A.W. Tozer, Bible studies and sermons

[Shammu]

FAILURE OF RELIGION
By A.W. Tozer

      Millions of men and women refuse to face up to the fact that religion, in and of itself, is not enough for the sinner's need. It is amazing how many things religious people want to do to you. They can start with infant baptism and end up with the last rites when you are 108 years old-and all of that time they will manipulate you, maul you and sweet-message your soul. When it is all done you are just what you were. You are just a decorated and massaged sinner-a sinner who did not eat meat, or on the other hand, a sinner who did eat fish! When religion has done all it can, you are still a sinner who either went to church or did not go to church. Religion can put us on the roll and educate us and train us and instruct us. But after all that, there is still something within our beings that cries, "Eternity is in my heart and I have not found anything to satisfy it!" Only our Lord Jesus Christ is enough to satisfy the eternal longing in our souls.

A.W. Tozer

[Shammu]

STRIVING FOR NUMBERS
By A.W. Tozer

       In Christian circles today, the church that can show an impressive quantitative growth is frankly envied and imitated by other ambitious churches. Numbers, size and amounts seem to be very nearly all that matter-with a corresponding lack of emphasis on quality! This is the age of the Laodiceans. The great goddess, Numbers, is worshiped with fervent devotion and all things religious are brought before her for examination. Her Old Testament is the financial report and her New Testament is the membership roll. To these she appeals as the test of spiritual growth and the proof of success or failure in most Christian endeavors. A little acquaintance with the Bible should show this up for the heresy it is. To judge anything spiritual by statistics is to judge by another than scriptural judgment. Yet this is being done every day by ministers, church boards and denominational leaders. And hardly anyone seems to notice the deep and dangerous error!

A.W. Tozer

[Shammu]

"SOMEONE" IS THERE
By A.W. Tozer

       Wherever faith has proved itself to be real, it has inevitably had upon it a sense of the "present" God. The holy Scriptures possess in marked degree this feeling of actual encounter with a real Person. The men and women of the Bible talked with God. They spoke to Him and heard Him speak in words they could understand. With Him they held person-to-person converse, and a sense of shining reality is upon their words and deeds. This sense of "Someone there" filled the members of the early Christian church with abiding wonder. The solemn delight which those early disciples knew sprang straight from the conviction that there was One in the midst of them-they were in the very Presence of God! This sense of "Someone" there makes religion invulnerable to critical attack. It secures the mind against collapse under the battering of the enemy. Those who worship the God who is present may ignore the objection of unbelieving men!

A.W. Tozer

[Shammu]

EVERYDAY WORSHIP
By A.W. Tozer

       It is my experience that the totality of our Christian lives-our entire attitude as persons-must be towards the worship of God! If you do not know the presence of God in your office, your factory, your home-then God is not in the church you attend, either! I became a Christian when I was a young man working in a tire factory in Akron, Ohio. I remember my work there-but I remember my worship there, too! I had plenty of worshipful tears in my eyes. No one ever asked me about them, but I would not have hesitated to explain them. You can learn to use certain skills until they are automatic. I became so skillful that I could do my work and then I could worship God even while my hands were busy. If the love of God is in us and the Spirit of God is breathing praise within us, all the musical instruments in heaven are suddenly playing in full support! Even our thoughts become a sanctuary in which God can dwell.

A.W. Tozer

[Shammu]

MISUSING THE BIBLE
By A.W. Tozer

       I believe that everything in the Bible is true, but to attempt to make the Bible a textbook for science is to misunderstand it completely and tragically! It has become a fairly popular practice for Bible teachers to claim to find in the Scriptures confirmation of almost every recent discovery made by science. Apparently no one noticed that the scientist had to find it before the Bible teacher could, and it never seemed to occur to anyone to wonder why, if it was there in the Bible in such plain sight, it took several thousand years and the help of science before anyone saw it. In recent years, the Bible has been "recommended" for many other purposes from the one for which it was written. The purpose of the Bible is to bring men to Christ, to make them holy and prepare them for heaven. Any manipulation of the Scriptures to make them speak peace to the natural man is evil and can only lead to ruin!

A.W. Tozer

[Shammu]

GAME OF PIOUS WORDS
By A.W. Tozer

      Do you realize that most men play at religion as they play at games? Religion itself being of all games the one most universally played. The Church has 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, but who are no different in life or character from many who take no interest in religion at all. 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-and gain as our reward the applause of those who have enjoyed the game. In the games men play there are no moral roots. It is a pleasant activity which changes nothing and settles nothing, at last. Sadly, in the religious game of pious words, after the pleasant meeting no one is basically any different from what he had been before!

A.W. Tozer

[Shammu]

LIGHT-AND SHADOWS
By A.W. Tozer

       A person once called me to ask this question: "Mr. Tozer, do you think a person who is really a Christian can hurt another Christian?" There is no easy answer-but I had to reply: "Yes, I think so." Why is it that a man can be on his knees one day, praying earnestly, and the next day be guilty of offending or injuring another Christian? I think it is because we are halfway between heaven and hell. It is because the light-and the shadow-fall upon us. The best answer is that we are being saved out of all these contradictions we find in our lifetime. Perhaps on this earth we will never be able to comprehend fully the awful, terrible price the Lord of all beauty paid to gain our redemption; to save His people from the ugliness of sin. If you do not know Him and worship Him, if you do not long to reside where He is, if you have never known wonder and ecstasy in your soul because of His crucifixion and resurrection, your claim of Christianity has little foundation!

A.W. Tozer

[Shammu]

THE REALITIES OF HEAVEN
By A.W. Tozer

      Much of the secularism and rationalism of our times dismisses the Christian view and teaching about heaven as "nothing more than hopeful thinking." But the Christian's promised hope of future blessedness is founded upon the fullest and plainest revelations of the Old and New Testaments. That it accords with the most sacred yearnings of the human breast does not weaken it, but serves rather to confirm the truth of it, since the One who made the heart might be expected also to make provision for the fulfillment of its deepest longings. God's promises are made to the Christian believer, who generally has difficulty picturing himself as inheriting such bliss as the Scriptures describe. The reason is not hard to discover, for the most godly Christian is the one who knows himself best, and no one who knows himself will believe that he deserves anything better than hell. But even justice is on his side, for it is written, "If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).

A.W. Tozer

[Shammu]

GOD AT THE CENTER
By A.W. Tozer

       After Jacob's first memorable encounter with God in the wilderness, he called the place Beth-el, which means "the house of God." Many years later, after he had suffered and sinned and repented, and discovered the worthlessness of all earthly things, he renamed the place, El-beth-el; literally "the God of the house of God." Thus Jacob had shifted his emphasis from the sacred place to the God he had met there. God Himself now took the center of his interest. We need to consider that many Christians never get beyond Beth-el. God is in their thoughts but Re has not been given first place. Faithfulness to the local church is a good thing; but when the church becomes so large and important that it hides God from our eyes, it may become a good thing wrongly used. Always God must be first-and we ought never forget that the church was never intended to substitute for God! What is our primary interest? Is it Beth-el or El-beth-el? Is it my church or my Lord? Is it my creed or my Christ?

A.W. Tozer

[Shammu]

RESOURCES THAT ENDURE
By A.W. Tozer

      The people of this world have always fussed and argued over this world's resource-hope for life, health, financial prosperity, international peace and a set of favorable circumstances. These resources are good in their own way, but they have a fatal defect-they are uncertain and transitory! Today we have them; tomorrow they are gone. It is this way with all earthly things since sin came to upset the beautiful order of nature and made the human race victims of chance and change. We desire for all of God's children a full measure of every safe and pure blessing that the earth and sky might unite to bring them. But if in the sovereign will of God things go against us, what do we have left? If life and health are placed in jeopardy, what about our everlasting resources? If the world's foundations crumble, we still have God and in Him we have everything essential to our ransomed beings forever! We have Christ, who died for us; we have the Scriptures, which can never fail; we have the faithful Holy Spirit. If worst comes to worst here below, we have our Father's house and our Father's welcome!

A.W. Tozer

[Shammu]

CHILD OF TWO WORLDS
By A.W. Tozer

      In the kingdom of God, the surest way to lose something is to try to protect it, and the best way to keep it is to let it go. This was the word of our Lord Jesus Christ: "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross!" Christ turned from the fallen world of Adam and spoke about another world altogether, a world where Adam's philosophy is invalid and his technique inoperative. He spoke of the kingdom of God whose laws are exactly opposite to those of the kingdom of men. So, the true Christian is a child of two worlds. He lives among fallen men, but when he is regenerated, he is called to live according to the laws and principles that underlie the new kingdom. He may, then, find himself trying to live a heavenly life after an earthly pattern-and this is what Paul called "carnal" living. That is why it is vitally important to move up into the life of the Spirit of God. Give up your earthly "treasures" and the Lord will keep them for you unto life eternal!

A.W. Tozer

[Shammu]

A SACRED GIFT OF SEEING
By A.W. Tozer

       As God created us, we all have to some degree the power to imagine. That imagination is of great value in the service of God may be denied by some persons who have erroneously confused the word "imagination" with the word "imaginary." The gospel of Jesus Christ has no truck with things imaginary. The most realistic book in the world is the Bible. God is real. Men are real and so is sin and so are death and hell! The presence of God is not imaginary; neither is prayer the indulgence of a delightful fancy. The value of the cleansed imagination in the sphere of religion lies in its power to perceive in natural things shadows of things spiritual. A purified and Spirit-controlled imagination is the sacred gift of seeing; the ability to peer beyond the veil and gaze with astonished wonder upon the beauties and mysteries of things holy and eternal. The stodgy pedestrian mind does no credit to Christianity!

A.W. Tozer

[Shammu]

MAN'S EMPTY PROMISES
By A.W. Tozer

       We have listened throughout our lifetime to the continuing promises of peace and progress made by the educators and the legislators and the scientists, but so far they have failed to make good on any of them. Perhaps it is an ironic thought that fallen men, though they cannot fulfill their promises, are always able to make good on their threats! Well, true peace is a gift of God and today it is found only in the minds of innocent children and in the hearts of trustful Christian believers. Only Jesus could say: "My peace I give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled; neither let it be afraid!" Surely the "great" of this world have underestimated the wisdom of the Christian, after all. When the Day of The Lord comes, he may stand like Abraham above the burning plain and watch the smoke rising from the cities that forgot God. The Christian will steal a quick look at Calvary and know that this judgment is past!

A.W. Tozer

[Shammu]

A LIBEL AGAINST GOD
By A.W. Tozer

       Human sin began with loss of faith in God! When our mother Eve listened to Satan's sly innuendoes against the character of God, she began to entertain a doubt of His integrity-and right there the doors were opened to the incoming of every possible evil, and darkness settled upon the world. Relationship between moral beings is by confidence, and confidence rests upon character which is a guarantee of conduct. God is a being of supreme moral excellence, possessing in infinite perfection all the qualities that constitute holy character. He deserves and invites the unreserved confidence of every moral creature, including man. Any proper relation to Him must be by confidence, that is, faith. Idolatry is the supreme sin and unbelief is the child of idolatry. Both are libels on the Most High and Most Holy. John wrote: "He that believeth not God hath made Him a liar." A God who would lie is a God without character. Repentance is a man's sincere apology for distrusting God for so long, and faith is throwing oneself upon Christ in complete confidence. Thus by faith reconciliation is achieved between God and man!

A.W. Tozer

[Shammu]

DOTING ON THE PAST
By A.W. Tozer

       I always get an uneasy feeling when I find myself with people who have nothing to discuss but the glories of the days that are past! Why are we not willing to believe what the Bible tells us? The Christian's great future is before him. Therefore, the whole direction of the Christian's look should be forward. It is a fact that we should ponder soberly that so many Christians seem to have their future already behind them! Their glory is behind them. The only future they have is their past. They are always bringing around the cold ashes of yesterday's burned-out campfire! Even their testimony, if they give it, reveals their backward look. Their downcast look betrays that they are facing in the wrong direction. We should take Paul for an example here. I think he occasionally took a quick, happy backward look just to remind himself of the grace and goodness of God enjoyed by the maturing believers in their Savior, Jesus Christ!

A.W. Tozer