Ron Dunn Podcast - Praying In The Spirit

Episode Date: August 22, 2018

Ron Dunn preaches from Romans on prayer.

And that's what we're going to talk about tonight, this praying in the Holy Spirit. And as I mentioned this morning, as we've gone to the book of Romans, and even though I preached on this before, I just felt like I couldn't pass over these two important verses that talked to us about praying in the spirit. Because one of the most effective weapons that God has placed at the disposal of his people is this matter of intercessory prayer. I thought I knew what intercessory prayer was all about until I've read recently a book by the name of Rees Howells, R-E-E-E-S, that's the first name, and H-O-W-E-L-L-S, Rees-HOWS, Rees-Howell's Intercessor. It's the biography of a man by the name of Rees Howells, who learn the real secret of intercession.

I want you to know that you'll never read another book like that book. I don't think that I've ever read any other book that has challenged me and broke my heart as much as that book has. We've ordered some copies, and if you want a copy, if you've got the strength to read it, Not everybody will know what to do with it, but I say if you're interested in this matter of praying and learning how to intercede for others, I think you would be well profited by reading this. I'm reminded of what God spoke through the prophet Isaiah. He says, I looked and searched for an intercessor.

And he says, in all the land of Israel, I wondered, I was amazed. I found not one. I found not one. God spoke to the prophet Ezekiel, and he said, I look for a man to stand in the gap to make up the hedge between judgment. That's what an intercessor is. It's a person who stands between a needy soul and a holy God and lays down his life on the battlefield of prayer for it.

And I think what God needs more than anything else today are people who are sold out and committed to this matter of getting people on their heart and praying for people, praying for revival and praying for lost souls and praying for broken homes and praying for runaway children and praying for straying children. I'll tell you, we're living in that kind of a day. You've never seen it like this.

You've just never seen it like this. I hope the Lord will help me not to use a certain phrase with my children. When I was your age, brother, I've never been my child's age. It wasn't, it's different now. You've never been a teenager. I was reading just the other day that when you and I were teenagers or some of you a little bit older than I am, but when we were teenagers, there were about six to 800 things that appealed to the census. They called it a sense-eight count. About six or eight hundred things that

appealed to the census. That's all we had to deal with, cope with it. But that has tripled today. There's so many other things, so many other appeals, so many other things hitting the senses of, it's not the same world. It's not the same world. I've never been a teenager to compare in this kind of world. I tell you more than anything else, we need to understand that Jesus never changes. Jesus never changes. That's why I don't change my message. That's why you don't have to change the method.

The method is one person telling another person about Jesus. You don't have to change that. That never goes out of style. You don't have to have a committee on programs and spend a million dollars launching a new method. The old method never changes. One person telling another what Jesus means to me. The same message, Jesus saves and Jesus is able. He is the door to life and the key to a real living.

That never changes. Don't have to worry. I may never been a teenager, but that doesn't bother me. That doesn't bother me. Jesus understands and Jesus knows. And with Jesus, there's no such thing as a generation gap, a communication gap, or anything else. Everybody knows what you're talking about when you talk about Jesus, making life livable. And more than anything else, what we need today is people to understand that Jesus is the only

answer to the longing of people's hearts, whether there are young people who are run away from home on the strip or whether they're at home with mom and dad or whether they're past the age of 50 or whatever they are. Jesus has always got exactly what it takes to make that life what it ought to be. And I'm praying that God will continue to pick up people in our church and who will stand in the head and stand in the gap and learn the art of intercessory prayer. Real praying is praying in the Holy Spirit. Let's read verses 26 and 27 of Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8 verses 26 and 27. And I'm just thankful that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. He never goes out of date. Everything else goes out of date. See this suit I've got on? Poor aren't those lapels

big. The Lord gave me this suit. aren't the Lafell's big on it I've got a coat now at home I can wear but I won't be caught dead in it because it's out of style I heard a fellow say one time he gave his testimony I used to love cars so much

and he says I did a research and I found a new car smell on a General Motors car last 27 days oh my you've ever bought a new car drive it off the shoulder the minute it hits the pavement you've lost $1,000 something

things change the world changing the world is changing i'm glad jesus never changed i want to be anchored to something that never changes and i praise god i am you don't have to worry then and be uptight and anxious about everything collapsing around about everything changing and wondering what in the world am i going to hang on to in this crazy wild world i want you to know it i'd be scared to death tonight if I wasn't anchored to Jesus, I would be absolutely petrified tonight. Live this kind of life. I'm not surprised that the suicide rate is increasing every day. Americans lead the world in suicides. I'm not surprising. Boy, I tell you, when you get to the place where people are more afraid to live than they are to die, then you've reached something in this world. I just thank the Lord.

Jesus, the same yesterday and forever. I tell you what, nothing better to do. It's nothing better to do. in a service like this and just to praise him anyway. So you don't mind if I ramble a little bit, do you? But I mean it. I just think, I'm glad I know him. I'm glad he saved me, reached down and saved me. I really am. And it's just great to know him and to let him be in control.

I know you feel that same way. All right. Romans chapter 8, verses 26 and 27. Likewise, the Spirit also help up our infirmities. for we know not what we should pray for 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. Likewise, the Spirit also helps our weaknesses. A lot of weaknesses in the Christian life. life. You'll find that out when you start trying to live it, just how weak you are and how much help you are. And I love it when Jesus said, I'm not going to leave you orphans. That word means I'm not going to leave you a helpless children. I'm going to send the comfort or the

Holy Spirit, and he shall be with you, and he shall be in you forever, and he's going to help you and all of your weaknesses in the Christian life. And whatever you meet in your Christian life, that you need help, the Spirit of God is in dwelling you to help you. And one of the greatest areas of our weaknesses in this matter of praying. I have in the front of my Bible the man God uses by Oswald Smith, the great pastor of that People's Church up in Toronto for many, many years. And he lists eight things, the man that God uses. One of these, number four, he has learned how to prevail in prayer.

I read those eight points before every sermon in my office. I sit in my chair, and I read those eight things. And I've come to the place in my Christian life where I feel that I almost qualify for seven of them. But every time I read that number four, he has learned how to prevail in prayer. I'm just not certain. I'm praying more than ever have and praying more and enjoying it more. And God has answered prayer, but every time I read that I can honestly say, Lord, I have learned how to prevail in prayer.

My greatest weakness, my greatest infirmity is in my prayer life. I want to learn to pray more than anything else. Now I mean that God is my witness. I'd rather be the world's greatest prayer than the world's greatest preaching. I'd rather be the world's greatest prayer than the world's greatest prayer than the world's greatest witness and soul winner. I want to learn to pray and learn to prevail in prayer more than anything else. God knows my heart that I'm being honest tonight. And if God had to, if it came to me and said, you've got to choose whether or not you're going to have a public ministry of preaching

or a hidden ministry of praying, I'd choose the latter. And my heart is that I want God to teach me how to learn to prevail in prayer. And I've come to realize that there is no such thing as real prayer that is not praying in the Holy Spirit. And that's what he's talking about. My greatest weakness, possibly your greatest weakness and your greatest infirmity is in the area of this praying. But praise the Lord, he says the spirit helps our infirmities. Your weakness in your Christian life, the Spirit of God is when you to help you in this weakness.

And then he gives an illustration of how he helps us. He picks up prayer, and I'm glad he did because that's exactly what I needed. He says, for instance, prayer. We don't know what we should pray for as we ought, but the, The Holy Spirit will help you in this weakness also. Now, three points to my message. First of all, our helplessness in praying. Our helplessness.

Paul speaks for all of us, I think, when he says, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought. How many times you face this thing of needing to pray for somebody, like this man that called me last night, pray for me? I don't really know what to pray for. Paul says there is a helplessness present in all of us for. We know not what we should pray for as we ought. I think in the first place, many of us just don't know how to pray, period.

Don't know how to pray, period. We know we ought to pray. We know the Bible is instructing us to pray and commanding us to pray, but how do you start? How do you pray? I appreciate it so much the little mini-instruction Billy Graham gave to those making decisions at the crusade. When he would say pray every day and then he said, here's the way you pray. just tell Jesus you love him that's praying that's right praying isn't sitting down and folding your arms and saying our father and using vows and these you don't have to speak like a shakespearean orator to pray

just talk to Jesus just talk to God like you talk to me like you talk to a loved one I tell you I don't hang it disturbed me about that bill of Graham crusade with all these fellas came up with a prayers written out I don't know. Maybe I ought not say it, but I just couldn't bow my head and close my eyes. I felt like if you're not closing your eyes, when you pray, I don't have to close my mind to listen to you. I remember what old was it, Jeff D. Ray said in seminary one day, a fellow came to seminary one day and read his sermon. And one of his students in his class asked him after the chapel, he said, what did you think about that? He said, well, in the first place, he read it. in the second place he didn't read it well

in the third place it wasn't fit to be read I don't know to me prayer is the heart the affection of a man's heart or woman's heart reaching out to a God that he loves and I don't think you've got to write down that I kind of like if I were to come up to my wife and say honey I love you and I think you're great

I don't know, that's always disturbed me a little bit. I guess it's just one of my idiosyncrasies. Some of us don't know how to pray, but prayer is just talking to God, and the more natural it is, the more real it is. You can't fake it with God. You've got to be honest, you've got to be yourself, you've got to be sincere with God. You've got to be that way with God.

And you come to God as a little child, comes to His Father, and you pour out your needs. As a little child who's been hurt comes to her, mother and wants some sympathy. Oh, you don't know how many times how great it is to be able to go to Christ after you've had a heartache or after you've failed or there's some discouragement. And I read where John laid his head on the bosom of Jesus. And I tell you, that's what I do in prayer. That's what I do in prayer. I'm going to Jesus and I'm laying my head on his bosom and resting myself because I know he loves me and understands and he's sympathetic. It's the love of a child going out for

His Heavenly Father, needing help and sympathy and understanding. It's going to him and thanking him and praising him for what he is and how good he is and all the things that he's done. Prayer is the natural response of a loving heart to a loving God. Some of us don't know how to pray. We just don't know how to pray. Listen, the Holy Spirit teaches you to pray. The Holy Spirit teaches us how to pray.

Like the disciples came to Jesus one day, they saw Jesus praying, and they said, Lord, teach us to pray. teach us to pray now they've been taught to pray ever since they were little children they'd been taught to pray but not really they saw how jesus prayed to his heavenly father how he spoke to his father as though they were in the same room together so natural so trusting so open so honest they said we want to pray that way the holy spirit teaches us to pray i've changed my prayer life some of those good old best prayers in the world i had them for years they were great prayers but i'll tell you after a while, you can't pray them anymore. You know that? You just can't pray them anymore.

You know, you can tell when you get around some people and you begin to pray with them whether or not they understand what it means to have the Spirit of God in control of their life. All of a sudden, their prayer life changes. Well, the Holy Spirit teaches us how to pray in the first place. He enables us to talk to God. But not only that, Paul says he shows us exactly what to pray for. He gives us the petition. He teaches us exactly what we're to pray for. We know not what we should pray for as we ought. He's talking now about the object of our praying. For what should I pray?

The Holy Spirit, when you're praying in the Spirit, he will give you the exact thing you're to pray for. A lady came up to me after church this morning. She said, I want to tell you a strange thing. She said, for some time, when I would pray, the Lord would lay a certain person on my heart. I didn't know them real well. They were in my Sunday school class.

but when I would begin to pray, the Lord would just lay me on her, lay her on my heart. And so I just begin to pray for every time that God would remind me of this person, I would just pray for her. I didn't know her. I didn't know if she was in need. I didn't know if she was in trouble, but God would just lay her on my heart. And she said today in the Sunday school class, she spoke up and she said, listen, I don't know who it is, but somebody in this class has been praying for me because I can feel it. The Holy Spirit actually tells us what we should pray for.

Now, later on the message, we're going to talk about how do you pray in the Holy Spirit. But when you are praying in the Holy Spirit, he helps you to pray because he gives you exactly what you're to pray for. All right. Now, how does he help us? The second point is our helper in prayer. First point is our helplessness in prayer. The second point is our helper in prayer. The Holy Spirit helps us in this infirmity.

All right, he helps us in three or four ways. First of all, he helps us to pray by first of all giving us the desire to pray. Giving us the desire to pray. In Zechariah chapter 12 and verse 10, it says, I will give to them the spirit of supplication. He is the spirit of prayer. He is the spirit of supplication. And when the Holy Spirit has control in your life and when he's filling you, he is going to prompt you to pray. How many times have I mentioned to you in these classes, these Christian life,

classes, how the Holy Spirit gives us the want to to pray, the desire to pray. You may be washing your dishes someday, and all of a sudden you feel like you ought to pray. Have you ever felt that? You just feel like you need to pray. It's like being thirsty. It's like being hungry. All of a sudden, there's a desire, there's an urge, there's an impulse to pray. Listen, don't, don't you neglect that.

You pray. If you don't pray, you're going to be quenching the Holy Spirit. You say, well, I don't know if that's the Spirit calling me to pray or whether it just won't to pray myself. Don't question it. Don't worry about it. I know one thing it's not the devil calling you to pray. I know one thing it's not the old nature. It's not the old fallen nature calling you to pray. It is the spirit of God in dwelling you calling you to pray. And listen, you pray, boy, those are the best times. I have some set aside times when I pray and sometimes they don't go real easy, you know, because that's the time that I've set aside that I'm going to

pray. But you know, the best times I have in pray is when I hadn't planned to pray and don't have time to pray, and I'm too busy and too rushed, and all of a sudden, I just feel this need to pray. I just feel this need to pray, this urgency to pray. And when I follow that impulse, and when I recognize and acknowledge that to be the impulse and the leadership of the Holy Spirit, and I stop whatever I am doing in any way that I can and spend time in prayer, I tell those are the best times of praying. That's when God begins to really work in my own life in this matter of praying. When Moses was walking in the desert, all of a sudden there was a bush over there, and it was burning, and it was fire, but it was not consumed.

And it attracted the attention of Moses, and the Bible says he turned aside and went to see this sight. Now, you and I have a burning bush within us that calls us to turn aside from everything else and to come into the presence of God. And that Holy Spirit indwelling my body right now is my burning bush. who calls me to turn aside from everything else and to come into the presence of God in prayer. Listen, listen, you act on those impulses. You act on those desires to pray. When you feel like you ought to pray, you stop whatever you're doing.

If you can't stop what you're doing, if you're at work and you have to work, if you're driving down a highway and you have to drive, you can just talk to the Lord without getting on your knees. You just start talking to them in your own heart or out loud. You pray, though, when you feel the, desire to pray because that's the Holy Spirit calling you aside to pray. All right, the second thing he does, and to me this is the most amazing thing at all.

The Holy Spirit helps us in this matter of praying not only, not only by giving us the desire to pray and actually giving us the object for which we're to pray, but he also, he literally prays within us. He literally prays within us. Now I meant to bring my other translations that make it a little bit clearer than the King James does but i forgot it but what it says is i think phillips translates it this way for it is the holy spirit himself actually praying within us now listen now you're in we enter into the mysteries of the divine working when we begin to talk about this but when the christian is in tune with the

holy spirit and when he's praying within the holy spirit you know what his praying is when you make that petition to God, it's actually not you making that petition to God. It is actually the Holy Spirit himself doing the praying. He's just using your body. He's just using your mind. He's just using your tongue. It is the Holy Spirit himself. That's what it says. The Holy Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And there is a need I need to make intercession, and I can't. And I come to this place. and I can't pray for this person, I can't make intercession for this person, I'm unable to make intercession, I'm helpless, and the Holy Spirit makes intercession for me in my place.

What it means. That's exciting to me. The Holy Spirit actually himself praying through my body, that's real praying, and that's the only kind of prayer that is real praying, is when the Holy Spirit himself prays through you. They're not your words. He has inspired the object of your pray, and he helps you to pray. Why do we find that so difficult to believe? Because we believe it in other realms. For instance, don't we believe it in preaching? Don't you think this ought to be the Holy Spirit speaking to you tonight through my body instead of just me preaching? Don't you believe that?

Don't you think that real preaching is not a man getting up and saying what he is. thinks and preaching in his own strength. But isn't it true? Doesn't the Bible teach that the Holy Spirit speaks through lips of clay? Isn't that right? Isn't that right about witnessing? The Holy Spirit Jesus said, shall what? Shall testify of me. He says, ye shall be witnesses of me in book of Acts, but in the book of John, he says it's really going to be the Holy Spirit doing it. And when you go out and you witness to somebody about Jesus, you share Jesus with somebody. Jesus says that's the Holy Spirit speaking through you. Do you believe that?

Why is it so hard for us to believe that it's also true in the area of prayer? Because, you see, the Holy Spirit does it all, whether it's preaching or witnessing or living. It's the Holy Spirit. He actually prays through us. It's him praying through us. But there's something else here. The Holy Spirit The third point of the message is

the hearing of our prayers Every prayer that is prayed in the Holy Spirit is always heard and always answered Listen, verse 27 And He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is in the mind of the spirit because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God

he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God and the Bible says in 1 John 5 that when we ask anything according to the will of God he hears us and we know that if He hears us, we also have the petitions that we have desired of Him. Anytime I make

my petition, and that petition is according to the will of God, that prayer is going to be answered, and the Holy Spirit always intercedes according to the will of God. That means that every prayer petition, every prayer that originates with the Holy Spirit is going to be answered. Going to be Of course, the big question then is, how do you pray in the Holy Spirit? How do you pray then in the Holy Spirit? Well, you pray in the Holy Spirit the same way you live in the Spirit and the same way you witness in the Spirit and the same way you preach in the Spirit. First of all, the Holy Spirit has to be absolutely in control.

The Holy Spirit has to be absolutely in control. If he's going to do the praying, and if he's going to influence your mind as to what to pray for, then he has to be absolutely in control. And naturally, this means that every sin has to be confessed. If you go to God and there's unforgiveness in your heart against somebody or there's some little pet sin that you're still hanging on to, the Holy Spirit is not in control. David said, the Lord will not hear me if I regard aniquity in my heart. James says, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth not, of a righteous man availeth much.

If the Spirit of God is in control, this means every sin must be confessed. First of all, the Holy Spirit in control. Secondly, I must be submissive to the will of God, even when I don't know what the will of God is. I must choose the will of God in advance. You see, many of us, when we come to this matter of praying, we say, all right, Lord, here's what I want you to do. Here's what I want you to do. And many times, we never even questioned whether or not it's the will of God. Here's what we want the Lord to do. And if the Lord comes along and says, no, that's not what I want to do. We pray against the Lord. We're trying to change the Lord's mind. First of all, before you even begin to pray, you must be submissive to the will of God in this matter. Let's suppose you're praying for the

recovery of a loved one. You've got a loved one that is seriously ill, and you're praying for their recovery. First of all, you must be willing to accept God's will, whatever it is. If God's will is that loved one not recover and die, you must accept that. I don't mean bear it. I mean accept it. I'm not talking about this grin and bear it business. I'm not talking about enduring it. Naturally, you have to accept it because you can't do anything about it. No, that's not what I'm talking about. You must accept the losing of that loved one, being thankful to God, all things. Without bitterness, without questioning. There's a difference. I'm not talking about enduring it and bearing, and I'm talking about accepting it, saying, Lord, I want this loved of mine to be healed.

Lord, I want your will more than I want him to be healed. And I accept your will. I submit myself to your will. If you don't want me to get this job, if you don't want this thing to come to pass, if you don't want this, I submit myself to your will. I doubt seriously if God is ever going to hear the prayer for anybody who, first of all, is not submitted to the will of God. You see, if we're going to be praying in the Spirit, you've got to be praying selflessly. There can absolutely be no selfishness in your praying. And the only way that you can extract all selfishness from your praying is to submit yourself to choose the will of God in advance before you ever know what it is. Blind faith, if you want to call it then.

and then the third thing you must by faith accept the leadership of the Holy Spirit by faith now listen if I come to the time of praying and I submit myself as best I know how by an act of

my will to the control of the Holy Spirit. This means if he convicts me of a sin, I confess it. This means if he says you need to go and make it right with that brother, I do it. This means if he says, I want you to go make restitution for that thing you took, I do it. I'm completely obedient to him. I let him control me. This is what Charles G. Finney meant when he says sometimes I pray all night, because it takes me that long to get Charles G. Finney in a position where he can ask God one thing.

you see Rees Howells talks about gaining the position of intercession and interesting in his book how it would take him days sometimes in weeks when he was praying specifically for the healing of a person he had to gain what he can and this is his own expression he had to gain the place of intercession

in other words he had to just spend time with God, spend time with the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit was cleansing him and purging him and weaning him until finally he got to the place where God says, all right, now I'll accept your petition. What do you want? Now, that was the way he found it in his own life, because his whole life was a minister of intercession. But that means when I come to God in prayer that I must submit myself, be controlled by the Holy Spirit. And you'll know whether or not he's control you, he'll show you. He'll convict you of things. He'll bring to life. He'll help you to remember at the altar, the things that need to be made right. So, I buy an act of faith, by an act of

my will, I submit myself to the Holy Spirit. I let him examine my heart. I make certain that every sin that I know anything about is confessed and cleansed. Secondly, when I choose the will of God in advance, I say, Lord, your Lord, I want your will more than I want what I'm going to ask for. I believe that when I have done that, I have every right to assume the Holy Spirit is filling. And then when I wait in His presence, if I have turned the control of my body, if I have submitted my mind, my will to Him, and have given Him control of my life, I have the right to assume then that the petitions, the desires, the impulses that arise in my praying are prompted by the Holy Spirit.

now there's a way to test that the way you've tested is this this is subjective you're not infallible you're going to miss it once in a while you say how can i be certain that this thing that i'm praying for is of the spirit i believe it is i've done what you said and i'm just assuming that this petition is of the holy spirit how can i be certain i can tell you in a way how you can be certain of it you start praying for that thing and if that thing is not of the spirit of god you'll find it very difficult to pray for. When you're praying in the Spirit, there'll be a peace in your heart. There will be a restful confidence in your heart. You'll have peace about it that this thing is right. This thing is right. If this thing you're praying for is not of the Spirit, you won't have peace about it when you pray for, when you ask God for.

I believe this. When I come to a place where there's something definitely I want to pray for, someone I want to intercede for, an object that God is laid on my heart, I want to pray for, I do exactly what I've told you tonight. And if I start praying for that thing, and I can't pray for it, and I just don't feel right about it, every time I start to pray for it, I don't have peace about it. I take that as a signal that I've misread the promptings of the Holy Spirit

and I lay it aside and I don't pray for that anymore but as I pray for it as I pray for it if I feel right in praying for it if the peace of God is in my heart if I have peace about that thing I'm praying for then I continue to pray for it

I continue to pray for it until one or two things happen or until one or three things happen until I continue to pray for that until either God lets me know that it's not right that is not his will that is not what he wants me to pray for

and then I can't have any peace in praying with that thing or until he answers it or thirdly until he gives me the assurance that he's going to answer it. There have been a many thing that after I prayed for it for a while, I couldn't pray for them anymore. When I would start to pray for it, all I want to do would be to be thankful for it. God had given me the assurance that he was going to answer that I've had, I don't know how many of you come and share the same thing with me, praying for someone to be saved or praying for something to come to pass, and you say, we can't

pray for it anymore, all we can do is just thank God for it. Just praise God for it. We've already received the assurance that it's going to be answered, and now we're just thanking God for it. Every time I pray for it, I really don't ask God to do it. I just thank Him that he's going to do. God gives you the assurance many times beforehand that a thing is going to be answered. Praying in the Holy Spirit is real praying. And he is the spirit of supplication. and you learn to pray in the Holy Spirit it's just as simple as learning to witness in the Spirit to live in the Spirit those three things

that I've mentioned to you tonight you read them over you ponder them over you ask God to teach you to pray you pray the Holy Spirit to teach you to pray you learn to pray you go to the school of Jesus let him teach you to pray let God make an intercessor The greatest thing that ever happened to you in the service of our Lord is for you to put your life at God's disposal to learn to pray.