Prayer And Supplication In The Holy Spirit

“Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. But that ye also may know my affairs, and how I do, Tychicus, a beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, shall make known to you all things: whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, that ye might know our affairs, and that he might comfort your hearts. Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen.” —Ephesians 6:18–24

We have been considering the armor of the Christian soldier. We have noticed that he is to put on the breastplate of practical righteousness, that he is to have his feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace. In other words, his walk is to be in accordance with the Gospel. Then in the third place, he is to have his loins girt about with truth, and fourth, he is to take the shield of faith, of confidence in God wherewith to quench the fiery darts of the foe. On his head, he is to have the helmet of salvation, for no one can go forth with boldness to meet Satan and his cohorts unless he has the assurance of his own salvation through the finished work of Christ. Then he is to have in his hand the sword of the Spirit which is, not merely the Word of God in the sense that the Bible is the Word, but, as we have seen, the “saying” of God. He is to know his Bible so well that he can draw from this blessed armory the particular saying that he needs at a given moment. In addition to this, he is to keep the line of communication between himself and his God clear.

Some of you remember that during the late Word War, a regiment went into the Argonne Forest and was lost. For days they were out of touch with headquarters and we were reading about the lost regiment. When at last they were located, their ranks had been sadly decimated. When a Christian in the conflict with Satan gests out of touch with headquarters, it is a terrible thing. The apostle, after indicating the various pieces of armor says, “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit.” The trouble with many of us is that we pray only when we get into difficulty, when times are hard and circumstances are going against us. Then we remember the Word, “Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me” (Psalm 50:15). But we would be spared a great many of our troubles if we continued instant in prayers; if, when everything was going well with us, we were just as faithful about the hour of prayer as when things were going against us. “Praying always with all prayer.” Bunyon quaintly speaks of “all prayer” as though it were a part of the armor.

God declares in His Word that He will not hear the prayer of the wicked. It is an abomination to the Lord, and David says, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” But if I have judged all known sin and have on the breastplate of righteousness, I am in that attitude, that position where I can pray in confidence. “All prayer” is an approach to God but note the added word, “supplication.” This suggests definite petition. It is one thing to approach God in prayer with a heart full of praise and thanksgiving and, in a general way, commit one’s affairs to Him. It is another thing to come with a very definite supplication for a particular matter, for special trouble at a given time. We read, “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication—you have the same word again, it is prayer and petition—with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6–7). No difficulty that I have to face is too great for God and nothing that troubles me is too insignificant for Him to care.

Arthur T. Pierson sat with George Müller one day and Mr. Müller was telling him of some of the wonderful things that God had done for the orphanage at Bristol. As he talked, he was writing and Dr. Pierson noticed that he was having difficulty with his pen point. Right in the midst of the conversation, Mr. Müller seemed to lose sight of his visitor, he bowed his head for a moment or two in prayer and then began writing again. Mr. Pierson said, “Mr. Müller, what were you praying about just now?” “Oh,” Mr. Müller said, “perhaps you didn’t notice that I was having trouble with this pen point. I haven’t another and this is an important letter so I was asking the Lord to help me so that I could write it clearly.” “Dear me,” said Dr. Pierson, “a man who trusts God for millions of pounds also prays about a scratchy pen point.” Yes, you may go to Him about everything.

Then notice, it is “prayer and supplication in the Spirit.” And that may check many of us when it comes to the hour of prayer. Prayer in the Spirit is prayer in accordance with the mind of the indwelling Holy Spirit of God. No unconverted person, of course, can pray in the Spirit, but there are even Christians who are in such a low carnal condition of soul that it is impossible for them to pray in the Spirit. I cannot pray in the Spirit if I am harboring a grudge against my brother. I cannot pray in the Spirit if there is any one I won’t forgive because of any real or fancied wrong done to me. I cannot pray in the Spirit if I have a selfish motive, if I am seeking merely my own glory or comfort. I cannot pray in the Spirit if I have a covetous heart.

You remember the apostle James says, “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts” (James 4:3). I can pray in the Spirit only as I am walking in the Spirit, as I am living in the Spirit. Then He, the blessed third Person of the Trinity, who dwells in every believer, will guide my thoughts aright as I come to God in prayer. Very often one has gone to God about certain things when in an unspiritual state, only to find out when restored to fellowship that he would be far better without them, and so he no longer asks for them. In the Old Testament we read, “Delight thyself also in the Lord and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” If I am really delighting myself in the Lord, I will want only those things which will glorify God, I will not be asking from a selfish viewpoint. I shall want God to do for me that which will magnify Christ in my life and make him more precious to my soul.

“Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance.” “Watch and pray,” our Lord Jesus Christ said, “lest ye enter into temptation,” and this, of course, only emphasizes what we have seen already. If I would pray aright, I must live right, and so I am to watch against anything that would come into my life to grieve the Spirit of God and thus hinder real prayer.

Then, observe the Lord would not have me concerned only with my affairs. He says, “And supplication for all saints.” A brother beloved said to me the other day, “For years my interests have largely been in the work in which I myself was engaged, or in connection with certain institutions in which I had a part but some way I find the Lord is drawing me in these days to think of His work everywhere, and of His people in every place.” This surely is an evidence of growth in grace. We are so inclined to narrow down our thoughts to our own little circles. We may not pray the way the man did who said, “God bless me and my wife, our son John, and his wife. Us four, and no more,” but we do pray most earnestly for those connected intimately with us. And we should do this, but in addition, let us consider the whole church of God, let us think of all His beloved people in every place and bear them up in the arms of our faith and love. If, in this way, we go to God, we will never lack subjects about which to speak to Him.

Some years ago, I was visiting among a very devoted company of Christians in a western state. They had some rather peculiar ideas. They came together weekly to study the Bible and for preaching and remembering the Lord in observing His Supper, but they had no prayer meeting. I said to them, “Do you never have a prayer meeting?”

A brother said, “Oh no, we have nothing to pray for.”

“How is that?” I asked.

“Why, God has blessed us ‘with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ’ so we do not need to pray for spiritual blessings. We do not need to pray for temporal blessing, for we have everything we need. We are well cared for, we have all the land we know how to till. We do not need to pray for money, for we have plenty to keep us going. We do not need to pray for wives, for we are all married. We do not need to pray for children; I have thirteen and Brother So and So has fifteen. We have nothing to pray for so we just give God thanks.”

“My dear brother,” I said, “I wish if for nothing else, you would come together to pray for me.”

“We can do that at home,” he said. “If we came together to pray, we wouldn’t have anything to say.”

“But what about the word, ‘and supplication for all saints’? Suppose you do nothing else but come together to remind one another of the Lord’s dear children that you know, and spend an hour telling God about them.”

But he did not see it. They seemed to have no idea of what prayer really is. Some time after that, I was in Minneapolis. One day, I tumbled over and when I came to, I had a fever of one hundred four degrees. I was on my back with typhoid fever for six weeks. When at last, a year later, I got out to that same section, they said to me, “When we go the word that you were so very sick, we had two prayer meetings a week to pray for you and our hearts were greatly burdened but as soon as we got word that you were well enough to go home again, we stopped.” “Why did you stop?” I asked, “when flat on my back, I did not have any trouble with the devil but when strong and well and I have to go out to face the foe, I need prayer far more.” He looked at me in amazement and said, “I never thought of it that way.” The apostle Paul himself not only exhorted saints to pray for one another but he said, “And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly.” I am sure that those of us who stand on public platforms and preach Christ will never know until we get to heaven how much we owe to the prayers of God’s hidden ones. It has often come to me like a benediction when some dear saint, possibly a shut-in, writes to me and says, “My dear brother, daily I remember you and the work that God has given you to do in prayer.” How much it means to know that all over this and other lands there are prayer helpers who are crying to God, “Keep that brother from blundering, keep him from sin.” There are temptations on every hand and how much the man who stands in the pulpit needs divine help that he may be kept from anything that would mar his testimony.

“Pray,” says the apostle, “for me, that utterance may be given me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel.” Sometimes God’s dear children do far more criticizing of preachers than they do of praying for them. They say, “Well, I don’t know but Mr. _______ doesn’t seem to me to have much power, he doesn’t seem to have much gift, he doesn’t seem to make things very clear.” And I often feel like saying, “Do you ever pray for him that he may have power, that he may have clarity to so preach the truth that men and women will believe?”

In Acts 14:1, we read that the apostles so spake that many believed, which implies that one may so speak that no one will believe. What is needed is not only the word of the preacher but that message backed up by the prayers of the people of God. It is a blessed thing to know that one is being borne up by the saints in prayer. Paul valued this and he was greatest of all the apostles in his ministry. I am sure that at the judgment seat of Christ, when our blessed Lord is giving a reward to the apostle Paul, He will call up many of the saints that we have never heard of and have them stand with Paul for they were his fellow helpers in his ministry, and He will say, “You held up his hands in prayer and you must share in the reward.”

He speaks of making known “the mystery of the gospel.” This does not mean that it is something hard to understand but it is a divine secret that man would never have guessed if God Himself had not made it known. One reason why I am absolutely certain that the Gospel is of God is that no man left to himself would ever have dreamed of telling us that God became man to save us from our sins. All human religions take the opposite viewpoint. They try to tell us how man may save himself and eventually obtain a position akin to the Godhead. But not one of them tells us that God became man to save us from our sins. This is the mystery of the Gospel, the divine secret that we are called upon to proclaim to men.

“I am an ambassador in bonds.” What a remarkable declaration! The ambassador from the court of St. James’s comes to Washington and has his many medals and decorations on him but here the ambassador of the highest court of heaven says, “Do you want to see my decorations?” And he points to his fetters and says, “I am an ambassador in chains.” Somebody has well said, “God is not going to look us over for medals and decorations but for scars to see what we have endured for Christ’s sake.” He was a suffering, afflicted, jailed ambassador, and he says, “Pray for me that I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.” And right there in the prison he witnessed for Christ. The very soldiers that were guarding him heard the story of salvation. We read in another of his epistles, “All the saints salute you, chiefly they that are of Caesar’s guard.” Our Authorized Version says, “Caesar’s household” but he is not talking about Caesar’s butler and baker and candlestick maker but of his soldiers. They probably were heathen when set to guard him but Christians before they got through with him. He preached the mystery of the Gospel to them and their souls were saved. How much that was in answer to prayer we will never know until the books are opened in that day.

In the next two verses he gives us the only personal word in the epistle in which he names anyone else other than himself and the Lord. “But that ye also may know my affairs, and how I do, Tychicus, a beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, shall make known to you all things: whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, that ye might know our affairs, and that he might comfort your hearts.” In Acts 20:4 we read of Tychicus. He was an Asian. Ephesus was in Asia and probably Tychicus was well known to these brethren so Paul sent him back in order to give a report as to how things were going with him. Notice the language he uses concerning him. “A beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord.” In Colossians 4:7 he says, “All my state shall Tychicus declare unto you, who is a beloved brother, and a faithful minister and fellowservant in the Lord.” Tychicus must have been a very delightful man to meet. It is not often the two things are combined in one man,—beloved and faithful! Generally your beloved brother is so gracious and gentle and easy going that everybody likes him because he does not find fault with anyone, and they say, “Isn’t he nice?” It is like the lady who, after she had listened to a Scotch preacher, was asked, “What did you think of the sermon? Wasn’t it beautiful?” “Yes, it was beautiful,” she said, “but it wouldn’t hurt a flea.” They like the preacher that does not hurt anybody, the one who draws beautiful word pictures, etc., and who never reproves sin. A good mixer, they call him today. That is the very thing Paul said we were not to be. “Come out from among them and be ye separate.” But as a rule, they are the beloved kind. On the other hand, the faithful brother is apt to be so rigid that he gets a little bit legal and goes around clubbing this one and that one, and saying, “I don’t care what people think about me, I am going to be faithful.” He is rather disagreeable, you know. You do not like to get too close to men like that. But Tychicus combined in himself the beloved pastor and the faithful exhorter. That is a wonderful combination, too high for most of us to attain to.

And then in verses 23 and 24, we have the closing words. You will observe there are no personal salutations in Ephesians. The reason probably was that the epistle to the Ephesians was a circular letter intended not only for the saints in Ephesus, but sent around a circle of assemblies until it got to Laodicea. Paul, writing to the Colossians said, “Read the epistle from Laodicea.” Some think of this as a lost letter but it is undoubtedly this letter to the Ephesians and on account of its general character, there are no personal salutations for individuals in the Ephesian church. “Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” That peace which is the portion of all who have learned to commit everything to the care of our blessed Saviour. “Love”—love for all saints coupled with faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the gift of God the Father in His blessed Son. He closes with the characteristic Pauline salutation, “Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ.” And then he adds a very searching word at the very end, “In sincerity.” The marginal translation is “incorruptness.” In other words, those who love our Lord Jesus Christ will manifest it by holy living.