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I. THE PREDOMINANT CHARACTERISTIC OF THE CHRISTIAN IS PRAYER. This is clear from the preceding context, and from the nature of the ease. What is past is for rest and praise — not for prayer and on-reaching.

1. All true believers are praying men. This is and must be a universal characteristic.

2. Prayer must be essentially our own. Another man's hunger is not my hunger, even when both of us are hungry alike. And so another man's prayer or yearning are not mine.

II. THE SUCCESS OF PRAYER IS HINDERED BY OUR INFIRMITIES. Everything that deadens hope or that makes us contented to be as we are, will hinder prayer.

1. Infirmities of flesh. "The spirit indeed is wilting, but the flesh is weak."

2. Infirmities of our faith. "O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" (Psalm 77:10).

3. Infirmities of conscience. These arise from the spirit of bondage and lead to timidity and superstition.

4. Infirmities of judgment. The judgments we form of Divine truth will exert a considerable influence over our character. And it is here that our weakness often appears.

5. Infirmities of temper. We all know how irascibility interferes with the calmness of prayer and spoils our devotion.

III. THE SPIRIT IS OUR GREAT HELPER, BOTH IN THE OFFERING OF PRAYER AND IN THE SUCCESS OF IT.

1. Our longings are often of a vague and indefinite character. Our religious feelings are often earnest and real, yet shapeless and indeterminate; and so our prayers, which are but our endeavours to utter what we feel, are often nothing better than a groan. We want clear light. Is not this the case supposed in our text?

2. There is One concerned in this endeavour of ours. In this wordless and unutterable longing of the soul there is One who is helping us.

3. Though we do not understand, yet He that searcheth the heart does. We ask for what, if suddenly given, would surprise us, but the Spirit means all that. When I ask "to be what God would have me be," should I become so at once, how wonderful would be the reality — beyond what I thought when I prayed! And so "Thy kingdom come." Truly I mean it; but have I a conception of its meaning and compass? The Spirit means it, and "he that," etc.

(P. Strutt.)

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KJV: 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.

WEB: In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weaknesses, for we don't know how to pray as we ought. But the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which can't be uttered.