In this message we want to see the compounding of the Spirit. I hope that this truth can be transfused into our being. The Christian life is altogether a matter of the Spirit. "No Spirit, no Christian life." John 4:24 says that God is Spirit. If we do not know the Spirit, we are through with God. As long as we are through with God, we are through with the Christian life. The revelation of the Spirit in the Bible is crucial. My burden is not to teach theology or biblical doctrines, but to minister the healthy teaching concerning the real Christian life. The real Christian life is altogether a matter of the Spirit.
In the first half of this century, there were two prominent and strong inner life teachers. They were Jessie Penn-Lewis and T. Austin-Sparks. I would say that they are the ones who ended the inner life movement.
The inner life movement began with Madame Guyon, Father Fenelon, and others in the seventeenth century. They are known as mystics, and their teaching as mysticism. Madame Guyon and Father Fenelon never left the Catholic Church, but they were very strong in the inner life. With them, however, the inner life was too mysterious and became a difficult thing for people to enter into and apprehend.
In the eighteenth century, William Law, a British scholar, improved the writings of the mystics, and this became a help to others. Later, Andrew Murray, a Dutch Reformed minister in South Africa, improved William Law's writing further. Andrew Murray was a speaker in the Keswick convention. His writing was very spiritual. His longest book is his exposition of the book of Hebrews entitled The Holiest of All. His masterpiece is a book entitled The Spirit of Christ.