This sermon emphasizes the importance of having a spirit of prayer and being filled with the Holy Spirit. It delves into the concept of praying in the realm of the Spirit, allowing God to bring burdens to us, and learning to pray according to God's will. The speaker shares personal experiences and insights on how to engage in prayer effectively, highlighting the role of the Holy Spirit in interceding for us and guiding our understanding of Scripture.

I crawl into the bed just quietly and jealous, kind of woke up and she said, Daddy, can you do me a favor? I said, yes, my darling, what is it? She said, don't get up at five in the morning. And I said, I understand. Well, I'll tell you what happened. Five o'clock, the phone rang. It was Margaret Patterson. Aren't you glad the Bible says in my father's house are many men? And I picked up the phone. I said, hello. Ah, Robert, you're right, she said. Knowing that you are on your knees before God, recognizing that you are in the spirit of prayer, I just have a longing to pray with you this morning at five o'clock. She said, are you up and about? And I said, no. She said, are you not in a spirit of prayer at the moment? I said, no, I'm in a spirit of sleeping. And she said, why? You told me you pray at five in the morning. I said, not this morning. She said, why don't you pray at five in the morning? I said, because I got into bed at two in the morning. Will you leave me alone? Let me ask you, I mean, you think it's funny. You're not even asleep. I was so convicted, I got up. My heart wasn't happy with Margaret. Let me ask you, have you ever asked God to give you a spirit of prayer? Let me explain to you how this thing works. You see, when Jesus said, How much more will you, heavenly Father, keep on giving the Holy Spirit to those that keep on asking? Then you remember, Jesus came, and he made this statement. And you see, he gave unto them their spirit without measure. You see, brother and sister, the life in the spirit is not a goal, it's a gateway. You remember in the book of Acts, when the Holy Spirit came and picked you up, they were full to the Holy Spirit of God. And guess what happened? In Acts chapter 4, they were full to the Holy Spirit of God again. And in Acts chapter 11, they were full to the Holy Spirit of God again. And Paul came in Ephesians, and he's speaking in Ephesians chapter 5. He said, Be not drunk of wine, wherein there is an excess. He said, But be being full to the Spirit. So you say, what are we talking about? We're talking about this concept of the freshness of the presence of God. So if you and I don't learn what it means to be consistently fresh in the presence of God, I'll tell you what's going to happen to us. We will have no understanding of what the spirit of prayer is all about. Now you see, the spirit of prayer, when God gives us the spirit of prayer, you say, Gerard, what does the spirit of prayer do? The spirit of prayer leads me to the prayer life of Christ. Because you see, I'm indwelled by the life of Christ. Christ is in my heart, and because He's in my heart, and He wants to teach me the language of prayer, He wants me to understand what it means to pray in the realm of the Spirit. Because if I pray in the realm of the Holy Spirit, what He's going to do? He's going to bring the burden of God to me. I can't pray if I don't have a burden. But what am I going to say to God when it comes to the concept of intercessory prayer? I can linger in His presence. I can be involved in the routine praying. We said Saturday morning, there are 12 aspects of what prayer is about, and we can explore the beauty of it. But we are speaking here about a specific aspect of prayer. Where I pray in the realm of the Spirit, and as I pray in the realm of the Spirit, God brings the burden, and this burden comes to me, and I'm facing it, and I know it is too much, it's overwhelming. I never will be able to systematically dissect it in a matter of a day. It can take years, but little by little by little, God teaches me this realm of the Spirit of prayer. And the question is, how do I do it? Ah, let me take you to the Apostle Paul. I love this. You know, in the first seven chapters of the Apostle to the Romans, he only mentioned two possibilities of the Spirit of God. Two. Suddenly, in chapter 8, he began to introduce to us the greatness of the Spirit of God. Ah, when we come to that 8th chapter, I love it so deeply. When he said that, he said, Well now, no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Can I ask you this morning, are you free? No condemnation. If the Son shall set you free, you'll be free indeed. I mean, you'll be as free as a bird. What's the condition? To those who are in Christ Jesus. You know, there's a ton of us. We hopped on the cross on a Sunday morning, and we pop off again on a Monday morning. To those who are in Christ Jesus. Walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. And here comes the secret. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. Can I ask you a question this morning? Have you experienced the law of the Spirit of life? It's a law of purity. It's a law of reverence. It's a law of transparency. It's a law of humility. It's a law of honesty. As His life of Christ washed through my life. And then Paul came in Romans Chapter 8 and I love this. He suddenly moved from everything that he said about the Spirit and the flesh. He came to a verse where he said, now I need to explain to you the spirit of prayer. And he made a statement and he said, the spirit himself, you know the old translation, I don't know how this happened, but the old translation did something there that I just don't understand, because the old translation said, the spirit itself, bearer of witness, with our spirit that we are the child of God. And then again it says, in verse 26, the spirit itself, and I was so troubled with this concept, because the context is speaking to us about the Holy Spirit as a person, and in his personality presenting the supremacy of Christ, and the majesty of Christ, and the superiority of Christ, and that which Christ is all about, because the spirit of God never speaks of himself, he always takes us to the Word of God, and he always brings us to the life of Christ, and when he said, the spirit himself, and he introduced the mind of the spirit, and he introduced the emotions of the spirit, and he introduced the word of the spirit, and he said, the spirit himself helpeth our infirmities. Brother and sister, can I tell you this morning, you're not on your own, you know, man I tell you, if you are here this morning and say, God, I didn't understand this thing, I wanted to teach you, I wanted to teach you the language of prayer, I want you to explain to me how this can become part of my life, listen, you need to make room for God. Can I give you an illustration? You know there was a man with the name of Bisa, you say, who in the world was Bisa? Bisa was a contemporary of John Calvin, and Bisa had an incredible way of taking Scripture and simplifying Scripture. You know, when the Apostle Paul said, study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman not needeth to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Bisa had this beautiful illustration about this, and what Bisa did, he said, it's like a father who's sitting at the table, and there's a chunk of meat in front of him, and he's got this fork and a very sharp knife, and so we look at it, and he said, oh, there's nine that I need to serve with this chunk of meat, and then he'd take the fork and he put it in, and he cut it in nine exact pieces. That's the concept when Paul said, study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman not needeth to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. And in this statement, that the Holy Spirit came, and the Holy Spirit helped our infirmities, Bisa has got this incredible illustration that he used, that he got out of the classical Greek, because the classical Greek is full of illustrations, and this is what Bisa does. You see, the picture that comes to the surface, it's a little man that is there, and this little man is standing in a forest, and he's got an axe and he's got a saw, and there is a tree that he wants to cut down, and he wants to cut this tree down, and then the difficulty that he has, if he cuts it down, he needs to get this tree to his house, and he does not have the ability to do that. And then Bisa said, so what happened? He looked at this tree, and then he began to cut this tree with his axe, and there was a moment as he cut it that he dropped the tree, and so the tree fell down, and then he began to saw of these branches of this tree, and eventually all of them, he took them away, and here was this tree lying, and then he stood back and he said, you know, I've done all this work, but here is the issue, I need to get this tree to my house, and I don't want to cut it apart, I need to get it as it is, I need to get it to my house, and he stood there, and in his infirmity and his weakness, there is no way that he is able to get this tree to the house, and then he made this statement. He said, someone else came along, he called him the Paracletos, he said, Paul said, we don't know how to pray, we don't know what to pray, but he said, the Spirit of God came and he intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be uttered, and he touched our hearts, and he is the strong one, and this little guy stands there, and brother and sister, as he stands there, the consequences, he turned to this little man, and he said to him, so what is the issue? And he said, you know, here is the thing, I want to get it to my house, it's maybe about 60 or 70 yards away, I don't have the ability to get it there, and the strong one is standing there and said, I'm here to help you, I'm your helper. And then that other guy would say, so how are we going to do it? And he said, I can't do it without you. And he said, what are we going to do? He said, let's go to the end of the tree where it's alive, and let's begin to lift it up. Now remember, I'm strong and you're not. But he said, you need to help me. And he said, you are in front of me and I'm behind you. And he said, we began to lift, and he said, with all the ability and availability and the strength that you have and your understanding, he said, I want you to help me to lift this tree that you've cut out. And here the two of them began to lift the tree. And then at some point as they lifted somewhat, the stronger one came and said to him, now I want you to stand and hold as much as you can. My hand is still here, but I'm going to come around and I'm going to come to the heavy side of the tree. And he said, that's what I'm going to do. And then he said, now I'm facing the heavy side. And he said, I still want you to be there. And he said, now we are moving forward. I can't do it without you. We are moving forward. And then he said, now we're going to move. And he said, now I want you to move like this. And the little guy moved like this. And then the big one has his arms underneath the tree. And the little guy is still standing there trying his best, but he doesn't know how to do it. And then the strong one begins to move until he finds the balance of the weight of the tree. And when he found the balance of the weight of the tree, he gets underneath it and he begins to lift it until he's got it perfectly balanced. The spirit of God is not a spirit of confusion. And until he perfectly lifted it. And the little guy stands there and he said, what am I doing? He said, hold the balance. Hold the balance. And then the strong one came and he lifted up. And he said, the two of them began to walk towards the house. And the little guy said, I'm not doing much. And the strong one said, it's because I'm your helper. Are you getting it? Yep. Have you made room for the Holy Spirit of God? Cast your burden upon Him. He will sustain. Come unto all ye that are laboring in the earth. Take my yoke upon you. My yoke is easy and my burden is light. And you will find rest for your souls. I said this over this weekend and I say it again. If you take care of the gazing upon Jesus Christ, God is going to take care of the growing. You say, what do I have to do? I need to let go. You know, I find it so fascinating. I stay with people now and again. And this weekend I have the privilege of staying with people and learning. Think about it. I don't want to stay at any other place if I ever come back here again. You don't understand the level of abuse that I went through. But you see, the Bible does say we are made perfect through suffering. You cut that out. And you know, when I came into their house, it's an amazing house. Because Hilton, I nearly called him a few times Hitler. And every time when I call his name, I need to think. It's Hilton. It's Hilton. Don't you worry. You know, they've got these pictures that I want to shoot for their house. I found about probably 30 this morning. And I said to him the other day, you get a pellet gun. I get rid of them because they're a nuisance. And then I said to him, we don't need a pellet gun, we need a shotgun. Because there's so many of them. And then this morning when I saw them all, I said, we don't need a pellet gun. We don't need a shotgun. He said, what do we need? I said, we need the machine gun. And he must have looked at me and said, you're a dangerous man. Last night when we sat and had time together and we were talking about prayer. And I said, I want to tell you something. I said, my wife really was scared to death about this. But these are simple things. I said, in our lawn, we've got beautiful ponds and fountains at our place. And we feed the birds and flowers and all kinds of things. And then this rascal of a thing turned up in our lawn. And it's called the mole. He came all the way from New Brunswick. And this thing turned up. And he was just terrible, you know, creating chaos. And you know, you can't catch them. It's so difficult. And then Janice said to me, what are you going to do? And I said, you know what I'm going to do? And she said, what? I said, I'm going to ask God to kill him. She said, are you serious? I said, yeah. She said, how much time are you going to spend praying about that? I said, none. I'm just going to ask God to kill him. And I walked back. And I said, listen, I'm not kidding you. This is last week. I walked back. That night, I walked in the lawn. And I saw the chaos that he created. And I walked back. And I stopped at my house. And I said, God, can you kill this thing? Well, listen here. The next morning, you have my quiet hour. And there's a thing lying on the lawn. And Janice came up and said, there's something lying on the lawn. And she said, what is it? I said, let's open the door and walk on the deck. And it was this mole lying dead in the lawn with his feet up in the air. Just like a guy's waiting. And my wife said, you really prayed that? I said, I sure did. She said, did you pray long? I said, no. I said, just God, can you kill this thing? She said, man, you're dangerous. Can you pray for my pigeons? I'll help those who help themselves. Listen to me, sister. Can I just ask you this morning? You know, I mean, we find these things funny and so. But let me ask you this morning. When we're dealing with the spirit of prayer, it is amazing. The spirit comes and helps our infirmities. You see, your understanding of his help is determined by the vulnerability of your confession in your infirmities. I'm not speaking about unconfessed sin. No, no. You see, Adam and Eve had a perfect human nature. But you know, when sin came into the world, this is the consequences of sin. Every one of us sit with this war, human nature. Now we come to Christ. God cleanses us from the guilt of sin. And then God begins to deal with the pollution of sin. And God purifies. And there's no sin as perfection. But God purifies through the efficacy of the blood. And then a lifelong process of sanctification. He irons out this crooked human nature. And it's saturated with infirmities. And you say, how do you get through to God? You know, I get up in the mornings and I get alone in my corner. And if you really want to know, I get up in the mornings and I take a shower. I wake up with a sun on my heart. I begin to worship God and just spend time with Him. You don't need to be in a specific place. You just need to live in the spirit of prayer. That becomes your inner chamber, you know. It's amazing. So I get up and take a shower. And I come down and I make myself a cup of coffee. And you say, why do you have coffee? Because in the second book of Maccabees it says you must have Tim Hortons with your quiet time. So I'm going to my corner. And then I'm there. And I journal. And I just, you know, just say, God, I'm here. And then God says, here's the beauty. The beauty of what you do. You come into His presence. You come into His presence. You're precious. You're unique. You're amazing. But the consequence is this. You come into His presence. And you're desperately in need of Him. Just ask Him one morning. When you become conscious of the presence of God. And it's precious and unique and it's amazing and it's wonderful. Just ask Him and say, give me a glimpse of my need. Just lift the lid of the pot. He's not going to condemn you. He's going to show you the depth of His compassion. And then you just say to Him, sit down. You need to teach me the language of prayer. And here He comes, you know. The Spirit of God helped our infirmities. You say, do you spend a lot of time in these infirmities? No, no. Just enough to really let me know I can't do anything myself. Because you see, it takes Him one after the other, you know. And so you see what happens. Then you get into the question, what do you do? I write out the scriptures, you know. Oh man, it is wonderful, you know. And I look at the passage and I say, is there a lesson to learn? And then, is there something about God that I learn? Is there something about Christ? Is there something about the enemy? Is there something about the burden of God? And so you let the Word of God just flow into your life. And as the Word of God flows into your life. And I never studied the Bible without a notebook, you know. My wife often said to me, you know when you go to heaven, what is it that you will miss the most? Will you miss this? Will you miss this? Will you miss this? And I always say to my wife, you know what I miss the most? She said, well that's my notebooks. Oh, man. And take you back, way back and say, well what happened that morning? Ah, this is what happened that morning when God spoke. And so the Spirit of God coming, and He helped our infirmities. He said, how does it work? We don't know how to pray or we don't know what to pray. But the Spirit of God comes and He intercedes for us. Now people sometimes say, you know, they throw a verse at me. And I don't know where you come from, theologically speaking, because we live in a world. Can I just ask you something? Don't you ever go from experience to truth? Don't you ever do that? If you go from experience to truth, you know what you're going to do? You're going to interpret Scripture in the light of experience. It's very dangerous. You're going to isolate Scripture, and if it doesn't fit into your experience, you're not going to accept it. And Satan, if he can't get you back, he's going to push you over the edge. So you say, what do I have to do? I need to go to truth. And truth into experience. And the truth of God's work from the same divine agency and my experience with God. And so people say to me, so how do you pray? You know, the Bible says, Paul said, I pray in the Spirit and I pray with the understanding. And then there are people who have had different experiences or manifestations, and they would come and they would say, well, you know, to pray in the Spirit, this is what you need to do. I'm not sure, I'm not sure about the full context of what they're talking about. I'm not sure. I know where they're coming from. I know where they're heading to. And then they would challenge me and they say, so are you involved in this manifestation? Are you involved in this manifestation? And you know, I just, I just, and I get attacked from so many different angles. And they say, so do you know what it means to pray in the Spirit? Do you know what it means to pray in the understanding? I said, you know, after all these 40 years, I think so, I think so. And they said, so what happens to you when you pray in the Spirit and you pray in the understanding? I said, well, if you really want to know what happens to me, when I get there on my knees and God begins to break my heart, and somehow the burden of God becomes a reality and I know God is speaking to me, and I said, you know, I pray with my understanding. And I, and I, and I, and I, and I let the Spirit of God search my heart, and I pray with my understanding. And then something suddenly happens. And they say, what is it? I said, the Holy Spirit came. And the Holy Spirit began to feed my understanding. How does the Holy Spirit feed my understanding? The Spirit speaks of the blood and the blood speaks of the Spirit. And the Spirit brings us back to the Scriptures. Don't you ever jump outside of the Scripture. And the Holy Spirit takes the Scriptures. And it begins to feed my understanding. Because what is it that I want to do? I want to pray according to the will of God. And so here I'm praying for Andrew and Holly, and I'm under the burden of God for them and their two beautiful, beautiful children. I said, God, there is this bastard in his wife and I want to pray for him. And then suddenly, and suddenly then the Spirit of God comes. And do you know what happens? He takes me to the Scriptures and he said, this is what my word is saying about Andrew. The kind of father he wants to, needs to be. The kind of leader he needs to be. The kind of husband that he needs to be. And the kind of pastor that he needs to be. And the kind of visitor he needs to be. I'm seeing him after lunch today and he's getting it all. No, he's not. No, he's not. I love him. I care for him and I love him. I deeply care for him. But I don't climb in there and try to manipulate the will of God. And say, you need to do this, and you need to do this, and you need to do this, and you need to do this. You know, I'm not doing that. I say, God, this is what your word says about this boy. About this boy. This is what your word says about his wife. Now take the Scriptures and let them flow into my heart. So that when I look at the two women and the two children, all I see is glimpses of them through the massive revelation of Scripture. And you can never go wrong. You understand what I mean? You see, here's the problem. You know so much about this book, but this book knows so little about it. And it's the same with Stephen and his wife and his children. You see, you've passed because you're 77 years old. Desperately in love with God. This is how I pray for myself, you know. You know what's the greatest burden in my heart? All of our love for God. Because my effectiveness for God has always been determined by what God is doing in my life. You say, are you satisfied? No, I'm disgusted with a holy passion. It's the Spirit of God. Can I give you one step further? You say, what about Abraham? The beauty of Abraham's life, and you need to understand this, because brother and sister, prayer in the Old Testament is this. It's the voice of God that came to man. It's man responding to God. Now, God is the initiator. And in the understanding that God is the initiator, it means that when we initiate prayer, He knows everything about us. There's nothing that He doesn't know. So this is what the Bible says. God said about Abraham, Can I hide from Abraham that which I contemplate to do? Can I hide from Abraham? So here is the beauty of it. God saw what was happening in Sodom and Gomorrah. Let me give you an explanation from the Hebrew language and how I understand it. God said about Sodom and Gomorrah, He said, the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah is awful, it's brutal. And then the Bible makes this staggering statement. He said, I will now go down to see if it's as bad as it is. And people say, isn't God omnipresent? Of course He's omnipresent. Doesn't He know absolutely everything? Of course He knows everything. So what is the context of that amazing passage in our understanding? He doesn't know that He didn't know everything. He knew everything. I mean, it's awful. That's why He was going to destroy the cities. It was a final confirmation of what He knew was resident and in the application of what He was going to do. But there was a man, and his name was Abraham. And God said, I can't do this because I'm going to need to give him a shot at this thing. And so this is what happened. The Bible says, God said, can I hide from Abraham that which I contemplate to do? And then He said, Abraham stood before the Lord. And then here came the understanding. Abraham had an involvement in Sodom and Gomorrah. You say, why? Because you know, a lot in his family was there. And he came to God and he said, God, if we find 50 righteous people and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Now, you need to understand something. In order to understand this development of his own personal prayer line, you need to understand what he said to God. And you need to understand how God responded. Because brother and sister, the way that God responded was not just a little answer in saying, if I find 45, I won't do it. If I find 40, I won't do it. If I find 30, I won't do it. If I find 20, I won't do it. If I find 10, I won't do it. No, no, no, no. It's not just statements that God made. It's the manifestation of his grace and his mercy and his long-suffering and his understanding and his compassion and his depth of his love for this man now who's learning how to communicate with God. I mean, it goes far deeper than that. But Abraham had an idea. He didn't come to God and he said, God, if we find 50 people here in the city of Sodom and Gomorrah, are you going to go and destroy them? No, no, no, no. And forgive me for using this term. He drove into the depth of the awesomeness of the character and the righteousness of God in prayer. And he said, if we find 50 righteous people. You see, God cannot destroy his own righteousness.