097. Aids Of The Spirit.
Aids Of The Spirit.
Wherever there exists a soul which has been released from the terrors of the law, and been baptized with the peace of the Gospel, let that soul never cease to praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. It is a mighty deliverance; to effect which, the wisdom, energy, and love of the sacred Three have all been engaged. The law, under which the Father has placed the sinner, and which law the latter has violated, is, and must be. for ever incapable of restoring him to peace and holiness. The law knows nothing of mercy. In its demands, it is peremptory and unmitigated; or is sweeping and irreversible in its condemnations. Applied to the conscience of the sinner—that conscience being carnal, and sold under sin—it only excites, irritates, and distresses; so that an unsanctified man, in every step of his progress to eternity, has only to exclaim: “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” But here, the Gospel by Jesus Christ comes in for his relief. It discloses a way, and a marvelous way, by which the sinner can be restored to holiness, and once more to joy. These are the subjects which occupy the seventh and eighth chapters of the Epistle to the Romans. The law, is the minister of condemnation: the Gospel, is the minister of justification. The law never restores the soul to holiness, nor to filial confidence in God: the Gospel does both. It tells of a Spirit, whose agency has been purchased by the Son of God; and through whose influences, the soul may be sanctified, and a spirit of adoption engendered in the heart. It discloses, also, to the distressed and troubled heart, sources of the richest consolation, through the ministrations of that Spirit. This last, is the idea presented to us in the words which we have recited. The Spirit helpeth our infirmities: or those weaknesses to which we are subject in the present life. He helps us, by giving us strength to bear them, and by exciting us to make efforts ourselves to sustain them. “For we know not,” says the apostle, “what we should pray for as we ought,” etc. This is a specification of the aid which the holy Spirit renders us.
Let us, in the first place, look at the reasons why Christians do not know for what to pray:
1. They do not know, often times, what would be really best for them.
2. They do not know what God might be willing to grant them.
3. They are, to a great extent, ignorant of the character of God—the reason of his dealings—the principles of his government—their own real wants.
4. When they seem to realize what their true wants are, and they are about to present them at a throne of grace, their minds become strangely clouded, and their hearts cold and insensible; so that they are unable to take hold upon the promises of God, or to press their suit with success. But here, the Gospel discloses to them a means of success, which, before the death of Jesus Christ, never entered into the heart of man to conceive. We do not mean to say, that the Spirit did not animate the devotions, and inspire the prayers of the saints of the olden time. He did. But it is not probable that Moses, or. Samuel, or David, or Isaiah had any clear conceptions of this great doctrine of the Gospel. It was left to our Lord Jesus Christ to make the blessed annunciation of the descent, and of the divine operations and aids of the holy Spirit. It was left to the great apostle of the
Gentiles to record, in two sentences, truths of inestimable importance to the believer, touching the aid vouchsafed him in his approaches to the throne of grace.
Most true is it, that we do not know how to pray, nor for what to pray. But the Spirit does. And he makes intercession for the saints: that is, he greatly assists or aids them. The meaning is not that the Spirit prays for us; not that he intercedes for us, as does our great Advocate, the Lord Jesus Christ; not that he gives birth to those groanings—those deep-felt emotions, with which the soul is sometimes oppressed and overwhelmed before the footstool. But he sustains us under them; he gives impulse and energy to them. He gives them a depth and an intensity, which the unaided soul could never impart to them; so deep, so intense, that no language is able to express them.
How often is it that the parent, when praying for a beloved child—a wife for a beloved husband—or a husband for a wife—a friend for a friend—has feelings which no language can describe, and which no language can begin to express; feelings, which absorb the soul; which drink up the Spirit; which the child of God knows that he of himself could not engender; and which he knows, too, full well, that no sighs and no groans of the heart, unless aided by the Spirit of God, could, for one moment, express!
Such a divine helper, then, we have. One, which the Father himself is more ready to give, than earthly parents are to give good gifts to their children; and who himself is always ready to come to our assistance in the time of need.
And, as the apostle adds: “He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit,” etc. The Spirit excites desires, and aids us in sighs and groans which cannot be uttered; but God knows what these desires are, and what are the import and bearing of these sighs and groans. No matter if they are not expressed; no matter if no language can give utterance to them. God comprehends them.
God sees the inward workings and intense emotions of the heart; and can answer according to his own infinite wisdom, and according to those desires which are prompted by the Spirit, according to his divine will.
Prayer, thus prompted by the Spirit of God, or prayer which is offered under the superintendence of that Spirit, may be expected to be acceptable to God, and a favorable answer looked for.
This, child of God, is a subject of the deepest importance to thy soul! You are here proffered assistance which I beg you ever to appreciate, and of which ever to avail yourself. Blessed is the man who seeks the aid of the divine Spirit, and who yields himself entirely to His holy influence. Need we call ourselves any longer poor? Need we think ourselves blind? Need we feel ourselves feeble? Putin possession of such spiritual wealth—with so much light thrown around us, and the strength of Omnipotence imparted to us, ought we ever to faint?—ought we ever to be sad? Taking advantage of the aid which is here offered us, I see not but that the strongholds of sin and Satan may fall before us. I see not that there is any limit set to our own spiritual attainments. I see not why we may not call down blessings, which, in their influence, shall reach every son and daughter of Adam.