Tozer Devotional

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."

Life or Death Choices

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

To keep the whole Christian witness in balance we must teach what the Bible teaches about the future of the impenitent. But we should watch over our own hearts lest, unbeknown to us, we unconsciously welcome the idea of hell as the revenge we take against those who do not believe as we do. Just as the fear of excommunication or purgatory serves to keep the faithful Romanist in line, so it is entirely possible to use the fear of hell to make people knuckle under to the dictatorial pastor or the evangelist trying to fill his quota of converts for the evening. The idea of hell found in the Scriptures is so fearful that the first impulse of a loving heart is to wish it were not so. But human pity is both a beautiful and a dangerous emotion. Unless it is subjected to the sharp critique of moral judgment it may, and often does, put our sympathies on the side of the murderer instead of on the side of the dead man and the widow and children he has left behind him. Unholy sympathy moves starry-eyed women to send flowers to the criminal awaiting execution while the innocent child he may have raped and mutilated scarcely rates a fugitive impulse of pity. In the same way uninformed and unreasoning sympathy tends to take sides with the fallen and rebellious race of men against the Most High God whose name is Holy. That He gave men life and intelligence, that He has been patient with them while they defied His laws, killed His only begotten Son and scorned His dying love, is overlooked completely. That men use their gift of free will to reject God, choose iniquity and with wide open eyes persistently work to prepare themselves for hell, seems not to matter to some people. In a welter of uncontrollable emotion they throw themselves on the side of God's enemies. This is unbelief masquerading as compassion.

Painful Truths

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

The doctrine of eternal retribution has been held and taught by an overwhelming majority of Christians since the days of the apostles. Almost all, if not quite all, of the church fathers and of the great doctors and saints down the centuries believed that the Bible teaches that the finally impenitent will be cast into a hell from which there is no escape and with no further opportunity to repent and avail themselves of the mercy of God and the benefits of Christ's atonement. They believed, as the vast majority of Bible-loving Christians today believe, that the personality of the impenitent man is perpetuated beyond the moment of physical death, and that the man must face a strict accounting of deeds done on earth and hear the sentence of doom pronounced against him. I have read the arguments put forth against this belief and acknowledged the force of them, and though my human heart could welcome any gleam of hope, however faint, that might yet remain for the lost, the Scriptures are too plain to allow that hope to exist. Frederic W. Farrar, the celebrated dean of Canterbury, pleaded with great moral earnestness and overpowering eloquence for what he called "eternal hope" for all men, and like a defense attorney managed to find among the works of the Latin fathers quotations to support that hope. But the weight of evidence on the side of the traditional belief is too great; there can be only one conclusion: the Bible teaches the doctrine of eternal retribution, and every calm, reasonable man will accept the doctrine; or if he rejects it he will reject the Bible along with it. The man who will not believe in hell must surrender his right to believe in heaven.

Eager Examination of the Scriptures

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

I believe in eternal retribution. That those who continue impenitent to the end of their earthly lives will be banished from the presence of God forever is a truth as clearly taught in the Scriptures as the fall of man or the resurrection of the dead. The Bible is an organic unity, one with itself throughout, and must be received in toto or in toto rejected. I dare not select the parts I want to believe and exclude what disturbs or offends me. That would be to set up my fallible reason as a criterion against which to judge infallible revelation, obviously in itself an unreasonable thing to do. While it is true that I stand before the Bible to be judged and not the Bible before me; while it is true that I am morally obliged to accept the Holy Scriptures and by the light they afford prepare myself so the Holy Scriptures may accept me, as a serious-minded and responsible thinker I must admit that it is sometimes difficult to know precisely what the Scriptures teach on a given subject. When once we know, we must accept and believe; until we know we can maintain our moral integrity only by admitting our ignorance; and that very ignorance itself obliges us to search the Word in prayerful reverence until the light breaks and our doubts are cleared away.

David's Power Source

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

What made David run? What makes the child run and shout with glee on a summer morning? What brings the lover to the door where his beloved dwells? David was a God-intoxicated man. He had gazed on God until he was enraptured and that rapture he could not always contain. While still a young man, in the presence of the holy Ark he let himself go in an ecstatic dance that delighted God as much as it outraged the coldhearted Michal. For many years I had loved the Psalms of David before I knew why. I had returned to them again and again, almost I might say more than to any other portion of Scripture, and I chided myself for this preference for after all I was a New Testament believer and the Psalms belonged to the Old. Then one day I read a sentence from a little book by Horatius Bonar. It said simply, "The Spirit of Jesus dwells in the Psalms." Then I knew and was satisfied. David in the Spirit knew and communed with the One who was to be his son according to the flesh, "and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead" (Romans 1:4). It was the love of Christ that made David run. "O love of Jesus! Blessed love!"

Lessons David Learned

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0700

What makes David run? Because he was God-possessed he could be God-taught. It is scarcely possible to know with any certainty just how great David's educational advantages were, but we may safely assume that he had not much of what we now call formal education. Yet he has taught millions and after the passing of centuries he still keeps school and teaches divine poetry, mystic theology and the art of pure worship to all who have ears to hear. True, David may have been watching sheep when he should have been in the classroom. That is a guess pure and simple. But it is no guess that he was a student all his days, and neither the care of his sheep when he was a shepherd nor the burden of the nations when he became a king kept him from the purest and noblest of all studies, the study of God. He sent his heart to school to the Most High God, and soon he knew Him with an immediacy of knowing more wonderful than is dreamed of in our philosophies. Jah Jehovah he knew by the Spirit's inward illumination. As the bird knows the thicket where it was hatched or the rabbit the briar patch where it was born, so David knew God with an easy familiarity that was yet sanctified and chastened with godly fear and reverential awe.

Preoccupation with God

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 07:00:00 -0600

What makes David run? Well, I admit to a wealth of ignorance about the whole thing, but if a New Testament Christian may look at an Old Testament king I venture a few words. Perhaps David's greatness and his significance for mankind lies in his complete preoccupation with God. He was a Jew, steeped in the Levitical tradition, but he never got lost in the forms of religion. "I have set the LORD always before me" (Psalm 16:8), he said once, and again he said, or rather cried, for his words rise from within like a cry, "My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?" (42:2). David was acutely God-conscious. To him God was the one Being worth knowing. Where others see nature he saw God. He was a nature poet indeed, but he saw God first and loved nature for God's sake. Wordsworth reversed the order and, while he is great, he is not worthy to untie the shoelaces of the man David. David was also a God-possessed man. He threw himself at the feet of God and demanded to be conquered, and Jehovah responded by taking over his personality and shaping it as a potter shapes the clay.

A Tribute to David

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:00:00 -0600

A great, a mighty man was this David, son of Jesse the Bethlehemite. He had ten brothers, but almost nothing is heard of the ten; David alone arrests the pen of inspiration; only David is honored to write as he is moved by the Holy Spirit. How important a figure he was may be inferred from his refusal to die. David has been gone from the earth about three thousand years; three thousand times the earth has circled around the sun since he left us; three thousand times have the wild geese flown honking toward the south and returned again to the north with the returning spring. Empires have come into being, run their course and disappeared; thrones have toppled; kings have strutted their little day upon the stage of history and lain down at last to be forgotten or almost forgotten by the world. How many noted men during the long years have come and gone and left no more trace behind them than an arrow leaves when it passes through the air. Yet David will not die. He served his generation by the will of God and fell asleep, but asleep he has more power over men for good than a thousand religious doctors and bishops do awake. He will not allow oblivion to swallow him nor will he lie quiet with the ancients amid dust and mold. He was a simple shepherd but he stands to teach the learned; he lived an insular life among his own people, but his voice is heard today in almost every land and his pure songs are sung in half a thousand tongues. Scarcely will a church service be held next Sunday anywhere in the world but, unseen, David will direct the choir, and when the minister rises to preach God's truth he will hardly sit down again until he has spoken of David or quoted from his inspired psalms.

Graciously Giving and Receiving

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:00:00 -0600

It is a spiritual grace to help people without putting them under obligation, without humiliating them and without establishing a superior-inferior relationship. It is an art that can do good casually instead of formally or, as the teenagers say, "making a production out of it." The world has a saying that if you want to lose a friend, do him a favor. Without doubt this saying is the crystallization of many and bitter experiences in the give and take of human relations. But could the fault be all on one side? Maybe when we did our friend a favor we adopted a patronizing attitude that struck at his self-respect and stung him to the quick. Surely of all people we Christians should best know how to receive favors without servility and do good without arrogance. Our Lord was a master of this art; we can learn from Him.

Evil Motives for Doing Good

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:00:00 -0600

It is possible to donate a large sum of money and lay down terms for its use so dictatorial as to destroy what might otherwise have been a virtuous act. Almost everyone has at some time been amused or disgusted by the well-heeled extrovert who swept up the dinner check with such a satisfied air as made his guest feel under obligation. But over against this I know men who habitually do favors in such a manner as to leave the impression that they and not the recipient are being favored. This is a fine and beautiful art, and one that does not come easily. The Christian who would have his good works accepted by his Lord will be careful not to tell them abroad, and certainly he will be careful not to boast of them. And we must remember that the neat little disclaimer we hear so often, "I say this to the glory of God," does not change the moral quality of the words that follow. Boasting is boasting, no matter how we dress it. Again, I have observed how certain moneyed laymen use their generous donations as a kind of gentle blackmail to enable them to retain control of church affairs. And we all know the preacher who allows himself to get so far under obligation to certain of his rich parishoners that he has no independence left. He is their man—bought and paid for—and in their company he dare never again speak all the truth.

Parading Good Works

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:00:00 -0600

In one place our Lord speaks of moral conduct, and says in effect, "Go out into the world and live lives so pure and good that your fellow men cannot but see; and when they see they will glorify God who has given such moral power unto men." In the other He says, "Do not make a show of your kind acts. When you help your neighbor, when you minister to the poor, be sure your motive is right. See that your motive is to glorify God and not to earn a cheap reputation as a philanthropist or a heavy giver. Seek not to be known for your generosity, for there lies a snare, and you must by all means avoid it." From the Scriptures quoted and from countless others we gather truths which may be condensed into this admonition: "Live a pure, righteous life and do not hide it from the world. As much as lies in you, do good to all men, but do it unobtrusively so as not to draw attention to yourself nor bring embarrassment to the one you help." Unquestionably we are here to do good, but good that is done ostentatiously destroys itself in the doing. Kind acts are fragile things and must be handled carefully if they are not to become unkind and actually injure the one for whom they are performed.

God's Glory or Ours?

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:00:00 -0600

In searching the Holy Scriptures two facts need to be faced squarely: One is that in the body of revealed truth there are no real contradictions; the other, that contradictions do sometimes appear to be present. To admit contradictions is to deny the infallibility of the Word; to deny that they seem to be there is to be unrealistic and put ourselves at the mercy of our enemies. In our Lord?s teachings concerning good works, for instance, it is easy to find apparent inconsistencies. In Matthew 5:16 He says plainly, "Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds, and praise your Father in heaven." The words "that they may see" can only mean that it is His purpose to exhibit the righteous lives of His people before the unrighteous world, and the words "and praise your Father in heaven" tell us why He wants thus to exhibit them. It is that He may provide an example of godliness which will exercise strong moral influence upon persons who would otherwise not be affected. That much is easy. The apparent contradiction comes further on when He says, "Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing" (Matthew 6:1, 3). Here our Lord appears, but only appears, to cancel out His instructions given a few moments before. Bluntly, it would seem that in one place He says "Let" and in the other "Let not." Christ being the incarnation of truth cannot utter contradictions. There must be an explanation which will preserve the organic unity of His teachings and reconcile the two passages. I believe there is.

Secret Helpers

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 07:00:00 -0600

In the sixth chapter of his Galatian epistle Paul settled forever the scope of our Christian responsibility: "Therefore as, we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially those who belong to the family of believers" (Galatians 6:10). This is in harmony with the truth found in the widely known story of the Good Samaritan, where it is established that our "neighbor" is anyone who needs us, whether or not he is of our kin or nationality. I do not see how we can escape the force of this double witness; and to tell the truth, I do not believe any honest person can. That we should do good in Christ?s name no one can deny. How to do it without letting our right hand know what our left hand is doing (Matthew 6:3) is an art not many have managed to learn.

Life that is Truly Life

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 07:00:00 -0600

The test of good works, which Paul laid down for the women, applies as well to men. In a passage obviously addressed to men the apostle exhorts that they

Command those who are rich in the present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share (6:17–18). Some Christians feel little or no sympathy for those outside the fold. Let it be suggested that help be granted to some unfortunate human and the question is instantly asked, "Is he a Christian?" or "Is he worthy of our assistance?" This attitude is wrong for a number of reasons and altogether beneath those who call themselves by the sacred name of Christ. If we are to help only the worthy, who then can qualify? The Christian can hide his goods away with a pure conscience, safe in the knowledge that he would help the poor if he could find any worthy of it. The moth and rust would qualify, to be sure, and they will get them at last; in the meantime the happy believer can sing hymns and distribute tracts while the poor ask for bread and there is none and little children cry themselves to sleep at night with no one to comfort them.