[C H A P T E R 1 2] TONGUES BEYOND THE UPPER ROOM – PRAYING IN LINE WITH GOD’S PERFECT WILL BY KENNETH HAGIN

C H A P T E R 1 2
PRAYING IN LINE WITH GOD’S PERFECT WILL

Let’s talk about another reason that tongues are of such value to the believer: Praying in other tongues is praying in line with God’s perfect will. The Holy Ghost not only knows what God’s will is, but He will  also never lead us away from the Word. That means as we yield to the
Holy Spirit and allow Him to help us pray, He will always lead us in line with what God has said. Paul talks about this particular role of the Holy Spirit in our lives to help us pray out God’s perfect will.
ROMANS 8:26-27
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.
27 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.
Notice that phrase “helpeth our infirmities” in verse 26. Often  people misunderstand the meaning of this word “infirmities” thinking that it always means physical sickness or disease. But
the word “infirmities” in this case is used in connection with our  shortcomings. And one of our infirmities is found in the next phrase: “for we know not what we should pray for as we ought.” Our prayer “weakness” is that we don’t always know
what we should pray about! Sometimes to understand what someone said, you first have to find out what he didn’t say. Notice, Paul didn’t say we don’t know how to pray. We do know how to pray. How do we know? Well, we know we’re to pray to the Father in the Name of Jesus
because that’s what Jesus Himself taught us.
JOHN 16:23
23 And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.

But just because we know how to pray doesn’t mean we know what to pray for as we ought. Although we do know to
some extent how to pray at times, we don’t know how to pray as we ought to know.
Why not? Because there’s no way in the world for us to know everything there is to know about a given situation. We can only observe circumstances from the natural standpoint. Even those people we pray for may not know exactly how to pray for their needs! You don’t even know how to pray for yourself the way you ought to know. Of course, if you’re hungry, you know to pray for something to eat. If you’re behind in paying your rent, you know to pray for your finances. But you don’t know the future. Sometimes you don’t even know underlying conditions that are causing your problems. And unless God shows you, you can’t see into the spirit world and observe the activity of demons that
may be trying to come against you.
EPHESIANS 6:12
12 For we wrestle not against flesh and
blood, but against principalities, against
powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. There are evil powers trying to work behind the scene against us. So in order to be effective, we have to deal with those unseen forces in
prayer. These are some of the reasons why we don’t know what to pray for
as we ought to know. For example, we may know something about a trial a fellow Christian is going through, and we may know to pray that God would bless and help that person. Beyond that, however, we may not really know exactly how to pray about the matter according to God’s perfect will. But, thank God, the Holy Ghost does! Let me give you an example from my own life. I was holding a meeting down in South Carolina at the time of the Cuban missile crisis. It was also the time when my son Ken had just entered the military. My wife and I were greatly concerned both about our son and the nation during this crisis. I remember kneeling on the platform of the church in South Carolina where I was holding my meetings and praying, “Now, Lord, I’m concerned about the Cuban crisis. Are we going to get into war? Spirit of God, I don’t know how to pray about this, so please help me.” Then I began to pray it out in other tongues. It wasn’t long before the Spirit of God spoke to my heart and said, “Don’t bother about it. The crisis will be over in a day or two. Everything will be all right.” And it did turn out all right, praise God! So let’s train ourselves to be sensitive to the Spirit of God! Then, when things arise that we’re ignorant about, we can get on our knees and talk to the Holy Spirit. We can say, “Holy Spirit, I don’t know what to pray for as I ought regarding this situation, but You do, so please help me pray.” And He will be faithful to do just that!

The Holy Spirit Doesn’t Do Our Praying for Us

Let’s go again to Romans 8:26-27 and look further into how  to pray about things we know nothing about.
ROMANS 8:26-27
26 . . . The Spirit itself [a better translation would be ‘Himself’] maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
27 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.
In the early days of my ministry, P.C. Nelson (we young ministers called him “Dad Nelson”) was considered the number-one authority on the Greek language in America. I didn’t go to Dad Nelson’s Bible school, but I heard him preach a number of times, and I collected
almost all the books he ever published. He had 12 years of higher education, and I once heard him say that he could speak and write 32 different languages. (That beats me by 31!) When commenting on this verse, Dad Nelson said, “Actually, the
Greek literally says, ‘The Holy Spirit maketh intercession for us in groanings that cannot be uttered in articulate speech’. ” He went on to explain that “articulate speech” refers to our regular kind of speech. Dad Nelson went on to point out that these “groanings” also included praying in other tongues. Paul is talking about utterances or groanings in prayer that “cannot be uttered in articulate speech.” Dad Nelson stressed that these groanings are not something the Holy Ghost does apart from you. Rather, the Holy Spirit helps you pray in groanings. The Amplified version of First Corinthians 14:14 shows us more clearly our relationship with the Holy Spirit in prayer: “For if I pray in an [unknown] tongue, my spirit [by the Holy Spirit within me] prays ….” Again, when you pray in tongues, it is your spirit by the Holy Spirit within you praying. The Holy Spirit within gives you the utterance, and you speak it out of your spirit. You do the talking—He gives the utterance.

By this method, then, the Holy Spirit helps you to pray according to the perfect will of God—and to pray out the perfect will of God. This is the way things should be prayed for!
ROMANS 8:27
27 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.

Praying in the Spirit in groanings is also something the Holy Spirit does not do apart from you. Those groanings are prompted by the Holy Ghost, coming from deep inside you. But you allow
them to escape your lips as you open your mouth and pray. Years ago, during a seminar we were holding in the early
days of RHEMA Bible Training Center, a woman came over to speak to me as I walked off the platform at the end of the
service. She was a denominational lady who’d just recently been filled with the Holy Spirit. She said, “You know, Brother Hagin, since I found out Romans 8:26 and 27 says that the Holy Ghost does my praying for me, I don’t pray much anymore.”  Like this woman, some folks try to build a doctrine on this one isolated text in Romans 8 and make it say something it doesn’t say. “Well, if the Holy Ghost is praying for me,” they
say, “He knows how to get the job done, so there is no use for me to pray.”
But you can readily see that this statement is unscriptural because the Bible constantly exhorts us to pray. Second, Romans 8:26 is not saying that the Holy Ghost does our praying for us. He helps us pray out in groanings according to the perfect will of God.

ROMANS 8:26
26 LIKEWISE THE SPIRIT ALSO HELPETH OUR INFIRMITIES: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself [Himself] maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

Paul starts off by saying that the Holy Spirit helps us to pray. Then Paul shows one way the Holy Ghost helps us—in groanings!  The Spirit of God will alert you to pray, but you must respond. He
won’t make you do something. He won’t make you pray just like He won’t do your praying for you. That would make Him responsible for your prayer life, and He isn’t responsible—you are. He’s been sent to dwell in you as your Intercessor and your Helper in prayer. Now it’s up
to you to cooperate with Him and do the praying!
Responding to a Burden to Pray
I remember a testimony that illustrates this point about the Holy Spirit as our divine Helper in prayer. It was told by a denominational  minister who had gotten filled with the Holy Ghost and come over to Pentecostal circles. We were both guest speakers at several different Full Gospel Businessmen’s conventions.
One day this minister said to me, “Brother Hagin, I saw something
while you were teaching on speaking with tongues that I hadn’t understood before. My wife and I are still relatively new in this Spirit-filled life. But right after we both got filled with the Holy Ghost and spoke in other tongues, one of the young ladies in our church—the
mother of three little children— needed a heart operation.” Serious operations like that weren’t always as successful back then as they are today. So in the course of this operation, some way or another, this young woman’s heart stopped. The doctors finally got her heart started again, but the woman remained
unconscious. The minister related, “Finally, the doctors told us that this
woman’s brain had been deprived of oxygen too long. They said that even if she regained consciousness, she would be nothing more than a vegetable and wouldn’t know anything; it would be
better to just let her die.”That night, this minister was awakened by the sound of groaning. He reached over to the other side of the bed and realized that his wife wasn’t there. Finally, he figured out that it was the sound of her groaning coming from the living room. At first the minister thought his wife was sick. So he got out of bed and went into the living room. “Honey, what’s the matter? Are you sick?” he asked. “Oh, no,” she said. “I just have such a heaviness, such a burden to pray for this young mother and her three children. She’s not old enough to die! Those children need their mother.” The minister continued, “All my wife could do was go back to groaning and praying in other tongues. I didn’t understand it; I had never seen anyone pray that way. I’d gotten filled with the Holy Ghost and I spoke with tongues, but that was different than what my wife was experiencing in prayer that night. When I got filled with the Spirit, there was a sense of joy and gladness in me. But this night my wife was feeling such a heaviness, such a strong burden in her spirit to pray, so much so that she was groaning deeply in prayer. So I decided, Well, since I don’t understand what’s going on, I’ll just leave her alone. “Brother Hagin, I really didn’t understand what happened to my wife that night until you taught on it in the meeting today,” the minister said. “But my wife kept on praying that way for about an hour and a half. Finally, she got up and came to bed. She told me, ‘Well, the burden is gone. It’s lifted.’ And when we went to visit the young woman the next morning, she was sitting up in bed, laughing and completely healed! It’s been several years now, and the young woman is still well and attending church with her family.” You see, the Holy Ghost helped this minister’s wife to pray effectively that night. She knew what to pray for, but she didn’t know how to pray as she ought. But the Holy Ghost came to her rescue to help her get the job done! She prayed out God’s perfect will in the situation with groanings and utterance in other tongues. The Holy Ghost is our Intercessor. He helps us in prayer, just as He helps us in every area of our lives.

The Holy Spirit Is Our Helper

Jesus promised He would send the Holy Ghost to be your Helper. The “Helper” is Someone Who helps you get the job done!
JOHN 14:16
16 And I will pray the Father, and HE
SHALL GIVE YOU ANOTHER COMFORTER, that he may abide with
you for ever.
That word “Comforter” is the Greek word “paraclete.” The Amplified version gives us the sevenfold meaning of the word
“paraclete,” which defines the role of the Holy Ghost in our lives. The word “paraclete” means He’s been sent to be our Comforter, Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener,
and Standby. The Holy Spirit is all of that, and He is dwelling inside us! The Holy Ghost was sent to be our Paraclete or our Helper in the area of prayer. That means He’s going to help us pray through to victory as we pray in tongues. He’ll do the job through us, but He won’t do the job for us. The truth is, nowhere in the Bible do you ever find that the Holy Ghost comes to do anything for you apart from you. Regardless what area of life you’re talking about, He comes only
to help you do it. Never do you read in the Acts of the Apostles that the Holy
Ghost meets someone on the street and saves him. It’s always people, assisted by the Holy Ghost, who get people saved.
For instance, you can read in Acts 8 where an angel told Philip to go down to Gaza. When Philip obeyed, he came upon
an Ethiopian eunuch in a chariot who was reading the Book of Isaiah. It was Philip who led the man to salvation, not the Holy Ghost, nor the angel. It was the Holy Ghost who instructed Philip to go up to the man’s chariot and talk to him (see Acts 8:26-39). Philip was led and aided by the Holy Ghost to get this
man saved. If the Holy Ghost saved men, it wouldn’t be necessary to send missionaries to the mission field. We could just send the Holy Ghost and let Him work on the unsaved, preach the
Gospel to them, and get them saved. But Jesus told God’s people to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature (Matt. 28:19). He did not tell the Holy Ghost to do it!

You also never read anywhere in the Acts of the Apostles where the Holy Ghost met someone on the street and healed him. But you will read where people got healed through the ministry of Spirit-filled believers who allowed the Holy Ghost to work through them! And, finally, you never read in the Bible where the Holy Ghost went anywhere and filled believers with His Spirit all on His own. But you will read where men, full of the Holy Ghost, preached the Gospel and
the Holy Ghost fell on the people. And you’ll read where others laid their hands on believers and the Holy Ghost filled them. God works in line with His spiritual laws, and when we understand
those laws, we can work with Him. That’s what the Bible calls us—joint heirs or co-laborers with Christ (Rom. 8:17). We are workers together with God (2 Cor. 6:1).
Jesus told us one way we co-labor with Him: “And they [Jesus’ disciples] went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following” (Mark 16:20). The disciples went preaching, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed what they said with accompanying signs. We’re workers together with Him, and He works together with us! This is true in every area of our lives—most assuredly in the arena of prayer!
Taking Hold Together With Us in Prayer
Dr. T.J. McCrossan, author of Bodily Healing and the Atonement, was a noted Greek scholar and university professor.
He pointed out that the word “helpeth” in the phrase “likewise
the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities” actually comes from three different Greek root words. One root word means to take hold together; the second means with; and the third means against. So
this phrase could literally read: “likewise the Spirit also taketh hold together with us against’.’ That means the Holy Spirit takes hold together with us in prayer against the obstacles and hindrances we encounter in life. Let me give you an example in the natural to illustrate the
scriptural word “helpeth.” Suppose I were standing on a church platform, and after the service I wanted the piano to be moved off the platform onto the sanctuary floor. I might tell the congregation, “I’d like eight of you men to please stay after we dismiss and help us move this piano down on the floor.” What would I mean by the word “help” in this case? I’d mean, “We want you eight men to take hold together with us against the weight of that piano and set it down there on the floor.”

That’s what this word “helpeth” means in verse 26. The Holy Spirit helps us in our infirmities or our shortcomings in prayer. So if we don’t pray—if we don’t take hold first by starting to pray—the Holy Spirit doesn’t have anything to take hold together with us against, because His role is to help us move obstacles!
Years ago in the early days of RHEMA Bible Training Center,
I asked the students to come for a special prayer meeting one night. We were going to pray for someone who was in the
hospital and in critical condition. I’d just visited this person in the Intensive Care Unit, and I felt that unless we were able to pray sufficiently for him, he was going to die. So that night we all prayed at length for this person. The next day,
we announced to another class that we would be holding a second special prayer meeting, and that night a big group of students came. Then we held a third prayer meeting the next night, and an even larger crowd of several hundred people attended. On the third night, I was kneeling on the platform, praying in other tongues just as I had the previous two nights. But as I prayed in tongues, I said inwardly, “Holy Spirit, You’re not taking hold with me against this matter.”
Then on the inside of me, I heard the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit say this just as plain as anything: “No, and I’m not going to either.” I replied, “But why won’t You take hold with me against sickness and death on behalf of this person?” The Holy Spirit said, “Because he’s going to die.” Of course, I didn’t know all the details about that man’s situation, but the Holy Spirit did. Perhaps this person had set something into
motion long ago that could not be reversed at this point. But regardless
what the situation was, I’d learned early in my ministry to let the secret
things belong to the Lord (Deut. 29:29). And in this case since the Holy Spirit wasn’t going to take hold together with me against the problem, that meant I had no good reason to keep praying about it! I rose to my feet and said, “Let’s all lift our hands and praise God.” I didn’t take time to explain. Many people wouldn’t have understood anyway, and it probably would only have created more confusion. So we all went home, and the next day the person went home to be with the Lord. But thank God for all those times the Holy Spirit does take hold together with us against a problem! His divine aid and assistance makes all the difference!

Praying in Tongues Eliminates Selfishness in Prayer
If Christians took the time to analyze the prayers they pray with their understanding, they’d realize a large majority of those prayers are selfish. Too often their prayers are like the old farmer who always prayed, “God, bless me and my wife, my son John and his wife—us four and no more!” Christians may not use those exact words, but if they would examine the sum of their prayers, they may see that the old farmer’s prayer represents the extent of their “praying with the understanding.” In other words, most of their prayer time is devoted to praying about matters that concern only themselves and their loved ones. This leads us to another benefit or value of praying in tongues according to God’s perfect will. Since praying in tongues is Spirit-directed prayer, it eliminates the possibility of selfishness entering into our prayers. When you pray out of your own mind, it is possible that your prayer may be unscriptural or selfish. And I don’t know if you realize this or not, but it is possible for you to pray out of your own natural way of thinking and actually change things that are not the will of God and not His best plan for you. The Bible says there is a good, an acceptable, and a perfect will of God.
ROMANS 12:2
2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye
transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that GOOD, and ACCEPTABLE, and PERFECT, will of God.If you persist in praying selfishly out of your own carnal thinking, you may find yourself asking for only the acceptable will of God, not His perfect will. On the other hand, we’ve seen that when you pray in the Spirit, you pray out the perfect will of God. If God’s people pray and ask for things to be a certain way— even if it is not God’s best for them, nor His perfect will—God will often permit it. I want to prove that to you from the Bible, because a lot of folks doubt that statement. They claim, “But if God granted something, it has to be His perfect will.” I’ll give you an illustration from the Scriptures to show you that God sometimes answers prayer that isn’t His perfect will. It’s found in First Samuel 8. God didn’t want the Israelites to have a king like all the surrounding nations. God wanted to be their King, but the children of Israel wanted to be like all the rest of the nations, and they kept persisting in their petition for a king. Finally, God said, “All right, go ahead. You have My permission to have a king.” But from that point on, the Israelites were never in the perfect will of God again, even though God blessed them and helped them as much as He could.

This is where a lot of people have missed it. Many times God has dealt with them and told them what His will is for their lives. But they keep after Him, praying out of their natural understanding for something they want. Finally, God says, “All right, if you want it that way, go ahead.” But I’d rather be in God’s perfect will than in His permissive will, wouldn’t you? It’s just so much better! I remember a dear young lady who made the same mistake the Israelites did when they asked for something that wasn’t God’s perfect will. She suffered greatly for that mistake. This young woman was one of my church members when I pastored in Texas. She was a beautiful singer with a wonderful ability to speak to youth about God. But this young woman was dating a fellow who wasn’t even saved. He’d go to church occasionally and he claimed to be a Christian, but it was quite obvious that he was not. She finally got engaged to this young man, even though she knew all the time it wasn’t the will of God. One night when we were all around the altar praying, this young lady came down to the altar and prayed through about the matter. God spoke clearly to her, telling her not to marry that man. Afterward, she got up and hugged all the ladies and shook hands with the men. “Well, that’s settled,” she declared. “I’m going to break up with him!” The young woman did break up with this fellow. However, over the process of time, she got back with him and wound up marrying him! You might ask, “Why would she do that?” Because she kept praying about it until the Lord finally told her, “Go ahead and marry him if that’s what you want to do.” You see, if you just keep hounding God like the Israelites did and like this young woman did, He’ll eventually give you permission to do what you want to do, even though it isn’t His perfect will for your life. That’s why when God tells you to do something—whether His instruction comes from the Bible or the Holy Spirit speaks directly to your heart—you don’t need to pray about it. You just need to do it! Since God really did tell that young woman not to marry that man, she shouldn’t have prayed about it any further. She should have just obeyed God. But she kept praying and praying and praying about it until finally the Lord told her, “Go ahead and marry him if that’s what you want to do.” Notice that the Lord didn’t tell her, “It’s My will for you to marry him” or “Go ahead and marry him—it’s fine with Me!” So the young lady married this man—and soon she became the most miserable person in town! We didn’t see her for months at a time. She didn’t even come to church, yet she lived right there in town. Finally, this woman wrote a letter to one of the older ladies in the congregation who’d been like a mother to her. The older woman called me and said, “Brother Kenneth, I have to read this to you!” In the letter, the young woman wrote, “I’ve been locked up for five months. My husband is so jealous of me that when he goes to work, he locks me in the house. I don’t have a key, and I don’t dare go out alone. I don’t go anywhere without him. He got jealous of me and my guitar and had a mad fit and broke the guitar to smithereens. Then he got jealous of me and my piano, and he broke that up too.”No wonder God told this young woman not to marry that man! The letter continued, “I’ve been a prisoner for five months in my own house.” She finally found a way to smuggle this letter out of her house and asked a friend to mail it for her. What a miserable situation! This young woman might have thought, Why did God ever put me in this mess? But God isn’t the One who got her in that mess. It’s true He said, “If that’s what you want, go ahead and do it,” because she kept persisting, asking and asking Him for it. But He never told the woman, “That is My will. Walk in it, and be blessed.” No, He said, “Okay! Okay! If that’s what you want, go ahead.”

That’s the reason you have to get the Word of God in you first before you pray. Make sure the Word is abiding in you! As Jesus said, “If ye abide in me, and MY WORDS ABIDE IN YOU, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you” (John 15:7).
Then make sure you are setting aside time to pray every day in other tongues. When God’s Word abides in you and you’re built up in your spirit by praying in other tongues, you will know you’re praying in line with God’s will about every situation! Never let yourself get outside of God’s Word when you pray. Build a strong foundation of the Word in your prayer life. If you don’t have that foundation, you may go off after a desire that’s not God’s will for you. And eventually, God may answer you just as He answered Israel: “All right, go ahead. You can have it, if that’s what you want.” It was not God’s highest will for Israel to have a king—but they wanted one, so they got one. And from that point on, they were never again in the perfect will of God. That doesn’t mean God didn’t continue
to bless them all He could, but He couldn’t bless them to the fullest
extent He wanted to. I don’t know about you, but I’m not satisfied with God’s permissive will or with His second best—I’m going after God’s best] That’s why I value so highly the gift of praying with other tongues. When I pray in
tongues, I am fully assured that I’ve left behind all possibility of selfish
praying. Thank God for the ability to pray out the perfect will of God!