"But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in
Himself has interpreted to us. We need Him all along the line. One great cause of real failure in the ministry, even when there is seeming success, and not only in the ministry but in all forms of service by Christian men and women, is from the attempt to teach by "enticing words of man's wisdom," i.e., by the arts of human logic, rhetoric or eloquence, what the Holy Spirit has taught us. What is needed is Holy Ghost power, "demonstration of the Spirit and of power." There are three causes of failure of Christian work. First, some other message is taught than the message which the Holy Spirit has revealed in the Word. Men preach science, art, philosophy, sociology, history, experience, etc., etc., and not the simple Word of God as found in the Holy Spirit's Book-- the Bible. Second, the Spirit-taught message, the Bible, is studied and sought to be comprehended by the natural understanding, i.e., without the Spirit's illumination. Third, the Spirit-given message, the Word, the Bible, studied and comprehended under the Holy Spirit's illumination, is given out to others with "enticing words of man's wisdom" and not "in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." We need, we are absolutely dependent upon, the Holy Spirit all along the line. He must teach us how to speak as well as what to speak. He must be the power as well as the message. 14. The Holy Spirit has power to teach us how to pray. In Jude 20, R.V., we read, "But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit." Again in Ephesians, 6:18, R.V., "Praying at all seasons in the Spirit." The Holy Spirit guides the believer in prayer. The disciples did not know how to pray as they ought, so they came to Jesus and said, "Lord, teach us to pray" (Luke 11:1). "We know not how to pray as we ought," but we have another helper right at hand to help us (John 14:16, 17). "The Spirit also helpeth our infirmity" (Romans 8:26 R.V.). He teacheth us to pray. True prayer is prayer "in the Spirit," i.e., the prayer in which the Spirit inspires and directs. When we come into God's presence to pray, we should recognize our infirmity, our ignorance of what we should pray for or how we should pray, and, in the consciousness of our utter inability to pray aright, look up to the Holy Spirit and cast ourselves utterly upon Him to direct our prayers, to lead out our desires, and guide our utterance of them. Rushing heedlessly into God's presence, and asking the first thing that comes into our minds, or that some thoughtless one asks us to pray for, is not "praying in the Holy Ghost," and is not true prayer. We must wait for the Holy Spirit, and surrender ourselves to the Holy Spirit. The prayer that God and the Holy Spirit inspires is the prayer that God the Father answers. From Romans 8:26, 27, we learn that the longings which the Holy Spirit begets in our hearts are often too deep for utterance; too deep, apparently, for clear and definite comprehension on the part of the believer himself, in whom the Holy Spirit is working. God Himself must "search the heart," to know "what is the mind of the Spirit" in these unuttered and unutterable longings. But God does know "what is the mind of the Spirit." He does know what those Spiritgiven longings mean, even if we do not, and these longings are "according to the