Prayer & Evangelism Part 3 - The Holy Spirit reveals God's truth

In Part 1 & 2 we saw how prayer and evangelism go hand in hand. From here on out I want to focus specifically on prayer.

We'll be taking a look at scriptures showing us that the Holy Spirit reveals God's truths to us; that He plays a role in our spiritual growth and how this is the reason why the Apostle Paul could pray for the churches the way he did and why we are encouraged to pray the same way as well; and then we'll also be taking a look at a few men God has used over the years in making an impact with regards to evangelism and what they had to say about prayer.

So let's start off with the following passage found in Isaiah 11:2 where it describes some of the attributes of the Spirit of God:

The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him,
The Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The Spirit of counsel and might,
The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.

Taking the above into consideration, we can better understand why Jesus Christ says that one of the Holy Spirit’s functions is to reveal God’s truth to us:

John 14:15-17

“If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.

John 14:26

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you

John 16:12-15

 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.

We also see this in 1 Corinthians 2:9-16:

But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.

These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

Below are further examples of the Holy Spirit being the revealer of truth:

1 Corinthians 12:3

Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 3:5-7

After all, who is Apollos? Who is Paul? We are only God’s servants through whom you believed the Good News. Each of us did the work the Lord gave us. I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow. It’s not important who does the planting, or who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow

Acts 16:14

Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul

We see from the above passages that He is the revealer of God's truth, the One who teaches us (1 John 2:18-27) and gives us revelation of God's word, God's character, God's love (Romans 5:5)

That the reason we understand that we are children of God and call on God as our Abba Father is because of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:15-17)

All of the above passages tell us that the way we come to understand and grow in spiritual wisdom is because of the presence of the Holy Spirit living on the inside of us.