Until the full light of God's inspired Word floods down upon the religious landscape, almost everything is obscure and indistinct.
The finest minds see things that are not there and fail to see the things that are.
This inability to make out the details is a frustrating thing to persons of a strong religious bent and results in a lot of guessing and theological improvising.
Such persons demand to know, and though they neglect or reject the holy Scriptures they will know, regardless, in some manner satisfying to themselves.
Bible lovers have been blamed for being excessively dogmatic and it may be that they sometimes are.
I do not wish to justify a spirit of cocksureness wherever it may be found, but the certainty of the believer may be understood when it is remembered that it springs from his faith in the Scriptures as the full and true revelation of the mind of God to men.
His dogmatism has back of it the strong thus saith the Lord of prophet and apostle.
My own experience has taught me, however, that the most stubborn dogmatism is found not among those who quote the Bible to support their convictions, but among those who quote no one and claim for their spiritual authority nothing higher than their own opinions.
verse
The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
— 2 Corinthians 4:4
thought
Satan, the great Blinder, has closed the minds of humankind through sin. God, by His Spirit, opens minds so that people may understand the scriptures and encounter God.
prayer
O God, You are the Great Mind Opener! May I be faithful in praying for those whose minds are blinded rather than treating them as if they could see.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
We are all heretics by nature and take to error as instinctively as ducks take to water.
This does not mean that natural theology is wholly false, for the heavens declare the glory of God and the visible universe shows His eternal power and Godhead.
Add to these the presence in the human heart of that light that lights every man that comes into the world, and you have the source of a certain body of truth known more or less clearly by the whole human race.
The knowledge thus received, however, is inadequate; it forms little more than a frame for the total picture.
The details are all unknown and undiscoverable, so that we must depend upon divine revelation as given in the holy Scriptures to fill in the particulars and render the picture intelligible.
The brush of the Holy Spirit labors to complete the work and to show every hill and rock and tree and blade of grass, each in its proper relation to everything else.
verse
For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualitities his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
— Romans 1:20-21
thought
There is a universal self-disclosure of God addressed to all people at all times in all places those footprints of God visible in the world in which we live. However, humankind's ability to read God in His natural revelation has been impaired by sin. As a result, humankind misreads it.
prayer
Thank You, Lord, for the Holy Spirit who illumines my mind to understand Your Word and to recognize Your footprints in all of nature.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The notion that Christians should always be optimistic and congenial is heresy pure and simple.
An ill-founded optimism may, under certain conditions, be extremely harmful.
A Christian is not obliged to be either pessimistic or optimistic or glad or sad or positive or negative after a preconceived rule of philosophy. He should (and will if he is Spirit-taught) reflect the will of God in any given situation. His one concern is with God's will. His one question in any set of circumstances is What does God think of this? To him nothing else matters.
What the current popular attitude may be is of no importance to him.
He will approve or disapprove altogether as the written Word and the indwelling Spirit indicate. Religious vogues, passing moods or popular notions will affect him not at all. His heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord. This rather rigid attitude will, in a world like ours, quite naturally work against the one who holds it and earn him a reputation as a pessimist.
People like the man who agrees with them, even if a day later they change their minds and require him to change his, too.
This inconsistency they laugh off as an amiable weakness, and why be so pious about it anyway?
Well, the sons and daughters of eternity care very little about this maypole dance of popular favor.
Like the water bird on the shore of the lake at the approach of winter, they feel within them a strong instinct to migrate.
They expect before long to take off on a journey and they're not coming back soon. So whether they leave behind them a reputation for pessimism or optimism is of little consequence to them.
They are, however, eager to be remembered as children of God and followers of the Lamb. That's all that matters to them.
verse
Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
— Colossians 3:2
thought
Setting our minds on things above rather than on earthly things put us in tune with eternal reality. Then with the mind of Christ we can understand more accurately what is going on around us.
prayer
Forgive me, Lord, for undue preoccupation with earthly things. Only with my eyes on You can I keep to the road through the confusion of this world.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
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/