A.W. Tozer, Bible studies and sermons

[Shammu]

JESUS SAID HE WAS GOD
By A.W. Tozer

      The more we study the words of our Lord Jesus Christ when He lived on earth among us, the more certain we are about who He is. Some critics have scoffed: "Jesus did not claim to be God. He only said He was the Son of Man." It is true that Jesus used the term, "Son of Man" frequently. But He testified boldly, even among those who were His sworn enemies, that He was God. He said with great forcefulness that He had come from the Father in heaven and that He was equal with the Father. Bible-believing Christians stand together on this. They may differ about the mode of baptism, church policy or the return of the Lord. But they agree on the deity of the eternal Son. Jesus Christ is of one substance with the Father-begotten, not created (Nicene Creed). In our defense of this truth we must be very careful and old-belligerent, if need be! Christ is the brightness of God's glory, and the express image of God's Person!

[Shammu]

TRUTH IS A PERSON
By A.W. Tozer

      Let me say boldly that it is not the difficulty of discovering truth, but the unwillingness to obey it, that makes it so rare among men. Our Lord said, "I am the Truth." And again He said, "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." Truth, therefore, is not hard to find for the very reason that it is seeking us! So we learn that Truth is not a thing for which we must search, but a Person to whom we must hearken! In the New Testament, multitudes came to Jesus for physical help, but only rarely did one seek Him out to learn the Truth. The whole picture in the gospels is one of a seeking Savior, not one of seeking men. The Truth was hunting for those who would receive it, and relatively few did, for "many are called, but few are chosen."

[Shammu]

CHRIST IS NOT DIVIDED
By A.W. Tozer

      Much of our full gospel literature and much of our preaching tend to perpetuate a misunderstanding of what the Bible says about obedience and Christian discipleship. I think the following is a fair statement of what I was taught in my early Christian experience and before I began to pray and study and anguish over the whole matter: "We are saved by accepting Christ as our Savior." "We are sanctified by accepting Christ as our Lord." "We may do the first without doing the second." What a tragedy that in our day we often hear the gospel appeal made in this way: "Come to Jesus! You do not have to obey anyone. You do not have to give up anything. Just come to Him and believe in Him as Savior!" The fact that we hear this everywhere does not make it right! To urge men and women to believe in a divided Christ is bad teaching-for no one can receive a half or a third or a quarter of the divine Person of Christ!

[Shammu]

WHO HEARS THE CALL OF GOD?
By A.W. Tozer

      Who can deny that there are certain persons who, though still unconverted, nevertheless differ from the crowd, marked out of God, stricken with an interior wound and susceptible to the call of God? In the prayer of Jesus in John 17:1lb, He said: "Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me." Surely no man is ever the same after God has laid His hand upon him. He will have certain marks, perhaps some not easy to detect. First might be a deep reverence for divine things. A sense of the sacred must be present or there can be no receptivity to God and truth. Another mark is great moral sensitivity. When God begins to work in a man to bring him to salvation He makes him acutely sensitive to evil. Another mark of the Spirit's working is a mighty moral discontent. It does take a work of God in a man to sour him on the world and to turn him against himself; yet until this has happened he is psychologically unable to repent and believe!

[Shammu]

WHO WILL COME TO JESUS?
By A.W. Tozer

      God's invitation to men is broad but not unqualified. The words "whosoever will may come" throw the door open, indeed, but the church is carrying the gospel invitation far beyond its proper bounds, turning it into something more human and less divine than that found in the sacred Scriptures. What we tend to overlook is that the word "whosoever" never stands by itself. Always its meaning is modified by the word "believe" or "will" or "come." According to the teachings of Christ no one will or can come and believe unless there has been done within him a prevenient work of God enabling him to do so. In the sixth chapter of John, Jesus teaches as that no one can come of himself; he must first be drawn by the Father. "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing," Jesus said. Before any man or woman can be saved, he or she must feel a consuming spiritual hunger. Where a hungry heart is found, we may be sure that God was there first-"Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you" (John 15:16).

[Shammu]

CHRIST CAME TO SAVE
By A.W. Tozer

      Millions who have rejected the Christian gospel have generally been too busy and too involved to ask themselves a simple question: "What really is God's intention toward me?" They could have found the plain and simple answer given by the Apostle John: "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world: but that the world through him might be saved." This is a gravely significant message from the heart of God Himself! Yet, even in the full light it provides, people are indifferent. Upon our eyes there seems to have fallen a strange dimness; within our ears, a strange dullness. It is a wonder, and a terrible responsibility, that we should have this message in our possession and be so little stirred about it! I confess that it is very hard for me to accept the fact that it is now very rare for anyone to come into the house of God, silently confessing: "Dear Lord, I am ready and willing to hear what you will speak to me today!"

[Shammu]

WE ARE NOT ORPHANS
By A.W. Tozer

       I once wrote in an editorial that Christian believers are not orphans in this world, making the point that the divine Shepherd goes before us and that we travel an appointed way. A reader wrote to question my allusion to our traveling an "appointed" way, asking: "I was brought up a Methodist. In your comments, do you mean this to be foreordination? That is what the Presbyterians believe. Just what did you mean?" I replied that I had not meant to go down that deep into doctrine-that I had not been thinking of foreordination, predestination or the eternal decrees. "I was just satisfied that if a consecrated Christian will put himself in the hands of God, even the accidents may be turned into blessings," I told him. Anyway, I am sure the Methodist brother can go to sleep at night knowing that he does not have to become a Presbyterian to be certain that God is looking after him!

[Shammu]

THINK LIKE GOD THINKS
By A.W. Tozer

      If God knows that your intention is to worship Him with every part of your being, He has promised to cooperate with you. On His side is the love and grace, the promises and the atonement, the constant help and the presence of the Holy Spirit. On your side there is determination, seeking, yielding, believing. Your heart becomes a chamber, a sanctuary, a shrine in which there may be continuous, unbroken fellowship and communion with God. Your worship rises to God moment by moment! We have all found that God will not dwell in spiteful and proud and selfish thoughts. He treasures our pure and loving thoughts, our meek and charitable and kindly thoughts. They are the thoughts like His own! As God dwells in your thoughts, you will be worshiping-and God will be accepting. He will. be smelling the incense of your high intentions even when the cares of life are intense and there is activity all around you. This leaves us no argument. We know what God wants us to be. He wants us to be worshipers!

[Shammu]

OUR HIGHEST HAPPINESS
By A.W. Tozer

      Let me call it to your attention that the happiness of all moral creatures lies in the giving of obedience to God, the Creator. The psalmist cries out in Psalm 103:20: "Bless the Lord, ye his angels; that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word." The angels in heaven find their complete freedom and highest happiness in obeying the commandments of God. They do not find it a tyranny-they find it a delight! Here is something that we should know and realize: heaven is a place of surrender to the whole will of God and it is heaven because it is such a place. I thank God that heaven is the world of God's obedient children. Whatever else we may say of its pearly gates, golden streets and jasper walls, heaven is heaven because children of the Most High God find they are in their normal sphere as obedient moral beings.

[Shammu]

ACTIVITY IS NOT ENOUGH
By A.W. Tozer

      Those who try to give warnings to the Christian church are never very popular. Still, I must voice the caution that our craze for "activity" brings very few enriching benefits into our Christian circles. Look into the churches, and you will find groups of half-saved, half-sanctified, carnal people who know more about social niceties than they do about the New Testament. It is a fact that many of our church folks are activists engaged in many religious journeys-but they do not seem to move up any closer to Jesus in heart and in spirit. This modern religious emphasis on activity reminds me of the Japanese mice I have seen in the pet store windows. They are called waltzing mice-but they do not waltz. They just run continually! Many in our churches hope to have a part in "something big and exciting." But God calls us back-back to the simplicity of the faith; back to the simplicity of Jesus Christ and His unchanging Person!

[Shammu]

PLAYING AT RELIGION
By A.W. Tozer

      When our faith becomes obedience to our Savior, then it is true faith, indeed! The difficulty we modem Christians face is not misunderstanding the Bible, but persuading our untamed hearts to accept its plain instruction. Our problem is to get the consent of our world-loving minds to make Jesus Lord in fact, as well as in word. For it is one thing to say, "Lord, Lord," and quite another thing to obey the Lord's commandments. We may sing "Crown Him Lord of all," and rejoice in the tones of the loud organ and the deep melody in harmonious voices, but still we have done nothing until we have left the world and set our faces toward the City of God in hard practical reality. The world's spirit is strong and it can play at religion with every appearance of sincerity. It can have fits of conscience (particularly during Lent)! It will contribute to charitable causes and campaigns on behalf of the poor, but all with its own condition: "Let Christ keep His distance and never assert His Lordship." This it positively will not endure!

[Shammu]

WE SEE GOD'S PURPOSE
By A.W. Tozer

      We trust the Word of God-and the inspired revelation makes it plain to the believing Christian that all things in the universe have derived their form from Christ, the eternal Son! We are assured that even as an architect-builder gathers the necessary materials needed to fashion the structure he has designed, so God will ultimately gather all things together under one head, even Christ (Ephesians 1:9-10). Everything in the universe has received its meaning by the power of His word; each has maintained its place and order through Him. Jesus Christ is God creating! Jesus Christ is God redeeming! Jesus Christ is God completing and harmonizing! Jesus Christ is God bringing together all things after the counsel of His own will! I can only hope that as we grow and mature and delight in our faith we are beginning to gain a new appreciation of God's great eternal purpose!

[Shammu]

MAN'S WASTED POTENTIAL
By A.W. Tozer

      God has made it plain that hell is a real place-a final abode for people who do not want to love God and serve Him! The sadness and the tragedy of this fact is that these are human beings, all dear to God because He created them in His own image. Of nothing else in the Creation is it said that it was created in the likeness of God! Because fallen and perishing man is still nearer to God's likeness than any other creature on earth, God offers him conversion regeneration and forgiveness. It was surely because of this great potential in the human personality that the eternal Word could become flesh and dwell among us. We are assured in many ways in the Scriptures that God the Creator does not waste human personality but it is surely one of the stark tragedies of life that human personality can waste itself! A man by his own sin may waste himself, which is to waste and lose that which on earth is most like God. The man who dies out of Christ is said to be lost, and hardly a word in our language expresses his condition with greater accuracy!

[Shammu]

WE WERE OUTCASTS, TOO
By A.W. Tozer

      We confess, do we not, that we have a Christian responsibility to believe God's Word and to obey God's Truth? Then we should accept the fact that it is our task to practice the Christian virtues in the power of the Holy Spirit as we await the coming of Him who will come. The great spiritual needs around us should drive us back to the gospel records of the life and ministry of our Lord Jesus. When evil men crucified Jesus, killed Him, they had no power to change Him. They could not alter the Person or the personality of the Son of God. Putting Him on the cross did not drain away any of His divine affection for a lost race. The best thing we know about our Lord and Savior is that He loves the sinner. He has always loved the outcast-and for that we should be glad, for we, too, were once outcasts! We are descended from that first man and woman who failed God and disobeyed. They were cast out of the garden, and God set in place a flaming sword to keep them from returning!

[Shammu]

EVERY HINDRANCE REMOVED
By A.W. Tozer

      There are many legal and governmental reasons why lost men and women should not go to heaven! It should not be difficult for us to acknowledge that a holy and righteous God must run His universe according to holy law - and we do not belong there because we have broken every one of those holy laws in some way! Therefore, there must be an effective redemption, a justification of some kind if we are to have God and He is to have us! Thank God, it has been done! The New Testament language is as plain as can be-in Christ through His death and resurrection, every legal hindrance has been met and satisfied: taken away! There is nothing that can keep us from assurance except our own selves. Let us quit trying to think our way in, to reason our way in. The only way to get in is to believe Him with our hearts forevermore!