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     1. Nearer, Still Nearer   (1:29)
     2. The Inner Man   (27:54)

Ephesians 3:14-19  For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, ¹⁵Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, ¹⁶That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; ¹⁷That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; ¹⁹And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.

Proverbs 4:23.  Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.

Ephesians 1:15.  Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,

The Lord talks about the outward man, and He talks about the inward man.  And it’s a very wonderful thing when Christ dwells in the heart by faith—when He lives there.

When Brother Bob and I were in Yugoslavia, in Osijek, there was just one place where we could lodge: a hotel in town, the only one.  And we got quarters that were pretty dirty.  Generally speaking, the communists are pretty dirty, at least where we’ve come around—Alles verlottert.  You know what that means?  Ist alles verlottert: everything this kaput; you know what that means?  Everything.  They move into these fine palaces built by the Germans… 

In Zagreb, for instance, there’s a hotel that covers almost a city block and shows the beautiful architecture and beautiful appointments—staircases, and fixtures, and so on.  But it’s now in charge of people who wouldn’t even be able to take care of pigs’ pens properly, and everything is full of dirt: the walls, and the stairways; the rugs are torn, and curtains—there are no curtains on the windows, and so on.  Everything was verlottert.  But the clerk said, “Now, if you can get hold of that second-floor suite, that’s beautiful.”  And when nobody was in there, he showed us that place.  Oh my, was it ritzy; it was made for a king!  But he says, “You can’t get it now because there’s a commission from Russia here, from the Kremlin.  They’re occupying this place.”  And before they came, the place had to be cleaned up, and the fixtures had to be repaired, and everything had to be tops.

When God says, “Guard thy heart with all diligence,” it means to make it ready for the King to move in and to dwell there.  And before the King can dwell in my heart, it must be made ready for the King.

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He says, “That ye might be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man.”  Unfortunately, most of us are satisfied with the outside, like the Pharisees.  They were perfectly satisfied, and the Bible says they worked day and night to whitewash the outside and keep it whitewashed.  That’s all they cared about as long as men would see a “whitewashed sepulcher.”  They never opened up, and the stench never got outside; they had it carefully sealed.  But God says, “God knows your heart.”  God knows my heart this day.  Is it a habitation of the King, or do I drive Him away?  He says, “The poison of asps is under their lips.  Inside, they’re full of dead men’s bones.”

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Jesus says, “For a long time, it may seem alright.  The house is built on sand.”  But He says, “The day comes when the rains descends, and the floods rise, and the winds beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall thereof.”  Oh, for God to search deeply, to search the inside, to cleanse the inside, to restore that inner man!  How little attention we pay to the inner man!  I tell you, beloved, this is the great need of our hearts.

Outward things attract people so quickly.  My, how quickly they run if there’s some entertainment someplace—something to satisfy the senses.  And a lot of people have no other spirituality but that which satisfies their senses.  They’ll tell what a blessing they got, but if it hadn’t satisfied their senses, they wouldn’t recognize the blessing.  When God brings conviction, or He brings quietude, or poise, or calmness, they don’t recognize that.  Outside, everything is beautiful, but inside, there are dumps, or “dumplings,” or shadows—little depressions, little sensitiveness, question marks, unbelief, anxiety, fear.  Oh, these things are so destructive!

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I’ll tell you what I had to do to get rid of my dumps: praise the Lord; rejoice in spite of everything.  I would spend hours just walking up and down somewhere in a basement, or in a cellar, or someplace where people couldn’t hear me, with upraised hands, and shout, “Hallelujah!  Praise the Lord!”  And it felt as if I was being choked, but one day that thing went.  The devil couldn’t stand it anymore.  And in place of this enemy, Jesus Christ came in and put the glory there, and it’s been there ever since.  He strengthened me with might by His spirit in the inner man.  But I had to make my choice between Christ and self.

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We generally think of sinners as being “lost sheep.”  Did you ever read the last verse of Psalm 119?  “Lord, I am like a lost sheep.  Seek Thy servant, for I do not forget Thy law.”  There was a real Christian, and he wanted to be sought and found.  And Jesus is after me this morning, and He’s after you.  Oh, but with what divine love, with what imperial love, with what deep desire does He think of us!—as brother Posta said a while ago.  With what a cry in His heart does He seek His wandering child!  And we wander, and we run away from Him, and we give Him no chance.  If we only gave Him half a chance, how quickly He would restore you on the inside and strengthen you “with might”!

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A man who was offended when prayed for.  “He got real angry.  He piped up and he said, ‘Do I need all that?!’  Well, but if you don’t need it, wouldn’t it be wonderful to have it just the same?”    (from 7:35)

A church member who had no interest in humility. “‘I don’t want to get down,’ she told me.  Well, you can go somewhere else.  Go to a Christian Science lecture room; they’ll tell you that you’re god, and goodness knows what else!  And some other churches too: they’ll sprinkle rose water over you.  That’s nice.”    (from 16:40)

A church where “rivers of living water” were unknown.  “Oh, for a Pentecostal assembly that’s set-in; for a Pentecostal assembly where people are holy on the inside, not on the outside—not with Acts 2:4, but John 7:38!”    (from 19:14)

The message of the indwelling Christ is rare, even at a religious convention.  “‘You talked about the indwelling life of Christ.  We don’t hear about that.  That’s what our hearts hunger for…’  But the leaders of the convention… thought I had attacked them.”    (from 24:12)

Ist alles verlottert. — “Everything is dilapidated,” or “It’s all gone to wrack and ruin.”

“Ich will nicht auskramen…” — “I don’t want to root [around and find a lot of vermin in my heart].”

Then, a child’s prayer:

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