A.W. Tozer, Bible studies and sermons

[Shammu]

HERE FOR OUR TIME
By A.W. Tozer

      Just as those who lived in the past had the privilege of being God's people of faith then, so do we in our own day! It is good to come to the understanding that while God wants us to be holy and Spirit-filled, He does not expect us to look like Abraham or to play the harp like David or to have the same spiritual insights given to Paul. All of the former heroes of the faith are dead. You are alive in your generation. A Bible proverb says that it is better to be a living dog than a dead lion. You may wish to be Abraham or Isaac or Jacob, but remember they have been asleep for centuries, and you are still around! You can witness for our Lord today! You can still pray! You can still give of your substance to help those who are in need! In this, your own generation, give God all your love, all your devotion. You do not know what holy, happy secret God may want to whisper to your responsive heart!

[Shammu]

"BORN OF GOD!"
By A.W. Tozer

      I think most of us remember with assurance the words of the Charles Wesley hymn which was his own personal testimony: His Spirit answers to the blood, And tells me I am born of God! Wesley testified here and in many other hymns to an inner illumination! When I became a Christian, no one had to come to me and tell me what Wesley meant. That is why Jesus taught that whosoever is willing to do His will shall have a revelation in his own heart. He shall have an inward revelation that tells him he is a child of God. Too many persons try to make Jesus Christ a convenience. They reduce Him simply to a Big Friend who will help us when we are in trouble. That is not biblical Christianity! Jesus Christ is Lord, and when an individual comes in repentance and faith, the truth flashes in. For the first time he finds himself saying, "I will do the will of the Lord, even if I die for it!"

[Shammu]

CONVICTION AND PAIN
By A.W. Tozer

      I consider it a good sign that some people are still asking questions like these in our churches: "What should happen in a genuine conversion to Christ?" and "What should a man or woman feel in the transaction of the new birth?" If I am asked, my answer is this: "There ought to be a real and genuine cry of pain!" That is why I am not impressed with the kind of evangelism that tries to invite people into the fellowship of God by signing a card. There should be a birth within, a birth from above. There should be the terror of seeing ourselves in violent contrast to the holy, holy God! Unless we come into this place of conviction and pain concerning our sin, I am not sure how deep and real our repentance will ever be. The man whom God will use must be undone, humble and pliable. He must be, like the astonished Isaiah, a man who has seen the King in His beauty!

[Shammu]

BREAK WITH THIS WORLD
By A.W. Tozer

      I dare to say that Christians who have genuinely come to love and trust Jesus Christ have also renounced this world and have chosen a new model after which to pattern their lives. Further, we should say that this is the aspect of the Christian life that most people do not like. They want comfort. They want blessing. They want peace. But they recoil from this radical, revolutionary break with the world. To follow Christ in this rough and thorough-going way is too much for them! Actually, the true Christian dissents from the world because he knows that it cannot make good on its promises. As Christ's believing disciple, he is not left without a "norm" to which he seeks to be adjusted. The Lord Jesus Christ is Himself the norm, the ideally perfect model, and the worshiping soul yearns to be like Him. Indeed, the whole drive behind the Christian life is the longing to be conformed to the image of Christ!

[Shammu]

THE WORLDLY "VIRUS"
By A.W. Tozer

      As Christian believers, we must stand together against some things. So, if you hear anyone saying that A.W. Tozer preaches a good deal that is negative, just smile and agree: "That is because he preaches the Bible!" Here are some of the things we oppose: we are against the many modern idols that have been allowed to creep into the churches; we are against the "unauthorized fire" that is being offered on the altars of the Lord; we are against the modern gods that are being adopted in our sanctuaries. We are against the world's ways and its false values. We are against the world's follies and its vain pleasures. We are against this world's greed and sinful ambitions. We are against this world's vices and its carnal habits. We believe this spells out clearly the Bible truth of separation. God asks us to stand boldly against anything or anyone who hurts or hinders this New Testament body of Christians. Where the church is not healed it will wither. The Word of God is the antibiotic that alone can destroy the virus that would plague the life of the church!

[Shammu]

LET FEAR BECOME TRUST
By A.W. Tozer

      What can we do but pray for the throngs of defiant men and women who believe that their humanistic view of life is all-sufficient? They believe that they are responsible "captains" of their own souls. The sad fact is that even while they are joining in the age-old rejection of Jesus Christ-"We will not have this Man to rule over us"-they still are beset with fears within. The present competitive world and its selfish society have brought many new fears to the human race. I can sympathize with those troubled beings who lie awake at night worrying about the possible destruction of the race through some evil, misguided use of the world's store of nuclear weapons. The tragedy is that they have lost all sense of the sovereignty and omnipotence and faithfulness of the living God. Although the material world has never understood it, our faith is well-placed in the Scriptures! Those who take God's Word seriously are convinced of an actual heavenly realm as real as this world we inhabit!

[Shammu]

OUR FUTURE REWARDS
By A.W. Tozer

      Our motives in the Christian life should be both right and genuine. God is the Faithful One. We are to love Him and serve Him because He is God-not because of the gracious things He does for us or for the rewards He promises us! However, it should be said that God does not expect us to forget or ignore the gracious future promises He has made to us. It is a glorious truth that if we believe God and honor His Word, if we walk by faith in love and obedience, there will be eternal rewards for each of us in that great coming day. The rewards will differ. Wisdom and knowledge and love reside in Him who is our God. He will make the right judgments for His people. I for one will not be surprised if some of God's faithful people serving Him today should rise as high and shine as brightly as the heroes of faith listed in the book of Hebrews. I say that in all truthfulness because I do not think that all of the heroes of faith are dead and gone!

[Shammu]

WHICH CROSS DO WE CARRY?
By A.W. Tozer

      One of the strange things under the sun is a "crossless" Christianity. The cross of Christendom is a "no-cross," an ecclesiastical symbol. The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ is a place of death! Let each one be careful which cross he carries! Thousands turn away from Jesus Christ because they will not meet His conditions. He watches them as they go, for He loves them, but He will make no concessions. Admit one soul into the kingdom by compromise and that kingdom is no longer secure. Christ will be Lord, or He will be Judge. Every man must decide whether he will take Him as Lord now, or face Him as Judge then! "If any man will . . . let him follow me." Some will rise and go after Him, but others give no heed to His voice. So the gulf opens between man and man, between those who will and those who will not. The Man, the kindly Stranger who walked this earth, is His own proof. He will not put Himself again on trial; He will not argue. But the morning of the judgment will confirm what men in the twilight have decided!

[Shammu]

POWER OF THE CROSS
By A.W. Tozer

       Only a person with a perfect knowledge of mankind could have dared to set forth the terms of discipleship that our Lord Jesus Christ expects of His followers. Only the Lord of men could have risked the effect of such rigorous demands: "Let him deny himself!" Can the Lord lay down such severe rules at the door of His kingdom? He can-and He does! If He is to save the man, He must save him from himself. It is the "himself" which has enslaved and corrupted the man. Deliverance comes only by denial of that self. No man in his own strength can shed the chains with which self has bound him, but in the next breath the Lord reveals the source of the power which is to set the soul free: "Let him take up his cross." The cross was an instrument of death-slaying a man was its only function. "Let him take his cross," said Jesus, and thus he will know deliverance from himself!

[Shammu]

THE PRESENCE OF GOD
By A.W. Tozer

      The spiritual giants of old were those who at some time became acutely conscious of the presence of God. They maintained that consciousness for the rest of their lives. How otherwise can the saints and prophets be explained? How otherwise can we account for the amazing power for good they have exercised over countless generations? Is it not that indeed they had become friends of God? Is it not that they walked in conscious communion with the real Presence and addressed their prayers to God with the artless conviction that they were truly addressing Someone actually there? Let me say it again, for certainly it is no secret: we do God honor in believing what He has said about Himself and coming boldly to His throne of grace than by hiding in a self-conscious humility! Those unlikely men chosen by our Lord as His closest disciples might well have hesitated to claim friendship with Christ. But Jesus said to them, "You are my friends!"

[Shammu]

GOD HAS A REMEDY
By A.W. Tozer

      Seekers and inquirers have often voiced this deep question of concern: "Why does God forgive? and how does God forgive sin?" There is plain teaching throughout the Old and New Testaments concerning God's willingness to forgive and forget. Yet there are segments of the Christian church which appear to be poorly taught concerning God's clear remedy, through the atonement of Christ, for the believer who has yielded to temptation and failed his Lord. God knows that sin is the dark shadow standing between Him and His highest creation, man. God is more willing to remove that shadow than we are to have it removed! He wants to forgive and that desire is a part of God's character. In the sacrificial death of a lamb in the Old Testament, God was telling us that one day a perfect Lamb would come to actually take away sin. That is how and why God forgives sin now. In John's words: "We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 2:1-2a).

[Shammu]

SPIRITUAL UNANIMITY
By A.W. Tozer

      The Holy Spirit knew what He was doing when He moved the Apostle Peter to write to the early Christian church about the reality of being "of one mind" in their fellowship. Peter was not asking all the brothers and sisters to settle for some kind of regulated uniformity. He was recommending a spiritual unanimity-which means that the Spirit of God making Christ real within our beings will also give us a unity in certain qualities and disposition. Peter leaves little doubt about the fruits of genuine Christian unanimity within: "Be alike in compassion. Be alike in loving. Be alike in pity. Be alike in courtesy. Be alike in forgiving!" Then he sums it all up: "Finally, be ye all of one mind!" God's love shed abroad in our heart compassion and love which can only be found in Jesus Christ-these are the only elements of true unity among men and women today!

[Shammu]

HOPE-OR DESPAIR?
By A.W. Tozer

      John the Baptist gave his questioners a brief sentence that I have called the "hope and the despair" of mankind. He told them that "a man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven." John was not referring to men's gifts. He was speaking of spiritual truth. Divine truth is of the nature of the Holy Spirit, and for that reason it can be received only by spiritual revelation. In his New Testament letters, the Apostle Paul declares again and again the inability of human reason to discover or comprehend divine truth. In that inability we see human despair. John the Baptist said, " . . . except it be given him from heaven"-and this is our hope! These words do certainly mean that there is such a thing as a gift of knowing, a gift that comes from heaven. Jesus promised His disciples that the Holy Spirit of truth would come and teach them all things. Jesus also prayed: "I thank thee, 0 Father, because thou hast hid these things from the wise, and hast revealed them unto babes" (Luke 10:21).

[Shammu]

THE EASTER TRIUMPH
By A.W. Tozer

       I do not mind telling you that within me I find the Easter message and the reality of the Resurrection more beautiful and glorious than the Christmas scene. Christmas tells us that Jesus was born; that He was born for the humiliation of suffering and death and atonement. But Easter is the radiant and glory-filled celebration of Christ's mighty triumph over the grave and death and hell! When Easter comes, our voices are raised in the triumphant chorus: The three sad days had quickly sped; He rises glorious from the dead! There is the real beauty! This is more than the beauty of color; more than the beauty of outline or form; more than the beauty of physical proportion. In the living Christ is the perfection of all beauty; and because He lives, we too shall live in the presence of His beauty and the beauties of heaven, forever!

[Shammu]

RESURRECTION POWER
By A.W. Tozer

      Let us be confident, Christian brethren, that our power does not lie in the manger at Bethlehem nor in the relics of the Cross. True spiritual power resides in the victory of the mighty, resurrected Lord of glory, who could pronounce after spoiling death: "All power is given me in heaven and in earth." The power of the Christian believer lies in the Savior's triumph of eternal glory! Christ's resurrection brought about a startling change of direction for the believers. Sadness and fear and mourning marked the direction of their religion before they knew that Jesus was raised from the dead-their direction was towards the grave. When they heard the angelic witness, "He is risen, as He said," the direction immediately shifted away from the tomb "He is risen, indeed!" If this is not the meaning of Easter, the Christian church is involved only in a shallow one-day festival each year. Thankfully, the resurrection morning was only the beginning of a great, vast outreach that has never ended-and will not end until our Lord Jesus Christ comes back again!