Month: March 2022

Tozer Talks

Post author By pshappard
Post date March 27, 2022

“Casting All Your Care Upon Him“

“Casting All Your Care Upon Him”

Author and Pastor A.W. Tozer

August 8, 1954

We’ll talk a little about casting our care upon God, since God careth for us. Now, this is addressed, as you will read in the first verse of the first chapter, to the elect. And it’s to the elect only. Those who have been renewed by the work of God in the new birth and have been brought out of darkness into light. They are the elect, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling in the blood of Jesus Christ. Those who are begotten again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. They are the ones addressed.

Now, I emphasize this a little in passing, because I have noticed the common error of applying promises to persons not included in the promises, that God did not have in mind when He made the promises. For instance, it would be totally impossible to think of God’s saying this, cast all your care upon Him, you who are dead in trespasses and sins, who walk according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, you who walk in the lust of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and are by nature, the children of wrath. God couldn’t possibly say in the same breath, cast all your cares upon Me. He couldn’t do it, and he doesn’t do it. And it’s always a mistake to take a verse that doesn’t belong to you and apply it to you, or a verse that applies to anybody who meets a certain condition, and you apply to yourself if you haven’t met the condition. There is the error.

For instance, if a letter came to your house and you opened it up rather carelessly, and then you notice that you had become heir of $100,000. I suppose there would be a lot of human delight with the knowledge that you are now relatively well off as men count such things. Then you looked a little more closely, and you notice that the letter had been opened by mistake after having been delivered by mistake. It belonged to a man with the same number but another street. Well, you couldn’t possibly apply for that money. It wasn’t you. It was a mistake you got the wrong mail.

And so, when God says to certain ones, cast all your cares on Me, you’ve got to know who He means. To whom is He addressing this? He’s addressing it to the humble and the repentant and the believing and the obedient and the renewed and the elect.

Now, the Father’s promises are for the Father’s children. And we ought to keep that in mind. When the Jews in Jesus’ day claimed certain promises for themselves because they were children of Abraham. Jesus said, that’s where you’re mistaken. If you were children of Abraham, you’d act like your father Abraham. But you’re not children of Abraham, and all the promises made to Abraham are invalid and did not apply to these who are the descendants of Abraham, but not the seed of Abraham according to the Spirit. I only mentioned that because I notice how politicians and newspapers and all the rest, are always coming through with tender quotations from the Bible when they’re putting themselves by their living, in a place where the Bible quotations cannot apply to them.

Now, this text is for God’s children, not for the prominent children of God only nor the gifted nor the successful. Lots of good Christians aren’t successful. And lots of good saints aren’t prominent saints. And lots of wonderful people aren’t gifted people at all. God has given His gifts as He sees fit, sovereignly through nature and grace. And we tend to laud the gifted into prominence and the successful. I don’t know that God does. It’s only faithfulness and love that is mentioned in the Scriptures and the willingness to give all to Him. Apart from that, there’s not much mention made of success or prominence. So, don’t Imagine this doesn’t apply to you just because you humbly say, well, I’m not prominent nor gifted nor successful. I’m just one of the plain Christians. Well, so am I. And after all, so are we all really before our Heavenly Father. And the weak and the struggling and the obscure are just as dear to God as are the prominent and successful.

I looked a little at the presence of care in the world. It uses that word care, c-a-r-e. And of course, that means anxieties carried to the point of hidden fears, anxieties and fears, their care. Now, fears and anxieties have a reason for existing. Let us remember that. They have a reason for existing. All optimism is irresponsible and unrealistic. Nobody can possibly be a sound judge of human affairs and be optimistic. All schemes to conquer fear by ignoring their cause, they’re deceptive, and those who would follow them would be living in a paradise of fools. They would be ignoring the causes of our fears. The causes of our fears are here, and we’ve got to admit their presence.

There’s illness, for instance, illness. . . I just read somewhere, I don’t recall now, but in the last day that there are 4 million people a year the die of malaria alone throughout the world. I think it’s a higher figure than that yet, that many alone die of malaria. So, there’s illness everywhere. Throughout the whole wide world there’s illness, and accidents occur. They do occur. They occur among the good people. Mrs. Sandrock is a good woman. She’s walked with God these many years. She’s a good woman, but she’s had her accident. Accidents occur, accidents and illness and loss of jobs and betrayals and separations and bereavements and death and war. These things are loose in the earth.

Isn’t it a rather touching thing that the newspapers came out with big headlines when the truce in Indochina went into effect, and saying that for the first time in how many years, I’ve forgotten, I guess twenty, there’s no war anywhere in the world? No war anyplace, the first time in so many years, more than a decade. My friends, these things are present in the world. And the response of the human organism to this is, anxiety and apprehension or plain downright fears. People are afraid.

Now, the world is full of all this, I say and people are anxious and apprehensive. And we react variously when we are apprehensive. When we get scared, some people get very hard and churlish. They develop a shell over them like a turtle, hoping that they can keep away the dangers they’re afraid of, and they retire within that shell. Others, drive themselves to what they call success. And they become opulent, hoping they can buy their way through. It was said of John D. Rockefeller before he died, that he’d have given millions of dollars for a good stomach. He lived on milk and crackers and a few little, easy to digest things because his stomach wouldn’t take good food.

Now, some people would go on and on and believe that they can stand off these fears by succeeding, but you can succeed and have plenty, and still these fears creep in; and the reasons for them are here. You can’t buy off illness. You can’t buy off accidents. Nobody can be so successful that he won’t feel the war. Nobody can possibly be so high up in the world that he won’t be a victim of bereavement, and finally, of illness and death.

And of course, pleasure-seeking is nothing else but a reaction to fear. Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. And the idea that tomorrow we die, was what gave rise to the eat, drink and be merry. If I’m going to die tomorrow, I might better make good of it while I can, to make what I can of life. So, eat, drink, and be merry today for tomorrow, that deadly thing appears, that fearful thing. That’s the way some people react. They go wild. They do not want to face the anxieties, so they go out and scatter the anxieties for a little time by worldly pleasures. That’s why you can always, if you can think of a new thing to please the people and make them play, you can be sure of a lot of money. And then some people become nervous wrecks and have mental disorders of all kinds. All because we’re scared.

Friends, is there someone? Is there someone that can meet our enemies that I have mentioned here and a thousand I didn’t mention, illness and accident and loss of job or possibility of it; betrayal, separation, bereavement, death all these things? Is there somebody that can meet these enemies? Somebody has to do it. They won’t go away. Ignore him and he will go away is the humorous remark made about a lot of things and a lot of people. Ignore him and he will go away. But these things don’t go away by ignoring them. Illness doesn’t go away when you ignore it.

In Beulah Beach last week, I heard, my wife and I, of a woman we knew years ago. A very fine woman, a mother of four children, active in the Alliance Church. She died last week, or recently at any rate. She died of cancer relatively young. She wasn’t an elderly woman, though she certainly wasn’t a girl anymore. But she died of cancer. As you can’t ignore that and say to it go away. It won’t go away. Neither will death go away. Neither will war go away. Neither will accidents go away. And they cut it down a little by being careful. But the law of averages says, so many machines will break, so many people will fall asleep, so many reckless men will be on the highway. So, these things won’t go away. Somebody has to face them and conquer them. Who’s going to do it? You can’t do it.

Is there somebody else that will take them on? Is there somebody else that will dispose of them? Is there someone that will say, now listen child of God, you’re in the midst of a deadly world. Death walks on every hand, error, accidents, mistakes, diseases, mental breaks. All these things walk up and down the land, but I’ll take care of them for you. I don’t promise you won’t get into any of them, but I promise you, you don’t have to be scared. I’ll get you out of them. And I will make them work for you. And I’ll turn your evil to good. And I walk before thee and I won’t let one thing happen to you that isn’t good for it. And when you need it, I’ll let it happen. But I’ll watch over you as a physician over his patient. I’ll watch over you as a nurse over her child. Is there somebody that will say you don’t have to be an optimist and ignore things. You can be a realist and admit their presence. And you don’t have to collapse and be sent to an institution. I’ll handle them for you.

Yes, there is somebody. Cast all your cares upon Him, for He careth for you. Now, that is the some of the Lord’s word to us on that subject. It’s not all He has said, but it’s sort of a summation. That same theme runs through the Old Testament, and it runs through the New Testament, and it is taught by the Savior, and it is taught by all the apostles. It is simply, God is personally concerned about you. You the individual, not the mass. We think in masses now, blocks. It was common to see these graphs, or these charts in the news magazines in which it will say, it will show a little figure standing there in silhouette, dark outline. It’ll say, each of these stands for 5 million persons, thinking in a block. The Lord never thinks in blocks, in masses. He thinks in individuals. He thinks of His one sheep, of his one child.

So, that’s the teaching of the Scriptures. God’s personally concerned about you. And God is not too high and lofty to remember that His children are in a land where illness is prevalent, where there are accidents happening every day, where there are loss of jobs and financial worries. Where people get to be trained by their closest loved ones, where there’s separation, as for instance, when the boy that has been close to us so many years, shakes hands with a grin that isn’t quite real, and walks down the sidewalk and waves at the corner on his way to report to the military service. Separations come. Some never come back. God knows it and says, now, I know that’s the kind of world you will live in, but I have laid hold on you for forever. And I know every detail of your trouble and all your problems. And I’ll anticipate every act of the enemy and every act of every enemy. I anticipate it. I will go before you. Not only so, but He accepts our enemies as his enemies. I will be an enemy to your enemies. Have you read that in your Bible? I will be an enemy to your enemies. And that can only mean the one thing, that if an enemy turns on me, God turns on him. And if I’m partly in the wrong, God will let that enemy through to me enough to chasten me, but He’ll never let him destroy me. And He will never let a blow fall that I don’t deserve.

The old grandmas out home where I was born, used to say good-naturedly. Some great big strapping fellow would say, Mother, you spanked me an awful lot when I was a boy. And the old grandmother used to dismiss it by saying, you never got a lick amiss. That was an old-fashioned expression. You never got a lick amiss. In other words, I never whipped you once too often. Here were five great big handsome sons, doctors and what have you all, around sitting at a homecoming and here sets the mother presiding like a queen in the middle of it. They’d all gone to college, they all had modern ideas, but they all still loved the home and the old folks and mother. And they were discussing how severe she was with them when they were boys, and how she gave them the works occasionally. And a great big friendly doctor said, Mother, don’t you think after all, that you punished us a little too often. She straightened up and said, young man, when you’ve raised five such fine boys as I have, come back and talk to me.

That was the answer. And God never strikes a lick amiss. And He never lets anything happen to you, if you’re trusting, that isn’t good for you, and says, now, I’m handling this and you take your hands off and stop you’re worrying. This won’t go away, but I’ll handle it, and I’ll look after you because I am personally concerned about you. And every enemy you have, is my enemy too. You’re on my side and I’m on your side, and the enemies on the other side. And God always handled the enemy. Cast all your care upon Him.

What are your cares? I don’t know what your cares may be. I have given an outline of them here. They may not, none of them may touch you at all. There may be something else I don’t know about, worries that I have a remote notion you feel. But the Bible says cast all your cares upon Him.

Now, this must be done at a given time by a firm act of the will. We don’t just ooze into this or grow into it. If you were walking along and you had a great burden, and I said, let me carry that awhile, you wouldn’t ship that gradually over onto me. You’d either give it to me, or you would keep it. And the act of transfer from you to me, would be a crisis, an exact crisis that happened at a given moment. One minute you had the burden, and the other minute, I had the burden.

My Father, when he was a young man, in later years he told us on himself. He said, he and some friend of his had somewhere to go and they only had one horse. They had long miles to go and only had one horse. So, my father’s name was Jacob. They called him Jakey. And he said, I’ll tell you what we will do Jakey, I’ll ride a while, you can walk. Then, when you get tired, you can walk awhile and I’ll ride. And my father innocently, a country boy that he was, agreed to that. And that’s the way it worked. The other fella rode around and Jakey walked. And after a while Jakey said, my father said, don’t you think it’s about time we ought to change off? Oh, sure, getting tired? He said, sure, we’ll change now. You can walk awhile while I ride.

Now, I don’t introduce anything humorous in here, if that should be called humorous. My father thought it was. But I will say this, that there’s an awful lot of that same kind of arrangement among us Christians. We let God carry it awhile, we think, but He doesn’t. We walk awhile and then; we walk some more. And all our transfers are stymied. They don’t go through; we don’t make a complete transfer of our burden. The old man that carried a 300-pound bag of grain on his shoulder while he was riding his mare. And somebody said, why don’t you put the wheat or the grain on the horse’s neck ahead of you. And he said, she got burden enough without carrying that too. I’m a heavy man he said. We carry our burden, and God carries us and our burden. Why not be sensible and roll the burden off on God?

Now, we’ve got to do this at a given time by a firm act of our wills. Why don’t we do that this morning? We came in here trusting, but under a heavy load. Why don’t we just now, roll that burden over on to the Lord? Don’t you want to do that? If you’re walking with the Lord. If you’re a humble person trusting in His grace and you know you’re His child and this promise is to you. Why should we not do that then? Roll our cares upon Him. Let us for a moment now as we pray.

Lord, we’re a company of Christian people. And we have said yes, to thee and no to the world. Thou hast given us eternal life, and we are blessed. But we confess Father that we’re in a deadly, dangerous world. We’re like the tiny rabbits of the woods or like the deer of the forest, we live by staying alert. We exist only because we’re watchful. And this works on us to make us nervous and anxious. It fills us with apprehensions and fears. It isn’t pleasing that it should be so. Thou would look after us. Thou art around us and beneath us, before us and behind us. Help us we pray Thee to cast all our cares on Thee. This morning we would cast on Thee, fear of war. The great of the world point to half a dozen or more dangerous spots where war could leap out like a fire in a moment.

Father, we can’t anticipate and suffer through a war that hasn’t yet happened. Help us to roll the next war on Thee. And then Lord, depressions and losses of jobs; men have deep apprehensions that they don’t talk about. Father, we’re alright now, so we pray Thee, help us to trust Thee for tomorrow and next year and all the years to come. We roll upon Thee industrial fears and domestic fears. Some are worrying about their children. They’re growing up, and they’re worrying about what they’ll do and where they’ll go when they’re no longer under their parental care. My God, Thou hast these thousands of years seen the generation grow up. And parents have wept and grieved over their growing children because they were soon to go out from under their care. My Lord, help us we pray, that we may roll the future of our children over on Thee. Help us to roll over on Thee the fear of disease, polio and all of these devilish things. Save us we pray, from all these fears. We would roll our cares upon Thee. Grant this we pray, for Jesus’s holy sake. Amen.

Tags Care, Comfort, Concern, Fear, Tozer

Messages

Tozer Talks

Post author By pshappard
Post date March 20, 2022

“Holding Fast to Sound Doctrine“

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“Holding Fast to Sound Doctrine”

Author and Pastor A.W. Tozer

March 16, 1958

The book of Titus, the first chapter. The book of Titus. Word by word almost, we’re going over this book. Verse seven, the bishop must be so on. Verse nine, holding fast the faithful word as ye hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine, convince, to exhort, and to convince against errors. For there are many unholy and vain talkers and deceivers, especially they of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped; who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake. One of themselves, even a prophet of their own said, the Cretians, Cretians it is here. Cretan, it is in almost every other version and in the dictionary, so chances are, that I will be seeing Cretan, though Cretian it is in this particular version. The Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith.

Now in about three or four sentences, I want to relate today’s talk to those which have preceded it. Paul says by the Spirit that bishops, presbyters, that means teachers. And I would assume it includes pastors and others who try to expound the Scripture. That among other qualifications, they must hold fast to the faithful word. They must have ability in sound doctrine, for the dual work of teaching the teachable and silencing the gainsayers. Now, that relates what I am to say from here on, to what I’ve said before, and what Paul wrote, for after all, that’s what I’m trying to do, to make what I’m saying hug very, very tightly to what Paul said before.

Now, we have the expression, there are many unruly. And I honestly am sorry that I have to deal with this, with these words, unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, because I don’t like to. I’d much rather talk over on the happy side of things. But in a world of sin and the devil, a world that is all out of moral focus, where the church is like a flock of sheep in the wilderness surrounded by a wolf even where the wolves put on the garment of dead sheep, and come and run with the flock. And the poor sheep don’t recognize it.

Well, you’ve got to deal with things as they are. Wouldn’t it be comfortable if we never had to deal with ill health? In a world like this, if nobody ever had to pick up the newspaper and read so and so is in the hospital? Wouldn’t it be a comfortable world if nobody ever got sick, if there was no enemy called sickness? Wouldn’t it be comfortable if there was no such thing as known as an accident, if we never picked up a newspaper and read so and so was killed in an accident on the highway or in the factory or on the farm? Wouldn’t it be a comfortable world if we never saw in the newspaper, so and so was held up last week and robbed of $3,000, he was beaten over the head by the gunman, no crime anywhere? Just a world without crime, without accidents, without ill health, without death. It would be a comfortable world, nice place to stay.

And wouldn’t it be ideal if there were no unruly persons? No vain talkers and deceivers anywhere, but the truth just grew without cultivation. No weeds to cut down, no hard ground to break up with a hoe? But we just taught the Word and everybody smiled and received it and began to obey it. Nobody came rushing in upset about what had been done? It would be a comfortable, beautiful world. But you know, that’s not the way it is. And maturity requires that we deal with things as they are, not as we wish they were.

There is a kind of religion of Christianity, a form of it, a weakened, watered form of it, that honestly and I think well-meaning the people are, they try to make Christianity to be just that. They look at the world with one eye, the good eye. They see the sunset, but they never see the storm. They hear the birds sing, but they never see the vultures. They see the roses, but their blind eye will not look at the thorns. They hear the happy laughter, but they will not hear the moans. They see the joyous Christian, but they will not acknowledge the presence of the unruly, the deceiver, and the vain talker. Now, that is spiritual immaturity.

If I were in serious trouble, and I were wanting to send, if I actually got where I had to have prayer help from somebody, I wouldn’t send for a man who had a reputation of never facing reality. I couldn’t because I would be calling a spiritual boy into my presence. I would be calling an immature child into my presence. I wouldn’t want to send for too happy a man if I were in serious difficulty with my family or myself. And if I wanted somebody to consult with and to pray with me, I wouldn’t send for a man if he’s too happy. Because in a world like this, if you’re too happy, you’re immature, because an immature man sees with only one eye. He sees all the happy things, but he doesn’t see the other side. He won’t face it.

Paul wrote from the prison and said, rejoice and again I will say, rejoice. But in the next breath, he said, I write unto you even weeping. And he said, sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. He was a mature man, he saw both sides. And I would want a man who had within him a spiritual buoyancy that came from the engrossment with a resurrected Christ, I would want to come to pray with me if I were in trouble. A man whose heart was buoyant with the inward lift of the life of God, but whose heart was also heavy with the griefs of the world, then, I would have a mature Christian. So, I can’t skip this, unruly and vain talkers. I can’t skip this, it’s here, and maturity requires that we deal with it.

Now, the unruly. Dean Spence of Gloucester, a famous old Bible expositor said this, this unruly person, He said, nominally he’s in the congregation of Christians, but in reality, refusing all obedience, acting for himself, factious and insubordinate. That was the definition of the Dean of Gloucester put on this word, unruly. In the congregation of Christians normally, but in reality, back of the nominal, which is in name, the real have these four counts against him: refusing all obedience, acting for himself, factious and insubordinate.

Now, such as this is self will of course, headstrong and defiant. You know it just occurs to me, that I’ve stopped being defiant. I think there was a time when I was pretty defiant. I know as a boy I always was defiant, and I didn’t care how big the fellow was. I defied him even though I was scared stiff. I defied him. And when I got converted, I carried that spirit of defiance over into the church. And a lot that used to pass for courage, was just defiance. But I find that that’s gone out of me. I don’t defy anybody.

I got a letter from a man, a young man who said he was an undergraduate in a certain college. He said he hesitated to criticize me but felt he had to. Then he wrote me a lone letter taking me apart. And he said, I defy you. Well, it struck me, it had been a long time since I use that expression, I defy you. While the Scripture says that even Michael the Archangel, when disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, didn’t dare say I defy you. He said the Lord rebuke thee.

The defiant man imagines he’s strong, but he’s not, he’s just carnal. And he will allow himself to go on in that way, defiant, headstrong, and self-willed. He’s hurting only himself. Then, such of course scorns the spirit of the flock. We’re members of the flock, and there’s a spirit in the flock. And the unruly defies that spirit, scorns it and refuses the voice of the Shepherd and the under shepherd and set their personal opinion against the pastor and all the godly Christians, and the whole church.

Now, this is the state of heart that brought about the fall of Satan. Satan defied God Almighty, and he defied rules and laws and all the rest. It’s also the state of heart that brought about the fall of Adam. Adam was obviously defiant. And it was the state of heart that brought and kept Israel in constant turmoil into, and kept in constant turmoil. Always backsliding and getting restored again and tearfully bruised and beaten and then repent and be restored, and then get defiant and headstrong and go down again.

The whole history of Israel was like that. And it’s a tragic thing, that even when Messiah came, they defied Him and said, we won’t have this man to rule over us. And what was supposed to be strong, manly courage, was satanic defiance. And their rejection and dispersion throughout the whole world, the ghastly pogroms and and ghettos and gas chambers and massacres and assassinations that have occurred all down the years have been the result of this rejection. And this defiance on the part of Israel caused them to crucify Christ. Well, we all measure ourselves and see that’s all, whether we are in this class or not. Certainly, there are not many here, if any, but if there should be any who measure, I’m talking about this unwillingly. I wish I could skip it. But as a mature teacher of the word, I dare not, for everywhere, these are, just as everywhere there’s sickness.

Now, we come to the vain talkers and deceivers. They’re the restless, uneasy spirits who quote Scripture for their purpose. But they’re empty talkers. And Paul says about them, whose mouths must be stopped. Now, why not let them alone. Those who believe in the letting alone process quote the passage that says let the weeds and the wheat grow together until the harvest. But what they overlook is, that the weeds and the good grain grow together in the field and the field is the world. But he never said let the weeds grow in the church. He said, let the sheep and the wolves live in the world. But he didn’t say let the wolves live in the sheep fold. There’s a difference there. We’ve got to watch it.

But he says if you try to weed out by too strict preaching, if you try to weed out any of the vain, unruly persons and vain-talkers, you’re likely to root out some of the good plants along with them. Let the two grow together until the harvest. Yes, grow together in the world, but not grow together in the church. Paul said, whose mouths must be stopped. Why? Because they subvert whole houses. Now, the word subvert means to overthrow by undermining the morals of and destroying the allegiance or faith of, undermining the morals or destroying the allegiance or the faith. He says the reason these unruly vain-talkers have to be silenced is that they subvert whole houses.

Now let’s talk a little bit about this subverting whole houses. You know what Paul means here is, whole churches. Because you see, in the day of Paul, they hadn’t begun to build church houses yet. And they only met in synagogues, or preached in synagogues, and they met in people’s houses, in upper rooms, wherever they could meet. They hadn’t any church buildings yet. So they met in the houses of the people.

You remember in Acts 12, when James had been slain with a sword, and they took Peter intending to bring him forth and slay him, but it says . . . I remember Dr. Torrey divided that up for preaching like this. But prayer was made, continually of the church, unto God, for him. Isn’t that an outline for a sermon? Prayer was made continually, of the church, unto God, for him. The result was, God sent an angel and turned Peter loose, took him out and set him free. And Peter lit out immediately. Where do you suppose he lit up for? To find the church of course. He knew that they were praying for him where the church met. And that particular church met in the house of Mark, his mother, Mary, the mother of Mark whose surname was John. So, there was a house.

Now, that was a church meeting in the house. And that’s what it meant when Paul says, to the saints in thy house I send my greetings. That’s what he meant when he said, he preached the gospel publicly and from house to house, as we might say, on the street and from church to church.

So, the word “house” is used to mean the church. You see, we’ve got it backwards now. We use the word church to mean the building. And we use the word that belongs to the people and attach it to the building. They use the word that belonged to the building and attached it to the church. But nobody got mad. The Lord didn’t send judgment. There are Christians now, who if we say this is a church here, why, they fly white with shock. They say, don’t you realize that the church is the Body of Christ, and this building is just a building? Why sure we realize that. But brethren, we have one thing that governs us. We make words our servants. We never let words become our masters.

And when I say, the third Presbyterian Church or the First Baptist Church, everybody knows I don’t mean the building. Everybody knows what I mean. And if I’m referring to the building, everybody knows I’m referring to the building. So nobody has ever yet been deceived by our use of the word church to mean a building. It’s an extension of a word. You will say, a motion was made from the floor that such and such be done. Well, what did they mean by that? Why, they mean the people standing on the floor or sitting on chairs from the floor of the House made a motion. They don’t mean the floor made the motion.

When we say that there will be a meeting of the board, we don’t mean there’ll be four pine boards meet in the pastor study. They used to sit around a board, and so the word was extended from the board where they met, to the people that met around the board. It’s the same with a House of Representatives. When it says it has not yet been passed by the House, we don’t mean the building there in Washington, we mean the several hundred men who sit in that House. So let’s not get enslaved to words.

When it says the church which is in thy house. Why, he was explaining when he says, the saints in thy house. And he says, you preach the gospel from house to house. They met in houses and they extended the word to cover the people that met in that house, and we do the same thing. We’ve reversed it and we say church, meaning the the building sometimes. So, the church can mean, according to our English, either the building or the people. And nobody’s ever deceived. But there are semantic slaves who insist upon being accurate in everything, so accurate, that it’s a pain to be around.

Well, now what are you going to do with the unruly, the vain talkers and the deceivers? How can we deactivate them? Is that the word they used to take the trigger out of a bomb so it is harmless? I remember when one of the huge atom or hydrogen bombs didn’t go off. They had to send some fellows up there to pull the stinger out of it. And I’ll tell you, I shook for those fellows for a couple of days until I found they got their job done. Can you imagine going up a high tower to pull the stinger out of an atom bomb. And if you made a little mistake, you’d be instantly atomized, literally atomized. I am not fooling, I mean that. They would be literally made into atoms. You’d never know what has happened. Talk about the cool nerves of a man like that. I would have lost fourteen pounds in perspiration just walking from the building to the tower. But those calm, cool fellows went up there and did it. They pulled the stinger and came back down smiling and said it done.

Well, how do you deactivate these unruly people and vain-talkers and deceivers and make them harmless? Well, the Scripture says you do it by setting forth the Faithful Word and by sound doctrine, convincing and exhorting, so that all the efforts to subvert is harmless. The only perfect defense against error is truth. And the only defense against the big lies is the big truth. Always remember that.

I got a letter from a man in Brazil in reading the Alliance Weekly. He said I fled from Germany under Hitler and from somewhere else under Stalin. And he said I don’t want you ever to write anything with politics in it. I’ve had enough. Well, poor fellow, I don’t blame him, the fellow that had to fly from a devil and a bear and a tiger. I understand that. I think I know what he means. But I will venture to step aside long enough to say this, that if we plain Americans were sufficiently convinced of the soundness of our position, we wouldn’t have anything at all to worry about from the subverters from Moscow. But because a lot of Americans aren’t convinced, they tremble before the impact of the big lie. But do you know how to meet the big lie, with the big truth?

And it’s the same in the church of Christ. You meet the big lie with a big truth, and the only defense against the deceiver is the Spirit of truth. For Paul said, you Christians there in Crete, you look out. And you teachers, you’ve been sound in the faith and careful, hold the Faithful Word because remember Cretians are always liars. That’s a proverb down the years, lie like a Cretian they say. Thomas Hardy has that in one of his books, lie like a Cretian. Well, they said Cretians are always liars. If somebody says, and then he adds, of course the rather awkward expression, always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies, lazy people. But somebody says, don’t you think that was a sweeping generalization?

That’s what I get criticized for so much they say, “but you make sweeping generalizations.” Well, Paul made a sweeping generalization here for a man. He hadn’t studied logic I suppose, so he said, Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. Paul, is it possible that you can indict a whole nation? Yes, it is possible. For don’t you know that there have been great cities that have gone completely rotten. Look at Sodom and Gomorrah. They had gotten so completely rotten that only half a dozen people got out. Is it possible to corrupt a whole population? Look at the flood. They had become so completely corrupt morally, that the only thing God could do with them was to drown them all except eight people that he picked out who had yet a bit of decency left in them.

And it’s possible if you have read the history of England about the time of the Wesleys. You won’t believe what you read. You won’t believe it. The complete corruption of moral standards. At that time, the Wesley’s came forth and began to preach, and historians said saved England from a revolution. There would have been a revolution grown up out of that rot, except they repented. And they did repent under the Wesleys.

When I was a kid, I used to, long toward the Spring, go into apple barrels or apple boxes. We didn’t have refrigeration, so we had to do what we could do to keep our fruit overwinter. And sometimes, a box of apples would rot. And it would rot so completely that if you just stick your hand into it up to there. And boys don’t mind that, so I used to do it and feel around and I’d feel one hard apple and take that out, wash it off. And you can believe this or not. There would be one apple completely sound, not even smell of the rot after it was washed, because there wasn’t a single break in the skin anywhere. It was sound all over and in the midst of that rot, there was one or two maybe, or half a dozen sound apples. I’ve seen that.

So, in a city like Sodom, there were eight people, or a few people, and by the time of the flood, they were eight. And the time Christ came to Israel, there were a few. And in England, there were Susanna, Wesley and Samuel and their family and a few others. So, it’s possible for a whole population to rot. It’s possible for us to learn from each other, accept each other standards, and rot a whole population. That’s why I stand and condemn the beer songs and the cigarette songs. And that’s why I condemn the glorification of evil men and women who happen to look good. They’re made the heroes and heroines of our youth. The result is, we rot a whole generation. It’s possible to do that. They did it in Crete. Somebody did it. And so, in Crete there was a population morally so rotten that the only thing to do with them was to turn on them and rebuke them soundly.

Now, when Christianity is taken into a country where there are low moral standards and corruption abroad, the temptation is, when they get converted, to bring their moral standards over into the church. In some places they stand for that and defend it. Certain missionaries say, not of our society, they say they preach the gospel to an old tribal chief with nine wives. They say, we don’t interfere with his cultural standards. That’s nine wives, that’s part of his culture. Concubinage belongs to his culture. Therefore, we’re not going to to interfere with his culture. We’re just preaching Christ to him. That wasn’t Paul’s idea. In Japan, some of them say, we know that our Japanese Christians bow to the Shinto shrines, but it’s purely their culture. We can’t interfere with their culture. Paul did. Paul said, Christianity comes with two things, sound doctrine and sound morals, and I don’t believe you’re sound until you have both. Therefore, rebuke them sharply. There’s only one standard for Christianity, whether it’s in the Baliem Valley or in Boston. There is only one standard, whether it’s in cultured, sophisticated England or over in Russia. Only one standard, the standard of Christ. We won’t bother customs. If they wear their hair long, we let them wear it long. They wear it short, let them wear it short. Whatever kind of clothes they wear, we won’t bother that. There are various mores as they call it. Don’t bother those. It is none of our business. But when it comes to moral questions, we do bother them. Because if we don’t, we’re not preaching the Word and we’re not carrying out the commission for which we send out our missionaries and preachers.

Cretians are always liars and slow bellies and evil beasts he said, and when they get converted and come into the church, they come in carrying a lot of that with them. He said, rebuke them soundly and sharply, and teach them and exhort them so they give up all that.

Well, when Paul said sound in faith, always remember this, all men orthodox in belief and pure in conduct. That was orthodoxy in Paul’s concept. Orthodox in belief and pure in conduct, and the one springs out of the other, and you can’t separate the two. And if you only hold an orthodox creed that does not result in a purity of conduct, then your creed isn’t orthodox.

So, the ideal is and with this I close. The ideal is not to accept arbitrary moral standards. You shall eat this. You shan’t eat this. You shall wear this. You shan’t wear this. Those are arbitrary and they are things that perish where they use it. You shall do this this day. You shall not do it that day, perish with the using. Paul said, don’t accept those. Read, the second of Colossians. Don’t let anybody, anybody put down on you any arbitrary rules at all, but stay by what the Bible says. Let no man judge you in meat or drink or in respect of a holy day or the new moon or the Sabbath which are but a shadow of things to come, for the body is of Christ. Let no man beguile you of your reward and voluntary humility and worshipping of angels intruding into those things which they have not seen, vainly puffed up by their fleshly mind. They’re not holding the Head, Jesus Christ, from whom all the body by joints and bands of nourishment minister and knit. Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world are ye subject to ordinances? We don’t allow anybody to screw down on our Christianity any rules of conduct that aren’t in the book. The ideal is to accept no arbitrary moral standards, but let the truth purify us.

Now, you are clean through the word which I’ve spoken unto you. Christ is the truth and Christ is holiness incarnate. And we are under obligation to be a disciple of His in belief and practice, and then worship in spirit and in truth. That’s the ideal. So, Paul said, that’s the thing to do. Rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith and sound in the faith Paul meant, sound in their beliefs and sound in their conduct. That’s wonderful to me.

Right in the middle of a rotten city like Chicago, God can feel around and find some apples that are just as shiny and red-cheeked and sound, all by the wonderful, wonderful keeping power of God. All by the wonderful keeping power of God, we drive their streets, we ride their buses, we work for them, we buy from them, we sell to them. We keep their books. We drive their trucks. We live in the world and Paul said, you can’t escape that. But all the time we’re with them, we’re like a sound apple in the midst of a rotten barrel. We can be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time and never even smell of the world around about us. That’s wonderful, isn’t it? And within the church of Christ there should be no rot. The church of Christ should be a place where every apple is sound and every Christian is pure. And if they’re not Paul said, sharply rebuke them and tell them they’ve got to be sound in their faith and practice if they are going to be Christians. Amen. All right.

Tags Doctrine, Tozer

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Tozer Talks

Post author By pshappard
Post date March 13, 2022

“Seeking God Through His Word“

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“Seeking God Through His Word”

Author and Pastor A.W. Tozer

August 31, 1958

But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain. A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition, reject. Knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself. When I shall send Artemas unto thee or Tychicus, be diligent to come unto me to Nicopolis for I have determined there to winter. Bring Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their journey diligently that nothing be wanting unto them and let ours, I think if I remember my Bible, this is the only place in the New Testament this occurs. Ours, let ours also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses, that they may not unfruitful. All that are with me salute thee. Greet them that love us in the faith. Grace be with you all. Amen.

He said, avoid foolish questions and genealogies and contentions and strivings about the law. There used to be a very fine writer who wrote for the Chicago Daily News. It was syndicated, but we had it here in the Chicago Daily News. I think he had gotten his start with the News. His name was Howard O’Brien, H.V. O’Brien. He was also a critic, literary and theatrical critic. He was a man of the world. He was a very fine man. He was kind. One time, a show came to the city called Lysistrata. Written as I remember by Aristophanes, the old Greek writer. And I didn’t go to see it of course. I haven’t seen a show since I was converted as I remember ever. I don’t even believe in them in church to say nothing of going to theater to see them.

But O’Brien started out his criticism of this play, Lysistrata, by saying this. I don’t remember anything else he said, but I do remember this. He said it is rather depressing to go and see Lysistrata and learn that nobody has thought of a new joke in 3000 years. They were still rehashing the same old jokes that Aristophanes had thought up, if he thought them back there nearly 1000 years, several hundred years before Christ.

Now, I thought of that when I hear these words of Paul, avoid foolish questions. It is rather depressing to know that people haven’t mended their ways any in 2000 years. Paul wrote this nearly 1900 years ago, and we still have these people with us. Human nature hasn’t changed. Nothing’s been able to change human nature, nothing except the grace of God. The problems of debate and argument are still with us.

Our brother Knight and I were discussing religious journalism. And we rather agreed that a great many magazines are running, and running well, by the simple gadget of introducing argumentative articles; to raise contention and get people arguing and writing in angry letters and then subscribing in order to read what else there might be. But it’s simply foolish questions. They’re to a large extent genealogies and contentions and strivings about the law. We have them today. Churches are filled with them. I think we have a minimum here, but I would not be so naive as to think we don’t have any. He said avoid foolish questions. That is, he didn’t say, avoid asking foolish questions. That’s not what the word question means, but it’s proposition, something to debate. That’s what the word question means, and genealogies then he said.

Now the Jews had the biblical records, and those biblical records were very important to them; very important to you and me. Because, when the Messiah came, He had to be born of the seed of Abraham. But not only of Abraham, He had to be born of Isaac. For in Isaac shall thy seed befall. Not only Isaac, but He had to come through Jacob. And not only Jacob, but He had to come through, what was that son of Jacob, and then on down through David and on down the line. The genealogies were very important. God was keeping Israel separated, and they had to have their family tree, their records. Talk about birth certificates. We think that this is a modern invention, and that there are people now living that didn’t have birth certificates when they were born. I didn’t. I had to have my father after I became a grown man. I had my father swear to the fact that I’d been born. And he did and had it notarized.

But birth certificates were issued back in the days of the fathers, way back there. I don’t know that they handed them to you, but they put your record down. For instance, the sons of Joseph after their families were Manasseh and Ephraim. Of the sons of Manasseh: of Machir, the family of the Machirites: and Machir begat Gilead: of Gilead come the family of the Gileadites. These are the sons of Gilead. And so on down the line, page after page after page of these genealogies. They had to be there so that when a man came saying, I am Christ, they could go to the records and see whether he could prove that he came of the seed of David, and of the seed of Nathan, not Solomon, and of the seed of Jacob and Isaac and Abraham. So they were very important.

But you know, religious people can’t let things alone. So, the Jews abuse these genealogies. In order to give them something to do, they began to work with them, and give meanings never intended. Count the letters and then use them for puzzles sort of, and crossword puzzles and work on them and supply fanciful interpretations and turn them into allegory. Abraham begat Isaac begat Jacob. And Jacob begat Ephraim. Now, what does that mean in its deeper meaning? So, they went deeper and they found by counting the letters Abraham, and then the letters Jacob, and subtracting and adding, they managed to get some kind of a weird old wife’s tale going about these genealogies. And one brother said, this had eaten the heart out of Judaism. It had eaten the heart out of Judaism. It was this kind of thing Christ fought when He appeared.

Now, the Talmud had encouraged that. The Talmud is you know, was a commentary several times bigger than the Bible itself, a commentary on the Bible, written by the rabbis. It had it start, oh, maybe the time of Ezra, and finished along maybe 400 or 500 A.D., and they still have it. I have read, I’ve not ,I can’t say I’ve read the Talmud, but I can say, I have read in the Talmud. I’ve examined it and searched into it to see how, what it means when he says these genealogies and foolish questions.

Well, they’re unprofitable and vain. And always they are the proof of a juvenile mind. I remember when I was a young preacher, I was walking through, past the town square in a little town in West Virginia. And here, gathered sitting around chewing tobacco and spitting on the sidewalk, whittling, were a group of old patriarchs. And they saw me and knew I was a minister. And so, they thumbed me over, come over here. I went over. And they propounded to me this question. They said, Reverend, would you give us an answer to this question? What is man?

Well, of course I didn’t give them an answer. I said the first thing like Truman usually does that popped in my head. And I said, oh, man’s a two-legged animal and turned my back. And as I left, they said, well, God’s a two-legged animal for he made man in His image. And of course, both my answer and their parting shot were too foolish to be recorded. But they spent their lifetime, now here they were old, bearded and bald fellows, ready soon to die; and to be called before the Judge of all the earth, to give an account of the deeds done in the body. And it was either heaven or hell for them.

And they sat around and chewed and smoked and whittled and argued endlessly over the question, What is man? And you know, that question, they say, that’s Biblical. David said, what is man? But do you notice how David worded it? David said, what is man that Thou art mindful of him? He said, O God, who am I that you should love me? What a difference? What a difference, careless men who have no thought of God, sitting around arguing on the technical question, what is man and the loving, reverent worshipful man looking at the stars and say, what is man that Thou shouldst love him? All the difference in the world? For David was not propounding a shallow philosophical question. He was exclaiming, O God, how could you love me?

Well, the juvenile mind is always ready. No matter what kind of head it’s in, and I apologize to all serious-minded young people when I say the juvenile mind. The fact that you’re juvenile in years doesn’t mean you need to be infantile in your mentality. A lot of young people are mighty serious-minded, so I am not reflecting on being a juvenile. Everybody is at some time. We older folk may have a twinge of jealousy we’re not still so young. But the point is the juvenile man, the careless, irresponsible mind, I mean, and a shallow religious curiosity, springing out of a basic moral insincerity.

The more I study the human scene and read the Word and pray, the more I am convinced that one thing everybody has to have, that will ever get converted, is sincerity. You may be so sinful; it may be as black as the blackest pit of hell. He may be as corrupt as a maggot infested pool. But if he’s sincere five minutes in the presence of God, he can be delivered.

There isn’t anything the blood of Jesus Christ can’t cleanse from. There isn’t anything God won’t forgive. It’s insincerity that curses mankind. And these people with their foolish questions in genealogy, simply were basically insincere. And God can’t save a man no matter if he’s a man of high morals. God can’t save him if he’s insincere. And no matter how deep a man is, I repeat, if a man is sincere and looks to Jesus Christ to can be converted.

Now, there’s only one motive, one motive that God approves or accepts. There’s only one motive for approaching the Scriptures. And I will break that motive down into four, though it’s really one. The motive is to seek reverently to discover the will of God, to seek holiness of heart and life, to seek to know Christ intimately, and to learn how to instruct others to do the same.

That’s the only reason, the only reason I have for going to the Scriptures. If I go to the Scriptures to try to find the Sputnik, I am guilty of foolish and unprofitable questions which can only be vain at last. If I go to the Bible to find, with reverence and prayer, how I can do the will of God and be holy, then God will honor me and accept me as a sincere man. If I’m not a good man, at least a sincere man, and He’ll get busy making you good after a while, to seek to know Christ and to learn how He can help us.

Now, this unprofitable business of seeking foolish questions, answers to foolish questions and genealogies and all the rest, have eaten the heart out of Judaism that Paul sought to protect the church from. And I’ve done it all down these years. Maybe that’s why false teaching has never got to start in this church. Anybody came in, it never got rooted.

I remember maybe it was 20 years ago or 22 years ago that somebody got British Israelism, somebody began to talk about it. I think some old lady got into the prayer band. Somebody came and tipped me off. I remember who it was. I think she’s here this morning. Miss Sandra, excuse me for telling on you. She told me, she said, you know some people here are beginning to believe British Israelism, and I said, thank you for letting me know.

So I went down to their office and I bought a box full of their books, and I read them. And I announced a sermon called “Faith of our Faddist.” Moodys picked it up and advertised it for me over the radio. They thought it was kind of interesting. And I preached on that, British Israelism, a religious fad. That killed that so dead I’ve never heard of it since. That’s more than 20 years ago, and I’ve never heard of it since. It perished and was buried and gone.

I wonder if the reason we’ve been so blessedly free from crackpots and weirdies and odd balls and all the rest; I wonder if it might be because with all of our faults, we’ve tried to be basically sincere. And tried to place the emphasis on that where the Bible places it, upon the need to know the will of God and do it, and the need to desire holiness of heart and the righteousness of life. I wonder if that could be one of the reasons God in His goodness has helped us on that.

Now, 1 Timothy 1:4, Paul tells Timothy about that same thing. He says, neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions rather than godly edifying which is in faith. Now, the end of the commandment is love out of a pure heart and of a good conscience and faith unfeigned. Notice, the whole purpose of the Bible, is love out of a pure heart, a good conscious, and faith unfeigned. From which some having swerved aside, have turned unto vain jangling, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm.

Paul was determined he was not going to allow any neat little tricks of interpretation to ensnare his people. He wanted them to be a holy people. And you know you’ve got to watch, got to watch the books you read, you’ve got to watch what you hear over the radio. Even from good stations, you’ve got to watch. Because there are teachers who are busy. They’re not false teachers exactly, they’re simply teachers who are trying to twist out of responsibility. For instance, Psalm 1, blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord and in His law doth he meditate day and night. You know what our teachers tell us about that Psalm? They tell us, some of them, that that Psalm, is a picture of Jesus Christ. The Psalms are messianic and that’s the introductory Psalm, therefore that Psalm is a picture of Jesus Christ.

And you know what that interpretation does? It instantly relieves me of all responsibility. If that pictures Jesus Christ, then I don’t come in on that at all. And isn’t my business to see to it that I walk not in the way of the sinner or the counsel of the ungodly, nor stand in sinners’ way, nor sit in a scornful seat. If I can make that to describe Jesus, I’m perfectly willing to say, oh sure that pictures Jesus. And so I’m free. I can kick up my heels and as Brown says, raise hell on the way to heaven.

And then 1 Corinthians 13, that wonderful, terrible chapter that gives me more trouble than any other chapter in the entire Bible probably, Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love, I’ve become a sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. You know what our teachers do with this, some of them, they say this describes Jesus. So, let it describe Jesus, and you and I have no obligation toward it at all. Well, of course, the terrible snare lies in this, that Jesus Christ is described in Psalm 1, and He is described in 1 Corinthians 13. In as much as anytime you describe a holy man, you describe Jesus, for He was and is a Holy Man.

But 1 Corinthians 13, was never written as a description of Jesus. It was written to show how Christians ought to be. And until we Christians have done everything that we know how in prayer and surrender and faith and obedience, to have this kind of love in our own hearts, we have been simply tricked by this chapter. Imagine, if you will, a man who has the gift of tongues and the gift of prophecy and understands all biblical mysteries and has all knowledge and has such faith that He can move mountains and bestows his good to feed the poor. He’s so generous, he’s the talk of the town. And though he’s willing to give his body to be burned as a martyr. And still he can do all of this and still have a bad motive in it, and have not love and it will profit him nothing.

A mighty easy way to get rid of this, turn it over to Jesus Christ, just the way they got over the Sermon on the Mount, by giving that to the Millennium, saying that’s the charter for the Millennium. That’s the kingdom constitution. And when Jesus institutes the Millennium, that will be the constitution. Well, my brethren, I don’t want to be abusive. I want to be kind, but I’ll tell you this, I can’t bring myself to be so insincere as all that. I believe that this means me and I’m going to take it to myself and I’m going to struggle and labor and pray that these passages may describe me as well as describing Jesus Christ our Lord.

Now, he says in verse ten, a man that is an heretic reject. Here’s a strange thing and a solemn thing about this word heretic. It doesn’t mean what it means now. Now, a heretic is a false teacher. He is somebody who does not teach the truth. By picking out certain things and denying certain other things, he builds a fabric of untruth and teaches that. That is a heretic, as understood in our day. That is the meaning in church history. But that is not the meaning of the word as Paul used it.

Anybody who knows the Greek or has access to sources where he can learn what the Greek means, knows this is not what is meant. By the word heretic here, he meant not a false teacher, but a schismatic. That is, somebody or anybody who for any reason, is resentful and offended or has his feelings hurt, who tends to get silent and withdraw from communion and sometimes gather a few malcontents around him and have a little group of quiet rebels who don’t go along with the crowd or the other Christians. They’re not teaching false doctrine, they’re schismatics.

A man that is a schismatic; a man that is a divider; a man that is a troublemaker; a man that is an injurious critic, reject. But the word reject here means shun or avoid. And of course, it is after a first and second admonition. You don’t just pick a man up and throw him out. But after you have given him a quiet admonition and maybe a second one. After that, shun him and avoid him the Scripture says. That’s in harmony with the words of Jesus in Matthew 18, where he tells us that if people do what they shouldn’t do, try to be reconciled to them. And if they won’t listen, go to them again with some others. And after that, let them be publicans and sinners.

Well, now Paul says a man that is an heretic, after you’ve done what you can for him. That is, a man who is a schismatic, a troublemaker. Up to now, I’ve never split anything except a bit of wood when I was a boy. And I hope I’ll be able to run my race as a obscure Christian minister, without dividing the children of God in any way. But I wouldn’t hesitate to divide them if I knew it meant a matter of doctrine or moral.

I believe that there may come a time in the future when God will send somebody with an axe to split the Christendom wide open; line the men up on one side and the boys on the other and find out who the men are. I believe that. But in the meantime, to be a schismatic, to out of resentfulness or offence or hurt feelings, withdraw, cease to testify, stop praying, say little, but what you say, all on the side of the devil and against the local church. That’s what Paul had in mind. And sometimes if a man like that was influential enough, he managed to get a group of malcontents around him and he started another church. A great many of the churches started in this country were started that way.

Well, I never split one but I help bring two back together again. Some of you old timers remember that, that this church had split before I came here? About 32 years ago, it had split. And part of them had gone down here and part of them stayed here and had two churches. And after I’d been here about two years, they all came back together again. They threw their arms around each other and made up and turned the old building down there over to a garage. And we’ve got some of your right here now that belonged to that old crowd.

So, it’s good to do it all be over on the other side, not a schismatic and divider, but a healer and a bringer together. No, I don’t think I did that. So don’t think I’m boasting here now. It just happened. I was here when it happened. I didn’t bring them together. They just came together. He says, knowing that these subverters and schismatics, knowing that he, that is, such is subverted and sinneth, being self-condemned.

Then, to conclude, Paul instructs Titus. Remember he had left Titus at Crete that he might organize the church and appoint elders, get everything straightened around there. It was rather a mixed-up, confused church and Paul wanted order there. Always like Wesley and that he wanted order, so we got order there. And he says in verse 13, something that I, reminded me last Sunday night. He said, brings Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their journey diligently, that nothing be wanting unto them. Zenas and Apollos were, Zenas was a lawyer who had turned missionary and the Apollos was a great orator who had turned missionary.

And these two men were on their journey somewhere, and he said, now when they come by Crete on their way, have a shower for them. And give them, help them diligently that nothing they wanting for them. He said see to it. And I thought of last Sunday night when we and the time before that, times before that. Next Wednesday, when they have a shower on Peggy Argyle. Receive these and send them diligently on their way and see that there’s nothing wanting unto them. That kind of ties in with the old Pauline method of doing things and I like it.

And I don’t know what the Lord may do with me in old age if I live to be old. But I remember what he said to Peter, he said, when I was young, thou didst gird thyself and do what you please. But when you get old, somebody else will gird you. You’ll have to do some things you don’t like. Probably, the Lord to finally humble me and prepare me for heaven will let me be a member of a church somewhere that does everything I don’t like in order to humble me. But I hope one thing he doesn’t do, I hope He never lets me get into a church where they never send out a missionary or have a shower on anybody to send them fruitfully on their way. Bring Zenas and Apollos on their journey diligently he said. Nothing be wanting unto them.

Then verse fourteen, notice, and let ours also learn to maintain good works that profess an honest trade in order that for necessary uses, in order that they may be not unfruitful. Do you know what Paul had in mind here? He had in mind these showers and this preparation of missionaries. He said, send them out well-equipped and in case any of you can’t give anything, get a job, he said, inorder that you’ll have some money to take care of things like this, actually. This dear old man of God, I guess he forgot people have to live, because he tied it right in with Zenas and Apollos and their missionary journey and said, profess honest trade and get a job in order that you might have an income so that you be not unfruitful and you can do this kind of thing.

Well, that was Paul. And he then finally in verse fourteen, leaves us with, maintain good works. Paul couldn’t stand idleness. And Paul couldn’t stand irresponsibility. He couldn’t stand slothfulness nor unfruitfulness. When Paul looked at a tree and there was no fruit on it, his heart ached. He wanted fruit on that tree. He looked at a Christian who was just twiddling his thumbs and immediately he sat down and wrote a stiff epistle and said, get up and get going and get a job and go to work and let the word of God tee you off. Let it get you moving, get you going. Don’t simply sit in an ivory tower and be a Christian in your head. Get down to business. Gear into life and be useful and don’t be unfruitful. I think it’s a good way to leave us.

Then he says grace be unto you. Thank God for this old man. Grace be unto to you all. They say he was a Georgian, that he was a native of Atlanta. But anyway he closes his passage, grace be with you all. And incidentally, the students, who make it their life work the dig into such things, say that Elizabethan English, you all, was a pure Elizabethan phrase. And the reason that is used in the south is, that several hundred years ago, people came there from England, lived in the mountains and country sections and were insulated somewhat and kept the pure language of old England. And so when a man comes up and says, well God bless you all, come back, he’s speaking Elizabethan English. We kid about it and say he has a southern accent, but maybe it’s us that had the accent and they then have the pure Elizabethan. Let’s not be so sure of ourselves. Anyway, both are nice. So, it’s alright.

All that are with me salute thee. What a gathering it’s going to be. There, there’s going to be Tychicus who is a faithful and beloved brother, Zenas the lawyer turned missionary, Apollos the orator turned missionary, Paul and Titus and the rest of the brethren says, everybody salutes you. Greet them all in love and faith. Grace be with you all. Amen.

I love it myself. I love this old book more now than I ever did in all my life; wonderful old book. Just turn across the page and you run unto Epaphras, Marcus and Aristarchus and Demas and Lucas. All these brethren, we’re going to see them there all right in that day. There’s no question about their being there. The only question is, will we be? They’ve made it. Their journey’s ended. They’ve laid down their burden. They’ve picked up, maybe not their crown yet, but at least they’re there. We’re still traveling on the way.

In the John Bunyan’s great classic allegory, Pilgrims Progress, Pilgrim and some of the others, the Christian and some of the others swam across the river. Old Christian almost sinks, and Hopeful says, I found a sandbar, come on, and pulls you over onto the sand and pretty soon they come up on the other side. And there is the great gate of the city Celestial. And up before that gate, struts a self-important cocky fellow, knocks at the door and says, well, open up, I’m here. And the old man who handles the door says, where’s your proof? Well, I don’t have any, he said. Where’s your script? And to Bunyan that meant the inner witness. He said, where is your witness? Well, he didn’t have any. He said all right, go down. And then Bunyan closed his great book with these awful words. And then I perceive there is a way to hell from the gate of heaven. Terrible. Old Calvin, Puritan. The Calvinists nowadays wouldn’t accept that. They’d edit that out, or at least sluff it over. He said, I perceive there was a way to hell from the gate of heaven, and closed His book.

Brethren, don’t take yourself for granted. The blood cleanses and God delivers and wherever there is sincerity and humility and faith, God will build a wall around you and protect you from everything. He’ll send His angels to guard thee and shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.. As soon as you start taking yourself for granted, look out. Aristarchus and Demas and Apollos and Zenas, they’re over there. You and I aren’t there yet.

I’m not opening the question of eternal security here. I’m only saying, let’s be awfully sure we’re there, we’re in the grace of God. That we have the grace of God indeed and not only imagine we have. Let’s be awfully sure about that. For a lot of people traveled the Christian highway that have not the credentials in their hearts. They only think they have. And they that go from the gate of heaven to hell, are not those who have the credentials. That’s not the point and lost them. No. They are those who never had them but only thought they did.

And maybe that some of you have gotten religion on your Sunday school teachers’ reputation. Or you’ve gone with the crowd and you moved along with your bunch. That’s not harmful. It’s alright, I suppose. But be awfully sure each of you. And I pray that you young people who are going off to schools, don’t live on the enthusiasm generated by youth. Don’t take anything for granted. See to it that the blood cleanses and the Holy Ghost renews and that God has accepted you and that you’ve got the witness within. For there’s a way to hell from the gate of heaven.

Goodbye, Paul. We’ll be back to see again next Sunday. No, later, because you can’t preach without Paul. There’s no use. The Lord made him so important in the book, that you start preaching in the book of Numbers and you’ve got to get to Paul pretty soon. God gave him such a place, Paul and David. David in the Old Testament, Paul in the New, what a pair they make. I never asked anybody for his signature, his autograph, so help me in my lifetime. I’ve autographed a good many hundred things, but I never ask anybody for one. Outside of being on a check, it wouldn’t be of any value to me. And I don’t get many of them. But I’ll say this, there are two men I want to meet. I don’t want to go up and meet them as equals. I just want to be permitted to stand off at a little distance and gaze at them with love and wonder, David and Paul, marvelous old brethren.

Paul, a man of God who couldn’t stand a tree that didn’t bear fruit. David, the man of God with his homemade harp, who looked up with tears and said, what is man that Thou art mindful of him. I want to meet them both. And you know what? I’ve got a real deep feeling I’m going to do it one of these times. For the God, the God Eternal has taken all my sins away. And David’s royal fountain has delivered me from all the weights that would take me down there. I hope you can say the same. I trust you can. God bless you.

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Post author By pshappard
Post date March 6, 2022

“The Blessed Hope of Christ’s Coming“

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“The Blessed Hope of Christ’s Coming”

Author and Pastor A.W. Tozer

July 6, 1958

We are continuing in the book of Titus, the second chapter of the book of Titus. The man of God says, for the grace of God, that bringeth salvation to all men hath appeared. Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ. Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

Now, I have on a previous occasion dealt with some care with that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, and living soberly and righteously and godly in this present world. Now, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the Great God and of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Those words will engage our attention for a brief time.

Now, if you will note here, and it’s always well to follow punctuation carefully in our King James Version, and not break into verses without regard to punctuation. If you will notice what it says here. That the grace of God teaches us to live–looking. It teaches us to live. Of course, there are some adverbs coming in between, soberly, righteously, godly, and the phrase, in this present world. But, it doesn’t in anywise destroy the force of the passage, teaching us that we should live–looking.

Now, I want to just talk about that a little bit, that the Christian lives–looking. That is, the Christian life is a joyous anticipation. Everybody knows what anticipation does for human life. If you did not have some hope of something you planned to do, somebody you hope to see, some advance you hope to make, your life could soon level down to a drab, colorless existence that wouldn’t be worth the living. If you were to take joyous anticipation out of the hearts of men, the suicides in the world would be so many, that literally there would not be enough technical help to dispose of the dead. We must have something to look forward to. We should live, looking, says the Holy Spirit here to Christians. We Christians should live–looking.

Now what is it that a Christian looks forward to? A Christian looks forward to what the Bible calls, the blessed hope, which is the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ. Now this is the epiphany that the churches talk about the shining forth, used for the coming up of the sun, and used also for the coming of Jesus Christ to the world. Used of His first manifestation to the world and also used of His second. The churches, the ritualistic churches that follow the church calendar, have certain times when they celebrate the Epiphany, the shining forth, the coming, the appearance of Jesus Christ our Lord.

And the Bible also talks about another epiphany, a shining forth. The two of them are found together in the Books of Timothy. Paul wrote Titus, from which the text is taken; he also wrote First and Second Timothy. And here’s what he says, God, who has called us, saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, there, after an eternal purpose.

I want you to understand I’ve said this and continue to say it because it is a very basic spiritual truth, that the Bible-taught Christian is not an orphan. He is not somebody who by some accident has happened upon a book and is now a Christian. He is a part of an eternal purpose which God purposed in Christ Jesus before the world began. And this eternal purpose says, the Man of God is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

Now, those are all past tense expressions. That’s something that has in our modern English, has been done. Now, if you have the same kind of Bible I have of columns, just cast your eye up, just a quarter of a page and you will read these words, where the man of God says, same man writing in a different letter, to the same man. I give thee charge in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and before Jesus Christ, who before Pontius Pilate, witnessed a good confession. I give thee charge that thou keep His commandment without spot, unrebukable until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which in His times He shall show. Who, is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen or can see, to whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen. Now, below, he has brought life and immortality to the light through the appearing of Jesus Christ our Lord. That’s one. He will show in His own times, at the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ, who only hath immortality dwelling in life.

Now, there we have the two epiphanies, the two shinings forth set before us in sharp, beautiful contrast, the one to the other. We should live–looking. And what are the directions, for there is not one, but there are two. What are the directions that a Christian should look in his living?

Well, at our communion services, we often quote, in fact, almost always quote, somewhere, we do show forth His death till He come. A Christian is one who deeply appreciates the past for what has been done, but who does not anchor to the past knowing that the past is a prelude to the future. And therefore, his gaze is sometimes back for reassurance, and sometimes forward in happy anticipation. When he looks back, he sees the Epiphany, the shining forth of Jesus Christ, to be born of a virgin, to suffer under Pontius Pilate, to be crucified, dead and buried, to rise again from the dead the third day, to go to the right hand of God the Father Almighty to be seated there at that right hand ever making intercession for His own

That’s the past, but then we tear our eyes from the past and gaze into the future. So that time when He shall appear, and there shall be another world epiphany, when He shall be shown forth to the world as the Potentate and King, the only Potentate, the only King. The way they’re getting rid of Kings these days, it looks to me as if we were kind of cleaning house for the coming of the Lord. There was a day when we had so many kings, every third fellow you would meet in Europe, either was a king or was related to one. But now, either they aren’t kings or they’re ashamed to admit they’re related to them. We don’t have many kings left, very many potentates left, nor plenipotentiaries.

I remember when we had a confluence of big shots, political big shots come to this country some years ago. I listened on the radio to the speeches and the introductions and they talked about the plenipotentiaries and potentates. Well, the plenipotentiaries and potentates are sort of petering out. And we don’t have so many of them anymore, because the Lord is bringing us to a time when it shall be seen who is the only potentate who only hath immortality; who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords who dwells in the light which no man can approach unto, to Whom be glory and honor everlasting.

Now, even if we should die, yet, we will see this Epiphany, this awaited revelation. Because in 1 Thessalonians 4, notice that again. We’re just reading from the Bible itself. Paul says, for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and all churches do believe that Jesus died and rose again, or they’re not churches. Even so, them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For this, we say unto you by the Word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not go before them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout and with the voice of the archangel. And the trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then, we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Isn’t it rather ironical that we reserve the reading of passages like this for funerals? Isn’t it rather a cynical twist of the human mind, or of the devil, himself that we should have taken all such beautiful passages as say, John 14? Let not your heart be troubled. Ye believe in God, believe also in me, that we should take these and reserve them almost exclusively for funerals.

My dear little old mother was a great lover of flowers. She raised them and had flowers every little spot where a flower could grow she had flowers. But she insisted that they grow, that they have their roots in the ground. When they were cut and put on a table, she shied away from them. The reason being, she had gone to so many funerals, and had seen so many cut flowers, and it smelled the heady fragrance of so many bouquets for the dead, that she instinctively associated the smell of cut flowers with the coffin. So, Mother didn’t care for cut flowers. She liked the kind that grew in the ground. They reminded her of sunshine and rain and wind and clouds and birdsong and beauty. Whereas cut flowers reminded her of the dead.

And we find the same thing true of such a delightful passage as this, let not your heart be troubled. There’s Jesus cheering up his people. And isn’t it unfortunate that we have relegated this to the dead with the cut flowers, and the silent tread, and the sonorous, solemn tone of the minister. Isn’t it too bad that we can’t see that this is the Lord calling His people to look forward with anticipation to the Father’s house and the many mansions? So it is with the Thessalonian passage here. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again. Soon as you start to read that, you look around for the coffin. And you wonder whether, who died and how you got at the funeral without knowing it?

Well, the simple truth is, this is not for funerals only. This is the word of the Lord for all of his people, all of the time. I tell you again. I’ve said this many times. In fact, I don’t say anything anymore that I haven’t said many times before. But I tell you again, that there are lots of worse things than dying. Dying is one of the easiest things possible, and one of the most delightful for a Christian, so that we ought not to associate all the hopeful promises of the Lord with dying, and dying with something we don’t want to do. The Lord says, that we are to live, looking. That is, there’s anticipation there. What do we anticipate, or rather, who is it that we anticipate? Well, he says, the great God and Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord. You know, the great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. That Christ is God is taught here. Do you hear me, that Christ is God is taught here, this is the book of God. And that Christ is God is taught in that book all through that book.

Now, there are some who consider that Christ is not God. That He is only a very, extremely good man. Oh, nearly as good as Albert Schweitzer, but that He is a very good man. Not as wise as Albert, because He didn’t know of course how to perform operations and cure up the yaws by an injection of penicillin, but they’re willing to put Him along at least with Albert Schweitzer, but He is not God.

My brethren, why can’t we be honest with ourselves. I have a great deal more respect for an out and out unbeliever who stands up and smiles and says, I respect your faith, but I don’t own it. I don’t have it. That can say with Emerson, why should the robe on him allure which I could not on me endure? He said, I like a church; I like a cowl; I love a prophet of the soul; Yet not for all his faith can see, would I that cowled churchman be. Why should the vest on him alure, Which I could not on me endure? I confess I’m modernizing the English, but that’s it generally.

And the man said, now, I respect your right to believe. I don’t care what you believe, but I just don’t believe it. I respect that man. I could shake hands with him and live alongside of him and borrow his hose and lend him my grass cutter. I have no trouble with him and be perfectly tolerant, and he with me and I with him. But what I can’t understand, is the person who says I am a Christian, and then denies or doubts or holds in foggy uncertainty, the deity of the Son of God. My brethren, why don’t we do one thing or the other? Why don’t we get over onto one side or the other? If the people of the Lord, or the people who claim to be people of the Lord, were just to get over on one side or the other, what a fine housecleaning we’d have. It wouldn’t be any trouble, no difficulty, we wouldn’t fight. We’d still be Americans together. But at least we’d know where we stood. So many of us, we don’t know where we stand.

Now, when they said Jesus was God, the old scribes of Jewish days thought he was blaspheming. The Unitarians of the day reject His deity, many liberals reject His deity, and many cults reject His deity. But the man called Paul, who wrote as he was moved by the Holy Ghost said, we look for the great God and Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord. Now, either he was wrong, or else somebody is wrong today. And I have decided that I’m going to go along with Jesus, who claimed to be God, and with John and Paul and Peter and Jude and Luke and Mark and Matthew and James, who said He was God, rather than going along with those who doubt that He is God. For to doubt or deny the deity of the Son of God is to reject the Holy Scriptures.

And you will have a perfect right to reject the Holy Scriptures, remember that. Nobody is bound in any wise to accept the Holy Scriptures. You can reject the Scriptures and you will get no argument from me whatsoever. I would never spend one minute of my time arguing with anybody, not even pleading with anybody to believe the Book of God, because not all men have faith. And if you have not been touched by the mighty Holy Ghost, you won’t have faith. You know, the Presbyterians in their prime, taught election and predestination. And they believe that when God touched a man, he believed, he believed. When he was touched, he had to have some work done on him, some previous work done on him before he could believe.

That’s pretty well gone down the drain now, but I still happen to believe it. I believe that no men can come unto Jesus Christ except the Father draw him. And if the Father draws the man, if that mystic something settles on the man and draws him toward the Son of God, he’ll come. And when he comes, he’ll believe and when he believes he will be saved. That’s Bible my brethren. The whole book of Gospel of John teaches that. And our spiritual fathers, the Methodists and Baptists and Presbyterians thought that, well, the Methodists taught it, but not with such finality, perhaps as our Presbyterian forebearers.

But nevertheless, we’re live now between two mighty events. His appearing to redeem us and His appearing to glorify us. This then is interim. It is interim, but it is not vacuum. I cannot find in my Bible where any man is ever called to live in a vacuum, that he is called to live in a spiritual emptiness, looking no direction. The Bible says we live in an interim between two epiphanies, two mighty, world-shaking events: the appearing that brought life and immortality to the light through the gospel, and the appearing that shall show to all the world who is the only Potentate, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, worthy to rule the world.

Now, between those two appearings we stand. And you say, well, when is this second appearing going to take place? Now, you won’t fool me like that. I’m too wise an old trooper ever to give myself up to a prophecy of when another appearing will take place. Frankly, my brethren, I don’t know. I can always answer all questions, either by giving you information which is reasonably accurate or by saying I don’t know. And in this case, I say, I don’t know. Don’t be too hard on people who have set dates and been fooled, because they meant well. But the Lord says, no man knoweth, not even the Son, save the Father which is in heaven. He knows. But we do know that we look for His appearing.

And incidentally, if you imagine that this is some kind of cultism or some sort of strange borderline or fringe doctrine, let me tell you that the Dutch Reformed church believes in it. Let me tell you that the Presbyterians, the Methodists, the Baptists, the Nazarenes, the evangelicals, and you can just name them up and down the line and there isn’t one church that exists today, that believes the Bible but what also believes that there’s to be another shining forth, another shining forth. When he was shown forth, being born in a manger, will shine forth wearing the robes of royalty. Not one. They have differences of opinion about how it will take place. And I for my part, don’t care one little bit how it takes place. I haven’t the remotest care how it takes place.

A man called me just before I came down here, and he said, Mr. Tozer, you don’t know me, but I’m in trouble. I said, I didn’t sleep all night last night, I went to bed at seven, got up at seven and didn’t close my eyes all through the night and I’m in deep difficulty. Will you pray for me? And I said, yes, I will pray for you and also, I want to give you this verse, that the Lord will not suffer you to be tempted above what you’re able to bear. And he said, but you didn’t quote the rest of the verse. And I said, well, I couldn’t quote all the Bible at one sitting. I said, I gave you that part of it. Well, he said, the rest of it is, but will with the temptation make a way of escape. Now, what is my way of escape? And I said, my friend, this is just the neat, little way the Lord works with people. He promises them a way of escape. He leads them out and saves them, but he doesn’t show them how ahead of time. If the Lord were to take you aside and give you a schedule, or up in Toronto, they’d say shedule of future events, your head would get so big there isn’t a hat in Cook County would go down on it, not one. You would lose your humility and become so proud, you couldn’t keep from telling you wife and everybody else but what you knew about the future.

So, the Lord says, I will make a way of escape, but you leave the way of escape to Me. And so the Lord says, looking forward to His coming. And I said, when will it be Lord and what will be the signs? The Lord said, now, don’t ask me questions. You leave that to me. And you trust Me and I’ll take care of it. Just believe that there’s to be a shining forth. So I believe there’s a shining forth. And so this is interim.

But what are we to do in this, live in a vacuum? No. We are to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. Soberly, that is my relation to myself. Righteously, that is my relation to my fellow man. Godly, that is my relation to God. And so, there are the three dimensions of the Christian’s life, soberly and righteously and godly; God and others and myself. And you can’t get out of that. And it’s a strange thing that as brilliant as the human mind is and as utterly wonderful as it is, still, we cannot escape these three dimensions. We cannot get beyond them, any more than you can jump into the fourth dimension in space. You’ve got to stay within them. Everything that you can think about, that touches humanity in your life, everything has to do either with yourself, with somebody else, or with God, and there’s no fourth place. Only three. That’s where you live. And so we live soberly and righteously and godly.

Then why? Why did the Lord say there’s to be another epiphany, a shining forth. Why did He say that. He did it because he that hath this hope in Him, purifies himself even as He is pure. The Lord did it. Oh, could we could we pull an illustration out of the air? Suppose that a man has been away. And, oh say, he’s a soldier and he’s been on some duty in some far-away country, in the Far East or in Europe. And he hasn’t been home for a couple of years. And he calls transatlantic telephone and says, I will be in at such and such a time by Air France or some other of the great lines. And I will land at such and such a field and I’ll take a taxi. I should be there by 3:10.

Well, you know what they will do, Mother and the girls? They will clean up that house as it’s never been cleaned up before. They will busy themselves fixing things up. And then the girls will dress themselves up in their finest and wait for their father. Now, that’s what anticipation does. It gets you ready or tends to want to make you want to be ready and to get your work done, and be ready when he comes. So, he that has this hope in him, he purifies himself even as our Lord is pure.

So, the hope of the shining forth, which is yet future, is not a foolish notion held by certain cults. In fact, a very few cults hold it. It is a doctrine held by our fathers back to Paul, Augustine, and all the church fathers down the years. They varied I say in regard to detail and schedule, but they never varied one little bit with regard to the overt fact. He is coming and there is to be a shining forth. And so in the meantime, we do show the Lord’s death until He comes. And there is the beautiful meaning of the Lord’s Supper.

I had not planned to bring this up at all, and this is not dragged in by its ears in order to fit. But just here that I have received of the Lord what I delivered, that the Lord took bread the night He was betrayed and when He’d given thanks, He’d break it. And He said, take and eat. This do in remembrance of me there. That’s the remembrance of the epiphany that was. And as oft as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord’s death until He come. And there is the epiphany that will be. So, that is one of the meanings among many, of the supper of the Lord, that we remember that he died for us. We remember that He’s coming for us. That He died for us is a fact. That He’s coming for us is a fact. How His death for us could prepare us to meet Him, we do not know. When He’s coming, we do not know. That He’s coming, we are certain.

So now, we do show the Lord’s death until He come. Only this you say, what qualifies a person for the Lord’s Supper? The answer is soberly, righteously, godly. Let a man examine himself. Is he living soberly, righteously and godly in this present world, looking. That’s all. Let a man examine himself.

How have you been living? Soberly? Or have you let yourself go? Have you forgot you’re a Christian when you were out on your vacation? Did you do a lot of things you wouldn’t do if you had been home? Strange isn’t it how it works? A tame, domesticated Maltese-type of husband who says yes dear, yes dear all year-long, goes away on convention. And the tamer and the more domesticated he was while staying at home with Mama, the more of a long-eared donkey he made out himself when he got in a strange city on convention. It’s almost always that way.

Now, that ought never to be so of Christians. A Christian is one who carries his shrine with him. His sanctuary is in his heart. And whether he is traveling somewhere to see relatives out in the mountains for a rest wherever it is, he should never be out of his sanctuary. He should be in the holy place because the Holy God is with him and living in his heart. Lo, I’m with you always, even unto the end of the world. How’s it been with you this last week? Have you lived soberly? How’s it been with you and your neighbor? Have you lived righteously or have you had a tiff with somebody two doors away? If you have, don’t take communion this morning. How has it been with you and God? Have you kept up your prayer life and your devotional life and your Bible loving life? I don’t say you haven’t and I don’t ask those questions in a tone of voice tending to accuse. I’m just inquiring.

Now our friends, the brethren will meet us and we will have the Lord’s Supper. We take it once a month in this church, every first Sunday. It’s not for members of this church, but members of the church of Christ. And if you qualify–sober, godly, righteous living and confident faith in our Savior–you join with us because you’re a member of our church anyway, whether we ever saw you before or not. Let’s gather.

Tags God, Grace, Second Coming of Christ, Tozer