Saving Souls

All right, he says, “And he that searches the hearts”—all right, He’s searching your heart.  He’s searching the depths of your heart for what you have wanted to say to God and you didn’t know how to say because of past hurts, because of past brokenness, because of past problems, those things that are way down deep on the inside of you and you don’t know how to get them to God.  He knows how because He’s searching your heart.

And He takes those and makes them a part of His intercessory prayer to God.  He that searches your hearts also knows the mind and the will of the Father because He is making intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

Therefore, in a nutshell, the Holy Spirit who is in you as a believer is praying to God seven days a week, 24 hours a day in a straight-line prayer to God and in God’s perfect will.

Now how many of you would like to know that when you pray, you’re praying in God’s absolute perfect will, put your hands up.  I mean, nobody wants to pray and say, “Well, I wonder if my prayer is right?  I wonder if my prayer is going to get through?”  We always say that, don’t we?

There’s only one way that you can know that you are praying in God’s perfect will, and that’s when you pray in the Spirit.  Well, how do you pray in the Spirit because it doesn’t make any sense to the mind?  How can you allow a language which is in you, because the Holy Spirit is in you, who controls all languages, both early and heavenly, how can I speak in a language that I never learned?

I tried to learn Spanish in high school, and I took it at ORU.  I tried to learn French.  I forgot Greek and Latin because that was Greek and Latin to me.  And, you know, I could say some Spanish words, and I used a little French when I was over in Niger.  You know, I know how to say, “Here’s my name,” and, “How are you?”  And I could say a few phrases that I remember from college.  But I don’t speak those languages.

How, truth.  How many times have you faced a difficult situation and you tried to pray, and you didn’t know what to say?  Come on, be honest.  How many?  Any of you today?  Last night?  You faced a situation, you don’t know what to do.  And you pray and you try to pray, “O God, O Bible, O stained glass windows.”

And the words just kind of seem to, they kind of bounce off the ceiling.  Do you know what I mean?  Well, here’s why.  Paul said, “For we don’t know what to pray for as we ought.”  That’s not a sin.  Paul didn’t know what to pray for.

All right, but he answers the question.  “We don’t know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit,” who is in us because we’re Christians, “makes intercession,” or is praying.  You’ve been wondering what He’s doing inside there.  He’s praying, “makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”

Now you talk about a friend.  When you have a friend, a classmate, a boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, somebody that you know that loves you so much that when you’re hurting and when you have a problem, they just get down.  They empathize with you so much, they just begin to groan because they want to help you so badly.

That’s what he’s saying.  The Holy Spirit inside you is making intercessions, praying with groanings.  Or, in other words, He’s praying in a language for which there is no equivalent in human speech.

The Bible says that He is interceding seven days a week, 24 hours a day, directly for you.  He is praying directly to God in your behalf.  He’s in you, and He’s praying.

What good does that do me if I don’t find a way to connect, if I don’t find a way to tap in to the prayer that the Holy Spirit is praying?

Now I’m sure you’ll remember that when satan came into the Garden of Eden—and, by the way, you also should know that when he appeared in the form of a serpent, it was not the form of a serpent that we see today.  A serpent, a snake, you know slithers on the ground.  But in that day, a serpent was not an animal or a reptile, or whatever it was, that slithered on the ground.  It was a being that was upright.

God later cursed the serpent and said, “You will crawl on your belly.”  So the serpent did not come to him in the form of a snake.  So, you know, we commonly say, “Well, when the snake came”—it wasn’t a snake in that sense.  The serpent was a different type of being, and the Bible makes that clear.

When the serpent came and tempted Adam and Eve and said to him basically—I’m paraphrasing—“God said if you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you’re going to die.  You’re not going to die.”

Well, he was doing what satan does best.  He was telling a half truth.  He was saying, “You’re not going to die physically.”  Well, he was correct in that part.  What Adam did not understand was, God was not talking about physical death.  God was talking about a spiritual death.

God was saying, “If you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in that day you shall die,” that is, “You shall have a spiritual death.  Your body will not die, but you will die on the inside.”

And, of course, satan perverted that, which is what he normally does.  He came in and he said, “God said you’re going to die.  You’re not going to die.”  Well, he was telling a half truth.  “You’re not going to die physically, but you are going to die spiritually.  Someone inside you is going to die.”

And his words were exactly, “You’re crazy.”  And I said, “I know, but I can’t get away from this, and the Holy Spirit spoke to me, and we’re going to do this.”  And he said, “You don’t go to cemeteries,  not ever.”  And I said, “I know, but the Holy Spirit spoke to me, and I’m supposed to go there.  I don’t know why.  I don’t know how.  And if you won’t take me, I’ll get a taxi cab, and I’ll take myself.  And if you won’t stay with me, I’ll stay till Jesus releases me.”

Well, he knew when I said that, that something was happening inside of me.  So we got in the van, and we had a bunch of kids, and I believe my mom was there, and we drove all the way up there.  I had no idea where we were going.  So we went to the cemetery I had heard she was buried in.  My father-in-law performed her memorial service.

So I drove up there, and the man said, “I know who you are, but you’ve got the wrong one.  You go to the one over here.”  I thought, “We’ve got it!”  So we went to the one over there.  And the man said, “Oh, yes, she’s in here, with 100,000 other people or more.”  I don’t even know the name of it.  Forest Lawn, there’s several of them all over.  And there’s thousands and thousands and thousands of graves.  And this is not a party for me, and I’m understanding the Holy Spirit.  And I’m thinking, “I have lost my mind.  But I have found my spirit, so let’s do it.”

And the man said, “But, I’ll tell you this.  It takes a key to get in, and we cannot release this information.  We recognize you, and we know who you all are, but I can’t do it.”  And I said,  “OK, Richard?”  And he said, “We’re going home.”  And I said, “No. You let me out, and I will walk every inch of this place till the Holy Spirit tells me because it’s so burning in my soul.”  And he said, “Why?”   And I said, “I don’t know.”

The love of God, the power of God, the anointing of God, the presence of God, the actual being of God was in Christ Jesus.  And in this Scripture, right there, He declares that He transferred it to us.

Now the question is, what are you doing with it? Backstabbing your neighbor?  Trying to build a bigger church because your billboard will be bigger?  Or are you pouring out of ourself everything that He poured into you.

First John 2:5,6: “But those who keep His word, in him verily, is the love of God.”  Again, there is the same word.  That word, love, doesn’t mean hearts, flowers, and candy.  You have to understand that perfect love casts out fear.  God is love.  Every essence of God, that is the essence of everything that He is, is wrapped up in the word love.

So anything that He is, El Elyon, anything, the Most High God, the Provider, the Healer, the Soon-Coming King.  Everything, every revelation of God that’s in side of Him is now poured into that word love; and that word love is now poured into you.  And the rest of it says, “He that saith he abideth in Him, ought himself to also walk even as He walks.”

Another translation says, “Do exactly as He did.”

Are you raising the dead today?  Cleansing the lepers? Casting out devils?  I want to read you something that I recently read in John G. Lake, but before I do, I want to read you Isaiah 6.  Last night I was trying to find this in John G. Lake, and, thank You, Jesus, I found it on page 387.  And by 2 o?clock in the morning, my eyes were crossed.  But by this morning I was shouting and rejoicing, and I’ll show you why.