A.W. Tozer
When I was a young lad and first beginning to observe the human scene, one thing that struck me forcibly was the artificiality of preachers. The world they inhabited was, it seemed to me, always once removed from reality.
I was not brought up in a Christian home and so was not accustomed to the conventional language of religion, and when I chanced occasionally to hear a sermon, I listened with an ear undulled by familiarity. How strange the preachers sounded to me, how artificial their tones and how unnatural their demeanor.
They were men, obviously, but they lacked the candor and downrightness I knew so well in other men. The bold, man-to-man approach was missing. They seemed to be afraid of something, though I could not tell what, for certainly the tame, patient, almost indifferent persons who listened to them did not seem a threat. They spoke so gingerly and apologetically that one got the impression that they would rather remain silent forever than to offend anyone. After listening to some of them now and again I knew the meaning of the French saying (though I did not hear it till many years later), "There are three sexes: men, women and preachers."
Now I am all for preachers (A.W.T. was a life long pastor and editor of The Alliance Weekly, his denomination's official publication) and I do not expect them to be perfect, but I am all for downrightness too. I think it is highly improbably that anyone who speaks cautiously can speak effectively. His timidity will deactivate his effort and render it impotent. (emphasis mine JCS)
It is true that the church has suffered from pugnacious men, but she has suffered more from timid preachers who would rather be nice than right. The latter have done more harm if for no other reason than that there are so many more of them. I do not think, however, that we must make our choice between the two. It is altogether possible to have true love and courage at the same time.
Our theological schools may be at fault here. They strive to turn out preachers who will be all things to all men in a sense Paul never had in mind. They want their students to be cultured if it kills them and they begin by draining off all salt and leaving only a sweetness and light that appears to some of us to be neither sweet nor light. Everything natural is as far as possible refined away. All tang is eliminated from the speech, and all angularity carefully filed off the language. The young man is trained to gesture gracefully, smile faintly and sound scholarly. The direct language than men naturally use when speaking to each other is edited out and a vague, stilted jargon is substituted for it. The total result is artificiality and ineffectiveness.
But back to my own experience; it was by the mercy of God that I was later permitted to hear an evangelist who was completely human and paid his hearers the compliment of assuming they were human too. He knew what he wanted to say, and said it fearlessly; and the people knew what he meant and either took it or left it. Thank God a good number of them took it.
Every man who stands to proclaim the Word should speak with something of the bold authority of the Word itself. The Bible is the book of supreme love, but it is at the same time altogether frank and downright. Its writers are invariably honest and entirely sincere. A great sense of urgency is upon everything they write. They are deeply concerned with moral decisions. Protocol is of less interest to them than the glory of God and the welfare of people.
One is tempted to offer advice to the young preacher to prevent him from becoming a mere purveyor or artificial religious platitudes. One might urge him to study the best writers and speakers, to strive to be original, to look at and through things before speaking of them, to avoid cliches, to speak as men and in the language men speak; but this would be to miss the point entirely. Religious artificiality is not a technical thing but a deeply human and spiritual one. It is a disease of the soul and can only be healed by the Physician of souls.
To escape the snare of artificiality it is necessary that a man enjoy a satisfying personal experience with God. He must be totally committed to Christ and deeply anointed with the Holy Spirit. Further, he must be delivered from the fear of man. The focus of his attention must be God and not men. He must let everything dear to him ride out on each sermon. He must so preach as to jeopardize his future, his ministry, even life itself. He must make God responsible for the consequences and speak as one who will not have long to speak before he is called to judgment. Then the people will know they are hearing a voice instead of a mere echo.
(*By :A.W.Tozer, Christian Publications)
We are all in process of becoming. We have already moved from what we were to what we are, and we are now moving toward what we shall be. The perturbing though is not that we are becoming, but WHAT we are becoming; not that we are moving, but TOWARD WHAT we are moving. Not only are we all in process of becoming; WE ARE BECOMING WHAT WE LOVE. We are to a large degree the sum of our loves and we will of moral necessity grow into the image of what we love most. Our loves changes, molds and transforms us.
What we love is therefore not a small matter to be lightly shrugged off; rather it is of present, critical and everlasting importance. It is prophetic of our future. It tells us what we shall be, and so predicts accurately our eternal destiny. Loving the wrong objects twists and deforms the life and makes it impossible for that life to image the Lord Jesus Christ. This furnishes in part a rational explanation for the first and greatest commandment: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." To become like God is and must be the supreme goal of all moral creatures. This is the reason for their existence, and apart from this reason there can be no excuse found for existence. (Thus the hopelessness of our day.)
While perfect realization to the Divine image awaits the day of Christ's appearing, the work of restoration is now going on. There is a slow but steady transmutation of the base metal of human nature into the gold of Godlikeness effected by the faith-filled "gaze of the soul at the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." (II Cor. 3:18)
LOVE? Oh, how such a simple word is so difficult for most to grasp! And then to "LOVE GOD" WITH ALL MY BEING?? Love is so unpredictable! Does it mean that I FALL IN LOVE? No, the love we have for God is not the love of FEELING, but the love of WILLING. We do not come to love God by a sudden emotional visitation.
Love for God results from repentance, amendment of life and a fixed determination to love Him. (But how can you love a God you do not know? J.S.) As God moves perfectly into the focus of our hearts our love for Him rises and sweeps everything else out of the way. We should set our hearts to love God supremely, however hard they may seem to be at the moment.
Now I would hasten to disclaim all sympathy with the popular SALVATION-BY-WILLPOWER cults. I am in radical disagreement with all forms of quasi-Christianity that depends upon the "latent power with us" or trust to "creative thinking" instead of the power of God. All these paper thin religious philosophies bread down at the same place - in the assumption that the stream of human nature can be made to run backward up over the falls. This it can never do.
"SALVATION IS OF THE LORD."
No we are here trying to establish that human nature is in a formative state whether you be a Christian or not. Men and women are being molded by their loves, shaped by their affections and powerfully transformed. In this unregenerate world of Adam this produces day-by-day tragedies of cosmic proportions. Think of the power that turned a pink cheeked boy into a Nero or a Himmler. And was Jezebel always the "cursed woman" whose head and hands the very dogs, with poetic justice, refused to eat? No once she dreamed with girlish delights, but soon she became interested in evil things, admired them and went on at least to love them. Thus Jezebel, like clay in the potter's hand was slowly turned into what she was.
For His own children our heavenly Father has provided right moral objects for admiration and love.
The FIRST IS RIGHTEOUSNESS. Our Lord "loved righteousness and hated iniquity." (Hebrews 1:9) Here the pattern is fixed. To love is also to hate. The heart that is drawn to righteousness will be repulsed by iniquity in the SAME DEGREE. The holiest man is the one who loves righteousness most and hates evil with the most perfect hatred.
The NEXT IS WISDOM. So high do the OT writers place wisdom that sometimes we can scarcely distinguish the wisdom that comes from God from the wisdom that is God.
Another object for Christian love to fix upon is TRUTH, and again we have difficulty separating the truth of God from God Himself. Christ said, "I am the Truth," and in so saying joined truth and the Deity in inseparable union. To love God is to love truth, and to love truth with steadfast ardor is to grow toward the image of truth and away from the lie and error. (Read Paul in Phil. 4:8)
(By:A.W. Tozer, Christian Publications, Inc.)
(A. W. Tozer's , THE PURSUIT OF MAN.)
 | I Thessalonians 1:5 "For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost." |
| Revelation 3:1 "I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead." |
These verses might be disturbing for they evidently teach that the message of the gospel may be received in either of two ways: in word only, without power; or in word with power. When the "word is received with power" it effects a change so radical as to be called a new creation. But the message may be received without power, and apparently some have so received it, for they "have a name to live and are dead."
By observing all the ways of men at play I have been able to understand better the ways of men at prayer. Most men, indeed, play at religion as they play at games, religion itself being of all games the one most universally played. The various sports have their rules and their balls and their players; the game excites interest, gives pleasure and consumes time, and when it is over the competing teams laugh and leave the field. It is common to see a player leave one team and join another and a few days later play against his old mates with great zest. The whole thing is arbitrary. It consists in solving artificial problems and attacking difficulties which have been deliberately created for the sake of the game. But no one is better for his self-imposed toil. It is all a pleasant activity which changes nothing and settles nothing at last.
If the condition we describe were confined to the ballpark we might pass it over without further thought, but what are we to say when this same spirit enters the sanctuary and decides the attitude of men toward God and religion? For the Church has also its fields and its rules and its equipment for playing the game of pious words. It has its devotees, both laymen and professionals, who support the game with their money and encourage it with their presence, (i.e. some of the people, some of the time. JCS) but who are no different in life and character from many who take no interest at all in religion.
As an athlete uses a ball, so do many of us use words: words spoken and words sung, words written and words uttered in prayer. We throw them swiftly across the field; we learn to handle them with dexterity and grace; we build reputations upon our word skill and gain as our reward the applause of those who have enjoyed the game. But the emptiness of it is apparent from the fact that after the pleasant religious game no one is basically any different from what he had been before. The basis of life remain unchanged, the same old principles govern, the same old Adam rules.
I have NOT said that religion WITHOUT power makes NO changes in a man's life, only that it makes NO FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE. Water may change from liquid into vapor and still be fundamentally the same. So powerless religion may put a man through many surface changes and leave him exactly where he was before. Right there is where the snare lies. The changes are in form only, they are not in kind. Behind the activities of the non-religious man and the man who has received the gospel without power lie the very same motives. An unblessed ego lies at the bottom of both lives, the difference being that the religious man has learned better to disguise his vice. His sins are refined and less offensive than before he took up religion, but the man himself is not a better man in the sight of God. Selfishness still throbs like an engine at the center of his life. The man who has received the Word without power has trimmed his hedge, but it is still a thorn hedge and can never bring forth the fruits of the new life. Yet such a man may even be a leader in the Church and his influence and vote may go far to determine what religion shall be in his generation. Wherever the Word comes without power its essential content is missed.
Jesus told the woman at the well (John 4:24) "God is a Spirit and must be worshiped in spirit and in truth." While it is never possible to have the Spirit without at least some measure of truth, it is, unfortunately, possible to have the shell of truth without the Spirit.
We must take time to CONSIDER, WAIT, BE STILL BEFORE HIM IN MEDITATION AND PRAYER. We must truly know Him, and that takes time, Job says "How little a portion is known of Him." Oh, to wonder at and worship Him for His character, perfections and works.
Once I should have considered such thoughts to be mere metaphysical bric-a-brac without practical meaning for anyone in a world such as ours. Now I recognize them as sound and easy-to-grasp truths with unlimited potential for our benefit. Failure to get a right viewpoint in the beginning of our Christian lives may result in weakness and sterility for the rest of our days. May not the inadequacy of much of our spiritual experience be traced back to our habit of skipping through the corridors of the kingdom like children through the marketplace, chattering about everything, but pausing to learn the true value of nothing.
In my creature impatience I am often caused to wish that there were some way to bring modern Christians in a deeper spiritual life painlessly by short, easy lessons; but such wishes are vain. No shortcut exists. God has not bowed to our nervous haste nor embraced the methods of our machine age. It is well that we accept the hard truth now: The man who would know God must give time to Him. He must count no time wasted which is spent in the cultivation of His acquaintance. He must give himself to prayer and meditation.
The eternal God must be more than a text in a book, an idea in our head. The true Christian will crave to know God with vital awareness that goes beyond words and to live in the intimacy of personal communion. While the Bible is absolutely essential as the revelation of our God, we must plumb the depths and reach to the heavens for the "life" of those words. For many in the church, God may simply be entombed in a book. No, we must see with our own eyes, and hear with our own ears, and our own hands must handle the Word of Life.
(Don't just glance at this and lay it aside, give some time and serious thought to what Mr. Tozer has said. Give yourself to prayer over it for yourself and the Church. Judge your own life in light of this message. Then turn again to deep and prayerful consideration of God Himself as He is revealed in the Word and His "handiwork". Pray for the Holy Spirit to do His true office work daily in you. JCS)
A.W. Tozer
A few things, fortunately only a few, are matters of life and death, such as a compass for a sea voyage or a guide for a journey across the desert. To ignore these vital things is not to gamble or take a chance; it is suicide. Here it is either be right or dead.Our relation to Christ is such a matter of life or death, and on a much higher plane. The Bible instructed man knows that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners and that men are saved by Christ alone altogether apart from any works of merit.
That much is true and known, but obviously the death and resurrection of Christ do not automatically save everyone... How does that which Christ did FOR me become operative WITHIN me? To fail here is not to gamble with our souls: it is to guarantee eternal banishment from the face of God. Here we must be right or be finally lost.
Being spiritually lazy we naturally tend to gravitate toward the easiest way of settling our religious questions for our selves and others; hence the formula (most often heard) is "Accept Christ". It has become a panacea of universal application, and I believe it is fatal to many. Though undoubtedly an occasional serious minded penitent may find in it all the instruction he needs to bring him into living contact with Christ, I fear too many seekers use it as a short cut to the Promised Land... .
The trouble is that the whole "Accept Christ" attitude is likely to be wrong. It shows Christ applying to us rather than us to Him. It makes Him stand hat-in-hand awaiting our verdict on Him, instead of our kneeling with troubled hearts awaiting His verdict on us. It may even permit us to "accept Christ" by an impulse of mind or emotions, painlessly, at no loss to our ego and no inconvenience to our usual way of life.
To accept Christ is to form an attachment to the Person of our Lord Jesus altogether unique in human experience. The attachment is intellectual, volitional (action of the will) and emotional. The believer is intellectually convinced that Jesus is both Lord and Christ; he has set his will to follow Him at any cost and soon his heart is enjoying the sweetness of His fellowship.
This attachment is all-inclusive in that it joyfully accepts Christ for all that He is. There is no division of offices whereby we may acknowledge His Saviourhood today and withhold decision on His Lordship until tomorrow...
Further, his attachment to Christ is all-exclusive. The Lord becomes to him not ONE of several rival interests, but one exclusive attraction forever.
That we accept Christ in this all-inclusive, all-exclusive way is a divine imperative. Here faith makes its leap into God through the Person and work of Christ, but it never divides the work from the Person. It never tries to believe on the blood apart from Christ Himself, or the cross or "finished work." It believes on the LORD JESUS CHRIST, the whole Christ without modification or reservation, and thus it receives and enjoys all that He did in His work of redemption, all that He is now doing in heaven for His own and all that He does in and through them.
The Inadequacy of |
A.W. Tozer
It is hardly a matter of wonder that the country that gave the world instant tea and instant coffee should be the one to give it instant Christianity. If these two beverages were not actually invented in the United States it was certainly here that they received the advertising impetus that has made them known to most of the civilized world. And it cannot be denied that it was American Fundamentalism that brought instant Christianity to the gospel churches.Ignoring for the moment Romanism, and Liberalism in its in its various disguises, and focusing our attention upon the great body of evangelical believers, we see at once how deeply the religion of Christ suffered in the house of its friends. The American genius for getting things done quickly and easily with little concern for quality or permanence has bred a virus that has infected the whole evangelical church in the United States and, through our literature, our evangelists and our missionaries, has spread all over the world.
Instant Christianity came in with the machine age. Men invented machines for two purposes. They wanted to get important work done more quickly and easily than they could do it by hand, and they wanted to get the work over with so they could give their time to other pursuits more to their liking, such as loafing or enjoying the pleasures of this world. Instant Christianity now serves the same purposes in religion. It disposes of the past, guarantees the future and sets the Christian free to follow the more refined lusts of the flesh in all good conscience and with a minimum of restraint.
By "instant Christianity" I mean the kind found almost everywhere in gospel circles and which is born of the notion that we may discharge our total obligation to our own souls by one act of faith, or at most by two, and be relieved thereafter of all anxiety about our spiritual condition. We are saints by calling, our teachers keep telling us, and we are permitted to infer from this that there is no reason to seek to be saints by character. An automatic, once-for-all quality is present that is completely out of more with the faith of the New Testament.
In this error, as in most others, there lies a certain amount of truth imperfectly understood. It is true that conversion to Christ may be and often is sudden. Where the burden of sin has been heavy, the sense of forgiveness is usually clear and joyful. The delight experienced in forgiveness is equal to the degree of moral repugnance felt in repentance. The true Christian has met God. He knows he has eternal life and he is likely to know where and when he received it.
But the trouble is that we tend to put our trust in our experiences and as a consequence misread the entire New Testament. We are constantly exhorted to make the decision, to settle the matter now, to get the whole thing taken care of at once - and those who exhort us are right in doing so. There are decisions that can be and should be made once for all. There are personal matters that can be settled instantaneously by a determined act of the will in response to Bible-grounded faith.
Instant Christianity tends to make the faith act the terminal (end) and so smother the desire for spiritual advance. It fails to understand the true nature of the Christian life, which is not static but dynamic and expanding.
By trying to pack all of salvation into one experience, or two, the advocates of instant Christianity flaunt the law of development which runs through all nature. They ignore the sanctifying effects of suffering, cross carrying, and practical obedience. They pass by the need for spiritual training, the necessity of forming right religious habits and the need to wrestle against the world, the devil and the flesh.
(The work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, called the "new birth" should plainly teach us that this is the beginning and not the end. All of life that is then granted us is a time of growing and maturing, of seeking Him more and more. JCS)
A.W. Tozer
A few things, fortunately only a few, are matters of life and death, such as a compass for a sea voyage or a guide for a journey across the desert. To ignore these vital things is not to gamble or take a chance; it is suicide. Here it is either be right or dead.Our relation to Christ is such a matter of life or death, and on a much higher plane. The Bible instructed man knows that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners and that men are saved by Christ alone altogether apart from any works of merit.
That much is true and known, but obviously the death and resurrection of Christ do not automatically save everyone... How does that which Christ did FOR me become operative WITHIN me? To fail here is not to gamble with our souls: it is to guarantee eternal banishment from the face of God. Here we must be right or be finally lost.
Being spiritually lazy we naturally tend to gravitate toward the easiest way of settling our religious questions for our selves and others; hence the formula (most often heard) is "Accept Christ". It has become a panacea of universal application, and I believe it is fatal to many. Though undoubtedly an occasional serious minded penitent may find in it all the instruction he needs to bring him into living contact with Christ, I fear too many seekers use it as a short cut to the Promised Land... .
The trouble is that the whole "Accept Christ" attitude is likely to be wrong. It shows Christ applying to us rather than us to Him. It makes Him stand hat-in-hand awaiting our verdict on Him, instead of our kneeling with troubled hearts awaiting His verdict on us. It may even permit us to "accept Christ" by an impulse of mind or emotions, painlessly, at no loss to our ego and no inconvenience to our usual way of life.
To accept Christ is to form an attachment to the Person of our Lord Jesus altogether unique in human experience. The attachment is intellectual, volitional (action of the will) and emotional. The believer is intellectually convinced that Jesus is both Lord and Christ; he has set his will to follow Him at any cost and soon his heart is enjoying the sweetness of His fellowship.
This attachment is all-inclusive in that it joyfully accepts Christ for all that He is. There is no division of offices whereby we may acknowledge His Saviourhood today and withhold decision on His Lordship until tomorrow...
Further, his attachment to Christ is all-exclusive. The Lord becomes to him not ONE of several rival interests, but one exclusive attraction forever.
That we accept Christ in this all-inclusive, all-exclusive way is a divine imperative. Here faith makes its leap into God through the Person and work of Christ, but it never divides the work from the Person. It never tries to believe on the blood apart from Christ Himself, or the cross or "finished work." It believes on the LORD JESUS CHRIST, the whole Christ without modification or reservation, and thus it receives and enjoys all that He did in His work of redemption, all that He is now doing in heaven for His own and all that He does in and through them.
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