Tozer Devotional

The Lord's Day

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

Another Latin hymn dating back to the sixth century begins,

"Welcome, happy morning!" age to age shall say; Hell today is vanquished; Heaven is won today.
Lo! The Dead is living, God for evermore! Him, their true Creator, all His works adore.
This sets forth the theological reason behind the joy of Easter. Christ was dead, but His death was not an accident; neither was it the result of sickness or age. He died to vanquish hell and win heaven for men. Christ was dead, but He is not dead now. Lo! the Dead is living! And how can believing men keep silent? No Bible-taught Christian can allow himself to live in bondage to days and times and seasons (Colossians 2:16–17; Romans 14:4–10; 2 Corinthians 3:5–18). He knows he is free from the Law, and the Judaizing brethren who seek to rivet a yoke on his neck will not have much success. But he nevertheless appreciates the value of one day in seven to devote to prayer and praise. And since Christ arose from the dead on the first day, the Bible-loving man will see the spiritual appropriateness of the first day as the Christian?s voluntary sabbath day.

Biblical Truth Musically Proclaimed

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

No other event in the history of the world has brought forth such a full chorus of song as the resurrection of Christ from the dead. More music has issued from Joseph's empty tomb than from all the concert halls of the world since the dawn of the first civilization. The resurrection was the fact. Hymnody is the response of faith to that fact. The story of Easter might be told in some fullness of detail by merely stringing together in their proper order lines and verses from our classic hymns. Take for instance the restrained but intensely joyous Latin hymn,

The strife is o'er, the battle done; Now is the Victor?s triumph won;
Now be the song of praise begun—Hallelujah!
There we have pure theology, with an exhortation and an exclamation added. The rest of the hymn develops the doctrine further:

The powers of death have done their worst, But Christ their legion hath dispersed;
He brake the age-bound chains of hell; The bars from heaven's high portals fell.
To each of these couplets is added a joyous call to praise and the ejaculatory Hallelujah! This is hymnody at its best. It does not seek to reveal anything; it assumes that the facts are already known, and sets them forth in a manner that makes praise and song the natural result.

Theology Set to Music

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

Just as the book of Psalms is a lyric commentary on the Old Testament, set to the music of warm personal devotion, so our great Christian hymns form a joyous commentary on the New Testament. While no instructed Christian would claim for any hymn the same degree of inspiration that belongs to the Psalms, the worshiping singing soul is easily persuaded that many hymns possess an inward radiance that is a little more than human. If not inspired in the full and final sense, they are yet warm with the breath of the Spirit and sweet with the fragrance of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces. In the hymns all the basic doctrines of the Christian faith are celebrated. Were the Scriptures to be destroyed or made inaccessible to the Church, it would not be too difficult to extract from our hymns a complete body of Bible doctrine. This would, of course, lack the authority of the inspired Word, but it might well serve in a dark hour to keep alive the faith of our fathers. As long as the Church can sing her great hymns she cannot be defeated; for hymns are theology set to music. Hymns do not create truth, nor even reveal it; they celebrate it. They are the response of the trusting heart to a truth revealed or a fact accomplished. God does it and man sings it. God speaks and a hymn is the musical echo of His voice.

God Not Santa Claus with Us

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

Among the harmful abuses of the Christmas season in America is the substitution of Santa Claus for Christ as the chief object of popular interest, especially among the children. The morality of Mother Goose stories and fairy tales has been questioned by serious-minded Christian parents, but my opinion is that these are relatively harmless because they are told as fiction and the child is fully aware that they are imaginary. With Santa Claus it is not so. The child is taught falsehood as sober truth and is thus grossly deceived during the most sensitive and formative period of his life. What shall we do? Cultivate humility and frugality. Put the emphasis where the Bible puts it, on the Christ at the right hand of God, not on the babe in the manger. Return to the simplicity that is in Christ. Cleanse our churches of the unscriptural pageantry borrowed from Rome. Take the Scriptures as our guide and refuse to be pressured into conformity to paganism practiced in the name of Christ.

Concentrating on Christ at Christmas

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

Christmas as it is celebrated today is badly in need of a radical reformation. What was at first a spontaneous expression of an innocent pleasure has been carried to inordinate excess. In one section of Chicago, for instance, the excited citizenry vie with each other each year for the biggest, gaudiest and most vulgar Christmas tree, on the porch, on the lawn, along the street; and one gigantic, flashily dressed and cold but determinedly smiling Santa Claus drives a fully lighted herd of reindeer across the yard and over the house! How far have we come in the corruption of our tastes from the reverence of the simple shepherds, the chant of the angels and the beauty of the heavenly host! The Star of Bethlehem could not lead a wise man to Christ today; it could not be distinguished amid the millions of artificial lights hung aloft on Main Street by the Merchants Association. No angels could sing loudly enough to make themselves heard above the raucous, earsplitting rendition of "Silent Night" meant to draw customers to the neighborhood stores. In our mad materialism we have turned beauty into ashes, prostituted every normal emotion and made merchandise of the holiest gift the world ever knew. Christ came to bring peace and we celebrate His coming by making peace impossible for six weeks of each year. Not peace but tension, fatigue and irritation rule the Christmas season. He came to free us of debt and many respond by going deep into debt each year to buy enervating luxuries for people who do not appreciate them. He came to help the poor and we heap gifts upon those who do not need them. The simple token given out of love has been displaced by expensive presents given because we have been caught in a squeeze and don?t know how to back out of it. Not the beauty of the Lord our God is found in such a situation, but the ugliness and deformity of human sin.

"Scroogeless" Christmas

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

In these latter-years of the 20th century, no other season of the year reveals so much religion and so little godliness as the Christmas season. Now, Dickens to the contrary notwithstanding, I do not believe that we are compelled to choose between old Scrooge and Tiny Tim. Surely there is a middle ground where mature, love-inspired, Spirit-illuminated adults can locate themselves and make up their own minds about that most beautiful but most abused and abased holiday we call Christmas. I for one want to do just that and love everybody in the process. I never knew an Ebenezer Scrooge. My own childhood was brightened by the annual return of Christmas. My sweet-faced mother struggled to provide a few extras for her family on Christmas morning and somehow she always succeeded. If there was no more than an orange, a popcorn ball and a cheap toy for each of us, it was yet a memorable time for all. Even the old yellow mongrel that lay on the homemade braided rug was on that happy morning treated to a handful of hard candy which he crunched loudly and solemnly to the squealing of delight of the younger children. The children that later came to my own home could, and I am sure would, testify to the almost unbearable delight Christmas morning brought to them. Their near delirium as they tumbled out of bed and gathered around the tree to unwrap their gifts amid shouts of surprise and delight will never be forgotten by them or by their parents while life and memory endure. No, whoever else might drop in during the day, Scrooge was never there; he?d have died of apoplexy if he had come near the place.

Panic-free in Christ

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

I could quote hundreds of passages from the Holy Scriptures to show that God keeps His people and that there is nothing in earth or in hell that can harm a trusting soul. The past is forgiven, the present is in God's keeping and a thousand bright promises give assurance for the future. Yet we are sometimes terrified by the adversary. This is not uncommon but it is unnecessary. We should not try to excuse it, but rather acknowledge it as evidence of our spiritual immaturity. Through the blood of the everlasting covenant we are as safe here on earth as if we were already in heaven. We have not passed beyond the possibility of physical death, but we have entered a sphere of life where we can afford to die, knowing that for the Christian death is a bright portal to the ineffable glory. It is entirely possible to reach a place in grace where nothing can panic us. We can have an understanding with God about our yesterdays, our today and our tomorrows. The fear of death and judgment goes out of us as the true fear of God comes in, and that fear has no torment but is rather a light and easy yoke for the soul, one which rests us instead of exhausting us.

Living Under the Threat of Terrorism

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

It becomes us . . . To be penitent, confident and humbly brave before the mask of terror presented by H-bombs, sputniks and ballistic missiles. We need to make sure that we are morally worthy to be perpetuated as a nation and the God of Sabaoth will guard and protect us. I believe that our country is still the object of God's interest. The warm breath of prayer still hangs as an unseen mist over those woods and templed hills of which we sing, though the praying saints themselves may long since have quitted the land they once loved and baptized with loving tears. No matter what the circumstances, we Christians should keep our heads. God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, of love and of a sound mind. It is a dismal thing to see a son of heaven cringe in terror before the sons of earth. We are taught by the Holy Spirit in Scriptures of truth that fear is a kind of prison for the mind and that by it we may spend a lifetime in bondage. To recoil from the approach of mental or physical pain is natural, but to allow our minds to become terrorized is quite another thing. The first is a reflex action; the latter is the result of sin and is a work of the devil to bring us into bondage. Terror is or should be foreign to the redeemed mind. True faith delivers from fear by consciously interposing God between it and the object that would make it afraid. The soul that lives in God is surrounded by the divine Presence so that no enemy can approach it without first disposing of God, a palpable impossibility.

Sin Addiction and Its Cure

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

We must be careful, however, that we do not . . . Create the impression that sin is an accident, a disease, a poison unintentionally imbibed. If sin is a disease it is like alcoholism, one that is chosen, bought and voluntarily swallowed. A steer is not responsible for poisoning himself on locoweed, but men are endowed with intelligence and ability to distinguish good from evil; they are therefore not to be excused either for their sin or for the terrible results of it. Men are indeed accountable for their sins, and their responsibility is twofold. First they are morally obligated to choose the good and reject the evil, and they will be brought to severe and certain judgment for their failure to do it. Second, because God has in Christ provided a cure, they are responsible to humble themselves and seek forgiveness and cleansing at the fountain opened for all men by the hard dying of Jesus Christ on the Roman cross. "If any man will," said Jesus, and in so saying swept away all excuses and made every man accountable for his future as well as for his past. For in spite of what sin has done to us, we are yet able to exercise a choice unto eternal life; and we are responsible for our choice, whether it be right or wrong.

That Poisonous Sin Weed

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

Sin is a poisonous weed that throws the whole nature out of order. The inner life disintegrates; the flesh lusts after forbidden pleasures; the moral judgment is distorted so that often good appears evil and evil good; time is chosen over eternity, earth over heaven and death over life. This in large measure accounts for the vivid and colorful language employed by the prophets and apostles to describe the effects of sin. "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores" (Isaiah 1:5–6, KJV). This is a sample from Isaiah. A dozen pages of quotations equally as strong could be taken from the other prophets and psalmists. The New Testament is generally thought to be milder than the Old, but we have only to read Christ's indictment of the Pharisees to discover how wrong such a notion is. Peter, John and Jude dip their pens in liquid fire to do justice to the blazing wrath of God against sin, while Paul traces the serpentine path of sin through the human system and proves how confused and morally self-contradictory the heart is that has not been separated from its iniquity.

Sin Infected

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

As we consider the potentials for moral greatness that God built into human nature when He made man in His own image; when we see how self-sacrificing and kind people are at their best moments; when we observe the innocent sweetness of a baby or the selfless, shining love of a mother we are scarcely prepared for the shock of reading history or scanning the daily newspaper. That woman who stands with a smoking pistol in her hand over the body of her murdered husband—can that be the same woman whose face a few hours before was soft and radiant as she nursed her baby at her breast? That boy who plunges a switchblade into the heart of a kid from another part of town—can that be the same boy who before he left the house to join the gang on the corner spent half an hour romping with his little sister or affectionately teasing his mother? That young man who sits grim-faced and silent in the death house awaiting the hour when he must pay for his crimes against the human race—is that the same young man who a few months ago lay face down across the bed and sobbed because a plain little dog he loved had been killed by a car? While the life of the ordinary person is not so dramatic and violent as those of the persons cited here, his conduct is nevertheless fully as contradictory. He blows hot and cold from day to day; he is kind and cruel, chaste and lustful, honest and deceitful, generous and covetous; he longs to be good and chooses to be evil, yearns to know God and turns his back upon Him, hopes for heaven and heads toward hell. He is morally loco.

The Use of the Missions Dollar

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

The God-honoring missionary society will be quick to invite inspection of the missionary dollar. But the gay adventurer who wants to go a-roaming at the honest Christian's expense will feel hurt and will no doubt accuse me of attacking the missionary enterprise. Forty years' association with a society where missionaries practice frugality, self-sacrifice, lifelong committal to the task, lonely pioneering, painstaking language study, and where deprivations, dangers and actual martyrdom are accepted as matters of course should acquit me of this charge. The Christian with money to invest in world evangelization should, as he shall surely face his Lord at the judgment, approach his responsibility carefully. He should demand a reckoning and insist upon knowing how his money is being spent. And he should see to it that he is helping to support only humble and devout men and women who love not their lives unto death. Not one cent should he give to aid the selfish activities of the happy adventurer who seeks to pass for a messenger of Christ. This whole thing is too sacred to treat lightly; and the judgment is too near.

Sensationalizing World Missions

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

There are missionaries who are born adventurers; while wholly consecrated to Christ and utterly devoted to the glory of God, they are for all that very much in love with the physical excitement that accompanies missionary activities in some parts of the world. These have done excellent work and must be classed with the true servants of Christ and messengers of the cross. Their love for lost men is deep and real. Their fondness for travel and danger is natural to them and indeed contributes much to their fitness for the work they are called to do, a work which their more cautious brethren could never accomplish. Now it is to be regretted that these men, by their very zeal and by the success of their efforts, have innocently prepared the way for a racket about as neat and lucrative as may be found anywhere within the field of religion. For there have arisen some who do not scruple to exploit the modern Christian's love for color and drama. These have swept in with the sound of a trumpet. They specialize in thrills and tales of adventure both tall and lurid, and in some quarters they have captured the imagination and loyalty of large numbers of Christians of undoubted sincerity. Without any previous "good report," woefully shy on scholarship, lacking age, experience and wisdom and, in many instances, without having served an apprenticeship to any recognized spiritual leader, they set themselves up as great missionary pioneers and by sheer force of personality manage to extract from an emotional and uncritical public enough money to finance their showy projects. These depend for their success upon the power of snappy advertising and use every trick in the modern salesman's bag to promote their interests. Missionary work, as they present it, is a huge and enjoyable adventure. Significantly absent are the woes of Calvary and the travail of the Holy Spirit. Their talk is smooth and convincing, but their spirit is not that of the great missionary leaders of the past.

The Legacy of Pioneer Missionaries

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

The job of carrying the gospel to remote tribes hidden in strange and dangerous places often requires a courage and daring equal to that displayed by the explorer in search of a new river or the soldier in the performance of his duties. There are missionaries who are born adventurers; while wholly consecrated to Christ and utterly devoted to the glory of God, they are for all that very much in love with the physical excitement that accompanies missionary activities in some parts of the world. These have done excellent work and must be classed with the true servants of Christ and messengers of the cross. Their love for lost men is deep and real. Their fondness for travel and danger is natural to them and indeed contributes much to their fitness for the work they are called to do, a work which their more cautious brethren could never accomplish. The Christian public, always ready to take the hero to its heart, has shown its amiable weakness by following these men about, to hang breathless on their colorful words and to shower them with money and gifts of every kind. By thus focusing attention upon their task these brethren have done a real favor to the cause of world missions. They have won the prayers and the support of many who would not have been aroused by the ordinary missionary program. Of the purity of their motives and the sincerity of their appeals there can be no doubt. We could use more of such men.

God's True and Just Judgments

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

The cry against the idea of moral retribution reveals several deep-lying misconceptions. These have to do with the holiness of God, the nature of man, the gravity of sin and the awesome wonder of the love of God as expressed in redemption. Whoever understands these even imperfectly will take God's side forever, and whatever He may do they will cry with the voice out of the altar, "Yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are your judgments" (Revelation 16:7). Perhaps Moody's word about this is as wise as any that has ever been uttered. He said, "No man should preach on hell until he can do it with tears in his eyes."