Romans 8:22-29, “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.”
Something that I learned several years ago completely changed the way I study the Holy Bible. In my youth I often only focused on one Bible verse, and that was the end of the story. But as I grew older in the grace of God I began to understand that we often overlook and miss so many precious life-changing truths, by not reading the surrounding text in a Scripture passage. A good example of what I say is our Scripture passage from Romans 8:22-29.
These wonderful Bible verses are all interconnected, related. I could have commented on the entire chapter, but chose to start with verse 22. The faithful Apostle Paul begins in verse 22 by mentioning the grief that every living creature feels because of the flesh. Romans 8:22, “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” Everything born living is already dying! How long we live depends upon how well we eat nutritiously and live safely to prevent dying prematurely.
Paul then mentions the blessed HOPE of the Gospel which gives us comfort, encouragement and joy amidst the misery and pains of this temporal life. Paul comforts us further by reminding us that the indwelling Holy Spirit (which every child of God has according to 1st John 3:24 and Romans 8:9), helps our infirmities. That is comforting to know! Our flesh is weak and God knows it. Psalms 103:14, “For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.” That Bible verse was Dr. Hyles' dear mother's favorite Scripture passage. Mattie Costal Hyles (1887-1984) went to Heaven at age 96. She gave the world her boy, Jack Hyles, for which I am so grateful. She could have raised him up to be a drunk or a bum, but she taught him early on that: “I CAN MAKES THE MAN!” Yes, amen and amen!
Let us re-examine our tremendous inspired text passage, shall we:
Romans 8:22-29, “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.”So we see that Paul starts out mentioning the miseries of creation, with ALL FLESH groaning in suffering and pain, awaiting the Lord's return when the curse shall be lifted and removed from the entire earth during the Millennium (i.e., the coming 1,000 year reign of Jesus Christ over the earth from Jerusalem). Of course, for every believer today we are awaiting the Rapture, at which time we will all receive our immortal, glorified, resurrected bodies fashioned like unto the Lord's resurrected body (Philippians 3:21; 1st Corinthians 15:51-58; 1st Thessalonians 4:13-18). I am firmly convinced that it will be a Pretribulation Rapture. That is, Christ will return FOR HIS OWN (the saints) BEFORE the 7-year Tribulation period.
Here is something helpful. Jesus:
- came 2,000 years ago TO HIS OWN (John 1:11)
- is coming at the Rapture FOR HIS OWN (1st Thessalonians 4:17)
- is returning at His Second Coming WITH HIS OWN (Jude 1:14)
In Romans 8:22-29, the Apostle Paul then continues from talking about the misery of all creation, to the hope of the Gospel, to our need for God's Holy Spirit to help our ignorance of not knowing what to pray for (verse 26). And then Paul says that ALL THINGS, as bad as they often seem to be in this life, will work together for good, because God will make it so!!! I love that. As only our great God can do, He will take the lemons in our life and make lemonade.
I heard a wonderful sermon yesterday by Pastor Jack Hyles (1926-2001) called: “God Has A Doggie Bag.” God uses the fragments that remain of our broken lives! How precious. As we just read in Psalms 103:14, “For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.” God more than anyone knows that we as humans mess everything up! But God knew before we were even conceived in our mother's womb about all our failures, short comings, sins, crimes and rebellion. God already knew before David was even born that he would steal Uriah's beautiful wife, Bath-Sheba, unintentionally impregnate her, and then conspire What a scumbag!!! Yet, God still told the prophet Samuel, long before David sinned when he was still a youth, that “the LORD hath sought him a man after his own heart” (1st Samuel 13:14b). How could David be an adulterer and murderer and yet be called a man after God's own heart? It is because God doesn't see us for what we are, He sees us through a filter of Christ's imputed righteousness. Romans 4:6-7, “Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.”
I believe David was a man after God's own heart because He loved the Word of God. Psalms 139:17, “How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!” Every man who was ever greatly used of God was consumed with a love for God's inspired Words!!! Psalms 119:139-140, “My zeal hath consumed me, because mine enemies have forgotten thy words. Thy word is very pure: therefore thy servant loveth it.” I am so disgusted and tired of meeting shallow pastors, who have little or no zeal over the Word of God. I'm talking about little men like Sean Quinlan, Jeff Redlin, Marty Herron, Jared Baldwin, Joe Hansen and Gary Walton—all of which sinfully belittled and tried to quench my zeal for the inspiration, purity and exclusivity of the King James Bible!!!
These are wicked and incompetent clergy. Pastor Quinlan literally shamefully called me “OBSESSED” over the Bible, while I attended the Lighthouse Baptist Church on Guam in 2018. Pastor Hansen shamefully called me and Dr. Jack Hyles “A CULT” for believing that the modern Brooke Westcott and Fenton Hort Bible revisions (all based on their corrupt 1881 Greek translation) are corrupted by Satan. The truth is that these ungodly nitwits are all a part of the Alexandrian Cult. Jeff Redlin sinfully and falsely accused me of finding “weaknesses” in these wicked false prophets because I expose them as the Bible commands us to do. I am REBUKING THEM SHARPLY that they might be sound in the faith (Titus 1:10-14). I am earnestly contending for the faith once delivered unto the saints (Jude 1:3). My only crime is preaching THE TRUTH that God only authored ONE BOOK, not two, three, twelve or 900 as The American Bible Society says we have today. UNBELIEVABLE!!!
Anyway, I digress. The courageous Apostle Paul sums up his wonderful encouraging words in Romans 8:22-29 by teaching us that this is all part of God's sovereign plan to conform every believer into the very IMAGE of Jesus Christ. Jude 1:24-25, “Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.” One day in eternity, Jesus is going to present us SPOTLESS (FAULTLESS) before His heavenly Father. Our soul has already been redeemed, but this old flesh is still causing us all kinds of problems. That is what Paul is saying in Romans chapter eight:
Romans 8:22-23, “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”
We have already been saved and indwelt with the blessed Holy Spirit, made victorious through faith in Christ Jesus. But now our old, tired and problematic flesh needs to be overhauled. God promises in the Bible that Jesus has removed the sting of death. 1st Corinthians 15:55-56, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.” When you get saved, the sting of death is gone forever! Why? Simply because we are going to Heaven, and all of of sins have been washed away by the precious blood of Jesus. A bee or wasp has a very painful stinger. OUCH! I was using a weed-whacker in 2017 to mow down a jungle on Guam! I must have disturbed a hornet's nest, because one of their warrior bees stung me on the ear lobe and IT HURT!!! I ran like you wouldn't believe to get away! OUCH! I can't say I blame the bee, after all I had destroyed the comfort of his home...lol. Jesus removed the stinger out of death, so that all who are born-again by faith alone in Christ need not worry or fear ever again.
Romans 5:20 says that where sin did abound, God's GRACE DOTH MUCH MORE ABOUND. In other words, ONCE SAVED ALWAYS SAVED!!! Once a bee stings someone, the stinger is left behind and the bee soon dies. Likewise, Jesus died in our place on the cross, and in so ding He removed the painful sting that death brings for the unsaved, who must be punished according to their works in Hell forever (Revelation 20:11-15). Do you understand friend, that even good works are sinful for the unsaved person? Isaiah 64:6, “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”
Proverbs 15:8, “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD: but the prayer of the upright is his delight.” In Matthew 7:21-23, we read about a group of unrighteous religious people. They boasted of doing many wonderful works in Jesus' name. The were wholly committed to following Jesus as their Lord. They even called Him “Lord, Lord.” But Jesus denied knowing them as His sheep. Jesus called them “ye that work iniquity.” Wow! Even their good works, dedication to serve Christ, following Jesus as their “Lord” and sacrificial good works which they did ALL TO PLEASE CHRIST, were sinful. Why? It is because they did not strive lawfully as the Bible says.
1st Timothy 1:8, “But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully;” The purpose of God's Old Testament law, according to Romans 3:19-20, is to give mankind THE KNOWLEDGE OF SIN. That is, the law shows men their sinful condition, and then brings them to Christ to be saved by grace through faith in the Gospel. The law is like a doctor who diagnoses us with terminal cancer of sin, but then refers us to another doctor in the New Testament. His precious name is Jesus Christ, and He is a miracle worker! Jesus can cure even the sickest patient who is dying from sin. All you need to do is TRUST HIM! John 6:47, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.”
I wanted to teach you this wonderful passage from the Big Picture. But the main thing I want to teach in this blog is about prayer. Dear friend, this earthly life is full of heartaches, disappointments, discouragements; as well as joy, some happiness and contentment once in a while. We all experience ups and down, good and bad, et cetera. I cannot encourage you enough to start listening to Pastor Jack Hyles' helpful sermons. Folks, these sermons were preached on a regular basis to crowds of 5,000 people or more. Dr. Hyles truly gave it his best effort to feed his church congregation. I heard a helpful MP3 sermon yesterday called: 'Roll With The Punches,' which addresses the things I just mentioned, all of life's craziness!
Romans 8:26 plainly says that we KNOW NOT WHAT YE OUGHT TO PRAY. I sure don't! Each day I humbly tell God that I have no idea what to pray anymore, and I don't. So I claim Romans 8:26, “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” Ah, but please notice that God has given us His blessed Holy Spirit, our dearest friend (and God sure is) to intercede on our behalf when we pray. Literally, the Bible is telling us that our wonderful Savior helps us out when we pray, because we have no idea what we are doing. I sure don't!
If God answered all my prayers, my life would very likely be ten times more a mess than it already is! My life has been a train wreck!!! I was hot by a church bus in 1992, which over time led to Cervical Degenerative Disk Disease (i.e., my neck is falling apart slowly). This adverse health conditioned significantly worsened by a fall at work in 2004, which led to radiating pain down both arms and legs, and burning nerves throughout my body, the entire right side of my body feeling half asleep all the time, et cetera. My beloved wife cruelly divorced me in 2006 without warning. I was devastated. I have suffered much without a life's partner by my side for the past 16 years. Although I have tired to do so, for one reason or another I've never been able to find a woman to remarry. To make matters worse, I have been condemned, belittled and treated like garbage by Pharisaical self-righteous bad pastors like Jeff Redlin at Campus Church (on the property at Pensacola Christian College).
I lost my home after the divorce, to pay $64,000 for insanely high attorney's fees. I lost my retirement savings. I remember literally flipping my steak in the drying pan with needle-nose pliers, because I lost all my possession with the home. It's a very long and inexplicably emotionally painful story. I was forced out of multiple Baptist churches, hated just for showing up. David in the Bible had the exact same thing happen to him, hated without cause. Psalms 109:4-5, “For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto prayer. And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love.”
In 2009 and again in 2010, I underwent two major neck surgeries with no one there for me in California. I wanted to kill myself, but my faith in God sustained me through the valley of the shadow of death (Psalms 32). I cannot even begin to express in words the darkness that drowned my hurting soul. Less than 1% of people in life have suffered the shocking and overwhelming mental trauma and emotional pain that I have endured. There are some events that happened to me that I am too uncomfortable to even mention, the darkest time of my miserable existence on earth for a few years.
In 2009 I bought two small barbeques with two bags of charcoal to commit suicide. I had read in the news that singer Brad Delp of Boston (my all-time favorite secular band) commit suicide at age 55 in March of 2007, by asphyxiation, so that was my plan. Brad was overwhelmed with a bad situation in his own life, and his wife Mickey Delp abandoned him years earlier with their two biological children, moving with the kids from Boston 3,000 miles away to California. No wonder the poor lonely guy killed himself, his family was all gone!!! But I knew that God loved me, and that this life is a one-time thing, so I was reluctant to end my life in my own time instead of God's. Again, my faith saw me through. I don't know if Brad Delp was a born-again Christian, I doubt it, but I sure hope I am wrong. I love the guy!
Anyway, in Romans 8:22-28 the main take-away truth that I see is PRAYER! I see that God very much desires for His children to pray, so much so that He even helps our infirmities when we don't know what to ask for. Dear friend, GOD LOVES YOU!!! Your Creator wants to also be your Savior, if you'll let Him. Simply cease from your own works and rest in the finished work of Christ on the cross. Hebrews 4:10-11, “For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.”
Nearly all religious people foolishly, but sincerely, think that they must DO SOMETHING to get to Heaven. But the exact opposite is true! Like most things in life, things are backward from what most people think. The way you get to Heaven is to STOP doing whatever you've been doing to try to earn your way, and let Jesus pay for your ticket. Dr. John R. Rice (1895-1980) used to wisely say: “Those who go to Heaven ride on a pass and enter into blessings that they never earned, but all who go to hell pay their own way.” Yes, Amen!!! That is THE TRUTH.
Dear reader, I encourage you to pray about everything in your life. God has made it so easy to pray. The Lord knew that we wouldn't know what to pray, so He gives us a basic outline to follow in Luke 11:2-4, And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.” Isn't that encouraging? Jesus is helping us to pray.
But wait, the deal gets sweeter than that dear friend. 1st Thessalonians 5:17, “Pray without ceasing.” God knows that we are forgetful as humans. And even if we make a list, we get sleepy and dose off (I do all the time). So God allows us to pray at any time. The Old Testament prophet Daniel scheduled his prayer times at morning, noon and evening. Daniel 6:10, “Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.”
Daniel chose to pray like that, but I don't. I pray throughout the day, as things and people come to mind. I am always asking God to work in the heart's of my web visitors to my ministry. I am just a VOICE, speaking to people's minds, but only God's Holy Spirit can make an eternal difference. Unless the Holy Spirit comes down and works in people's souls, ain't nothing going to happen!!! I need God, and so do you dear friend. That is what prayer is all about, getting God involved with our life, plans, loved ones and everything (Philippians 4:8).
So I have shown you from the Bible that God will help us pray (Romans 8:26). Jesus gives us a template to guide us to get started (Luke 11:2-4). God encourages us to pray without ceasing, spreading our prayers out at our convenience throughout the day, instead of getting down on our hands and knees for an hour or two each day. Some people like to pray like that, and I am all for it, but that is not me. There is nothing in the Holy Bible which requires us to pray in a certain physical position, or at a certain place or time, et cetera. God has given us total flexibility and freedom, He just commands us to pray as His children, because we need God's help and He won't help those who are too proud to pray (James 4:6).
But wait, I forgot to mention, there's even more to this awesome deal. God will even answer our prayers sometimes if we doubt Him, just so long as we pray anyway. Yes, it is true and I can prove it with the Scripture. In Acts 12:1-15 the church was praying for the Apostle Peter's release from prison. Wicked Herod has just murdered the Apostle James, cutting his head off. OUCH! Herod saw that it pleased the wicked Jews. Can you imagine? So now Herod intended to murder Peter too, after Easter. So the church got together and prayed, but they didn't really believe God would answer their request.
God sent His angels to rescue Peter. So Peter returns to where the believers are praying for him and knocks on the door. A young girl named Rhoda answers the door. She is so excited that she closes the door and runs to tell everyone, leaving Peter outside in the cold...lol. When all that were gathered praying heard Rhoda say that Peter was at the door, that called her “mad” (crazy). Acts 12:15, “And they said unto her, Thou art mad. But she constantly affirmed that it was even so. Then said they, It is his angel.” I love this encouraging true story, because it confirms that even when we doubt God for whatever reason, He WILL still answer our prayer if it is according to His will, because PRAYER IS ASKING, AND ASKING IN ITSELF IS FAITH. Our doubts do not diminish our faith we had to pray. Amen!
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