“THE
WORK OF THE SPIRIT AS TO THE MATTER OF PRAYER
“The
first thing we ascribe to the Spirit herein is, that He supplies the mind with
a due comprehension of the matter of
prayer, or what ought to be prayed for; without which no man can pray as he
ought. The testimony of the apostle is express to this purpose, Rom. 8.26, “Likewise
also the Spirit helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray
for as we ought, but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings
that cannot be uttered.”
It
is true that whatever we ought to pray for, is declared in Scripture, and summarily
comprised in the Lord’s prayer: but it is one thing to have this in the book,
another to have it in our heart; without which it cannot be to us the due
matter of prayer. Without the assistance of the Spirit we neither know our own
wants (needs)-nor the supplies of them that are expressed in the promises of
God-nor the proper end for which we should seek those supplies.
1. The Spirit of God alone is able to give us
an understanding of our wants (needs).
(1.) The principal matter of our prayer has
respect to faith and unbelief; the apostles prayed, “Lord, increase our faith;”
and the poor man in his distress, “Lord, help my unbelief.” To this end we must
be convinced by the Spirit, of the nature and guilt of unbelief, and of the
nature and use of faith; for neither conscience nor the law will convince us of
the evil of the one, nor instruct us in the nature of the other; and without
both, we know not our greatest wants (needs), or “what to pray for as we ought.”
(2). The matter of our prayer respects the
depravity of our nature; the darkness of our understandings; the perverseness
of our wills; their reluctance to spiritual things: and the secret workings of
our lusts, which keep the soul from a due conformity to the holiness of God. Believers
have a special regard to these things in their confessions and supplications;
and their great concerns with God in prayer are for mercy in their pardon, for
grace in their removal, and the daily renovation of His image in their souls.
Without a sense of these matters, I must profess I know not how any man can
pray; and this knowledge we have not of ourselves. Nature is blind, and cannot
see them; it is proud, and will not own them; stupid, and is insensible of
them.
(3.) As it is with respect to sin, so it is
with respect to God and Christ, grace, holiness, and spiritual privileges. The inward
sanctification of all our faculties, with supplies of grace for this purpose,
is what we want (need) and pray for. But we have no spiritual conceptions of
these things, but what are given us by the Spirit of God; and without these,
what are our prayers, or what do they signify? Without these men mays say on
the world’s end, without giving any glory to God, or gaining any advantage to
their own souls.
(4). With respect to temporal concerns, we
know not of ourselves what to pray for. Whatever our sense may be of them, and
our natural desires about them, yet how and when, under what conditions and
limitations, with what frame of spirit, what submission to the will of God,
they are to be made the matter of our prayers, we know not: “For who knoweth
what is good for man in this life, all the days of his vain life, which he
spendeth as a shadow?” Eccles. 6.12. In these also we need to be “taught of God”
2. The Spirit of God alone acquaints us with
the grace and mercy prepared for our relief in the promises of God. What God
has promised we are to pray for, and nothing else. There is nothing that we can
want (need), but God has promised it: and there is nothing that He has
promised, which we do not want (need) It is therefore indispensably necessary
that we should know what God has promised. He knows our wants (needs) infinitely
better than we do ourselves; yea, we know nothing of them but what He is
pleased to teach us; and from the promises we may learn them more certainly
than by any other means. And this we affirm is by the Spirit of God, for the “things
of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God;” by Him alone we “know the things
that are freely given unto us of God,” 1 Cor. 2.11., namely, the grace, mercy,
love and kindness of the promises.
3. The Spirit of God alone directs believers
to pray, or ask for anything to right or proper ends. Men may lose all benefit
of their prayers by proposing to themselves improper ends, as the apostle James
affirms of some, “Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, to consume it
on your own lusts.” There is nothing so
excellent it itself, so useful to us, so acceptable to God in the matter of
prayer, but it may be vitiated, corrupted, and rendered vain, by an application
of it to false or mistaken ends. And that in this case we are relieved by the
Holy Ghost is plain from the text under consideration; for “helping our infirmities,”
and teaching us “what to pray for as we ought,” He makes intercession for us “according
to the will of God,” verse 27. He does it in us, and by us, or enables us so to
do. He directs and enables us to make supplications “according to the mind of
God”: and herein God is said to “know the mind of the Spirit;” that is, His end
and design in the matter of His requests. This God knows, that is, approves and
accepts.
The
Spirit of God directs believers not only as to the matter, but as to the end of
all their requests. He guides them therefore to design, (1) That all the success
of their petitions may have an immediate tendency to the glory of God. Without
His special aid we should aim only at self; our own profit, ease and
satisfaction. (2) He keeps them to this also, that the issue of all their
supplications may be the improvement of holiness in them, their conformity to
God, and nearer access to Him. When these ends are not aimed at, the matter of
prayer may be good, but our prayers themselves may be an abomination.”
-From The Holy
Spirit His Gifts and Power by John
Owen (1616-1683) Published by Kregel
Publications Grand Rapids, MI 1954
Pages 327-330.
