Spirit praying for us

The spirit is our intercessor. “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself 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”.–Romans 8:26, 27.

This Spirit does this not by superseding the use of our faculties. It is not by praying for us, while we do nothing. He prays for us by exciting our faculties. Not that He immediately suggests to us words, or guides our language.

But He enlightens our minds and makes the truth take hold of our souls. He leads us to consider the state of the Church, and the condition of sinners around us. The manner in which He brings the truth before the mind, and keeps it there till it produces its effect, we cannot tell.

But we can know as much as this that He leads us to a deep consideration of the state of things; and the result of this is the natural and philosophical deep feeling. When the Spirit brings the truth before a man’s mind, he cannot but have a deep feeling on the issue except he turns away his thoughts and thus lead his mind to think of other things.

This same way sinners felt, when the Spirit of God brings the truth before them. They feel wrong, as long as they remain impenitent. Anyone who calls himself a Christian should be able to feel the touch, when the Holy Spirit brings a subject into warm contact with his heart. Just as it is impossible not to feel it, if you put your hand into the fire.

If the Spirit of God leads a man to dwell on things calculated to excite an overpowering feelings regarding the salvation of souls, and he is not excited thereby, it proves that he has no love for souls, neither has the Spirit of Christ, nor knows about Christian experience.