Tozer

As a young 'believer', what stirred and affected me to the greatest degree possible, was undoubtedly the writings of ....

A W TOZER (1897 – 1963) often called 'a 20th Century Prophet'

Now, almost 50 years later, returning to his writings, I find them as pertinent and appropriate as before ..... little has changed in Christendom ! To me, his words resonate within .... they challenge me .... they refine, motivate and prioritise me .... they are the words of a soul that would not be satisfied by anything or any one less than GOD HIMSELF ... and GOD alone !

Some excerpts from GEMS from TOZER Send the Light Trust 1969

OUR NEED TODAY ......

I t is time for us to seek again the leadership of the Holy Ghost. Man's lord-ship has cost us too much. Man's intrusive will has introduced such a multiplicity of un-spiritual ways and un-scriptural activities as positively to threaten the life of the Church.

We need a baptism of clear seeing. We desperately need seers who can see through the mist - Christian leaders with prophetic vision. Unless they come soon it will be too late for this generation. And if they do come we will no doubt crucify a few of them in the name of our worldly orthodoxy.

Between the scribe who has read and the prophet who has seen there is a difference as wide as the sea. We are today overrun with orthodox scribes, but the prophets, where are they? The hard voice of the scribe sounds over evangelicalism, but the Church waits for the tender voice of the saint who has penetrated the veil and has gazed with inward eye upon the Wonder that is God.

If the church in the second half of this century is to recover from the injuries she suffered in the first half, there must appear a new type of preacher. The proper, ruler-of-the-synagogue type will never do. Neither will the priestly type of man who carries out his duties, takes hispay and asks no questions. Nor the smooth-talking pastoral type who knows how to make the Christian religion acceptable to everyone. All these have been tried and found wanting.

Another kind of religious leader must arise among us. He must be of the old prophet type, a man who has seen visions of God and has heard a voice from the Throne.

Unless we intend to reform we may as well not pray. To beg for a flood of blessing to come upon a back-slidden and disobedient Church is to waste time and effort. We must return to New Testament Christianity, not in creed only but in complete manner of life as well. Separation, obedience, humility, simplicity, gravity, self-control, modesty, cross-bearing: these all must again be made a living part of the total Christian concept and be carried out in every day conduct. We must cleanse the temple of the hucksters and the money changers and come fully under the authority of our risen Lord once more.

Have you noticed how much praying for revival has been going on of late-and how little revival has resulted? I believe our problem is that we have been trying to substitute praying for obeying; and it simply will not work. To pray for revival while ignoring or actually flouting the plain precept laid down in the Scriptures is to waste a lot of words and get nothing for our trouble. Prayer will become effective when we stop using it as a substitute for obedience.

The great need of the hour among persons spiritually hungry is twofold: first, to know the Scriptures, apart from which no saving truth will be vouchsafed by our Lord; the second, to be enlightened by the Spirit, apart from Whom the Scriptures will not be understood.

The message "Christ in you, the hope of glory," needs to be restored to the Church. We must show a new generation of nervous, almost frantic, Christians that power lies at the centre of the life.

Dispositional sins are fully as injurious to the Christian cause as the more overt acts of wickedness. Let us list a few of them: sensitiveness, irritability, churlishness, fault-finding,. peevishness, temper, resentfulness, cruelty, uncharitable attitudes; and of course there are many more. Many persons who had been secretly longing to find Christ have been turned away and embittered by manifestations of ugly dispositional flaws in the lives of the very persons who were trying to win them. Un-saintly saints are the tragedy of Christianity.

I am afraid we modern Christians are long on talk and short on conduct. We use the language of power but our deeds are the deeds of weakness. We settle for words in religion because deeds are toocostly. It iseasier to pray, "Lord, help me to carry my cross daily" than to pick up the cross and carry it; but since the mere request for help to do something we do not actually intend to do has a certain degree of religious comfort, we are content with repetition of the words.

In the Church of God two opposite dangers are to be recognized and avoided; they are a cold heart and a hot head.

It may be said without qualification that there can never be too much fire, if it is the true fire of God; and it can be said as certainly that there cannot be too much cool judgement in religious matters if that judgement is sanctified by the Spirit. The history of revivals in the Church reveals how harmful the hot head can be.

Among the gifts of the Spirit scarcely anyone is of greater practical usefulness than the gift of discernment. This gift should be highly valued and frankly sought as being almost indispensable in these critical times. This gift will enable us to distinguish the chaff from the wheat and to divide the manifestations of the flesh from the operations of the Spirit.

Human sweat can add nothing to the work of the Spirit, especially when it is nerve sweat. The hottest fire of God is cool when it touches the redeemed intellect. It makes the heart glow but leaves the judgement completely calm. These are days of great religious turmoil. Let love burn on with increasing fervour but bring every act to the test of quiet wisdom. Keep the fire in the furnace where it belongs. An overheated chimney will create more excitement than a well controlled furnace, but it is likely to burn the house down. Let the rule be: a hot furnace but a cool chimney.

The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him. The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him and of her.

The world is evil, the times are waxing late, and the glory of God has departed from the church as the fiery cloud once lifted from the door of the Temple in the sight of Ezekiel the prophet. The God of Abraham has withdrawn His conscious Presence from us, and another God whom our fathers knew not is making himself at home among us. This God we have made and because we have made him we can understand him; because we have created him he can never surprise us, never overwhelm us, nor astonish us, nor transcend us. The God of glory sometimes revealed Himself like a sun to warm and bless, indeed, but often to astonish, overwhelm, and blind before He healed and bestowed permanent sight. This God of our fathers wills to be the God of their succeeding race. We have only to prepare Him a habitation in love and faith and humility. We have but to want Him badly enough, and He will come and manifest Himself to us.

To which I can only humbly echo, and say .... AMEN and AMEN