15/02/2024
GROANINGS IN THE SPIRIT
Groanings that come out of your spirit and escape your lips are the Spirit of God helping or assisting you in prayer. There are some things that come out of your heart that can’t be expressed in words and are therefore expressed by groaning too deep for articulate speech.
These groanings are inspired by the Holy Ghost. They come from within you and escape your lips. Praying with groanings is one way of making intercession. Remember, intercession is praying for another, not for yourself. An intercessor takes the place of another.
Charles Finney, who began his ministry as a Presbyterian minister and later became a Congregationalist, knew something about prayer and intercession. He was known as a man who prayed down revivals.
Finney was once holding a revival meeting in a certain town. In that town there was a leading doctor who had
never gone to church. The doctor’s wife, on the other hand, was a wonderful Christian leader. The doctor claimed to be an infidel; he’d make fun of his wife and would never go to church.
Finney was an educated man who was trained to be a lawyer. This woman thought if her husband could talk to Finney, Finney would be able to help him. So she kept insisting that Finney come to the house on one of his days off. After much persuasion, Finney finally agreed to go to their home for a noon meal.
This doctor had a brother who was a farmer and a deeply spiritual man. The brother would come and stay in their home and go to Finney’s meetings. This farmer brother was staying there at the time Finney came to lunch. Actually, the doctor was a little ashamed of his brother because his brother wasn’t educated.
At the time appointed, Finney went to this doctor’s house, and as the four of them were at the table, the woman asked Finney to pray. Finney bowed his head and began to pray, but was checked in his spirit. He stopped praying and said that the Lord wanted the farmer brother to pray.
The brother began praying, but suddenly he just grabbed ahold of his stomach and started groaning and weeping and crying. He jumped up from the table and ran up the stairs to his bedroom. Finney said he jumped up and followed him.
The doctor thought that something was physically wrong with his brother, so he jumped up too. He reached his brother’s room before Finney. As Finney started to go into the room, the doctor was coming out of the room to go get his medical bag. He said his brother had some kind of stomach cramps.
But Finney took the doctor by his arm and said, “Doctor, there’s not anything physically wrong with him. Your brother has a spirit of travail and intercession. He’s praying and interceding for someone who is lost, and I think it’s for your soul.” The doctor je**ed loose from Finney and said he didn’t believe in that.
The doctor left and Finney went into the bedroom and shut the door. There the brother was just in an agony of prayer, in the Spirit. Finney knelt down beside him, and he began to groan in the Spirit too.
You see, you can help lift a spiritual load just like you can a physical load. In other words, if someone else is groaning and interceding in the Spirit, as the Spirit wills, you can pick up that prayer burden and begin to groan and travail just as the other person is groaning and travailing.
Finney began to feel part of the prayer burden coming off on him. So for forty-five minutes they knelt and groaned in the Spirit in prayer.
I know from experience that when you’re interceding for someone whose soul is lost, it feels like your own soul is lost when it actually isn’t. But because you’re taking someone’s burden upon you, you actually feel on the inside of you as if you were lost. Some people have had that burden and didn’t know what it was. But that is intercession for a lost soul. If you have a burden given to you by the Spirit of God, go ahead and groan and travail as the Spirit wills and pray it out.
Finney said that the brother and he were praying, and the doctor’s wife was downstairs just wringing her hands. The doctor had gone into his study angry and had shut the door.
Then after forty-five minutes of groaning, they quit groaning and started laughing. You see, you should always continue to pray until you have a note of praise or victory. You’ll either start laughing or start praising or singing. Then you know you have the answer to whatever it is you’re praying about.
Finney related that he and this brother rejoiced and laughed for a while. Then they got up from praying and went downstairs, and the woman asked Finney how the brother was doing. Finney told her what had happened and asked her where the doctor was. She told him that he had gone into his study and locked the door and wouldn’t let her or anyone else in.
Finney went to the door and knocked. There was no answer, so he called to the doctor. He asked the doctor if he would open the door because he had word for him about his brother. Finally, the doctor opened the door and asked Finney how his brother was doing.
Finney stepped into the room and told the doctor that it was just as he had suspected; the brother had been praying for the doctor’s poor, lost soul and that Finney had joined him in prayer. Finney told the doctor he was just as good as saved.
When he finished talking, the doctor dropped his head. The doctor then looked up and Finney saw tears streaming down the doctor’s face. The doctor got down on his knees and asked Finney to pray with him. The doctor told Finney he had been full of pride. Then he accepted Jesus and was gloriously saved.
Yes, there is a prayer of intercession for the lost — prayers of travail and groanings. It’s to be regretted that we don’t know more about intercession and travail anymore. But don’t be afraid to yield to groanings and travail if the Holy Spirit leads you that way. Of course, you can’t do these things in the flesh; they are accomplished in the Spirit, by the leading and assistance of the Holy Spirit.
Notice that Finney and the brother were groaning. They could also have been speaking with tongues and not have understood that’s what it was. Finney speaks in other places about unutterable gushings coming out of his heart. He would not have known what to call them. But “unutterable gushings” could certainly describe tongues too.
Why do I say that? Because according to P. C. Nelson, the Greek reads, “. . . with groanings that cannot be uttered in articulate speech” (Rom. 8:26). Articulate speech is your regular kind of speech, that is, speech in your native language.
So praying with groanings too deep for articulate speech could also include praying in tongues because speaking in tongues is inarticulate speech.
That agrees with what Paul said. Paul said that when he prayed in an unknown tongue, it was his spirit that was praying. And we read the Amplified translation of that verse, which says, “. . . my spirit [by the Holy Spirit within me] prays . . .” (1 Cor. 14:14).
In other words, praying with your spirit by the help of the Holy Spirit is prayer that is not coming out of your mind; it’s coming out of your spirit. It may be prayer in a known tongue — that is, unknown to you but known to man — or it may be prayer in an unknown tongue, understood only by God. But it is prayer that is inspired and directed by the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit helps the believer to pray. And He helps us to intercede for others. However, the Holy Spirit does not do the praying apart from the believer. It is our responsibility to take the time to pray and intercede for others and to obey the gentle urgings of the Holy Spirit to do so. As we yield to the Holy Spirit we may pray in groanings according to the will of God.
We can also pray in other tongues at will; we do not need to wait for the Holy Spirit to prompt us. As we yield to the Holy Spirit, He will give us utterance according to the will of God. That utterance may be in groanings or it may be in intercession in tongues, or it may be intercession in our understanding in our native language.
- 📕Bible Prayer Study Course
Follow for more teachings
