In Everything by Prayer – A.W. Tozer
Ephesians 6:18: “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.”
I Thessalonians 5:17: “ Pray without ceasing.”
James 5:16: “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”
This is from the blog The Wisdom of Faith:
“Whenever you find a man of God, you will also find an overwhelming passion for God that is almost beyond control. Not a curiosity about God, but a deep passion to experience God in all of His fullness.”
–A.W. Tozer, Delighting in God
This is from the blog Three Iron Nails.
“The Sinking of the Titanic” by Willy Stower, 1912
This is from the blog My Dreams and Visions:
I had a dream where I saw the Titanic sailing upon the waters and ultimately hitting an iceberg. In the dream I knew that the Titanic was representative of the church, specifically the church in America. The captain of the Titanic is said to have ignored 6 or 7 warnings regarding icebergs. Remember that it was rumored to have been said of the Titanic that even God could not sink it. But the Titanic did sink by hitting an iceberg in the sea that God created. The captain did not slow down, change course, or stop despite repeated warnings.
The Titanic was to be the most luxurious cruise ship in the world offering every amenity to those who could afford it.
The Laodicean church is rich, increased with goods, having need of nothing. The captain of the Titanic represents the pastor. Those giving him the warnings of impending doom represent the prophets.
The prophets are the eyes which is why they are also called seers. One ignores their warnings at their own peril and also the peril of those under their care.
The waters of God’s judgment caused Noah’s Ark to float. The waters that flooded the Titanic after hitting the iceberg caused it to sink. The water in both cases represent sin’s judgment.
Pride and stubbornness caused the sinking. Pride in that the ship was thought to be unsinkable even by God and stubbornness that even though God in His mercy sent warning after warning of impending disaster, the warnings were ignored.
I am posting a dream from 4 years ago I believe to be related to the above dream.
I had a dream/vision 10/26/2014 . In this dream/vision I saw a bride walking down what looked to be a dirt path. What was strange is that she was blindfolded so obviously she could not see where she was going. I then saw various people with sight trying to take her by the hand to guide her. However, each time anyone tried to guide her, because in this dream/vision I sensed in my spirit that she was heading down the wrong path, she would lash out at them in anger with a knife.
It’s my belief that the bride in this dream/vision represents the church, the bride of Christ. The people sent to guide her back to the right path that had sight are the prophets. In the dream, even though blind, she refused help and lashed out at anyone who tried.
The scriptures that come to mind are:
Matthew 23:37-39 NKJV
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord !’ ”
I will conclude with a quote by A.W. Tozer:
“Let me go out on a limb a little bit and prophesy. I see the time coming when all the holy men whose eyes have been opened by the Holy Spirit will desert worldly Evangelicalism, one by one. The house will be left desolate and there will not be a man of God, a man in whom the Holy Spirit dwells, left among them.”
The Titanic and the Hand of God
Scribes and Prophets
Titanic, the Movie: What God Showed Me
This is from the blog Glory to God Alone.
The Terror of Hell
The Death of Voltaire
Is Pope John Paul II in Hell?
This is from the Craig T. Owens blog:
“Those Christians who belong to the evangelical wing of the church (which I firmly believe is the only one that even approximates New Testament Christianity) have over the last half-century shown an increasing impatience with things invisible and eternal and have demanded and got a host of things visible and temporal to satisfy their fleshly appetites. Without Biblical authority, or any other right under the sun, carnal religious leaders have introduced a host of attractions that serve no purpose except to provide entertainment for the retarded saints.
“It is now common practice in most evangelical churches to offer the people, especially the young people, a maximum of entertainment and a minimum of serious instruction. It is scarcely possible in most places to get anyone to attend a meeting where the only attraction is God. One can only conclude that God’s professed children are bored with Him, for they must be wooed to meeting with a stick of striped candy in the form of religious movies, games and refreshments. …
“Any objection to the carryings on of our present golden-calf Christianity is met with the triumphant reply, ‘But we are winning them!’ And winning them to what? To true discipleship? To cross-carrying? To self-denial? To separation from the world? To crucifixion of the flesh? To holy living? To nobility of character? To a despising of the world’s treasures? To hard self-discipline? To love for God? To total committal to Christ? Of course the answer to all these questions is no.
“We are paying a frightful price for our religious boredom. And that at the moment of the world’s mortal peril.”
—A.W. Tozer, in Man—The Dwelling Place Of God
This is from the blog The Christian Excavator:
“Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins…” (Colossians 1: 12-14)
One contemporary song says, “I have felt Him loose the chains of sin and set my spirit free, For I know what Jesus did for me” (Squire Parsons)
But we live in a day when many Christians have no idea what it means to be free from the chains of sin. People behave like the world even though they claim to be saved by Gods grace. If it wasn’t for their Christian tattoo [sic] you would never know that they were “saved”.
They talk, and live, just like the unsaved world around them. They love exactly what the world loves and if you mention holiness to them, you are undoubtedly a Pharisee. Many modern-day preachers tell people (in so many words) if you came forward or you raised your hand or repeated a prayer, you are saved. No matter how you live. No matter how sinful you are. No matter that you have no desire for holiness whatever. You have repeated the “magic” words, so you are okay. I warn every preacher, every Christian and every parent, you are not doing anyone any favors by giving people assurance while they are living in sin. By the way, it is not our job to give people assurance. If God hasn’t changed the “bent” or the direction of your life you have no reason to believe you are a Christian. It is true that Christians will sin but the true child of God is not content to stay in sin. If God delivers you out of the hog-pen, you’ll have no desire to live there again.
I am afraid that we have produced a lot of “hog-pen Christians” in our day. The late A.W. Tozer said, “then they build a little tabernacle and call it the First Tabernacle of the Converted Swineherds.”.
Tozer went on to say; “Somebody suggested that the cross of Christ should not inconvenience people. Well, it is the most inconvenient thing in the world, this cross of Christ! It took a man by the name of Jesus in the height of his healthy human life and took Him out on a hillside and killed Him there – now, that’s an inconvenient thing for Him! And any cross is inconvenient; it’s a most inconvenient thing, this accepting Christ, if we know what we mean by it. BUT THE ACCEPTING CHRIST OF POPULAR THEOLOGY HAS NO INCONVENIENCE ATTACHED TO IT.”
I spoke with a man not long ago who had spent most of his adult life in prison. He was a drug dealer and user. I had known him when he was a little boy. His parents and sister went to the same church as I did as a teenager. He told me he was saved when he was a child. While we were conversing on the phone he was cursing and drinking alcohol. He had served time in prison for committing several violent crimes and was still addicted to drugs. There was nothing in his life that indicated he was a Christian. Yet he said he had been “saved” as a child. He went on tell me that several Baptist preachers in my area had assured him that he was saved. I told him that by the authority of Gods Word and every evidence in his life, he assuredly had no reason whatever to think he was saved. We spoke for over an hour. I gave him scripture and implored him to turn from his sin and turn to Christ. As far as I know he did not. But before he hung up he thanked me. He said to me. “You are the only preacher that I have talked to who was honest enough to tell me the truth.”
If Christ didn’t change your life, you are not saved!
“If our religion does not make us moral, it is a millstone about our necks to destroy us! …The best morality in the world will not prove a man to be a Christian! But if a man has not morality, it proves that he is not a child of God.” – C.H. Spurgeon
The question IS NOT…
Did you raise your hand? or
Did you come to the altar? or
Did you repeat this prayer? Or
Did you get baptized?
THE question is…DID JESUS CHRIST CHANGE YOUR LIFE?
If not, you have absolutely no reason to think you are a Christian.
NONE.
Are you still in the hog pen?
Only Jesus Christ can loose the chains of sin.
I unapologetically stake everything I believe, teach and preach on these facts.
Brother Shawn
A Christian Cult
Wearing a Rough Garment
Overcome With Great Sorrow
Jacksonites, Yours is a Bloody City
A Parable About Lukewarm, American Christianity
This is from the blog Pastor Jonathan Lee:
A.W. Tozer (1897-1963)
Every generation seems to have that person who stands out more than the rest. For the early twentieth century, it would seem that person is A. W. Tozer. The Bible gives us a brief story about a man named Enoch. Not much is known about him other than a few verses in the Bible. His life is summed up this way: “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him” (Genesis 5:24). Though Tozer did not leave this earth like Enoch, we can summarize his life the same way. Tozer walked with God, pursued after God, and then went home to be with God.
Tozer was a pastor, author, editor of The Alliance Witness Magazine, conference speaker, and one who walked with God and knew Him intimately.
One may not agree with everything that Tozer said on such things like Christians and the movies, or music styles in the church, but one cannot overlook the impact that Tozer has left on the world from his personal account that he shared of pursuing after God. He is a world changer not only because he was an American pastor who was a successful writer, but by his devotional writing which has changed the hearts and minds of so many people to desire God.
He was not only a gifted writer but also an ordained speaker. Warren Wiersbe, who heard Tozer preach, said, “To listen to Tozer preach was as safe as opening the door of a blast furnace.” He was a man in a whole different league when it came to his relationship with God.[1] Leonard Ravenhill said, “To enter into Dr. Tozer’s presence was an awe-inspiring event.”[2]
Another colleague, William F. Bryan, said, “I consider Dr. Tozer the most remarkable man of God that I have known personally. In my opinion, his greatest gifts were prophetic insight regarding biblical truth and the nature and state of the evangelical church of his generation. He was respected highly even by those that considered him severe and aloof; but to those who knew him, he was gracious and kind. I believe he was a lonely man, as many great men of God have been.”[3]
W. Tozer wrote prophetically in regard to the Christian community in the Western world. For example, in The Pursuit of God he wrote,
“The world is perishing for lack of the knowledge of God and the Church is famishing for want of His Presence.”
Discerning that modern Christianity was sailing through dense fog, he pointed out the rocks on which it could flounder if it continued its course.[4]
Aiden Wilson Tozer was born in 1897 into a small farming community in Pennsylvania.
God allowed Tozer to be effective for 44 years of ministry and out of those 44 years, 31 years he served as pastor of Southside Alliance Church in Chicago, though he had no formal theological training. He would be known not just as a key figure in the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church but a national figure for his writings and Tozergrams (pithy sayings gleaned from Tozer’s pulpit ministry or from his hours in his study).[5]
He and his wife Ada had seven children. They lived a very modest life; he and Ada never owned a car while they were married. He usually requested that his pastoral salary be lower than what was being offered as he trusted the Lord in their provision. Even when he became more well known, he signed away most of his book royalties.
Probably out of the 40-plus writings attributed to him, his best-known work is the Pursuit of God. The book came about from a God-inspired night as he rode a train from Chicago to Texas. The story is recounted by his friend:
“He was invited to speak at McAllen, Texas, and he thought on the long ride down there that he would write on this book. He boarded the train—the old Pullman train—at LaSalle Street Station in Chicago—the days when you would pull the curtain on the roommette and he would be all alone. Well, he asked for a little writing table, which the porter brought him and he started to write. Along about nine o’clock the porter knocked on the side of the door and said, ‘Friend, this is the last call for dinner—would you want something to eat?’ And he said, ‘Bring me some toast and some tea,’ which he did. [Tozer] kept on writing, all night long, this thing coming as fast to his heart as he could write, and when they pulled into the station, about 7:30 the next morning, at McAllen, Texas, that book was finished and all he had in front of him was just the Bible.”[6]
If anyone could be an expert at pursuing God, Tozer would be among the closest. We can learn from Tozer that we too can pursue God—just like Moses, who was close to God, still desired more of God by asking to see His glory (Exodus 33). Tozer wrote, “We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit.”[7] When you think about this truth, you can’t help but want the spark in your life to seek God and all His goodness. What a desire it is for the man or woman of God to taste and see that the Lord is good! Once you do, you don’t want to stop; it is in God that one is completely satisfied.
Tozer knew the nearness of God, as he would write,
“We need never shout across the spaces to an absent God. He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts.”[8]
He wanted to share this with other believers. We have the nearness of God and we can pursue after Him in a deep relationship. He showed that it is possible to be close with God and how sweet that closeness can be.
Tozer remained faithful to his calling and was able to finally go home to be with the Lord in 1963.
What stands out about Tozer more than his contributions to the devotional life of the believer is the way he prayed. Tozer would say, “As a man prays, so is he.” His entire ministry of preaching and writing flowed out of fervent prayer. What he discovered in prayer soon found expression in sermons, articles, editorials, and books.[9]
Biographer Dr. David J. Fant Jr. said, “Tozer literally wrote The Pursuit of God [while] on his knees. Perhaps that explains its power and the blessing that has rested on it.”[10]
Tozer was known for not only his prayer life but how he prayed. Much of the battle was on his knees. He even had a pair of trousers that he kept in his office to pray in so he would not wear out the knees of his other pants. The story goes,
“Although [Tozer] never boasted about his devotional habits, those few who knew him well knew that the angular man with little formal schooling learned much about his Lord and his God in the secret place. Tozer spent incalculable hours in prayer. Most of his prolonged prayer time—with his Bible and hymnals as his only companions—took place in his church office on the back side of the second floor. He would carefully hang up his suit trousers and don his sweater and raggedy old ‘prayer pants’ and sit for a while on his ancient office couch. After a time his spirit would drift into another realm. In time, he would abandon the couch, get on his knees, and eventually lie face down on the floor, singing praises to the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.”[11]
For all those that knew Tozer, this was not some religious ritual. He had a close relationship with his Savior and this was how he engaged with the Lord.
Through the example of Tozer, we can learn that not only is there power in prayer but it is in our prayer time that we have sweet fellowship with the Lord. We are told to “be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). That happens when we spend time with the Lord in seeking after Him. We live in a very distracting time of life; that is why we must guard our time and have these moments of prayer like Tozer to see who God is and allow Him to reveal Himself to us.
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Recommended Reading:
A Passion for God: The Spiritual Journey of A. W. Tozer by Lyle Dorsett
The Pursuit of God by A. W Tozer
The Knowledge of the Holy by A. W. Tozer
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[1] Wiersbe, Warren. 10 People Every Christian Should Know. Pg. 114.
[2] Snyder, James L. The Life of A. W. Tozer In Pursuit of God. Pg. 6.
[3] IBID. Pg. 13
[4] Snyder, James L. The Life of A. W. Tozer In Pursuit of God. Pg. 14
[5] IBID. Pg. 70.
[6] Doresett, Lyle. A Passion for God: The Spiritual Journey of A. W. Tozer. Pg. 120
[7] Tozer, A. W. The Pursuit of God. Pg. 17.
[8] IBID. Pg. 72
[9] Snyder, James L. The Life of A. W. Tozer In Pursuit of God. Pg. 15
[10] Tozer, A. W. The Pursuit of God. Pg. 12.
[11] Dorsett, Lyle. A Passion for God: The Spiritual Journey of A. W. Tozer. Pg. 121
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Scribes and Prophets
The Cross is a Radical Thing
The World is the Battleground
Tozer on Why We Shouldn’t Pray for Revival
The quote by A.W. Tozer above was taken from the Singapore Christian blog. This is my comment below:
I Corinthians 9: 20-22: “And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.”
I believe too many Christians take the above scripture and re-translate it like this: “I must be conformed to the world so that I can save the world.” Too many worldly Christians on this planet. The Lord has called us to be a holy people–separate from the world system.
The Holy Ghost Fire really separates the wheat from the chaff.
II Corinthians 6: 17-18: “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”
James 4: 4: “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”
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Something to meditate on:
Why did John the Baptist camp out on the other side of the Jordan River?
[John 1: 28: “These things were done in Bethabara beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing.]
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John the Baptist lived a very short life; very little is written about him in the New Testament. Jesus called John the Baptist the greatest man ever born of woman. Maybe we could say that John the Baptist was a greater prophet than Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Elijah and all the rest of the Old Testament prophets. The Book of Isaiah has 66 chapters; the Book of Jeremiah has 52 chapters; much more is written about Samuel and Elijah than John the Baptist.
Why is the life of John the Baptist still a powerful witness unto this day?
Probably because the crucified life has more power than the words that come out of our mouth.
The Spirit of a Prophet
Wearing a Rough Garment
Outside the Camp
Locusts and Wild Honey
Josephus on John the Baptist
John the Baptist and the Fire of God
The Spirit and Power of John and Elijah
Hog Pen Christianity
“Tell me what time you spend alone with God . . .
and I’ll tell you how spiritual you are.”
–Leonard Ravenhill
This is from the blog Grayson Pope:
This is the first article in a series called The Knowledge of The Holy in which each article will be based around a chapter from A.W. Tozer’s book of the same name (my review). This is a journey worth taking because not only is Tozer’s book a classic in the spiritual world, but the subject matter is God’s character.
Before Tozer begins to talk through the attributes of God’s character, he lays a crucial foundation that must be considered. He wisely knows that without this foundation, everything else will go awry. That foundation is what we think about when we think about God. That’s because we will never rise above our understanding of the Almighty, and, “we tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our image of God.”
Thinkly rightly about God affects not only our theology, but how we live as well. Tozer speaks of knowing God as being the foundation for worship which, like the foundation for the temple, will begin to collapse as soon as the foundation is found to be inadequate or out of plumb. And surely this has been seen to be true. How many cults, strange offshoots, and shameful pursuits have we seen as we trace the history of the Church?
More than anything, Tozer is calling his readers to think rightly about God; “rightly,” meaning according to what the Bible tells us about Him. As his famous quote from above tells us, this is the most important thing about us. As if that was not heavy enough, he ups the ante, rightly saying,
All the problems of heaven and earth, though they were to confront us together and at once, would be nothing compared with the overwhelming problem of God: That He is; what He is like; and what we as moral beings must do about Him.
This is the pursuit of all of philosophy and theology, and mankind will forever be reckoning with the fact that there is a God, regardless of what they determine to do about it.
But for the person who comes to terms with God and understands and accepts His gospel, he, “is relieved of ten thousand temporal problems,” because he sees that they all pale in comparison to that which God is at work doing in the world. But unless “the weight of the burden is felt the gospel can mean nothing to the man; and until he sees a vision of God high and lifted up, there will be no woe and no burden.” If we don’t think rightly about God, we will not see our need for God and the goodness of His grace and mercy in the cross of Jesus. This is nonsense to those who don’t yet know Him, of course, but it is the power of salvation for those who believe.
Tozer writes with such force because he sees a right view of God slipping away, endangering not only the institution of the church, but the very Truth it stands for. The danger is that, “Low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them.” These low views of God pave the way for the most destructive of all sins — idolatry; the essence of which, Tozer writes, “is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him.”
When considering how much of the New Testament is a rebuke of false teaching or an exhortation for others to correct false teaching, this makes a great deal of sense. False teaching leads to false thinking which leads to false gods. Any entertainment of a god other than the God as revealed in the Bible is idolatry because it epitomizes that which is not actually God. “The idolater simply imagines things about God and acts as if they were true.”
What a message for today when we are so susceptible to wrong thinking. The rampant pluralism, intense social pressure, and increasing secularism of the day make for an ideal moment for the Enemy to attack our understanding of God. This was the first and most dangerous temptation first uttered in the Garden. And our epidemically low Bible literacy makes it like shooting fish in a barrel.
And perhaps this is precisely how Tozer felt when he wrote of his own day that,
The Church has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and has substituted for it one so low, so ignoble, as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshiping men. This she has done not deliberately, but little by little and without her knowledge; and her very unawareness only makes her situation all the more tragic.
Surely Tozer was viewed as a doomsdayer by some when he wrote that, and perhaps the same will be said of me. But I cannot help but feel like the situation is even more dire today. Those in the Church are daily giving way to low views of God and His Word, handing over not only the foundation for their convictions, but the very foundations of the faith itself. It feels as if the Devil learned from his reign in Babylon that he can succeed in turning us away from God by simply assimilating the world into the faith, thereby assimilating the faith into the world. This strategy is an ingenious, insidious plot to replace a high view of God with a far lesser and far lower one. This, “low view of God entertained almost universally among Christians is the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us,” Tozer writes. “A whole new philosophy of the Christian life has resulted from this one basic error in our religious thinking.”
There is only one way out of this mess. I’ll let Tozer himself explain:
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. In all her prayers and labors this should have first place. We do the greatest service to the next generation of Christians by passing on to the undimmed and undiminished that noble concept of God which we received from our Hebrew and Christian fathers of generations past. This will prove of greater value to them than anything that art or science can devise.
The Road 