Strength Within

I'd like to begin today by reading a few verses from Jeremiah 31, the passage about the new covenant. 3131. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord, but this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord, I will put my law within, and I will write it upon their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people, and no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

A lot of talk is going around these days in quote Christian circles about a prophecy which apparently from what they say is coming from many reliable sources that very soon there will be a born again spirit baptized president in the White House who will then turn the nation to better things. May this be so, but I have a prophecy for you this morning that probably won't be as popular and only time will tell which prophecy is right. May not happen with this election, although who knows, but within let's say one or two more elections a man comes to power who claims to be born again and filled with the Holy Spirit and who is apparently everybody's dream fulfilled.

For the first time in years and years people respond to the president. We've had enough crime, he says, and everybody says, Amen, and phenomenally, amazingly, crime begins to diminish. We've had enough unemployment, he says, and everybody says, Amen.

New projects, imaginative new things are developed, everybody has a job. Even the people who don't particularly like to work now find that they have to, and everybody, even they, begin to rejoice. Everything seems to be moving along beautifully.

For the first time in, at least since World War II, people find it in bold once again to be patriotic. Mass rallies are held in all the major urban areas, and wherever the president comes people salute him with upraised hands. Once a week for 30 minutes on television our leader addresses his beloved people and everything stops.

Industry, everything stops while everybody listens to his wonderful words. Everybody is so grateful for the new order that we now experience and that new sense of national purpose that nobody seems to notice that every dissenting voice is strangely silent. A newspaper somewhere in the country takes a stand against one of his policies and within three days it's put out of business.

Midnight arrests begin to become popular. People who don't conform to the system are called out of bed in the middle of the night and taken away and nobody knows what happens. And before the nation really understands what has taken place, it turns out that we have a dictatorship.

And now it's too late, because now the secret police are everywhere and meetings like we're having right now would be, will then be impossible. There won't quite be the freedom because there will be at least one person who's in this group and one after another people who stand up on this platform will be hauled off to jail for things they say. You say, oh come on, that's ridiculous.

I am as sure as I am standing here that unless there is a radical and swift cleansing of the disease in this nation, that's what we're going to see. But the thing which disturbs me most is that the people who are supposed to be functioning right now as the salt of the earth, retarding the spread of this now spreading spiritual rot, are actually at the forefront, the growing edge of the disease. And I'm talking about many people who consider themselves to be red-hot Christians.

Christians, many, many, many of them, who perhaps without realizing what they're doing are allowing themselves to be directed in their minds and spirit from outside by other men and who are giving up the control of their will to some other human being outside of themselves. Granted, you know, the general populace continues even now with every day to learn to be softened up for this, you know, as the mind manipulators who sell the mouthwash and the makeup and the cars and the beer and so forth. They're playing their little game.

But that's pain, believe me, that's pain compared with what is now going on in these many times mass gatherings of, quote, Christians who are learning to fit in with a very subtle but very obvious, at the same time, form of mass hypnosis. It doesn't really matter whether you're talking to 30,000 in an arena someplace or a handful of people secretly gathered to cast out demons in somebody's living room at 12 o'clock in the midnight when the leader says, raise your hand. Everybody raises their hands.

You know, it's not, please, will everybody please stand up? But it's, you know, come on, let's move. And every three minutes during his address says, say amen. Everybody says amen.

What they are learning to do is submit their wills to his will. Whether they realize this or not, and pretty soon before they realize it, whatever experience they have spiritually or emotionally is going to be tied to that leader, that man. And unless they swiftly make the transfer from him to Jesus, they're going to be hooked on him.

They're going to be embonded. Okay, you say, well, why do you go into all this? We don't operate that way here. So why do you talk about it? Perhaps we don't operate that way here, but most of us, perhaps all of us to some degree are more and more learning, perhaps unconsciously, to allow our sense of purpose to be dictated by those around us rather than guided by the spirit within.

And when you allow your strength to come from those around you, human beings around you, rather than from the spirit of God within you, you are then being directed by man from the outside rather than the spirit of God from the inside. Now I grant you, it's true, we are to gather together, neglect not the assembling of yourselves together, we are to exhort each other and review each other and to encourage each other and to speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. We are to, you know, in many ways provide an atmosphere for one another of encouragement and warmth and strength, but we are to do this guided from within each of each of us by the spirit of God.

When we are guided from within by the spirit of God like that, then we never blame our spiritual condition on those around us, as so many of us are prone to do. You know, how many of us, perhaps all of us at times say, no wonder I'm so dry, I'm not getting fed, my brothers and sisters don't love me like they should, my husband's a slob, Billy Graham didn't answer my last letter. The reason you're spiritually dry, my friend, is because that spring of living water which was opened up inside your heart by the hand of Jesus was allowed to stagnate by you.

And that gift which was given to you from above through the laying on of hands or through the prayers of brothers and sisters was allowed to stagnate. And the only one who can bring that spring back to life and that fire burning again is you. No preacher can do it for you, no evangelist.

You have to do it by opening your heart and giving it over to those those hands which alone can bring life once again the hands of Jesus. And that has to happen inside your heart and nobody can manipulate that and nobody can engineer that for you. You have to do it.

But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of after those days says the Lord. I will put my law within them and I will write it in their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people. They shall no longer teach every man his neighbor and each man his brother saying know the Lord for they will all know me from the least to the greatest.

In other words I will be inside them. Listen to this prayer of Paul for us in Ephesians. For this reason I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and earth is named that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man that Christ may dwell in your hearts in here by faith.

Granted Jesus dealt with multitudes, talked to thousands of people at times, fed five thousand with five loaves and two fish. Who knows how many people were healed as they drew near to him. But when people decided they were going to come out and be disciples he called them to step forth from that crowd as individuals.

If any man or woman thirsts let them let him or her come to me and drink. And when it says you know come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden when Jesus says that you say well that sounds like plural but he says take my yoke upon you and learn from me. How many people can get under a yoke you know two oxen.

Jesus is on the one side and you're on the other and you get into that yoke as an individual. And when of your own free will of course you decide that you are willing to answer the invitation of your Lord as an individual to step forth from the crowd and be his disciple even though you immediately become part of the body, the church, a fellowship, a community, all that's true. Nevertheless Jesus deals with you still as an individual.

I am the vine you are the branches every branch in me. Now the branch does not draw strength from the other branches it draws strength from the vine. And this relationship with the vine he makes awfully clear is an inward thing not external not something that other people can measure or impose on you.

And the Lord said to them now you pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish but inside you are full of extortion and wickedness you fools did not he who make made the outside make the inside also but give for alms those things which are within and behold everything is clean for you. Now the only one who is responsible for that inner relationship with a living and true God in your heart is you. No preacher can open that door for you of your heart no evangelist can do this no exorcist can do this no spiritual heavy can do this you do it or it doesn't get done.

That there has been prayer raised up for us of this there's no doubt. I believe this prayer which Paul prays in Ephesians is being prayed by the church on both sides of the grave and it applies to us you know that you may be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that prayer is answered by God right now the spirit comes right up to the door of each of our hearts and waits but he doesn't take the door down you have to open it and you will not be strengthened with might by God's spirit in the inner man so long as you are trying to get your strength with might by God's spirit from other men and women brother so-and-so oh I don't know what I do without sister so-and-so you know and we run and get our spiritual whatever it is shot in the arm from this wonderful brother this wonderful sister instead of learning that we have to get that from God's spirit nor will you ever be strengthened with might by God's spirit in the inner man so long as your inmost heart is crawling with blame toward other people around you for your circumstances a blame-filled heart is always a prayerless heart and a prayerless heart is a dry heart and many of us are still sitting around crying in our beer feeling so sorry for ourselves because this one let me down and that in fact everybody including God let me down you know this there will be no life from the spirit in the inner man until I cut that nonsense out and open the door nor will I get strength in the inner man from God's spirit in my inmost soul so long as I'm taking things into my own hands and this happens so often among us you know uh supposing I've had a drinking problem for a long time God has delivered me okay now I just get really upset about something that somebody says to me and this one over here so I'm going to take things into my own hands and go down and get a fifth you know what I'm gonna you know and we tend to go right back into the thing that we were once in before we you know I'm sick and tired of waiting for God I'm going to do it myself that's what Saul did you know he was waiting for Samuel to come and offer these sacrifices and the people were getting itchy and the multitude the army was beginning to leave him so he takes things into his own hands and offers a sacrifice and he blows it Aaron does the same thing Moses is up on the mountain and Aaron is stuck with these unruly people make us a God that we can see if Aaron had stopped there and if you and I had stopped at that moment God would have shown us what to do but we know you know we take things into our own hands I can't afford to sit around and pray right now I got to do something give me your gold but if we will turn right where we are and call in the name of Jesus for the Father to give us his Spirit afresh in our hearts today that prayer absolutely will be answered there's no such thing as asking the Father for his Spirit and not receiving and if there are those among you who say well I don't have to ask I already got the Spirit you know in 1971 I got the Holy Spirit well keep praying this is a you know they did in the apostolic times we do too if you who are you don't know how to give good gifts to your children how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him you ask you join your prayer to the prayer of the entire church on both sides of death Lord that I might be strengthened with might by your Spirit in the inner man and it will be done that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that prayer too is being answered the Lord comes right up to the door of our hearts and ways but now most of us want to have Jesus as our traveling companion our mascot somebody we can turn to when we're feeling a bit depressed but what what's being offered here is that he dwells in the heart and the only way you're going to know his companionship or his comfort or his renewing power is if he dwells in your heart and there's only one way he can dwell in our hearts and that is by faith by believing him this is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent as many as received him as believe in his name to them he gave power to become sons of God he that believeth on me though he were dead yet shall he live and he and he who lives and believes in me shall never die down through the centuries there have been men and women constantly claiming your faith believe in me says Napoleon believe in me says Hitler believe in me says President so-and-so believe in me says our great evangelist whoever he may be in one way or another the only one who has a right to claim your faith in him is the Lamb of God who lays down his life for your sins and the only one who can believe in him for you is you no angel can do that no brother or sister can do that only you can say Lord enter afresh into my heart this day give me a new start help me to walk with you rule my thoughts and he will answer and he will become your inner strength and when he is your inner strength no storm on the outside will be able to disrupt you and forth from your very heart will flow rivers of living water that will bring blessing to those around you that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with might through his spirit in the inner man that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that you being rooted and grounded in love may have the power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge that you may be filled inwardly with the fullness of God now to him who is who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we could ask or think to him be glory in the church through Christ Jesus throughout all ages Lord we know that your eye alone sees what our relationship with you at this moment is we only pray that that you would help us to be honest with ourselves to get our eyes off our brothers and sisters and what's wrong with them that we might this day Lord God be renewed by the in moving and infilling the stirring within of your Holy Spirit in our inmost heart Lord Jesus that you would become once again Lord on the throne of our inmost heart that indwelt by the living God father we may go forth from this hour truly your sons and daughters living in your mercy and so filled with your mercy that we may have abundance to spare for those around us we ask it in Jesus name amen