Doctrine + Spirit

The Great Test: Modifying the Truth

There is a great decision that every denomination has to make sometime in the development of its history. Every church also has to make it either at its beginning or a little later—usually a little later. Eventually every board is faced with the decision and has to keep making it, not by one great decision made once for all, but by a series of little decisions adding up to one great big one. Every pastor has to face it and keep renewing his decision on his knees before God. Finally, every church member, every evangelist, every Christian has to make this decision. It is a matter of judgment upon that denomination, that church, that board, that pastor, that leader and upon their descendants and spiritual children.
The question is this: Shall we modify the truth in doctrine or practice to gain more adherents? Or shall we preserve the truth in doctrine and practice and take the consequences? If the decision is that we modify the truth and practice of the church, then we are responsible for the consequences, whatever they may be. God already knows what the consequences are, and history has shown what they are. But if we choose to preserve the truth, then God accepts the responsibility.
Business people have to make that choice in business. Everyone has to make it at income tax time. Students have to make it in school. We have to make it everywhere in our lives as we touch society. Shall we preserve the truth and the practice of the truth, or shall we alter it just comfortably in order to be more popular, gain more adherents and get along easier in the world?
Actually such a question should never need to be asked. It is like asking, “Should a man be faithful to his wife?” There is only one answer to that question. When we ask, “Shall we preserve the truth and practice of the church, or shall we modify it for immediate and visible results?” we ought to have only one answer. It is not a debatable question, and yet it is one that has to be constantly debated in the secret prayer chamber. It is constantly debated when conferences meet, when boards meet and when a pastor must make a decision.
A commitment to preserving the truth and practice of the church is what separates me from a great many people who are perhaps far greater than I am in ability. This is my conviction, long held and deeply confirmed by a knowledge of the fact that modern gospel churches, almost without exception, have decided to modify the truth and practice a little in order to have more adherents and get along better. When we make a decision to modify the truth, we bring the consequences of that choice upon ourselves. What have the consequences been?
One has been an absence of a spirit of worship in the church. Many people do not even know what is meant by a spirit of worship. That is tragic. I wish God would either change things a little or give me a sight of His glory among His people. I admit that sometimes I feel like the man of God who said,

And I said, Oh that I had wings, like a dove! For then would I fly away, and be at rest. Lo, then would I wander far off, and remain in the wilderness. Selah. (Psalm 55:6–7)

Many of the Lord’s people do not know what you mean when you mention a spirit of worship in the church. They are poor victims of boards, churches, denominations and pastors who have made the noble decision to modify the truth and practice a little. But God responded, “If you do, I will withdraw from you the spirit of worship. I will remove your candlestick.”

Taken from Aiden Wilson Tozer, Rut, Rot or Revival, 1st ed. (Camp Hill, PA: WingSpread, 2006), 151–153.

National View of God

One Nation Under God

The most vital fact about any nation is what it thinks of God. I am not a historian, neither by profession nor by any great amount of study. But I do believe I could predict the future of any nation if I could discover exactly what that nation’s concept of God is—if I could learn exactly what America thinks of God, what the rank and file, the masses, the lower echelon leadership in America thinks about God; if I could send out a questionnaire and ask the question, “When you think of God, what do you think of? What concept enters your mind when you think about God?”
If I could find an instrument that would tell me what the majority of the people thought about God, I could predict the future of the nation, barring of course the possibility of revival, which would change all that. But even a revival cannot come where a concept of God is low. A missionary cannot go to a heathen land and immediately preach the gospel. One of the first things they have to do is talk about the high God and purge the minds of the people from low and unworthy and ignoble concepts of God. We cannot rise higher than our concept of God.
Personal faith cannot rise higher than a person’s concept of God. That is why I for one am indignantly crusading against this concept of God as “the man upstairs.” The nice, lovely God that you can slap on the back, laugh, and tell Him a joke; the God that will condescend to anything and pal along with anybody. That kind of God is not the kind of God of the Bible. That is not the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; it is not the God that gave the law to Moses; it is not the God that led the children of Israel out of Egypt; it is not the God of Isaiah or David, John or Paul; it is not the God of Martin Luther or John Wesley; it is not the God of the Church. It is another kind of God, a soft God that will condescend to anything and overlook anything, with no spine and no character. That God is the divine teddy bear, the huge panda that everybody can cuddle to and coo about but they have no respect for Him because they have no concept of Him.

One Church Under God

I say that not only of a nation but also of a church. You say, “Oh well, every church has the same concept of God, every church knows about God; they read their Bible. They have a Christian concept of God.”
Our concept of God could be thought of as a river where we receive tributaries from everywhere—from books and unworthy songs and fiction and religious literature of various kind—until even a church that ought to be a sound, biblical church is a poor, anemic imitation. Our concept of God is likely to be down so that instead of thinking of God as He is—high and lofty, inhabiting eternity, He whose train fills the temple and who walks on the wings of the wind and makes the clouds His chariot—instead of our thinking about that high God, the God we know about or think about or conceive is a very much smaller God.
I believe in evangelism, but I have listened to evangelistic sermons that set forth a God I could not respect and would not want to go to heaven and live with for another few million eternities. I do not want to live with a God like that, the kind of God I have heard set forth in pitiful, nose-wringing, eye-drenching stories as though God were like one of us. The poor little undersized, small-minded preacher gets up and begins to chatter about a God he has made in his own image, and then I’m supposed to want to go to heaven and sit beside the throne of a God I could not respect on earth?
No, I want the God of the Old Testament and the God and Father of the New, or else I do not want to go to heaven. I would rather go somewhere in some neutral place. I have not courage enough to say I would rather go to hell, but maybe a limbo in between where I can stay as far as possible from these teddy bear gods that are being preached now and again.
Some have a lot against John Calvin. I do not go along with everything John Calvin believed, but there is one thing he did believe that I go along with. He had a high concept of God. He believed in God’s sovereignty—God high and lifted up. And so do I.
If we could find out exactly what a church thinks about God, we would know that church’s future. We would know where they are going for the next several years.

A. W. Tozer, And He Dwelt among Us: Teachings from the Gospel of John, ed. James L. Snyder (Ventura, CA: Regal, 2009), 205–207.

The Spirit of Entertainment

This spirit of Babylon, in the form of entertainment, has not only seeped into the Church but has also been welcomed through the front door with inviting arms and has come in like a flood. It seems so incongruent to me that a generation of Christians should so loathe the accomplishments of their forefathers and the sacrifice associated with the faith once delivered that they would court the frivolous attitude and spirit of “entertainmentism.” We are not worshiping God on the throne but have come to the point of worshiping the shadow of the throne.
The average Christian today is addicted to exterior pleasures. Can any Christian church survive today without a heavy dose of entertainment? It is the culture of fun, fun and more fun. Performance has replaced worship. We no longer have worshipers but rather observers and spectators who sit in awe of the performance. The demand is for something that will make us feel good about ourselves and make us forget about all of our troubles.
The Church Fathers were fanatic worshipers, and their worship carried with it a heavy cost, which incidentally, they gladly and eagerly paid. The grandsons are now observers with an appetite for entertainment that has gone wild. They are addicted, with an insatiable appetite, to have one thrill followed by an even bigger thrill. They are as fanatic about entertainment as their fathers were about worship, which explains the difference.
To confuse the matter and make it even worse, we have now what I shall call a performance-oriented worship. Just because you tack the word “worship” onto a phrase does not mean that it is worship acceptable to God. We dance before God, wearing our silly little costumes and doing our silly little jingles, thinking that this in some way impresses the God Almighty, Creator of the heavens and the earth.
The Church Fathers came into the presence of God with a sense of overwhelming reverence, which captivated them and brought them before God in holy silence. What has happened to reverence today? Where are those who get caught up in the spirit of reverence before their God? Where are those who have experienced the holy hush in the presence of God?
Then we have celebrities who are leading our so-called worship today. This mirrors the culture around us. To be a leader in the Church, a man does not have to have spiritual qualifications as much as a personality and a celebrity status. The converted football player wields more influence in churches today than the man who is before God on his knees with a broken heart for his community. Celebrities are now leading us, but they are not leading us down the same pathway the Fathers of the Church established.

A. W. Tozer, The Dangers of a Shallow Faith: Awakening from Spiritual Lethargy, ed. James L. Snyder (Ventura, CA: Regal, 2012), 18–20.

The Importance Of Our Concept Of God

Tozer was a man driven by a desire to know God in His fullness. Jon Graf, in his study guide to The Pursuit of God, said that Tozer once confessed to his lifelong friend Robert Battles, “I want to love God more than anyone in my generation.” Graf goes on to say, “To some of us that may sound selfish and arrogant, but for Tozer it wasn’t. It simply came out of an honest desire to enrich his relationship with the Lord.”
The desire to know God more deeply and more intimately naturally led Tozer to study God’s attributes. As he himself said in this very volume,

  Christianity at any given time is strong or weak depending upon her concept of God. And I insist upon this and I have said it many times, that the basic trouble with the Church today is her unworthy conception of God. (p. 41)

 

A. W. Tozer and David E. Fessenden, The Attributes of God: Study Guide, vol. 1 (Camp Hill, PA: WingSpread, 2003–), 5.

The Churches Designed Leader

Negotiating With the World Forfeits…

Become A Better Christian By…

It is not by reading the Scriptures in the original languages or in some contemporary version that makes us better Christians. Rather, it is getting on our knees with the Scriptures spread before us, and allowing the Spirit of God to break our hearts. Then, when we have been thoroughly broken before God Almighty, we get up off our knees, go out into the world and proclaim the glorious message of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world.

A. W. Tozer, The Dangers of a Shallow Faith: Awakening from Spiritual Lethargy, ed. James L. Snyder (Ventura, CA: Regal, 2012), 22.

When Up is Down

The Christian saves his own life by losing it and he is in danger of losing it by trying to save it.
It is an interesting thing that when he wants to get up, the Christian always starts down, for God’s way up is always down, even though that is contrary to common sense. It is also contrary to the finest wisdom on the earth, because the foolish things of God are wiser than anything on this earth.

A. W. Tozer, I Call It Heresy!: And Other Timely Topics From First Peter (Camp Hill, PA: WingSpread, 1991), 160–161.

Four Simple Words–From A.W. Tozer

This brought a smile to my face today.

Four Simple Words

Now, there has to be some sort of outward adorning and I would summarize it in four familiar words: clean, neat, modest, appropriate.
None can say that they do not understand the word clean. However poor we may be, we may still be clean. Nearly everyone has enough water available for basic cleanliness.
Why can’t we all be neat in our daily contacts? I do not think anyone ever needs to look as though he had gone through a cyclone and had no time since to get “accumulated.”
In our day, some folks seem to think the word modest is a comical word. You can laugh it off if you want to, but it is one of the words that we will face in that great day of coming judgment.
In our Christian lives, we should know the strength of the word appropriate. I think every Christian woman should dress appropriately, properly and suitably to her circumstances and to her income. A Christian woman who tries to give out tracts dressed in loud, flashy apparel or in dirty and disheveled garb will be a poor advertisement for the gospel she is trying to publicly proclaim.
I realize that some women excuse their manner of dress in public by the fact that they have so little money to spend for clothing.
I contend that a woman still doesn’t have to be grotesque in her garb even though she must wrestle with the problems of small income.
You know that I ride the public buses occasionally and for the small price of the fare it is a wonderful place to observe human nature.
When I see some of the inappropriate and grotesque things worn by women boarding the buses I have wondered why others in the family did not protest: “Please, Mama, don’t go out like that! People will think you have escaped.”
I think that there is a great contradiction apparent among us. Many women are working so hard in all kinds of jobs that they are making themselves old in the effort to get money enough to buy the clothes and cosmetics that are supposed to make them look young.
As far as I am concerned, it does not reflect any credit on the common sense or spirituality of any woman who knowingly goes beyond her financial bracket to decorate herself for the sake of appearance!

A. W. Tozer, I Call It Heresy!: And Other Timely Topics From First Peter (Camp Hill, PA: WingSpread, 1991), 130–132.

What’s The Reward Of Your Efforts?

Any temporal possession can be turned into everlasting wealth. Whatever is given to Christ is immediately touched with immortality.

A. W. Tozer, Born After Midnight (Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, 1959), 107.

Word of the Father By Rev. A.W. Tozer

 

 

Word of the Father! Light of Light;
  Eternal praise is Thine alone;
Strong in Thy uncreated might,
  Sweet with a fragrance of Thine own.
The dark beginnings of creation
  Had their first rise and spring in Thee;
The universe Thy habitation,
  Which art and evermore shalt be.
Word of the Father!

Word of the Father! Truly God,
  And truly man by incarnation,
Born to endure the thorns, the rod,
  The shameful cross, for our salvation.
Our sins, our woes come all before us.
  We have no friend—no friend but Thee;
Oh, spread Thy sheltering mantle o'er us,
  And speak our mourning spirits free,
Word of the Father!

Word of the Father, hear our prayer,
  Send far the evil tempter from us,
And make our souls Thy tender care
  Lest sin and Satan overcome us.
O conquering Christ, deep hell despairing
  Shall bow and own Thy right to reign
When Thou, with joy beyond comparing,
  Shall bring Thy ransomed ones again.
Word of the Father!

Lyle Dorsett, A Passion for God: The Spiritual Journey of a. W. Tozer (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2008).

Tozer’s Desire As He Entered Ministry

Lord Jesus, I come to Thee for spiritual preparation. Lay Thy hand upon me. Anoint me with the oil of the New Testament prophet. Forbid that I should become a religious scribe and thus lose my prophetic calling. Save me from the curse that lies dark across the face of the modern clergy, the curse of compromise, of imitation, of professionalism. Save me from the error of judging a church by its size, its popularity or the amount of its yearly offering. Help me to remember that I am a prophet; not a promoter, not a religious manager—but a prophet. Let me never become a slave to crowds. Heal my soul of carnal ambitions and deliver me from the itch for publicity. Save me from the bondage to things. Let me not waste my days puttering around the house. Lay Thy terror upon me, O God, and drive me to the place of prayer where I may wrestle with principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world. Deliver me from overeating and late sleeping. Teach me self-discipline that I may be a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

Lyle Dorsett, A Passion for God: The Spiritual Journey of a. W. Tozer (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2008).

Preaching like Tozer: 3 Ways He Broke the Mold

Whenever someone asked my uncle what pie he liked best, he always responded with whatever pie he was eating at the time. I feel the same about Tozer’s work. When anybody asks me which Tozer book I like best, I always respond with the one I’m  working on at the time. Unlike works by any other writer I know, there’s something about a Tozer sermon or book that speaks straight to the heart.

People who know A. W. Tozer know him as a conference speaker, writer, and editor. At his heart, however, he was a true pastor. His best preaching was in his church, either Chicago or Toronto, and he truly had a pastor’s heart.

Here are three aspects of Tozer’s preaching that made him one of the greats: Read More

Thoughts Require Much Prayer

“To think God’s thoughts requires much prayer. If you do not pray much, you are not thinking God’s thoughts. If you do not read your Bible much and often and reverently, you are not thinking God’s thoughts. Those thoughts you are having—and your head buzzes with them all day long and into the night—are earthly thoughts—thoughts of a fallen race. They are the thoughts of a lost society. They should not be our thoughts. Paul said, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5).
There also has to be a lot of meditation. We ought to learn to live in our Bibles. Get one with print big enough to read so it does not punish your eyes. Look around until you find a good one, and then learn to love it.”

http://ref.ly/o/rutrotrev/53144 via the Logos Bible Android app.

To improve or change the church you must begin with...

“the church is not the building. A church is an assembly of individuals. There is a lot of meaningless dialogue these days about the church. It is meaningless because those engaged in the dialogue forget that a church has no separate existence. A church is not an entity in itself, but rather is composed of individual persons. It is the same error made about the state. Politicians sometimes talk about the state as though it were an entity in itself. Social workers talk about society, but society is people. So is the church. The church is made up of real people, and when they come together we have the church. Whatever the people are who make up the church, that is the kind of church it is—no worse and no better, no wiser, no holier, no more ardent and no more worshipful. To improve or change the church you must begin with individuals.”

http://ref.ly/o/rutrotrev/11197 via the Logos Bible Android app.

A great deal that passes for the deeper life is nothing more or less than basic Christianity

“A great deal that passes for the deeper life is nothing more or less than basic Christianity. There is nothing deeper about it, and it is where we should have been from the start. We should have been happy, joyous, victorious Christians walking in the Holy Spirit and not fulfilling the lusts of the flesh. Instead we have been chasing each other around the perpetual mountain. What we need is what the old Methodists called a sound conversion. There is a difference between conversion and a sound conversion. People who have never been soundly converted do not have the Spirit to enlighten them. When they read the Sermon on the Mount or the teaching passages of the epistles that tell them how to live or the doctrinal passages that tell how they can live, they are unaffected. The Spirit who wrote them is not witnessing in their hearts because they have not been born of the Spirit. That often happens. People clean up, throw away their pipes, start to pay their bills and live right and then say, “I want to join the church.” So we question them, “Do you believe that Christ is the Son of God?” “Yes,” they reply. “Do you believe He rose from the dead?” “Yes.” “Do you believe He is coming again?” “Yes, I do.” Well, so does the devil and he trembles. People get into the church who are not converted at all. We are so tenderhearted, sentimental and eager that we get them on any grounds at all, if they just say the right words for us. But maybe some of these people have never been converted in the first place.”

http://ref.ly/o/rutrotrev/26081 via the Logos Bible Android app.

http://www.logos.com/mobile

An Intimate Look at the Life of A. W. Tozer: Passionate Worship

I read this article and thought it was encouraging.

A. W. Tozer’s number-one passion was God. It was never a matter of convenience with him, but a disciplined life of joyful sacrifice. He would rather spend time alone with God than anyone else. Of course many, including his friends, misunderstood this.

Tozer’s time alone with God was not merely intellectual or some religious exercise to finish so he could move on with his day—it was a personal encounter with God in adoration and worship. Often he would lie prostrate on the floor in silent worship giving God the opportunity to speak. And he was never disappointed.

His daily worship was not routine. In fact, it was anything but routine. He regarded worship as an eagerly anticipated encounter with God. God never disappointed him on this level. His was a daily pursuit that yielded much fruit throughout his life. Read More

treacherous enemy facing the church of Jesus Christ today is...

“The treacherous enemy facing the church of Jesus Christ today is the dictatorship of the routine, when the routine becomes “lord” in the life of the church. Programs are organized and the prevailing conditions are accepted as normal. Anyone can predict next Sunday’s service and what will happen. This seems to be the most deadly threat in the church today. When we come to the place where everything can be predicted and nobody expects anything unusual from God, we are in a rut. The routine dictates, and we can tell not only what will happen next Sunday, but what will occur next month and, if things do not improve, what will take place next year. Then we have reached the place where what has been determines what is, and what is determines what will be.”

http://ref.ly/o/rutrotrev/5841 via the Logos Bible Android app.

http://www.logos.com/mobile

As long as there is growth, there is an air of unpredictability....

“As long as there is growth, there is an air of unpredictability. Certainly we cannot predict exactly, but in many churches you just about can. Everybody knows just what will happen, and this has become our deadliest enemy. We blame the devil, the “last days” and anything else we can think of, but the greatest enemy is not outside of us. It is within—it is an attitude of accepting things as they are. We believe that what was must always determine what will be, and as a result we are not growing in expectation. The progressive stages”

http://ref.ly/o/rutrotrev/7377 via the Logos Bible Android app.

http://www.logos.com/mobile