Sermon Tone Analysis

! Romans 8:26-39

!! Romans 8:26-39

*Tape #8127*

*Pastor Chuck Smith*

* *

/Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses.

For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, / You look at all of the horrible things that are happening in our nation today.

The corruption of our youth and all of this stuff, you realize, yes, we deserve the judgment of God.

Is God wanting to give Clinton four more years to judge America?

Now, I don’t know!

And thus how to pray.

There are a lot of things that I really don’t know how to pray.

I don’t know what the will of God is.

There is a friend.

He is in big trouble.

He’s gotten away from the Lord and that relationship that he once had.

And now he’s in a real mess.

He’s facing jail time.

Does God want to just really use this to draw him back fully to a commitment to Jesus Christ?

Is this God's wake up call to him?

Shall I pray, oh God, you know, give him favor in the courts?

Help him Lord and keep him out of prison.

Or does God want him to be in prison so that he’ll have to start listening to the voice of God.

How to pray?  It’s often times a real problem for us to know just how to pray as we ought.

Now this is a weakness.

We don’t always know what God's will is.

We want to pray according to God's will.

Here’s where the Spirit comes along and assists us.

Assistance in our prayer life when we are faced with this enigma of not knowing how to pray as we ought.

So He  helps in our weaknesses, for we don not know what we should pray for as we ought.

/but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

/Now he helps our infirmities or our weaknesses, in that He will help us in our prayer life as we’re faced with situations where we don’t know how to pray.

The Spirit will make intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

I’ve been groaning an awful lot lately as I read the newspapers and the news magazines.

Time magazine, just lately in this article in which they sought to totally denigrate the account in Genesis.

It’s sad that, you know, they are taking every chance they can to really strike at the Bible.

Back at Easter time, that’s when I canceled my magazine, but someone brought me a Time magazine today.

They were sitting in the hospital, waiting.

There was a Time magazine there.

They read this article on Genesis.

It was so horrible, they decided I don’t want other people to be corrupted by this, so they stole the magazine.

They brought it to me this morning.

They asked me to read this blasphemous article that they have on Genesis.

So I didn’t buy it.

I quit buying Time, but I have a free copy that was given to me today.

But when I read these things and I realize how many people read it and it sort of bolsters their unbelief in God.

They find solace and comfort in believing that God doesn’t exist or that the Bible’s accounts are rather corrupted.

And that these stories are just myths of the Hebrew people.

But I groan in my spirit when I see this kind of influence and the corrupting of the minds of the American people.

I find myself groaning in the Spirit.

I don’t know how to pray as I should, but I groan so often in my spirit over the conditions of our land and our nation.

But that groaning is the help of the Holy Spirit in making intercession according to the will of God. 

/27//Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.  /It’s a wonderful thing to know that you are praying according to the will of God.

For when you know you are praying according to the will of God, then we have this confidence that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.

And if we know that He hears us then we know that we have received those petitions that we have desired of Him.

So it’s awfully good to know that I am praying according to God's will.

I can’t always know that when I just pray from my intellect.

But when the Spirit guides my prayer, I can know that my prayer is according to the will of God.

Another assist that we have of the Holy Spirit.

Helping us in our prayer life.

Making intercession for us with these groanings which we really often just can’t utter.

It’s just a deep groaning within our spirit and that is God's help.

He who searches the heart.

God said that He does search the heart.

David said, Thou hast searched me and known me.

He prayed, “Search me, oh God.

Know my heart.”

He who searches the heart knows what is the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

/28//And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

/Now, there are certain things that we know and need to know.

Certain basic foundational truths.

I need to know this.

Because in life we are going to be faced with many things that we don’t know.

Many circumstances that seem to be very adverse.

I don’t know why God allowed this.

I don’t know what God is doing or seeking to do through this.

If God really loves me, why would He allow this to happen to me?

And there are a lot of things that we don’t know and won’t know.

So it’s important that there are things that we do know.

This is one of those basic, important, foundational, truths that we need to know, so that when we face things that we don’t know, we have something to stand on.

We fall back on it.

And this is one of those Scriptures in which I have fallen back on this Scripture so many times!

I know that all things are working together for good to those who love God and are the called according to His purpose.

I know that.

Now, I can’t always tell you what good is going to come out of a situation that seems to be so tragic.

The problem is that as God is working in our lives, He is always working according to an eternal purpose and plan that He has for us.

As I live my life on a day by day kind of a basis, I’m always concerned with today’s needs.

How things affect me today in this day by day existence.

And I can’t always see the long term.

As Peter said we can only see that which is near.

We don’t see that which is far off.

And that is a problem.

And so as I am looking at things from my narrow perspective of how it is affecting me today, I’m often quite disturbed over the tragedies or the situations that I am facing because of how they affect me now.

Many of the things of the past, things that were difficult and hard as I was going through them, wondering where is God in all of this?

Why does God allow this to happen?

And many times crying out to God, weeping over the condition.

Later on, when it went full cycle and God, in time, revealed the purpose, some of those things over which I was weeping, I began to rejoice!  Oh yes, Lord, I see now!  How marvelous!

Oh, Your love for me is so great!

Now I see the full cycle.

I see what You had in mind.

Lord, if You had only told me!