My heart has burned within me whenever I have heard or read accounts of God’s servants who were living witnesses to the truth in word and deed. Despite the weaknesses of these old preachers, God delighted to use them, after all, God does not wait till we are perfect before He blesses or uses us. Who would be blessed if He did?
One of these men is A.W Tozer (1897-1963), a man I never met but who has greatly impacted my spiritual life through his writings. He was recognized as the voice of God while others were mere echoes. Tozer books sprang from a deeply burdened heart. He had a message from God that he knew he had to give.
One time, Tozer was struggling with a “burden” God had given him. He was concerned about the apparent shallowness of many believers-people who claimed to be followers of Christ but who had little knowledge of God and little desire to know Him better. Somehow he wanted to motivate these people.
Tozer was a man whose sole desire was to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ. If you major on knowing God, “ Tozer once wrote, “and cultivate a sense of His presence in your daily life, and do what Brother Lawrence advises, “Practice the presence of God” daily and seek to know the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures, you will go a long way in serving your generation for God. No man had any right to die until he has served God in his generation.”
Tozer was recognized by many as being a prophet to the Body of Christ. Indeed he was a prophet as noted from one of his written statements:
Hearts that are “fit to break’’ with love for the Godhead are those who have been in the Presence and have looked with opened eye upon the majesty of Deity. Men of breaking hearts had a quality about them not known to nor understood by common men. They habitually spoke with spiritual authority. They had been in the presence of God and they reported what they saw there.
They were prophets, not scribes, for the scribe tells us what he has read, and the prophet tells what he has seen. The distinction is not an imaginary one. Between the scribe who has read and the prophet who has seen there is a difference as wide as the sea. We are overrun today with orthodox scribes, but the prophets, where are they? The hard voice of the scribe sounds over evangelicalism, but the Church waits for the tender voice of the saint who has penetrated the veil and gazed with inward eye upon the wonder that is God.
His two classic books, The Pursuit of God, and The Attributes of God have both profoundly influenced me since I came to Christ. In the book, The Attributes of God, Tozer writes like this:
What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. . . . No religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. . . . The most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. Unfortunately, many modern Christians have reduced Him to a single-attribute God. Never mind that the angels in God’s presence do not cry out, day and night, “Love, love, love,” but “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty” (Isaiah 6:3).
From God’s other known attributes we may learn much about His love. We can know, for instance, that because God is self-existent, His love had no beginning; because He is eternal, His love can have no end; because He is infinite, it has no limit; because He is holy, it is the quintessence of all spotless purity; because He is immense, His love is an incomprehensibly vast, bottomless, shoreless sea before which we kneel in joyful silence and from which the loftiest eloquence retreats confused and abashed.
He was such a respected man of God that many would come to him for advice and counsel, including students from nearby Wheaton College. Tozer said,
Years ago I prayed that God would sharpen my mind and enable me to receive everything He wanted to say to me. I then prayed that God would anoint my head with oil of the prophet so I could say it back to the people. That one prayer has cost me plenty since, I can tell you that. Don’t ever pray such a prayer if you don’t mean it, if you want to be happy, don’t pray it, either. It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.
Tozer’s Preaching
Regarding his preaching, he said,
I like to compare the preacher to an artist. An artist works in water, oil, sand, stone, gold, glass. On the other hand, the preacher works in the stuff called mankind. The artist had an idea of abstract beauty and he seeks to reproduce it in visible, concrete things. The preacher has Christ and tries to make Him visible in human lives. The artist has genius while the preacher has the Holy Spirit. The artist draws his inspiration from other artists while the preacher draws his inspiration in prayer alone with God.
The tools of the artist are brushes, chisels, paint. But the tools of a preacher are words. A Ninety-nine percent of your public service will be using words. A preacher, like the artist, must master his tools. He must toil and labour and strive for mastery in this area. At first he will make awkward attempts, but if he keeps at it, he will become an expert.
Regarding his preparation for preaching, Tozer said,
Many times I come here to study as uninspired as a burnt shingle. I have shingles. I have editorials due, the preaching ministry here, plus outside preaching engagements. Often when I come here I kneel by that old sofa over there with my Bible and a hymn book. I will read some Scripture; softly sing a few hymns and in short time my heart is worshiping God. God begins to manifest Himself to me and pour matter into my soul. Before long I take up my pencil and begin jotting down sketches and outlines for editorials and sermons.
His Desire To Know God
A.W Tozer was a man driven by a desire to know God more. He once said to a long time friend, Robert W. Battles, “I want to love God more than anyone else in my generation.” His humility and deep longing for God should be emulated by modern-day prophets.
Here is the prayer that he originally wrote as a covenant with God at the time of his ordination to Christian ministry, August 18, 1920. Later he revealed it to the world in one of his first editorials in The Alliance Weekly. It reads:
Lord Jesus, I come to Thee for spiritual preparation. Lay Thy hand upon me. Anoint me with the oil of the New Testament prophet. Forbid that I should become a religious scribe and thus lose my prophetic calling.
Save me from the curse that lies dark across the face of the modern clergy, the curse of compromise, of imitation, of professionalism. Save me from the error of judging a church by its size, its popularity or the amount of yearly offerings.
Help me to remember that I am a prophet –not a promoter, not a religious manager, but a prophet. Let me never become a slave to crowds. Heal my soul of carnal ambitions and deliver me from the itch for publicity.
Save me from bondage to things. Let me waste my days puttering around the house. Lay Thy terror upon me, O God, and drive me to the place of prayer where I may wrestle with principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world.
Deliver me from overeating and late sleeping. Teach me self-discipline that I may be a good soldier of Jesus Christ. I accept hard work and small rewards in this life. I ask for no easy place. I shall try to be blind to the little ways that could make my life easier.
If others seek the smoother path, I shall try to take the hard way without judging them too harshly. I shall accept opposition and try to take it quietly when it comes. Or if, as sometimes it falleth out to Thy servants, I should have grateful gifts pressed upon me by Thy kindly people, stand by me then and save me from the blight that often follows.
Teach me to use whatever I receive in such manner that it will not injure my soul or diminish my spiritual power.
Others as well recognized the ability of Tozer to worship. Raymond McAfee, his long-time associate at Southside Alliance Church in Chicago, relates the following experience they had when praying and worshiping together.
Tozer knelt by his chair, took off his glasses and laid them on the chair. Resting on his bent ankles, he clasped his hands together, raised his face with eyes closed and began: “Oh God, we are here before Thee.” With that there came a rush of God’s presence that filled the room. We both worshipped in silent and wonder and adoration. I’ve never forgotten that moment, and I don’t want to forget it.
Toward the end of his ministry, Tozer asked for prayer from his congregation. He said,
Pray for me in the light of the pressures of our times. Pray that I will not just come to a wearied end-an exhausted, tired old preacher, interested only in hunting a place to roost. Pray that I will be willing to let my Christian experience and Christian standards cost me something right down to the last gasp!
On May 12, 1963, A.W. Tozer’s earthly labors ended. His faith in God’s majesty became sight as he entered His presence. Although his physical presence has been removed from us, Tozer will continue to minister to those who are thirsty for things of God.
~TOZER-GRAMS~
I would rather stand and have everybody, my enemy, than to go along with the crowd to destruction.
It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular but why he does it.
It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.
God discovers Himself to ‘babes’ and hides Himself in thick darkness from the wise and the prudent. We must simplify our approach to Him. We must strip down to essentials, and they will be found to be blessedly few.
