned the sufficiency of the Lord’s grace.
John says, “This is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us; and if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him.” Now how are we to know the Lord’s will from our own fancies and imaginations? By His Word. If I go and pray for a thing not founded on the knowledge of the Lord’s will as revealed in His Word, I cannot have confidence about it. Were He to grant me what I desire, He might very likely only be answering my own foolish, corrupt will. If my flesh is at work, and my soul is not brought into obedience and subjection to the word, I cannot be “praying in the Spirit.” The first thing the Spirit would do would be to humble me by the word into a sense of the condition in which my soul is. Supposing, for instance, I am walking carelessly and inconsistently, and yet am beginning to ask, as a very great Christian, for things only suited to the state of such an one; if the Lord were to answer my petition, it would only tend to make me a hypocrite. The first thing the Spirit would do in such a case would be to make me humble under a sense of my real need. Prayer in the Spirit is always from a humble sense of need; then be it but a sigh or a groan, it is prayer in the Spirit. If we know our spiritual need, and cry to the Lord under the sense of it, we may always reckon on an answer. If our desires are according to God, they cannot be according to the flesh. The very thing the Lord would ever have us to learn is our real need; and He would have us do this in order that we might draw out of His fullness for its supply.
In Jude 20-21, we read, “But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” We do this, “pray in the Holy Spirit,” when in putting up our petitions we are conscious of His presence, and conscious too that we are acting according to His will, even though our understanding may not be able fully to unfold to us what we need. When Jesus came to the grave of Lazarus He wept and groaned within Himself. This was not merely because Lazarus was dead, but because of the power of Satan which was there displayed. Then lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me. And I knew that Thou hearest Me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me. And when He had thus spoken, He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.” Here was the full answer—power and victory exhibited over death. If we at all rightly estimate the condition of misery in which man is, the way sin is abounding, and Satan triumphing, the dishonor done to the name of God; if our eye is fixed on the glory into which ourselves and creation around us will shortly be brought, and we then look at the groaning and travailing in which it all is now, we too must “groan within ourselves.” But then we shall often “know not what to pray for as we ought;” there will be that felt by us which we have not the capacity to express; this is taken up and expressed by that blessed Spirit which dwelleth in us (Rom. 8:26, 27); He “helpeth our infirmities .... He 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.” This groaning is not the cry of the wounded spirit (though God’s ear is ever most open to that), but groanings against the evil within and around us, yearnings for the day of the glory of Jesus, and of the manifestation of the sons of God, which is the only possible remedy for all that evil through which the name of God is now dishonored.
If I am standing myself in truth, without guile of heart, having no hidden sin, I can look to God in intercession for others. Just accordingly as the Word of God is used by us in self-judgment, can we pray with the confidence of being heard and answered. (1 John 3:21,22) In Hebrews 4 we read, “The Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart,” and so forth. Here we first see the Word searching the heart, then, in the discernment of what we are, we are brought in truthfulness before God, and then, Jesus being our High Priest, touched with the feeling of our infirmities, “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” Just so far as we rightly understand what is our own place and the place of the church by the Word can we “pray with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit.” Nothing short of this is “prayer in the Holy Spirit.”
But let not this weaken our sense of the liberty we have to bring all our desires, our every request, to God in prayer. Whilst we can look for a definite answer to our prayers, if acquainted with the mind and will of God, yet we know that it is according to His will that we should “cast all our care upon Him.” Have we a care or an anxiety about anything, remember that He bids us “be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.” However foolish our “requests” may seem, let us not demur on that account to draw nigh, but in childlike confidence bring them unto Him. He will grant them if it would be good for us, and if not, if they be foolish or wrong, He will teach us better. He says, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God.” Your very difficulty may be darkness and uncertainty of mind. Go and tell God that you do not know what to ask for; this is your need, and your need is the very thing to be carried to God. He will meet you there; “it shall be given him.” God loves the confidence and seeking to Him of His children. We should ourselves like our children to tell us all their wishes, all their wants, leaving it to us to act as we saw right about them. He has all the feelings of the father’s heart towards His little ones. But “praying in the Spirit” is our privilege, and the more blessed when in full understanding also.
This “praying always” is that which meets the tendency there is ever in us to faint. “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” How can I wield effectually the “SWORD OF THE SPIRIT “unless my arm is strong, or hold up the “SHIELD OF FAITH “if I am weary? We are cast in the use of these things entirely upon God. As the poor widow mentioned in Luke 18:1-5, our refuge is “always to pray, and not to faint.” There must be the sense of continual, abiding dependence upon God. This is the place which our blessed Lord took, and it is ours. Where Satan seeks to come in is just here, as to communion between us and God. His effort is to weaken our actual power of communion. He does not try all at once to destroy a person’s faith, but he saps the source of it as well as he can. Thus was it with the church of Ephesus, “Thou hast left thy first love.” There was still found in it the work, the labor, the patience; but the power of communion there had once been was gone, and therefore the message, “Remember from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of its place, except thou repent.” The way by which Satan ever gets in is by giving some little satisfaction in self, thus weakening the “praying always,” the very thing which sustains practical righteousness; then he draws on the soul further and further, till at last he makes it doubt whether it has ever prayed at all. The sense, of God’s love gets weakened, and then the world becomes more attractive. Communion with God maintains two things—the sense of blessedness in His presence, and separation from the world.
“And watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.” Watching unto prayer is the continual, the habitual exercise of the priestly function; the taking up every matter that falls within our cognizance in the power of fellowship with God—so using persons and circumstances as to make them matter of communicaton with God.
We do not sufficiently seek to have the Lord with us in the prospect of suffering. How was it with Jesus? Our blessed Lord, when the hour of His conflict was coming on, when, in the garden of Gethsemane, He was entering by anticipation into the bitterness of death, spent the whole night in watchings and prayer. “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with Me. And He went a little farther, and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me: nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt.” Coming to His disciples, He finds them “sleeping for sorrow:” they sank under it. He says to Peter, “What, could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Jesus prays yet more earnestly, and is strengthened for “this hour” —so that when the “great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people,” come to take Him, He steps calmly, firmly forward, saying, “Whom seek ye?”—“I am He.” Then “they (the disciples) all forsook Him, and fled.”
Christian, when you feel or fear any trial approaching, go at once with it to the Lord; pass through the trial in spirit with your God; and then, when you have actually to pass through it, He will give you strength to bear it, He will be with you in it; and, like the children passing through the fire, you will lose nothing but your bands, or you may even find that the Lord has put the trial away.
This watchfulness of the Spirit is ever contrary to the flesh; but remember the words, “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation.” When in this state of watching unto prayer I see Satan’s hook under the bait, I detect him who laid the snare, and then “in vain is the snare spread in the sight of any bird.” “He that is spiritual judgeth all things.” When I am watchful, everything turns to prayer. I can “put on the WHOLE Armor of God,” and am “able to stand against the wiles of the devil;” but, on the contrary, when walking in the flesh, my prayers are turned into confession and self-reproach, and my life will be a life of sorrow. Watchfulness sees the host, but looks to the Lord against the host; it sees the evil before it is brought out, but remembers the word, “Greater is He that is for us, than all that can be against us.”
The real anxiety of Paul—the watchfulness and caring for the church—brought him into very much difficulty and conflict. (See 2 Cor. 6 and 11) He passed many a sleepless night because he so cared for it, and where this is found in its measure in us there will also be “in watchings often” for “all saints.” There can be no true energy of love in the Spirit in us towards one saint apart from the rest; we shall find ourselves to be connected with all saints. Christ loves all saints: when we shut up our love to one or even to so many saints, it matters not what the number, we shut up ourselves in narrowness of spirit, we lose part of the comprehensiveness of Christian love; Christ intercedes for all saints. The blessed place in which we are set (as brought before us here), is that of intercession with Christ for all saints—“praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for ALL SAINTS.”
When the deacons were chosen (Acts 6), why was it? That the apostles might give themselves “to prayer, and to the ministry of the Word.” The very first thing they thought of was recognized dependence upon Him from whom all the ability to minister in the Word came. And this was not merely a casual circumstance. The way in which Christ has knit the members of His church together is, in making them dependent one on another; the greatest minister that ever lived was dependent on the weakest saint for power in his ministry “And FOR ME, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly as I ought to speak.” When Paul was sent forth of God anywhere, he went dependent on the prayers of the saints—“Brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified.” Whilst he had a great gift of ministry for the comfort and edification of the saints, he felt his dependence on their prayers for the profitable exercise of it. Whether he was “afflicted,” or whether he was “comforted,” it was for their sakes, for their “consolation and salvation,” and they in turn were “helping together by prayer” for him. (See 2 Cor. 1) Just as the eye, the ear, the foot, the hand, are all necessary (1 Cor. 12:14-26) in the natural body, so we read of the church, the body of Christ, that “fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, it maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love” (Eph. 4). Thus the very feeblest saint has his place in the church as well as the most highly gifted; but the blessing that each is practically to it depends on personal communion, not on gift. We cannot have light without oil. It is quite true that God gives as He sees fit, “dividing to every man severally as He will”; but it is only as we are kept in humble dependence on Him that there is real profit in anything.
“Praying always,” and so forth. If we are not walking in the Spirit, Satan will turn even our very cares and duties into occasions of sin, by making us do them in the wrong time or in the wrong way. He will seek to make our duties and our prayers conflict, because he knows that it is only as they are done in a prayerful spirit that we shall have blessing in them. If otherwise there may be much busy activity, it will but deaden the soul. If you say, “I cannot pray, I cannot find God’s presence now,” it is just the very time you need to pray. Where will you find strength? In staying away? No. When people say they cannot find God’s presence, the truth is very generally that they have found it, and that it has discovered to them the evil, careless, unprofitable state in which they were before, though they did not know it then because they were not in His presence. There may be distraction of thought, but let not that hinder your “praying;” it is the very thing which shows you have a need to be supplied. Why is there this distraction? Because your mind has become occupied with other things beside the Lord. Go to Him. You may, whilst in this state, have less freedom in your prayers. The joy you would otherwise have had may be denied, yet you will return with profit, and more power of communion.
You will be humbled, and is there no profit in being humbled? Yes, very great; for grace, whilst it humbles, always encourages.
The Lord is ever “a sanctuary,” a “hiding-place for His children;” but in order habitually to realize this there must be the “praying always,” the “watching thereunto.” We hear people say continually, “I am able to look up to God in the midst of my work.” This may be very true, but can you say that you are thus able to look up to God at any time in the midst of distraction of mind? No; it is only by carrying the presence of God with you into your work that you can do so. It is true that the grace of God often abounds over our carelessness, but it is by the habitual power of communion that we can fly to God at any time. We never can tell in the beginning of the day when and how a difficulty may arise during the course of it. It is only by having the presence of God with us to suggest right thoughts and words, by living in the power of communion, that we shall be able to meet it when it occurs. Then in every place, in every company, we may “hide” in the secret of His presence from the strife of tongues around. Better never enter into company at all, even with Christians, if we do not take our hiding-place with us.
Accordingly, as we are filled with the Holy Spirit shall we be able to look up steadfastly into heaven. We may go on carelessly, return back to God, and find grace. He may quicken, refresh, and stir up our souls; but it will not be with us as if we had walked in the strength and power of communion.
The presence of the Holy Spirit ever makes us find out fresh short-comings, some dark shade unknown before; but then Jesus is now in the presence of God for us, and thus, whilst we learn our own emptiness, we practically learn what is the fullness, the riches of the grace of God.
Is there no joy in having fellowship with the Spirit of Christ in the things His heart is occupied about here? Yes, great joy! Then “pray always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints,” and so forth; but let us remember that it is only by being rooted and grounded, and made to stand in grace, that we can do this.
Heaven is to us the place of grace. I could never have looked to God at all but for grace; and it is only as our hearts are “established with grace” that they are set at liberty in the wide field of love, to embrace and supplicate for “all saints.” May we learn more of the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of that grace, knowing that “nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord;” “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature.” May we practically be “more than conquerors through Him that loved us.”
It is very hard for us to see ourselves and Satan to be as nothing, and God to be everything. The moment we get out of dependence on God we find out our own weakness. We may perhaps think that one good battle with Satan, and all will be over; but no such thing; we have the security of victory, but no cessation from conflict till the Lord comes. Then Satan will be bound, and then we shall have the full result of victory; but now we are called to unceasing dependence, moment by moment to be reckoning on the grace and strength of God. Where there is not this dependence there is not blessing, joy, and comfort. The tendency of the flesh is ever to get out of it, and then we have not strength with us in the battle, but have to learn our need of grace through weakness and failure, instead of in joy and confidence in God.