The close of World War II saw a radical change in the religious mood, especially on the part of the masses.
It was a complete reversal.
Religion came into its own.
Faith became once more intellectually respectable and people stopped being ashamed to admit that they believed in God.
Evangelicalism and the world wept briefly on each other's shoulders, kissed, shook hands and became friends. '
The church discovered that she could use a good many of the world's ideas and the world found that religion was a useful technique for achieving desired ends. The ox and the ass, as well as the lion and the lamb, romped together as they had not done since Luther nailed his theses on the door of the church at Wittenberg and launched the Reformation.
Over the last few years the world has gone on to woo the Church (about like water woos a duck!) and has won her heart and hand in what seems to be a case of true love.
The honeymoon is still on and the church is now the pampered bride of the world. And what a dowry she has brought to her sensuous and drooling lover! A
n impenitent and unregenerate populace buys religious books by the millions, to the delight of the profit-hungry publishers. Movie stars now write our hymns; the holy name of Christ sounds out from the gaudy jukebox at the corner pool hall, and in all-night stomp sessions hysterical young people rock and roll to the glory of the Lord.
Today dark-browed Pessimism has gone out of vogue and her happy and responsible sister Optimism has come in to take her place. Christianity is now conceived as fun and the only cross is the one on which Jesus died several hundred years ago. Christ's yoke is not only easy, it is downright thrilling.
His burden is not only light, it is jaunty. The church goes along with everything and stands against nothing until she is convinced that it is the safe and popular thing to do; then she passes her courageous resolutions and issues her world-shaking manifestoes all in accord with the world's newest social venture, whatever it may be.
verse
You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.
— Galatians 3:1
thought
Though for different reasons, we are as foolish as the Galatians and bewitched. All is not well. As the Church, have we borrowed too much from the world?
prayer
O Lord, give me accurate perception that I may discern what is of You and what is not.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Immediately following the first World War, a wave of pessimism swept over the literate world.
What the cause was I shall not go into here but, whatever it was, the intellectual mood of the 20s and 30s was thoroughly despondent.
Materialism, pessimism, cynicism and skepticism were the four horsemen of those gloomy decades and they rode forth conquering and to conquer.
The scientists were materialistic, the philosophers skeptical, the novelists and biographers cynical and almost everyone pessimistic.
Even the interpreters of prophecy were apprehensive, for they saw in the capture of Jerusalem by the British and the rise of the Roman Empire under Mussolini evidence of the nearness of the tribulation days, the coming of Antichrist and the collapse of civilization.
About the only religionists on the Protestant side who managed to retain a little optimism were the liberals (modernists they were called in those days), and they were cheerful for a wrong reason.
Out of the poetic passages of a Bible, in which they no longer believed, they wove delicate daisy chains, which have long since withered, and crocheted pretty religious doilies of which they are not now exactly proud and which they would willingly forget but cannot because their handiwork is still to be found among us on the seventeen cent bargain table of the second-hand bookstores.
verse
'Meaningless! Meaningless!' says the Teacher, 'Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.'
— Ecclesiastes 1:2
thought
Meaninglessness and pessimism confront us in almost every corner depending on the perspective from which we perceive ? wholly humanistic or divine. Only with the eye of faith fixed on Christ can we pierce the dark clouds of gloom
prayer
Thank You, Lord, that Christ is still the Light of the world in the midst of gloom.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Christ told His disciples to tarry in Jerusalem until they had been endued with power from on high.
This can only mean that He will not entrust His work to the unready and the unqualified.
It is infinitely more important that we should be prepared for service than that we should win someone else to our subnormal spiritual condition.
Soul-winning by persons who have not met the test of obedience to the Word of Christ must inevitably produce other professing Christians of the same spiritual stripe.
Missions carried on by persons not spiritually endued can but transplant an effete Christianity on a foreign shore, for be sure that no church founded in a heathen land will be any better than the spiritual lives of those who founded it.
Real repentance will result in purified hearts and sanctified lives. A hard and determined return to the pattern shown us in the mount will bring the smile of God upon our efforts.
Then we shall experience not less soul-winning, but more.
Then we shall have not fewer missionary activities, but more.
Then whatever we do shall prosper (Psalm 1:3), and God shall be glorified in everything at home and abroad.
verse
I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.
— Luke 24:49
thought
Some of us have been in the city a long time or left it too soon. Have we been clothed with power from on high? The Spirit indeed has come. Have we fully opened our hearts to Him? Attempting to disciple the peoples of the world without that power invites disaster.
prayer
In reaching out to people in Your name, Lord, may I continually trust Your Spirit's enablement not mine.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The critical need in this hour of the church's history is not what it is so often said to be: soul-winning, foreign missions, miracles.
These are effects, not causes. The most pressing need just now is that we who call ourselves Christians should frankly acknowledge to each other and to God that we are astray; that we should confess that we are worldly, that our moral standards are low and we are spiritually cold.
We need to cease our multitude of unscriptural activities, stop running when and where we have not been sent, and cease trying to sanctify carnal projects by professing that we are promoting them in the name of the Lord and for the glory of God. We need to return to the message, methods and objectives of the New Testament. We need boldly and indignantly to cleanse the temple of all that sell cattle in the holy place, and overthrow the tables of the money-changers.
And this must be done in our own lives first and then in the churches of which we are a part.
verse
Then he entered the temple area and began driving out those who were selling. 'As it is written,' he said to them, 'My house will be a house of prayer; but you have made it a den of robbers.'
— Luke 19:45-46
thought
A prophet must first clean up his own life and, by means of the Spirit, grow in Christlikeness before his message can claim the authority of Christ.
prayer
O Lord, our churches need to be cleansed, our methods and programs rooted in Your Word, our message Spirit-inspired. Renew us, Lord!
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
No matter how sincere they may be, ministers without discernment are sure to err.
Their conclusions are inevitably false because their reasoning is mechanical and without inspiration.
I hear their error in our pulpits and read it in our religious periodicals; and it all sounds alike: revived churches engage in foreign missions; hence let us plunge into missionary activity and spiritual refreshing is sure to follow.
The healthy church wins souls; let us begin to win souls and we will surely be revived. The early Church enjoyed miracles, so let's begin to expect mighty signs and wonders and we will soon be like the early Church. We have neglected the social implications of the gospel; let us engage in political activities and charitable endeavors and all will be well again. Miserable counselors these, and physicians of no value.
Their advice is not only poor; it is spiritually damaging. What doctor in his right mind would tell a patient dying of tuberculosis, Healthy men play football; go out and play ball and you will regain your health? Such advice given under such circumstances would reveal only that effect was being mistaken for cause; and that is exactly what is happening these days in religious circles. The effects of revival are being mistaken for the causes of revival. And this to the confusion of everyone concerned and to the effective blocking of the spiritual refreshing for which so many are praying.
verse
All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
— Acts 2:4
thought
How would the Book of Acts have read had there have been no Pentecost event in chapter two? Unquestionably the record would have ended with chapter one.
It is the filling of the Spirit that equips for Spirit-empowered ministry.
prayer
Lord, without the Spirit's empowerment we vainly try to produce spiritual effects and end up with something altogether different. Forgive us!
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
In the previous chapter I said that truth should not be passed out indiscriminately, but suited to the circumstances and needs of the hearers.
From the prophets we learn this and from the apostles, as well as from our Lord Himself.
These were never bound by a mechanical religious curriculum which dictated unintelligently that certain doctrines were to be taught at certain times regardless of conditions. They prescribed truth as a divine medicine to be proclaimed with emphasis when the needs of the people called for it. They preached hope when the morale of the nation was low, obedience when the people grew careless, purity when their morals began to sag, humility when they became proud and repentance when they fell into sin.
All was in accord with the total body of revealed truth, but the moral skill of these men of God enabled them to fit the message to conditions.
Otherwise a vast amount of truth could have been wasted and a world of prayer and hard labor rendered ineffective.
Today the religious situation cries out for the skilled moral physician who can diagnose our ills and prescribe wisely for our cure.
It is not enough simply to repeat correct doctrinal cliches.
It is imperative right now that we have the benefit of the piercing discernment of the Spirit.
We must not only know what God has said; we must hear what God is now saying.
verse
There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
— John 1:6-8
thought
How would we react today to a John the Baptist among us? He wouldn't be dressed right. He would seem tactless, terribly frank and outspoken. But he would be a "voice in the desert," thoroughly convinced he was the messenger not the message.
prayer
Lord, thank You for Your messengers over the years who have offended me by exposing my sin, yet have clearly prescribed Your remedy.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
If Christianity is to receive a rejuvenation, it must be by other means than any now being used.
If the Church in the second half of this century is to recover from the injuries she suffered in the first half, there must appear a new type of preacher.
The proper, ruler-of-the-synagogue type will never do. Neither will the priestly type of man who carries out his duties, takes his pay and asks no questions, nor the smooth-talking pastoral type who knows how to make the Christian religion acceptable to everyone. All these have been tried and found wanting. Another kind of religious leader must arise among us. He must be of the old prophet type, a man who has seen visions of God and has heard a voice from the Throne.
When he comes (and I pray God there will be not one but many), he will stand in flat contradiction to everything our smirking, smooth civilization holds dear. He will contradict, denounce and protest in the name of God and will earn the hatred and opposition of a large segment of Christendom.
Such a man is likely to be lean, rugged, blunt-spoken and a little bit angry with the world. He will love Christ and the souls of men to the point of willingness to die for the glory of the One and the salvation of the other.
But he will fear nothing that breathes with mortal breath. This is only to say that we need to have the gifts of the Spirit restored again to the Church. And it is my belief that the one gift we need most now is the gift of prophecy.
verse
Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.
— Galatians 1:10
thought
Be assured that the prophet-preacher will not be welcomed by all those in the church pews. He is blunt and straightforward, seeking not to please people but God.
prayer
Lord, as Your servant, may I be lovingly candid in presenting Your Word and in applying it.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Not the fact that the churches are unusually active these days, not what religious people are doing, should engage our attention, but why these things are so.
The big question is: Why? And no one seems to have an answer for it.
Not only is there no answer, but scarcely is there anyone to ask the question.
It just never occurs to us that such a question remains to be asked.
Christian people continue to gossip religious shoptalk with scarcely as much as a puzzled look. The soundness of current Christianity is assumed by the religious masses as was the soundness of Judaism when Christ appeared.
People know they are seeing certain activity, but just what it means they do not know, nor have they the faintest idea of where God is or what relation He has toward the whole thing.
What is needed desperately today is prophetic insight.
Scholars can interpret the past; it takes prophets to interpret the present.
Learning will enable a man to pass judgment on our yesterdays, but it requires a gift of clear seeing to pass sentence on our own day.
One hundred years from now historians will know what was taking place religiously in this year of our Lord 1956; but that will be too late for us.
We should know right now.
verse
We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith.
— Romans 12:6
thought
In capitalizing on the popular today ? short sermons addressed to felt needs, cell-grooup churches, contemporary music, entertaining "worship," paraded personality ? where is it leading us? To a revitalized Church or one ill with spiritual anemia?
prayer
O God, send us discerning prophets! In Jesus' name.
cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
There has probably never been another time in the history of the world when so many people knew so much about religious happenings as they do today.
The newspapers are eager to print religious news; the secular news magazines devote several pages of each issue to the doings of the church and the synagogue; a number of press associations gather church news and make it available to the religious journals at a small cost. Even the hiring of professional publicity men to plug one or another preacher or religious movement is no longer uncommon; the mail is stuffed with circulars and releases, while radio and television join to tell the listening public what religious people are doing throughout the world.
Greater publicity for religion may be well and I have no fault to find with it.
Surely religion should be the most newsworthy thing on earth, and there may be some small encouragement in the thought that vast numbers of persons want to read about it.
What disturbs me is that, amidst all the religious hubbub, hardly a voice is raised to tell us what God thinks about the whole thing.
Where is the man who can see through the ticker tape and confetti to discover which way the parade is headed, why it started in the first place and, particularly, who is riding up front in the seat of honor?
Not the fact that the churches are unusually active these days, not what religious people are doing, should engage our attention, but why these things are so. . . .
verse
It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up . . .
— Ephesians 4:11-12
thought
The Church today desparately needs prophets who can see where we are and give direction as to where to go; who understand current trends and discern their outcome.
prayer
Lord, for Your Church to be built up qualitatively, give us leaders who understand the present and the future and can apply Your Word accordingly. In Jesus' name.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/