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“Danger of Propaganda”

“Message #6 in Dangers in the Way and How to Avoid Them “

May 22, 1955

The fifth chapter of Ephesians, see then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. And I have been pointing out that we as Christians must walk circumspectly, that is, watching and looking around lest we fall into the booby traps placed by our enemy the devil. And today, I want to talk about only one and recommend that we very carefully watch lest we fall into the snare of propagandism. I’ll explain what I mean as I go along.

Everybody knows what propaganda is, or as our British brethren say, propaganda. It became a familiar word during the First World War and was intensified by the Second World War, and is still a very popular English American word almost used to the point where it is a cliche, worn out.

And now there is an enemy in the universe that believes in slavery. He is opposed to God who believes in freedom. And there are two kinds of slavery. There is the slavery of the body, which seeks to control the conduct by physical force. And that slavery, once of course, we had in the United States much to our everlasting historical shame. That there was a day when men, otherwise good men, thought nothing of owning another man. Owning him as you own your car. He could sell him or trade him, own part interested in him, owning partly and be paying on him the same as you do your automobile or your house. That I say was a blot on our history that we never can quite get freed from. We helped to free ourselves from the disgrace of it by abolishing it. And this is not to speak against those who were themselves partakers in this chain. Because they had been brainwashed and properly conditioned psychologically to believe in it. Even the church has helped out there.

But there is the slavery of the body I say, where the control of the conduct is achieved by physical force and where obedience is rendered unwillingly. And the slaves know they’re rendering obedience, and are seeking and longing to be free from the yoke of slavery.

Now, with that we have nothing to do this morning. It’s only an illustration and for the sake of being as broad as we can and making our talks as educational as possible, I mention it. But there is another kind of slavery and that is the slavery of the mind. And the slavery of the mind is achieved, that control is achieved by means of ideas supplied to the mind. And obedience is rendered willingly. And the victims are unaware that they are rendering obedience and are quite satisfied and have no desire to be free from.

Now, there are the two kinds of slavery when you put chains on a man’s ankles and wrists, and he is a slave and knows it. And you’ll look deep into his eyes and you’ll find there the deep solemn revolt of the free human spirit against the bonds of slavery. And there is the slavery that is achieved by conditioning the mind so those who are seeking to make us slaves gets us, make us slaves and get their will over us by feeding us ideas which we adopt and learn to believe in and think are all right, and ignorantly adopt and follow not knowing that we are being conditioned by keen, sharp, unscrupulous minds who are making us slaves. We don’t know that and we render obedience rather willingly and are unaware that we are being controlled.

Now, the greatest war today is the war to win the control of our minds. The greatest war that ever was fought is not in the history books anywhere. It was not fought during the Second World War and nor in Korea nor in the First World War nor the revolutionary nor the Civil nor any of the wars that bloody the pages of history. That those wars were wars of body against body, gun against guns, sword against sword, battalion against battalion. But the greatest war in the world is the war, the battle for our minds. And that is being waged today by every modern, effective technique. It is being waged by the press. And if you could suddenly standoff objectively and look at your own mind and see how much the press has fed into your mind and how you have come to be more or less a creature of the press, you’d be shocked, I’m sure, and you’d spend days in fasting and prayer to get free from it. And of course, another technique being used is that of the school system. Without a school system of course, we would be barbarians and heathen. They must, it must exist; we must have our schools. And then there is the radio which is a new technique for the dissemination of ideas. And it is also being used to help control our mind. And of course, there is the drama which has always been in its various forms, an effective technique for the controlling of the minds of the people.

And then we have developed over the last years, perhaps over the last fifty or sixty years in America, one of the most potent techniques ever devised by the mind of man for the control of the mass thinking of the people, and that is advertising. The advertisers are the best educators in the world. And they’re busy educating us by every means that they know, expensive and carefully thought out means. They are busy controlling our thinking.

Now, the object of course, is to win everyone to think the same. And to think the same on certain subjects, certain great topics on life and love and money and pleasure and marriage and values and religion and the future and God and our relation to God and all the rest. We are being influenced very strongly by these means which I have mentioned, to think the same about life.

Everybody’s a philosopher, only some get the reputation for being philosophers, but everybody’s a philosopher, everybody. The gangster is a philosopher. And the kid who carries a switch knife and attacks another innocent kid on the street and kills him or cuts him up, he’s a philosopher too. If you press him and push him into a corner, he’ll come through with reasons why he did what he did. Reason is philosophy. Whatever you have reason for doing and do, that makes you a philosopher. So, everybody’s a philosopher.

And we have certain philosophies of life or a certain philosophy of life. And we look out upon life and see it from a certain viewpoint, that is philosophy, and that makes us philosophers. And whether we write great big books and call ourselves by that name or whether we’re simple people who would smile at a thought we’re philosophers. We are all philosophers nevertheless.

Now who’s going to control our philosophy? Who is going to determine our outlook upon life? Who’s going to decide? You say, I do that myself. Oh, don’t make me laugh brother. You don’t do that yourself at all. You only think you do. And I only think I do if I indeed didn’t know that I didn’t.

And then we have to have our viewpoint on love. What is this love business anyhow? All you have to do is switch a button and they will be telling you what it is and what it isn’t. And we get our ideas about human love; love between the sexes and love in the society. We get that from the radio. We get it from the newspaper and from the press generally, and from advertising.

And then, when comes such thing as money, we think of money what the press tells us to think of money, what the radio suggests we think of money, what we have learned at school about money. And then when it comes to pleasures, our attitude toward life, toward pleasures, say toward just almost anything, innocent and harmful, either one or both, we learn from the world. They control our mind. And they get us to thinking about it the way they want us to think. And they do it I say, by means of the press, school, radio, drama, and advertising and perhaps a few other minor techniques. And about religion and values and the future and God, those are of course the most important. What I think about money is important, but what I think about God is still more important. And there has not been a time probably since the Great Awakening under Jonathan Edwards, when there was more religion in the country than there is now, when more people talk about religion. We are now being bombarded by persons who are trying to persuade us to think a certain way about religion and God and human values and the future life and our relation to God in the future life.

Now, we’re going to be what they make us, unless of course we stage a revolt, which I trust I may stir you up to today. Now of course, the strategy to achieve these objectives is to control our conduct by disseminating ideas, and to gain acceptance for the counsel of the ungodly. The Bible talks about the counsel of the ungodly and pronounces a blessing upon the man who walketh not in it. We always must keep in mind this is a fallen world. And whatever originates in the world is bound to be bad and godless. That is, whatever originates in organized society. What originates in nature, the grass, the birds, the flowers, the simple appetites of life, they’re not bad. But whatever originates in fallen minds and fallen hearts and gets acceptance by society is godless. And the word of God was given to us to counteract the godless counsel of ungodly men, and to form our minds, not by all these techniques, but by God Himself.

The God who made us gave us a Bible and sent the Holy Ghost to interpret it to us in order that He may control our minds. And He who made our minds might mold them again. And he who made them once might remake them from their fall. And He who is the source and object of all are blessing and love, that that God wants to control our minds. He has no hesitation in saying that we’re to have the mind of Christ. Somebody is going to control my mind. Who is it? Is it going to be the advertiser? Is it going to be the public school? Is it going to be drama or the press or the radio? Or is it going to be God? You’ve got to make up your mind on that my friend, whether you want to or not, somebody is going to control your mind. Now, who is it?

And the Bible has given us that our minds might be directed. Wherewith, says the Holy Ghost, shall young men cleanse his way, by taking heed according to Thy word. How shall my ignorance become wisdom–by the Word of God? How shall my false notions become right notions–by being corrected by the Word of God? How shall my darkness become light–by this Book which is a light into my pathway. And it is from this Book, and from the Book interpreted by the Spirit that I gain the heavenly and final and right ideas about love and marriage and life and money and pleasures and values and God, and my relation to God and the future life and my status in that life is from the Word of God that I get.

So, the warfare is on between the counsel of the ungodly and the counsel of God. And now, which is it shall control our minds? My brother, you are a pawn and a puppet caught in between. And if you’re not awakened to it, you will learn the ways of Babylon and Egypt and pick up their notions and think the way they think, and value what they value, and love what they love, and ignore what they ignore. Be not foolish, but wise know what the will of the Lord is. Let him that is asleep, wake out of his sleep and God will give him life says the Holy Ghost.

Now, the Christian receives another mind and it is the mind of the redeemed. It’s a redeemed mind, a recreated mind, and it is committed to Christ. You say, is not that another kind of slavery? That is the slavery of love. That is the slavery of worship. That is the slavery of extreme joy. That is the slavery of the highest ecstasy. Paul, who lived in a slave state where slaves were common sights on the street, Paul said, I am a slave of Jesus Christ. Wherever the word servant occurs in the New Testament, you can write slave in. Well, that’s what he meant. He had no thought of a paid servant who comes at nine and leaves at five and get their pay and go. That’s unknown in the Bible I think. The word is slave there. And Paul told the people openly all the time, that he was a slave to God Almighty and a slave to Jesus Christ, but there is the freedom.

Let me ask the young mother, who with shining eyes looks upon her little baby. Let me ask that young mother, are you as free as you used to be? And she smiles and says no, I have to stay in a lot now. I used to be able to go everywhere with my husband, but I can’t now. He goes and I have to stay home. And you say to her, are you sorry? And she smiles and says, sorry? Would you like to have it all undone? Would like to get rid of the little monkey? Don’t you want him around? And she laughs and says, oh, don’t talk like that. Why, the slavery to this little fellow is nothing. I love it.

Love never feels slavery. And love never knows bondage. And that obedience to Jesus Christ which Paul calls slavery, is not the slavery that imposes itself from the outside by laws, nor imposes itself by the introduction of alien ideas into the mind. It is the happy joy of bondage of freedom and love. And the holiest and freest creature in heaven above is the angel that is the nearest the throne of God. And those creatures that bow and spread their wings, and run swift as light to do the will of God, and have no mind but God’s, no will but His, they’re the freest creatures in all the universe. And those that try to be free from the will of God, succeed only in becoming victims to the propagandists. Those who propagandize us into slavery and make us think the same as they think and feel the same as they feel about things and they’re slaves.

And it is the psychology of the servile slave, the vehicle and utensil of the master that cannot call his mind his own. The bird that flies in the air is free, and yet it is bound by the laws of aerodynamics. The stars that move in around their ancient and unmeasured orbits are free because they’re doing the will of God. And wherever we do the will of God, we’re free. And wherever we break from the will of God, we’re slaves. And it says in Romans that he that sins, is a slave of sin. That he that does the will of God, it elsewhere tells us, is the free happy servant of God.

So, let’s beware of the propagandists. And let’s be aware propagandism. For the world is trying to capture, and it’s a startling and shocking thing. The world is trying to capture the mind of the saints, and they are being captured. And we’re being made victims of the world’s propaganda. And the sad thing is, we don’t know it.

If there was a law passed in the halls in Washington that said, you can’t go to church at 70th and Union, and if you do, you shall be fined. And if you shall repeat the offense, you shall be jailed. We would know where we stood. And every last one of you Protestant Americans would stand up and put your chin high, and say if God helps me, I’ll never come under that decree. I go to church when I please. And I will pray to God as I want to. My fathers founded this nation dedicated to the proposition that every man should worship God according to the dictates of his own heart and I will not stay away from church because Congress said I should and the President signed it. That would never happen while we have our present set up in Washington. I’m using an illustration merely, but I say, if they ever got there, we know where we stood. And we draw the line sharp and we’d say, who’s on the Lord side? Let him come over. And there would be a tread of men’s feet, an army that would shake the earth, of free Protestant American men who would say, I will not bow to the state.

But they’re not doing it that way. It’s sharper and wiser. The devil is too much of a strategist to treat us like that. So, he’s busy brainwashing us, and conditioning us little by little, and feeding his ideas into the church, the counsel of the ungodly. And as the ideas of the ungodly enter the church, the ideas of God go out. And as the counsel of the ungodly come in, the counsel of the God goes out. And my crusade in the day in which I live, is to wake the church and rouse it to the fact that it’s being brainwashed and propagandized into accepting that which it would never accept if it was a law in Washington. We won’t bow a supple knee to any man who says you worship the way I tell you. But little by little, we’re getting their ideas; willing and unaware and satisfied, we’re being brainwashed.

Do you remember old Lot back in in Sodom? He had his whole family there. He went down for economic reasons because the grass was green. He rapidly rose to be, they say, the mayor of the city. He sat in the gate and they say the mayor was the one who sat in the gate. And his family was quite well known in the city. And they were slowly propagandized, brainwashed. Old Lot resisted it. He had enough of contact with Abraham. He had sat where Abraham sat. He’d walked with Abraham. He’d heard Abraham pray. And after having heard Abraham the Hebrew offer prayers to God, you never could quite accept the brainwashing of Sodom.

So, Lot vexed his righteous soul. Thank God for those words, vexed and righteous, in the same man’s heart. He vexed his righteous soul. He was a part of it, but he hated it. When Sodom put on her big shows, he heard the voice of Abraham raised in prayer. In memory, he heard it, and it still rang in his ears and it poisoned all of the pleasures of Sodom. But he wasn’t big enough to get up and walk out. For economic reasons he stayed in Sodom and hated it. And remembered the prayers of his old uncle and loved them and was caught in the middle. But his family wasn’t so strong and they weren’t so lucky. They got poisoned, his sons in law. They were propagandized into becoming Sodomites. And when God Almighty raised his mighty atom bomb to hurl on Sodom and sent fire out from His fingertips to destroy that city. Lot fled, fled with these two daughters. His wife never quite made it. She’d been brainwashed. She never quite made it. And a Lot escaped with his two daughters; that even his two daughters had been poisoned. For the sake of common social decency, I’ll not go into it, but you know what happened?

Well, then there was Israel. Israel went down into Egypt and for 400 years, they were subjected to the propaganda of the Egyptians. They kept themselves aloof, but they learned the ways of Egypt and came back out idolaters. And they were idolaters until Moses brought down the law from the Mount and corrected their wrong thinking and put away their idolatry and laid the law down for them and gave them the Word of God. And then slowly they got among the nations and the nations got among them over in Palestine after they had entered across the sea or river and had gone into the Holy Land as we call it. And there they learned the ways of the heathen, the Jebusites and the Hittites and the rest of them that should have been purged out of the land, were left in the land, and Israel learned the evil ways of the nations. You know the result was the Babylonian captivity, the captivity that finally destroyed idolatry. Israel had never worshipped idols since she spent 70 years in captivity in Babylon.

I wonder what it’s going to take to wake the church up. I wonder what kind of Babylon and beside what waters we’re going to sit bitterly and hang our harps and refuse to sing. I wonder what Ezra or Nehemiah will be sent to lead us back to the land again, purged of our idolatry and our brains that were washed, washed again, by this time by the blood of the Lamb. And the way the world is using the church in our day, to achieve its ends, I think of the fate of the scarlet woman.

I don’t preach on prophecy much, though I believe in it. And I believe on the coming of Jesus to the world again. But here was the scarlet woman and the world used her. And they exalted her to sit upon many waters. And they used her to achieve their ends. And then when they had done what they wanted to do, they turned on her says the Scripture and they hated her and made her desolate and naked, then they burned her with fire. And as long as religious people can be the pawns and cat paws of the propagandists, and can be made useful, they’ll put up with us. But if ever we cross them in anything, or oppose them or dare to stand up as free men in God and say that isn’t the way I see it, we’ll be branded as another sect and despised and given the silent treatment. The Press gives space to those it can use and the silent treatment to those it cannot.

Now, the only way to help the world, my brethren, is to stay free from its brainwashing. The man who has adopted its ways can never help it. It is by standing aloof from it that we can help it. The man who is aloof is the only man that can do any good. In the day when Hitler was taking over Germany there was only one man with any prominence who dared stand and say God is mein fuhrer. And you know who he was. He was not perfect. I’m not here giving a blanket approval of everything Niemoller stands for, or Niemoller. I’m only saying that there was a man who dared to stand and say, God is my leader, whatever you think. And said the public press, He stood in such spiritual dignity that he turned the tables on the court that was trying him. And the man of God with nothing but his Bible became the judge. And the judge that sentenced him became the defendant. They turned around and put him under what they called protective custody, the liars. They put him in prison, and there in his prison, so nervous, so sick, that he couldn’t even take communion because the passion and joy of it affected him so nervously, He said, Don’t bring it anymore. I can’t take it. He isn’t perfect, and he’s not an Alliance man by any means, but he was God’s man to stand in an awful hour.

The sycophants and brainwashed camp followers of Hitler could do no good in that hour. And the prophets hiding in caves could do no good. But the man who stood before a court knowing that he might easily be shot against the wall, he did some good. And he gave heart to the heartless and hope to the hopeless and strength to the weak and wobbly. And what little there is left of godliness back yonder in Germany may have easily be attributed to the man who was free and would not come under the yoke.

They say that you can only help it by staying above it. And if need be, go on contrary to it. Funny, isn’t it? That you can only help a sinner by going contrary to him. You wives will find that out. Many a wife with a testimony who was a real Christian, she listened to her husband’s blandishments. And he said to her, Honey, I am not against your religion at all. But I just want to think that if I go to your church, you ought to go with me. And so little by little she went and her testimony went to the dogs. Pretty soon instead of her standing out, clean and bold and opposed to all of his doings, she went with him and pretty soon lost her testimony. And now they’re back where they were. And she has nothing but a sick memory inside of her heart, and he’s had his way.

Now, sir, we help people not by going with him. You gamble with me Honey tonight and I’ll go to church with you tomorrow morning. So, until three o’clock they play their games. And the next morning, tired and weary with a hangover, they get up and go to church. She’s sick inside, but too weak to say anything about it. That’s happened so often.

And the young fellow sees that pretty girl. Ah, they can be so attractive. They can knock the young fellow clear off his feet. And he’s a Christian, a Christian. He’s given his heart to Jesus. But he likes the look of that girl. And so, they go out together. Pretty soon she’s brainwashed him. And he says, well, maybe they are a bit radical down at my church, maybe they are. And when she gets him doing things she does and going to places she goes and looking at life as she looks at it and adopting her philosophy of values and all, he’s lost his testimony. And they married, bring up a family without God and without the church. And all he has is a sick memory. And when he hears a hymn, he feels like a dog. And when he hears a church bell, he feels like a dog. He’s been propagandized, caught in the net of the world.

Do you know there’s only one way to help the world, and that is, stand clean of it. There’s only one way to bless mankind and that is, oppose mankind. Wherever he’s wrong and wherever he’s different from God, oppose him. It means that brother must be divided from brother and husband from wife and children from parents. Jesus said, if anybody come to me and hate not father and mother and home and life and everything, he’s not worthy to be my disciple. That’s why we don’t have crowds rushing in here and filling the balcony and hanging out the window. Nobody, not many people want to hear this. But my days of talking to people may not be as many as some younger fellows, so I’m not going to let you down. I’m telling you, you must walk circumspectly and beware of the propagandists and look out. Don’t sell yourself. And don’t allow yourself slowly to be reasoned into wrong by the counsel of the ungodly. Better to be radical on the right side than weak on the wrong side. Better go too far than not far enough. If there’s a atom bomb or hydrogen bomb going to break over the loop, if I can go down five stories that may be four too many, but it’s better to go down five than your risk dying, by only going down one. And incidentally, you can go down five stories. You know it’s underground down, yeah; I’ve been down. I went into a building. I think it is the building where Mr. Sandrock used to have a high position. And I went down and down and down. I think it was five stories below the ground if I remember. They took me down, four at least. And if when the atom bomb breaks, I get scared and run down four stories, somebody will laugh and say that’s three more than you needed to go. I say all right, better be safe by going too far, than being imperiled but not going far enough.

So, we’d better say to the world. I’m sorry. The world says, oh, you’re narrow. You say, maybe I am narrow. But the way is narrow and the path to heaven isn’t as broad as a sixteen-lane highway. And thou I am too narrow; I’m walking with my God. Maybe our pilgrim fathers were too narrow. I rather think that were. I think they went too far when they told the children that they could not laugh on the Sabbath. I think so. I think they went too far when they said a man could not kiss his wife on the Sabbath. I think they went too far. I think they went too far when they said you could not walk down the lane in your garden, pick up an onion and eat it, or any fruit. They couldn’t stand their eyes to look at the sun and said that’s harvesting and it can’t be done. I think they went too far. But better to have a strong testimony in the right direction, even if it goes too far, then to have all this weak compromise that’s cursing us today.

I was over in last year about a year ago now. No, it wasn’t, just about, yes, about a year ago, I was over in Grantham, Pennsylvania. At Messiah college, they asked me to come over and speak three times. I told you about it then. You’ve forgotten it now. They wanted me to speak to the publication department, to the Sunday school department. And what else was it? I forgotten, but there were three departments. I knew nothing about any, so I spoke on all three. And I said to them, now, I’m not going to speak to you as a writer nor editor, and I’m not going to speak to you as a Sunday school man. I’m not going to speak to you as whatever this other thing was. I said, I’m going to speak to you as a preacher preaching to your hearts. They said, we’d love it. That’s just what we want. So, I tied it in and somehow got away with it.

Well, there were 900 people there at that council. And they were packed into that building listening while I talked to them. And they were the plain people. You know what they, are the plain people? The women dress in plain garments. They keep a covering on their head all the time, white or black or both. I stopped a woman and I said to her, she’s nice looking, middle-aged woman. And I said, excuse me, but I’d like to know why do some of you wear white on top of your head and some black. She took the black off and showed me the white. She said, well, the white’s always got to be there, but the black you put on for when you go out. Very kind, very friendly and joy, jolly about everything. And I said to one of their leaders. The men wear uniforms, and they’re plain people. Some of the older fellows have long, silky beards. No ties. I had a tie on there as loud as ever. And I was dressed just the way we preachers dress. And I didn’t apologize nor even refer to it. I just figured they’d invited me there; that I wasn’t going to wear old for them.

So, I got to talk to one of their leaders, the brother of the president of their society, or their bishop or whatever he calls himself. They’ve got a lot of bishops. And he said you know Mr. Tozer, we’re wondering whether perhaps we’re not extreme. We’re not going too far and our separation from the world and being plain people.  We’re wondering whether we’re not carrying it too far. And there’s a strong movement toward conformity with the world.

And I said to him, Mr. Hostetter, I’d like to give you some advice as a Gentile; as a man from the outside your little room and I’d like to give you some advice. Don’t change. Even though you’re extreme. And even though what you’ve done is wrong. Even though wearing beards and head coverings is in Scripture. At least stand as a testimony in this terrible hour to something godly, even if it’s a hat on your hand or the beard on your chin. I said stand. Don’t let them make another little worldly denomination out of you. If you got any conviction, stand by your convictions. Wash the feet of the saints with water. They wash feet. He invited me down. But I was tired and didn’t go. I went to bed and let them wash feet. But if you want to wash feet, and if you want to dress plain, and if they want to do these simple, old fashioned plain things in God’s name, let them do it. I said stick by your guns and don’t surrender, even though you’re extreme, and even though it doesn’t have much value, be a testimony to something in this terrible hour. And that was my advice. I don’t know whether it’ll do any good or not. That’s what I told them.

So, let’s stand out even if it we’re wrong. I mean even if it’s extreme. Let’s stand out. Let’s be known as Christians separated unto God.  And if the world laughs, and the other churches laugh and say what’s the matter with you Alliance people. Are you a holy roller? Say no. I’m not as holy as I want to be. I’m too stiff to roll. I can’t do much good rolling. So, I’m not a holy roller. I’m just a believer in the Word of God. And if I go too far, you will forgive me. But I’d rather go too far than not far enough. Amen. The only slavery I recommend is the sweet slavery of His yoke which is easy and his burden is light. The yoke of Jesus is a love yoke. The yoke that binds us to the essence and center and Son of all that’s desirable and loving and wonderful and good. Put His yoke upon you and the yoke of the world will drop away. Amen, and amen. All right.

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“Dangers of Arrogance and Defeat”

“Message #5 in Dangers in the Way and How to Avoid Them “

May 15, 1955
Arrogance is that sin that follows in the wake of success. You know, it’s an old trick of radio and theatre and newspapers and novels and all the rest; the arrogance of the rich lady. I’ve seen a few of them in my time. I know their voices when I hear them on trains or hotel lobbies. I know their voices. They’ve bought their way through life. They’ve bought their way through. They only have to pay for it and get it and boss everybody around. They had the money to pay for it. And so, the maid became a slave, and the gardener became a slave, and everybody became a slave, and bought their way through. And they get a tone of voice. I’ve heard a tone of voice. Somebody addressing somebody else and turned around and said, now that’s a dowager, that’s a dowager. And sure enough, there she would be. They’re always big. I wonder why? I never figured that one out. But they’re always big. You never saw a little dowager. They’re always big. But there’s that tone of command and that superior look and superior way of bearing, even though it takes several dressmakers and lots of other people to help them. They learn to so balance themselves that they’ve got pride and arrogance sticking out all the way around.

And now that’s bad, brother, and it’s always bad when it gets into the church of God, the successful man. I remember once I tried to call a very famous preacher and ask him if he’d come and preach. And I couldn’t even reach him. He was too busy. He couldn’t talk to me. It was good many years ago, I don’t know whether he would talk to me now or not in deference to my advancing years. But he wouldn’t then. The Lord will always punish us for that kind of thing, brothers and sisters. God will never let you high hat anybody else. Never, if you’re a Christian. Now, if you’re a sinner, God won’t care. It’s just one more sin and you will carry that one to hell with you with all the rest. But if you’re a Christian, the Lord who loves you too much by letting you get away with it, to let you get away with it. So, watch out for arrogance. Watch out for the danger of arrogance; assuming that you are somebody indeed. The Lord had no servants. He bossed nobody around. He was the Lord, but he never took the tyrannical attitude toward anybody. You say, what will the Lord do then if I get arrogant and presumptuous and full of pride over my victory and success. Well, the Lord will rebuke you and chasten you painfully.

Our Lord Jesus Christ once, rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday centuries ago. He was a carpenter’s son, they thought, at least the son of the wife of a carpenter, though God was his true Father. He was not brought up in the schools. He did not know nor use the jargon of the learned halls. He spoke the plain language of the Jerusalem streets. And then one day, they put him on a little donkey, strew palm branches and garments in the way and the mobs lined the streets on all sides and shouted, Hosanna to Him that cometh in the name of the Lord. There was success. There was recognition. There was honor to whom honor was due. There was public acclaim. There would have been the place where Jesus suddenly could say, well, maybe the devil was right. Maybe I can be king of the world. Maybe my friends who wanted me to be king were right about this. And He could have reached into the depths of His mighty power and become king overnight. But He dismissed the little donkey, went into the temple and cleansed it, and then a week later went out to die. He would not allow any success of any kind, any temporary success, to lead him astray.

You want to watch it. If you get established and accepted in your field as being a victorious, successful person, you’re in danger. And if in your Christian life, you make some strides forward, you’re in danger. The old devotional writers would not grant that any man had made any forward progress, if he knew it. They always said he’s conscious that he’s getting somewhere in the kingdom of God. That’s pride, and until that dies, he’s getting nowhere. And Paul said if any man thinketh that he amounts to anything, let him know that he won’t amount to anything until he gets over it. That’s paraphrased, but it’s approximately what Paul said.

So, let’s remember, they may say Hosanna today, but next Friday they’ll say, away with this man from the earth. Crucify Him, crucify him. And the same crowd, the same multitude that said, Hosanna, said, crucify Him. So, keep that in mind. The great politician today can be executed tomorrow or in jail. A man highly honored today can be looked upon with scorn tomorrow. And the same crowd that thought you were worthy of acclaim today, may turn their backs on you tomorrow. Never tie yourself up to public opinion, and never accept any success you may have as being due to your superior gifts. Thank God for anything you get and then go on.

Now, second is the danger of defeat or in failure. That’s exactly of course the opposite. The best example of this that I know of is where defeat came upon failure. You remember the famous battle of the Walls of Jericho, and how the walls came tumbling down. And Israel became overconfident, misplaced her confidence and thought she was doing it and went out to Ai. And they only took a few thousand along. They said, look what we did at Jericho and they hadn’t done anything, only shout and blow a ram’s horn. God had done it all, but they thought they had done it. I don’t know how they figured it. They must have thought the wind from the horn blew the walls down, for they thought they had done it. So, the next day or so, they said oh, we’ll take Ai and said boy, we’re really, we’re in high gear now. And nothing generates success like success. And we’ll don’t take Ai the same as we took Jericho. And they went out with their chest high and their heads held high and fled ignominiously before those of Ai and 35,000 died. Their defeat followed their victory as effect follows cause.

So, there’s danger that we have. There’s danger in defeat or failure. It can plunge us into discouragement. That is, it can take out of our spirit, hope and optimism and drive. Discouragement, incidentally, is hardly a sin, but it can lead to any number of sins. Of course, to discourage is to dishearten. It’s to weaken the intention to want stomach for religion. That’s an old Shakespearean expression that I run into every once in a while. I like it. He says, he hath no stomach for it, meaning that he just hasn’t any zeal for that job. He doesn’t like it. Like a sick person who’s completely lost his appetite. And they say, but you must eat, but he said I have absolutely no appetite. Then he forces something down. That’s discouragement. That’s loss of stomach.

And in the kingdom of God a lack of victory, a defeat or two, a good hard reversal, often drives us into a state where we have no stomach for anything. We pray, but we have no stomach for it. We take it like food we don’t enjoy. We go to church, but we don’t care for the church. Nothing means anything to us. The hymns are dull and tasteless and the sermon is a bore. And the whole thing is tasteless, because we have lost our stomach. We are disheartened. We’re discouraged. And there are a lot of God’s people that have done it. Now, they haven’t become unborn again. They haven’t lost eternal life. Their relation to God hasn’t changed any. They’re still his children. Christ is still pleading their cause at the right hand of the Father. Heaven is still their home. But for the time being, they’ve lost their stomachs. They have no appetite. They’ve been defeated. And so defeatism has got hold of them. Lots of churches are like that. I’ve gone into churches where it was obvious that nobody expected anything to happen. And the result of course is what you’d expect, nothing did.

Now, the danger of defeat is that it will bring defeatism. It is never a disgrace to lose, but it’s questionable to allow your loss to give you a psychology of defeat. And that’s what can happen if we don’t look out. There’s a real danger in defeat. It is as though a man were to slip and fall on an icy sidewalk. And then he would say, I don’t suppose there’s any use for me to try it again. But he would finally struggle to his feet and go another block and fall again. Then he would say, well, I know something is seriously wrong with my equilibrium. And I’ll have to, I’ll have to accept myself now. I never can walk up right again on ice. Well, of course, he’d have to go to bed too. But that’s defeatism. It’s the allowing of a reverse to put a permanent reverse in your heart. A Good man falleth seven times but he getteth up again, says the Proverbs.

I remember once over in one of our Eastern conferences, walking by a porch and there on the porch sat a young preacher, a fine-looking young fellow. But that morning, his chin was just about reaching the ground. And I started to tease him bit and gave him a nice pleasantry, and no response, no response. He didn’t smile, didn’t respond, except to say, Mr. Tozer, something awful has happened to me. Something awful has happened to me. And I said, what’s the matter? What’s happened here? Well, he said, I just took my examination for ordination and I flunked it. I flunked my examination, and they won’t ordain me.

And I said, listen, Lincoln was defeated twice before he was elected. If God has called you, go to your examining board and find out what you didn’t know, buy some books and study up on it and ask for another examination. And his chin began to come up, at least where you could see it, or I could see it. And he said, that is what you would suggest? I said, sure, don’t allow a little thing like this to get you down. If God has called you, He’s not withdrawing the call because there were some questions you couldn’t answer it. Study up on it. Find out what the trouble is and bore into the book and get hold of it and pray and ask God to help you, and the next time you go through all right, and that’s just exactly what happened. He’s now one of our successful young pastors, getting along fine. But if somebody hadn’t come around there, it might have been the end for him. He’d probably got in the old Chevrolet and gone home and said there’s no use. God has let me down; the Spirit has deserted me and I don’t even know enough to pass an examination. You can’t quit like that brethren, you can’t.

Suppose you pray for something and you don’t get it and it’s obvious, you’re not going to get it. Don’t let that finish you off. Maybe you’re not living right. Maybe you’re praying selfishly. Maybe you’ve misunderstood the will of God. Go to the Scriptures. Search it out and get right with God. Give God a chance at you. And then, try it again and press on. And finally, the Lord will either tell you, now hold on, you’re praying for the wrong thing. Pray for this thing and He’ll give it to you, or else we’ll give you what you prayed for in the first time, but don’t be defeated. I don’t have this long face for nothing brothers and sisters. I am a born pessimist. And I can see the dark side of the fleeciest cloud that ever floated in this cerulean blue above. But I’ve trained myself by the Word of God and prayer never to look that way at things, but to take God’s side and take the resurrection side and the victory side and live on that side of things.

Now, I want to give you some rules and if you haven’t gotten anything up to here maybe you’ll get help here. I want to give you some rules for the moment of discouragement, the hour when you have no stomach. You know you ought to eat but nothing tastes good. Prayer doesn’t taste good; you feel you’ve failed. You’ve been defeated in your work and your effort. Either in your business or in your school work or in your spiritual religious work. The class got smaller soon as you took it.

We tried to elected a superintendent here one time. Brother Chase will remember this but nobody else does; a wonderful man. We liked him so well we wanted to make him superintendent of the Sunday school and we suggested to him, brother, the nominating committee would like to present your name. What do you say? They like you and we think the church would like to have you as superintendent. No doubt you’ll be elected. Well, he said, I don’t like to turn you down, but he said, my past experience has not been very encouraging. He said one time I was superintendent of Sunday school and the Sunday school got smaller and smaller from the time I took it over. And at another time in a different church, I was superintendent of the Sunday school and the Sunday school not only got smaller and smaller, but the church closed up. And I said, brother, we won’t say any more about it. The nominating committee will no doubt will want to look for somebody else. Now, I have no doubt, but what that gentleman had been the victim of a couple of funny coincidences. And I believe that if with the help he would have had and the prayers of the people and if he’d had a new psychology, a new outlook, I believe he could have succeeded in the Sunday school. But you can’t take a man who has no stomach and force-feed him. So, we didn’t force feed him. We elected somebody else.

But now, if your class has gotten smaller and your prayers just aren’t seeming to get answered, and somebody has, in a roundabout way, suggested that you’re not what you thought you were. Maybe you sing. Maybe you were an artist. Maybe you paint on china. Maybe you’re a budding architect. Maybe you’ve got a professional job, and you’re not getting the recognition that you think you should have, and you’re just discouraged.

Now, I want to give you four rules. And if you’ll remember these, they’ll help you. First, do not accept the judgment of your own heart about yourself, because anybody’s heart is likely to go astray. And a discouraged heart will always go astray. So don’t think about yourself the way you feel about yourself. Don’t accept the testimony of your own heart about yourself. Go to God and Christ. God loved you; Christ loved you enough to die for you. He thought you were worth something. If you’re a converted man, the Holy Ghost dwells in some measure in your bosom. And he hasn’t turned you away. And if everybody else thinks and the gossips and those that talk around behind your back, and it gets to you. They think you’re not so good in your profession. They think your voice isn’t quite as glorious as you would like to think it is. Maybe your brains and wisdom are not as great as you’d like to think they are. Somebody has gotten the news and it got around to you by the grapevine, and you’ve heard it and your blue.

First, don’t accept the judgment of your own discouraged heart about yourself. If Gideon had accepted the judgment of his own heart, he would have stayed in that depression and pounded out a few grapes and made a little wine and a little oil and kept out of sight. But God came to that defeated, discouraged Gideon and said, get up thou mighty man of God. And he said, did you mean me? Me, a mighty man of God hiding in a hole in the ground? He said, you say, me? God said, I said you. Get up. Get up. He got up. And he accepted God’s judgment of him and went out and became victorious and put the Midianites straight.

The second rule is, make no important decisions while you’re discouraged. Now, this is serious. Make no important decisions while you’re discouraged. If he has proposed, never say yes, while you’re down, as if anybody ever was down under those circumstances. I don’t know. I’ll back out on that one. But never say yes to anything and never say no to anything while you’re blue. Get up, look down on it and then make your decision. Because if you make a decision when you’re discouraged, it’ll be the wrong decision every time. Never resign when you’re discouraged. I suppose there isn’t a pastor in all of Cook County that hasn’t at some time written out his resignation on Saturday, and then Sunday, the blessing came and he tore it up. Don’t write out your resignation when you’re discouraged. Don’t resign from anything when you’re discouraged. When you’re down and blue, don’t move. Don’t sell your property. Don’t buy a property. Don’t accept a job. Don’t do anything when you’re down. Get down before God and get straightened out. Get the sunshine in. Ask God to roll the clouds away and give you the light of His countenance. Take the defeat out of your spirit and the reverses out of your heart. And then, when you’re on top of the world and you say well, I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me, then make your decision.

Now, third thing is, remember that failure, whether it’s business failure or any other kind of failure, doesn’t make you any less dear to God. Oh, I’m so glad God doesn’t look at our bank balance to know how much to love us. Preachers sometimes do. They’re always careful to play golf with the big boys. And the little boys that can’t help them much, they don’t. Now, that’s unkind, but then I am an unkind man when I have to tell truth. And I know literally, that’s so. Some fellows love to cultivate the boys with the bank account. And they’re just as good as anybody else as far as that’s concerned, God bless them, because they will give most of it to missions if they’re in the Alliance anyhow. But remember that the fact that you have failed doesn’t make God any less loving towards you and doesn’t affect God’s love for you at all. Neither does it affect the promises. And the fourth thing is remember the promises of God. Go to the Bible and read the promises. Read the promises. Read the promises until your heart begins to leap with the joy of the promises. They’re still good, even though you’ve suffered reverses.

Now, I close. Today, God is everything. Not success, not victory, but God. Not winning, not losing, but God. God is everything. My victory can’t enrich God and my defeat cannot impoverish God. If I make good, I bring God nothing. And if I peter out, I robbed God of nothing, if my heart’s honest and I’m right. God is our Rock it says back here, and our Fortress and our Deliverer and our Buckler and our Strength and our High Tower. And He sent from above and He took me and He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them which hated me. He brought me forth also to a large place and He delivered me because He delighted in me.

Now, I have this little verse. I’ve loved it for years and I’ll give it to you. Thou wilt light my candle. The Lord God will enlightened my darkness. This poor, little light of mine. Maybe it’s gone out. Maybe the little candle has gone out. Well, God will light your candle for you. He’ll light it and He will enlighten your darkness. Believe it? Amen. All right. God is our refuge and we’re not going to let victory spoil us nor defeat, defeat us. We’re going to take them in stride, win or lose, we’re on God’s side. And if we keep away from sin, and keep above it all and keep happy in God, we’re winning whether we know it or not. So, we can be just as happy when we’re not happy, as we are when we are happy, because that is the prerogative of faith.

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Tozer Talks

“Dangers of Bondage and Liberty”

“Message #4 in Dangers in the Way and How to Avoid Them “

May 8, 1955

In the book of Ephesians, the fifth chapter, fifteenth verse, see then that you walk circumspectly. Not as fools, but as wise, if you walk looking around.

Now over the past few weeks, I have been preaching on the dangers in the way. And I have previously shown that there are dangers to the Christian life. But that there is escape from those dangers, and protection in the midst of them. Then, I went on to warn, and point out by name, some of these dangers. I spoke of the danger of prosperity and the danger of adversity. And last week of the danger that lies in idleness and the danger that lies in busyness. Today, I want to talk about the danger that lies in bondage and the danger that lies in liberty. We’ll consider them in that order.

The danger of bondage. Now, Galatians 5:1, the man of God says that we are to be careful and not return again to the yoke of bondage from which we were once delivered. And I want to talk about the bondage to superstition, and bondage to legalistic forms, and bondage to externals such as food and dress, and bondage to holidays and seasons.

Now, first of all, the bondage to superstition. You might wonder why I should speak thus at a time or to a congregation like this because superstition is something that American people laugh about in public. Superstition as they say, an abject attitude of mind toward nature founded upon ignorance. It is a belief in magic and chance. Now, there are those that tell us that the hope of the world is returning to primitive conditions. And they say why do you go into the Baliem Valley, the Shangri-La of World War, and there, 150,000 Monies and Donies who are stone age people. Why don’t you let them alone? You will take to them the common cold, tooth decay, bad digestion, tuberculosis, and all others; the white man’s curses. Why don’t you leave them in their simple childlike beauty?

Well, whoever talks like that is talking from the airless ivory tower, completely out of touch with reality. Ask any missionary whether there is such a tribe on the face of the earth. There is none. Not one. Superstition rides the primitive peoples of the world; rides them like iron yokes. It keeps them in constant bondage. And they carry a ball and chain heavier than that, that used to be welded upon the legs of convicts in the olden days. They are afraid of everything. They’re afraid of the sun. They’re afraid of the stars at night. They’re terrified at an eclipse. They’re afraid of the wind. They’re afraid of the cry of the night bird. They’re afraid of everything and live in a state of trembling terror. When twins are born in some parts of the heathen world, they save the first twin because they say that God sent that one, but they take the second one out and pound this helpless little mouth full of hot sand and kill it. They say it’s a child of the devil.

And so, superstition rides the primitive peoples of the world constantly. There is the fear of the spell and the charm and the evil eye, magic and enchantment and witchery and sorcery, and bondage to the amulet and the incantation and the taboo. All of these things are found in the heathen lands. And now if that were all, then I suppose that I would save myself the trouble of preaching except I would use it as a reason we should become missionary-minded and send missionaries to these benighted people. But superstition is found wherever men are found. It is refined, and some of the grosser manifestations are probably not present, but most people are superstitious. I know in the part of the country where I came from, superstition had become a chain, had become a yoke, perhaps, if not an iron yoke, at least a wooden yoke. And it rested upon the shoulders of the simple country people and rode them all their lives long.

Now, superstition is not something to joke about as we do now. It is a specific defamation of the character of God. For superstition assumes, without knowing it, that God is weak and so can’t control things. They’re afraid of devils and combinations of numbers and certain days, and stars and they come to the nations in certain combinations of star patterns. They’re afraid of them, assuming all the time that God created a juggernaut which he can’t control, and that the universe is too big for Him and that God moves about and hurries here and there excitedly through His universe as an old maid who took a tiger cub home with her. And now it’s grown to full adulthood and turned vicious and roams the house while she cowers in terror in some closet waiting for the police to come.

So, God is pictured by the superstitious man as being a little limited God who created a universe over which He can’t have full control. And so, witches and spells and incantations and devils and demons and omens, and the rest, roam up and down the earth. And God hides in some cosmic closet afraid of what He’s created. That’s defamation of the Divine character. My brother, God Almighty rides upon the wings of the wind and sitteth on the circle of the earth, and measures the waters in the hollow of his hand and comprehends the dust of the earth in the balance. And weighs the mountains in scales and the hills in a measure. And all that thou can know cannot be compared under Him. He speaks and it is done. He commands and it stands forth. He calls the end from the beginning and declares the things that are not as though they were.

God is a sovereign God moving sovereignly through His world. And they that know God and know His character will never be afraid of, nor will they take comfort in rabbit’s foot, feet rather than the rabbit’s foot, or rabbit feet, nor will they have a rabbit foot hung around their neck or a horse chestnut in their pocket to keep away rheumatism.

It sounds funny, doesn’t it, but men can get in bondage to that and be paganized Christians with only the name of Christian and not be Christians at all. I say that superstition is a defamation of the Divine character because it casts aspersions upon the wisdom of God and assumes that God is limited and can be fooled and cheated like any common Roman god. Whereas, God knows all things and our thoughts are loud, and our heartbeats are like hammer blows. And God can hear the tiniest thought that lies in the back of your mind infinitely amplified. And He knew it before you entertained it, or you knew that you entertained it, so that God can’t be fooled. He knows what’s in men. He looks on the inside and he predicts and predestinates and God is not limited in any sense.

So, there’s no such thing as cheating God. There is no such thing as telling or making God a promise and then having God ring His hands and say why that man broke his promise to me, whatever shall I do? That kind of God would never get my loyalty. Never would I bow my knee to a God that I could cheat. Never would I worship and cry, holy, holy, holy in the presence of a God that I could lie to successfully. No, no, superstition makes God limited in power and limited in wisdom, or it shows him to be spiteful, so that He takes childish revenge. Superstition is in some measure a projection of our own nasty little personalities into heaven and making God in our own image. Spitefulness in us becomes a vast and limitless spitefulness in God. So, people are afraid of God,

I remember as a boy that mothers would never say a word against a baby that was born anywhere lest she should have one. If she said, he’s an ugly little mutt isn’t he. Never would she dare say that. Because somewhere there was a spiteful God with a sour grin on His face, that would watch and remember that, and when she had a baby, it would be an ugly little mutt too. Now that kind of belief in God is a disgrace, and it doesn’t belong to Christians, and it isn’t a part of the divine revelation. God is above spite. And that is why He pays no attention to those who get up and say, if there’s a God let him strike me dead in 10 seconds. And then in ten awful seconds when scarcely a heart beats and nobody breathes, this two-legged ass stands and waits for the spiteful God in the heaven to strike him down, a God he knows isn’t spiteful. And so, he’s all right, but the superstitious don’t breathe waiting for God to rise up and act like a man. No, God isn’t spiteful. God is infinitely patient with us poor little chest-beating boasters. He is infinitely kind and merciful, lest, if He were not, we should all be in hell today.

So, superstition makes God to be spiteful, or it makes God to be childish and touchy, so that we always have to be afraid of Him. I hear this sometimes among us good fundamentalists. God bless our memories. We’re afraid ever to say anything that isn’t exactly the right formula lest the God who goes in big for words and symbols should be angry with us. I know there are some who never pronounce the name of Jesus apart from all of His titles; Lord Jesus Christ, or Jesus Christ the Lord or Christ Jesus the Lord. Always they’ve got to have the three. As a poor, cheap preacher who’s been given an honorary degree and is jealous to be called doctor, so they feel that Jesus is jealous of all of His titles and that He gets miffed unless we give Him all His titles every time we speak about him. What kind of a Christ would that be? A little, spiteful, childish Christ, that you never knew exactly how to predict.

Ah, you can predict Him my brethren. His character is holy and infinitely above and beyond all of the cheap, little, moral weaknesses of men. And you can always know how God is going to act. No, no, Jesus isn’t jealous of all of His titles. Of course, God has made this same Jesus whom He crucified, both Lord and Christ. But when Mary stood at the open grave and grabbed her heart and said, Rabboni. He said, Mary, he didn’t say, don’t you respect me? Why didn’t you call me by my three titles? He smiled and said Mary and stretched out His hands. Mary knew Him better than we do. In this terrible day, superstition makes Him to be little and childish. It makes Him to be limited or weak, whereas He is none of these things. I think that we could throw chains; I think there would be carload after carload of shackles that could be carried out and melted up into metal into soft metal and made into useful things, if we could only believe in the greatness of God and see how big and glorious and sovereign and mighty and patient and loving and holy God is. For almost all weaknesses in the Church of Christ spring out of an inadequate view of God. They spring out with a low view of God. If God is seen big enouigh, there will be a wonderful liberty. Now, bondage to superstition, let’s get free from it. All the black cats on the south side can’t hurt a child of God, not all of them.

Now, bondage to legalistic forms. That is, there are those who can’t worship unless they worship after a certain form. If they have been brought up to kneel, they can’t pray standing up. If they’ve been brought up to pray standing up, they can’t pray kneeling down. And they’ve just got to get into that certain formula, and certain form, and get into that certain posture, and say certain words. No, my brethren, they that worship God must worship Him how, in spirit and in truth, and that gives us complete liberty. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. And the child of God has infinite liberty in worshiping God.

My old friend, good and honored friend, Dave Fant the engineer, used to pray to God and praise God all day long in his great train roaring along, the engineer he was. Roaring along from Atlanta to the coast, and praising God all the time; was saved in that old cab, if you don’t mind, and filled with the Holy Ghost in that old cab. And when he got to a certain town, he used to salute them by pulling the whistle. It wasn’t necessary, but he preached there, and so he pulled the whistle, and one day he forgot to pull the whistle. And the news went like wildfire every place. Dave Fant didn’t salute us this morning. Do you suppose the Lord took him away and didn’t tell us. It sounded like the Old Testament in the days of Elijah. No, he just forgot.

You can pray on a train. You can pray in an airplane, most people do. You can pray standing up or sitting down or in any position. Because we worship God in spirit. We don’t practice our religion as a witch her formula. We worship God spontaneously out of our hearts. We love Him and He loves us. And there is no form there. Although, there must be some form in public worship, otherwise, of course, it would be bedlam. There has to be somebody to know which, we’re going to sing next, and so on. So, I believe in a certain limited, modified form in church service, but oh brother, it’s possible to get so legalistic and into such bondage and formality, that you’ll blow up and have a temper fit if things aren’t done the way they should be done in church.

Sure, our brother there had an experience like that one time. He was supposed to be leading the service and he took an offering and, or did something out of turn, and one old deacon got up white-faced and roundly scolded him in un-Christian harsh terms and said, we must have this done in order. He committed more sin by that act ungodly volcanic eruption than if there had never been any order in the church.

Then, there are other traditions which may not go back to Christ and the apostles at all. Let me give you a rather silly illustration of what I mean. It’s possible to follow old certain mannerisms or forms, traditions, and not know where they originated, or know how they got there, and yet they’re religiously followed and imitated by all aspiring Christians. I told you this before several years ago, but it’s time for a repeat. Several years ago, Walter Post, a missionary from our church over in the Netherlands East Indies, saw a young converted Diack preacher, and he was quite a preacher, this Diack. He could declare the Word of God in the language of his people wonderfully. And Walter had won this boy to God and taught him what he knew. And Michaelson, another missionary there told me smilingly afterward this. He said, this young Diack preacher was a great preacher, but he had the peculiar mannerisms. He would pluck at his collar while he preached and reach for his collar and pluck out and then reach with the other hand and pluck at his collar. And he said, I didn’t understand why he did it until I heard Walter preach. And he plucked at his collar. And then he said, I didn’t know why Walter did it until I came home and heard you. And you pluck at your collar. And listen now, the reason I plucked at my collar was that the collar didn’t fit the shirt band, and I used to have to get them straight while I preached. Now, that kind of thing sounds silly, but you can get into bondage to that thing and carry it down the years and found churches upon it and get your soul into a straitjacket. Throw your shoulders back and breathe deep and say in Jesus Christ, I’m a free man. And I will not be subject to bondage of any kind.

And then there is another type of bondage we’ve got to watch out for, and that’s the bondage to foods and to dress. Now, Jesus said, it didn’t matter what entered into a man’s mouth. That didn’t defile him, but it was what came out of a man’s mouth. And Paul said in 1 Timothy, that in the latter days, certain men should come. And they should give heed to doctrines of devils. And that the doctrines of devils were that they should not marry and that they should abstain from meat, meat which God had created to be received with thanksgiving in them that know and believe the truth. For all the gifts of God are good. All creatures are good and are to be received with thanksgiving. For it is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer.

Now, there is certainly an emancipation proclamation that delivers you from foods. And yet, in spite of that, we find lots of God’s dear children running right back in and taking the oath. They don’t feel comfortable without it. Like the man who had the crutch so long that now he feels naked when he doesn’t wear his crutch. And there are people like that. They just must have something to make them miserable. They just won’t be free in God. So, they won’t eat this or they will eat that, and they buy a book somewhere for 25 cents to show us why they’re right, scientifically. Oh, no, no, no brother, the rule is if it doesn’t hurt you, eat it, as you can afford it. And if you don’t have an allergy to it, go ahead and eat it because all creatures of God are good and are to be received with thanksgiving. to them that believe and know the truth.

Now, here’s a place to tell you about a wonderful letter that I received last week, about a thirty-page letter, twenty of them numbered, and a lot of them on both sides only numbered on one, from a Presbyterian woman down in St. Louis, who had been converted to God; marvelously converted to God. And she said, oh, she grew up in an atmosphere and still is in it apparently in that church where they drink a little and do all sorts of other things that Christians don’t do. And she said, she had never heard of A.B. Simpson and she never heard of the Alliance Weekly, obviously, though she had read a couple of other books that I had written. But she said that she had a little baby, about eighteen months old and has got eczema. She said this little baby with the eczema was so sick that it couldn’t sleep and she couldn’t sleep and her husband couldn’t sleep and it had sores and it bled and the little bed in the morning was bloody from the scratching and the sores off this sweet little baby girl’s body. She said she went to God about it. And she said, God, I’d like to know what’s the matter with my baby. She went to the doctor. The doctor said it’s an allergy, but I don’t know what allergy. So, he began to make tests. He ran one test after the other and still she suffered and still she couldn’t sleep and still the home was in an uproar. No sleep at night and crying all day. She said she went to God and said, now God, I am Thy servant and I ought to know what’s the matter with my baby. Nobody knows. Now God, you tell me. I’ll be listening. She said, the next morning she went to salt the baby’s food and she felt checked in her heart. And she dashed to the telephone and said doctor, doctor, is it possible to be allergic to salt? He said yes, iodized salt. So she didn’t salt the food that day and for the first time in weeks the baby slept all night. She said she kept iodized salt out of the baby’s diet, and in seven days it was perfectly well, not a sore and sleeping all night.

Now, there’s your point, brother. If you break out in a rash, don’t eat it. But, if you don’t, don’t think there’s any such thing as religious food. I’m here to tell you there isn’t any such thing as religious food. No food is any more religious than any other food. Neither are we any better if we eat. Neither are we any of the worse if we do not eat, said the man of God. And that ought to take care of that. I won’t talk about dress this morning.

In Toledo I had occasion to talk about the kingdom of God being liberty, that in not meat nor drink, and I added dress and whiskers to it. And I said that the kingdom of God didn’t lie in a man’s beard, and if it were, to take it off, and it didn’t make him any nearer to God. And a dear old missionary that had studied under Simpson years ago, came smilingly down and shook my hand and talked to me and he had a long beard. And I felt mean for having said that, but it was true nevertheless. Beard or no beard, spirituality does not lie in the length of your hair. It does not lie in the length of your beard. It does not lie in the length of your garment. And it does not lie in the quality of your garment. The rule I would lay down is the easiest rule in the world; if it’s modest, and you can afford it and it’s appropriate, that’s all God cares about dress.

Well, in bondage to days and seasons, I don’t think I have to go into that. Certainly, we don’t need that fear, bondage the days and seasons. How they fill the churches on Easter and how they empty them the next Sunday. Which all goes to show that such Christians are bound, if they are Christians at all.

Now, that’s the dangers of bondage. Don’t let’s get into bondage. Jesus Christ set us free. Was it Luther who said, love God with all your heart and due as you please, knowing that if you love God enough, you’re only pleased to do the will of God.

Now with that saying, which is a dangerous same, I go to the second, the danger of liberty. That is the danger of antinomianism. There’s a long jaw-breaking word. It means that certain people tend to run by unchecked logic to extremes. And that if I get up and say you are free, they immediately leap into the air and say thank God, I’m free, I’ll do as I please, and they go out and commit sin to show how free they are. You wouldn’t believe it, but that is the case. That has been done. I just finished reading a book called, “Small Sects in America.” It is quite an exhaustive treatise on the small denominations and sects in America over the past history and extant now. And it’s quite amazing how many of those sects ran to free love and sexual extremes because they were free in the Holy Ghost therefore they were free in the flesh. Now, there is your danger brother. Paul said I am free, but I will not use my freedom as a cloak for the flesh. God set us free but he didn’t set us free to do evil. He set us free to do good. Freedom to do good is the Christian’s liberty, not freedom to commit sin. God never said you’re free now, go on out and sin.

Some Christians have carried freedom to such a ridiculous and unholy extreme that they have said, I’ve got to sin a little, right along to keep grace operating. I think that’s tragic heresy. And the children of God should know it for such and flee it as they would polio; for it is a disease.

Christian liberty is freedom to live in the Spirit unhindered by externals. Christian liberty is freedom from the fear of the government, freedom from fear of my sins, freedom from fear of God, servile fear of God that is. Freedom from fear of the devil, freedom from black cats and birds and amulets and spells and charms and wizardry. Freedom from religious bondage of every kind. Freedom from traditions, the iron yoke. Freedom to live in the Spirit and worship God in spirit and in truth. That’s Christian freedom.

But, when it becomes freedom to commit sin, that grace may abound, Paul cries out against it from his high hill with a shout, God forbide! How should we, that had been dead to sin live any longer, there in. Freedom to love, so that our conduct springs out of love, and freedom not to hate. Ah, it’s wonderful to be free from hate so that you don’t have to hate. Hate is a moral cancer. And it eats on the soul till it kills the victim. And to get free from hatred is like getting healed of cancer; delivered from that cursed wild bunch of cells that eat on our liver. Freedom from hatred and freedom from envy and freedom from unholy ambition and freedom from wanting your own way and freedom to do the will of God, that’s Christian freedom. That’s Christian liberty, but never free to commit any sort of sin. For the child of God who lives from within and whose heart is a fountain of affection and love for God, will not sin, but if he does, he will confess it with sorrow and be forgiven and cleansed from it and determined not to go back to that wallow anymore.

Now I want to point out another thing that a Christian will not use his freedom to put other Christians into a bad conscience. Paul told about meat that was offered to idols, and some Christians had a conscience about it. Now, Paul said, I have no conscience at all about meat that has been offered to an idol, if it’s good, clean meat, because I don’t believe an idol is a real thing. There’s one God, one Lord, one Spirit, and all these other so-called gods are all imitations. They don’t exist for me, said Paul. Yet said Paul, when I’m in the home of a young Christian that doesn’t know this, I will respectfully pass by meat offered to idols lest I hurt his conscience.

So, a Christian is in danger of allowing his very liberty to be a stumbling block to somebody else. So that he does freely, things that other people will think he’s sinning when he does. And thus, he’s a hindrance to other people. Well, there was a little rule I think that we can put down here, it is, take your freedom in Christ Jesus. Be as free in Christ as He made you. And remember, you’re not a bond slave, but a son. You’re not a servant in the house. You’re a child in the household. You’re your father’s child, not the king’s servant. Be free. Yet, not use your freedom for a license to the flesh. But mortify the flesh and keep your flesh under. And lay your loving burdens on yourself for Christ’s sake. A burden that I voluntarily lay upon my shoulder is no burden at all.

I don’t tell many stories, but the missionary told us one of a little girl about ten I suppose, carrying her little brother piggyback on her a little back in one of our foreign fields. And she carried him around all day while the mother worked in the field. And the missionary sympathized with the little girl and referred to the little boy on her back as a burden. And the girl looked up and said, “That’s not a burden, that’s my brother.”

What you do voluntarily is not a burden. It is only a yoke when somebody else leaves it on your neck, and says, take it or go to hell, where they shall but perish. Somebody with a beard, or clothing of certain kind, or tradition behind him, or stained glass to give him authority that the poor little shivering fellow doesn’t have in his own heart. Or some other religious accoutrement to add to his personality, that authority, which he doesn’t have inside. He tells me you do it this way, or you perish. I smile, I hope not too perilously, and tell him, oh, friend, you don’t know my Father. My father doesn’t look at it that way. My Father says, child, you were free, absolutely free. Free to take voluntary burdens for the sake of others; carry those burdens on your shoulder. And the burden you carry voluntarily will never make your shoulders sore. But the burden that religion lays upon you or philosophy or tradition or superstition, will gall you and scar you and kill you at last.

But, the easy yoke of Jesus, His yoke is easy and His burden is light, I found it so, I found it so. The yoke of Jesus is easy. I stand to declare to you, that the Lord Jesus has never asked a hard thing of me. My miseries have always come out of my own flesh. They have never come from any burden Jesus ever laid on me. And what few burdens I have laid on myself, I’ve never felt the weight of them at all. They are as easy and light as can be. For as little song says, as He always takes the heavy end and gives the light end to me.

So, let’s watch it. Let’s not get bound to anything, for we’re free men and women in Christ Jesus. But, let’s be sensible and not use our freedom as a cloak for the flesh. And let’s not hide behind liberty in order to practice license. Let’s remember that the man in whom Jesus Christ dwells will be wrought to be a good man. And don’t be afraid of the word “good.” Let us not fling back in the face of Jesus the charter of freedom which cost Him His blood. Stand fast therefore in the Liberty where with Christ has made you free and be not entangled with the yoke of bondage. But use not your freedom as a cloak for the flesh, but knowing your free, discipline yourself for Jesus’ sake. We trust the indwelling Spirit to fulfill in you the law of God, for what the law could not do and it was weak through the flesh, God sending His Son, has done by the indwelling Spirit within us.

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Tozer Talks

“Dangers of Idleness and Busyness”

“Message #3 in Dangers in the Way and How to Avoid Them “

May 1, 1955

It is difficult to follow consecutively a series of talks because of the interruptions that come from other speakers and from conventions and an occasional absence. But I feel that I would like to continue to talk a little for a Sunday or two yet about the dangers to the Christian. Dangers that lie in the Christian’s path. And as a kind of text I have here in the fifth chapter of Ephesians these words. See that ye walk circumspectly. Not as fools but as wise. Don’t be foolish, but be wise and walk circumspectly.

Circumspectly is one of those easy to figure out words. Circle meaning around, where we get our word circle, and circumference and all such words. And spectly of course means, look. We talk about spectacles. We used to call them that. And so, we are exhorted here to walk looking around. Not plunging foolishly head-long, but walk looking around.

Now, I repeat that I do not wish to make my hearers danger-conscious, because if you become danger-conscious excessively, that will slow you down. Scripture says, he that observes the wind shall not sow, and he that regarded the cloud shall not reap. The farmer who never looks at the wind, or observeth the wind, or looks at the clouds, will be a very foolish farmer, and he will not have a very good crop at the end of the year. But the man who becomes so cloud-conscious and wind-conscious that he gets up and moistens his finger and holds it up to see which way the wind is blowing every morning, and then sneaks back away if there’s a cloud overhead, he’ll get nothing done. He that observeth the wind shall not sow. There are times when you must pay no attention to the wind. And he that regardeth the clouds, he shall not reap. There will always be a cloud warning you to stay indoors, but the wise man will know which cloud to regard and which to disregard.

So, we Christians are not to become so conscious of the wind and the cloud that we don’t do anything. But on the other hand, if we are unaware of danger, we increase that danger a hundredfold and almost guarantee disaster. By reason, I’ve been giving this series on the dangers in the way.

Now today, I want to talk about the danger of idleness and the danger of busyness. First, there’s the danger of idleness. You see, God made us for creative activity. There is a notion abroad in the day in which we live that labor is a sin, or at best, it’s a curse resting upon us. I think some Christians even have that notion that labor is a curse, that it is a disciplinary punishment which the Lord laid upon the world at the Fall. Now nothing could be further from the fact than this. For if you will read the Bible before the third chapter of Genesis and the Fall, you’ll remember that God told the newly created couple that they were to replenish the earth and subdue it. Now replenishing the earth meant there were to be children born into the world. And anybody who imagines that there can be children brought up in the world without work, has never had any children or even been where they are. And the command to subdue the earth certainly embraces the idea of work.

And then it says, that they were placed in a garden, to dress it and to keep it. They were not there to be idle. God the Creator, made man in His image and made him to be something of a creator too, so that man was to labor. He was to subdue the earth. He was to bring, they were to bring children into the world and work to the bring up those children, and they were to dress the garden and keep it in shape. So that meant work. So that work is not a result of the Fall. But sin brought sorrow and thorns and thistles and sweat. There are four words that didn’t occur. In the first and second chapters of Genesis, sorrow and thorns and thistle and some sweat, they did not occur. But the word “work” occurred, or its equivalent, dress and keep and subdue and care. Those words occur in the first chapters, but the word sorrow, thorns, thistles and sweat, they were added when man sinned.

So, remember that work is not a result of man’s sin. But to work in sorrow, that’s a result of man’s sin, to work with thorns and thistles around you. That’s the result of man’s sin. And to work until we sweat for our daily labor, that is a result of man’s sin. So that, remember that God made us to be workers.

Our Savior was a worker, and idleness is very un-Christlike and contrary to the high will of God. For it is the avoiding of our commission. And it is an invitation to temptation. You know, our fathers had a little saying. I think Isaac Watts wrote it in his little book for children. The devil always finds some tasks for idle hands to do. And the word idle was, in other days, a very evil word, a very evil word. Our fathers scorned the word. They hated it. And they wrote poems about it, as Isaac Watts did. The devil always finds some tasks for idle hands to do. No, I have no statistics on this, but I think I’d be safe in saying that ninety-five percent of the deviltry of the world is thought up by people who have nothing to do at the time. People who are engaged in some kind of productive activity may sin, but they’re not as likely to as those who have nothing to do. It was when David had ended his labors and was on the housetop taking a little idle walk that he looked down and saw the scene that led him to the great temptation into adultery and murder. So that ninety-five percent of the deviltry of the world results, in my estimation, from the people who have nothing else to do.

Now, the idle Christian is in great danger. He’s in danger because, as I say, he’s unlike his Savior. Our Lord went about doing good, and there is no excuse for idleness. We’re not thinking at the moment of recreation. Personally, I think that recreation racket is greatly overdone. But I do grant that there should be some recreation, some exercise. But while we’re not speaking of recreation, we are speaking about idleness and our Lord was not idle. He chose industrious men for His disciples. He did not go to the Riviera and pick playboys, whether they be Bo Dyes or Jimmy Walkers or who, he picked simple men who were hard workers, who had something to do, who took an interest in life and had something to do. He did it deliberately and purposefully.

Now therefore, I recommend to you Christians that you make yourself available. That you be ready to do anything. Don’t hold yourself off until you’re ready to do something. Start doing something now. Learn to ride your bicycle by trial and error. Don’t wait until you learn to ride it before you buy one. But get one now and practice on it. Get something done. You may make a lot of mistakes at first of course. But do something if you can’t do anything around the church. Some people say there is nothing for us to do. I have had it said, your church has a wealth of talent and there’s nothing for me to do. Well, I suppose that person would mean that you have your soloist and there’s no solo for me to sing, or no committee for me to be the chairman of. Well, if it’s to be chairman of a committee or singing a solo, of course. Maybe, the average church wouldn’t have room for everybody. But any Christian who’s worth his salt will find something to do in the kingdom of God.

We learned and I suppose everybody knows it, but it came very dramatically home to us on the farm. That farm machinery seldom wears out. If you keep your machinery up, you can use it summer in summer out and along, seasons over and over and over until it becomes obsolete. And some new thing you buy to replace that which is an obsolete piece of machinery, not worn out, just old fashioned. But one season sitting out in the weather will wreck any piece of machinery. The idle machines sitting in the darkness will go to pieces in one season. But that same machine used for 10 years will only brighten it up, make it shine. Maybe a bolt wear out can be replaced like nothing and the machine will go on.

Now Christians are exactly like farm implements. One year of sitting around and sulking will do more to rust your soul, than one hundred years of hard work if God granted you that many years. Don’t be afraid of wearing yourself out. The devil is a master of strategy. When a child of God gets busy, he whispers in their ear, now watch it because you’re going to have a nervous breakdown. I’m positively sure that nervous breakdowns do not come from working in the easy yoke of Jesus Christ. They come from frustrations and hidden sins and stubbornness and refusing to hear God, then wanting our own way. But they don’t come from working. His yoke is easy, His burden is light. I’ve found it so, I found it so.

And I’m sure that there isn’t a gray hair in this head of mine was ever placed there by honest labor in the kingdom of my Savior. Not any one. But I wonder how many are there because I wanted my own way. I wonder how many are there because I wanted the world to obey me and they wouldn’t listen. Stubbornness, contrariness, resentfulness, those will bring frustration and illness, but not the late work of the Lord. Jesus Christ would never have gotten sick. He could have lived infinite years working as He worked. He did not kill himself by hard work. They had to kill him on a cross. And Paul became very old in the work of God and was still going when they cut his head off. And Peter, when they crucified him.

So, it’s our human weaknesses and faults that causes us to break down, not working in the service of the Lord. So don’t be afraid to work. You’ll rust out and some of you may have rusted out. Maybe it’s too late to do very much now of your time. The rust is so complete that like the one horse, Shea. One good lunge and you’re finished. But I don’t think it’s true of very many, maybe of nobody. I’m optimistic enough to think that that’s an extreme statement and there’s nobody here that’s completely rusted out. There may be a little rust around here and there. And you can get rid of that by going to work. You can wear your rust off awfully easy. And you will not wear yourself out in doing it.

So, there’s the danger of idleness, so many idle Christians who say I have nothing to do, nothing to do. There’s intercession to be made. There are calls to be made. There are letters to be written. There are booklets and tracts to be distributed. There’s singing to be done. There are many things to be done.

I remember I’ll tell this again, because the sermon won’t be long anyway. But a man who asked me whether he could do something around the church when I was in Indianapolis. And I said Elmer, I don’t know anything you could do. Well, I thought he wanted, of course, to be chairman of something. But he didn’t. He said, well, can I take care of the lawn? I said, yes, you can take care of the lawn. So, Elmer took care of the lawn. And that lawn never prospered as it did. He varnished the sign out in front. He kept up the little high fence up nicely. And the thing positively began to look like a golf course. Elmer had just been converted a short time and something in him wanted to work. And he was humble enough that he was willing to take care of the lawn; anything to look after the work of God and do something.

Well, the story is that it wasn’t very long until Elmer was preaching on the street. And after that, he began to preach in institutions here and there. And a little later, he began to go to another town out from Indianapolis and hold meetings. And that formed into a little group. And then came a church. And now there’s an Alliance church there, preaching the gospel and giving to missions and praying for missions and sending out missionaries, all because a man newly converted, was willing to do anything. If he had sulked and told his wife, there’s too much talent around here. I can’t be chairman of anything, I have nothing for me to do. He would have rusted out, and that church never would have been established there. But Elmer Durant was too much of a Christian to want to head something. He did have something later on, as I’ve explained, but he began by coming along.

So, let’s not be idle. The devil always finds some thing for idle men and women to do. So, there’s a danger in idleness. Let’s walk circumspectly and watch that. That’s a ditch on one side of the road. But over on the other side of the road, there’s another ditch and it’s called busyness.

There’s a great danger in busyness. Now, there’s a time for everything, says the Holy Ghost. To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heavens. A time to be born and a time to die and a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted. A time to weep and a time to laugh and a time to mourn and a time to dance and a time to cast away stones and a time to gather them. A time to embrace and the time to refrain from embracing. A time to get and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to cast away. A time to rend and a time to sew, a time to keep silent and the time to speak. There’s the middle of the road Christian, realizing that he’s not to be extreme on anything, but that he is to be wise. And the wise man will know the time and the season.

Now, there is no time for idleness. And the scripture doesn’t say there’s a time for idleness here. But there is a time for relaxation, there is a time to realize that’s the time and to camp. That you pitch your tent there and you don’t go on for that day. You’ve gone far enough that day. There’s no time for idleness, because idleness assumes lack of purpose. If I have no purpose, I will be idle. It assumes this inclination to be inconvenienced, and it assumes addiction to pleasures. We have so many gadgets invented in our day, to minister to idleness, just idleness. Well, there’s no place for that in the kingdom of God. But there’s a time to cease activities. Even the creatures beside the fire up yonder in the heaven as revealed in the first chapter of Ezekiel. Those creatures let down their wings and waited on God. Now, Daniel prayed three times a day.

And it’s possible to be so busy in our secular work or even busy in the Lord’s work, that we have no time to pray. No time to wait on God or get still, and sew up the raveled sleeve of care and adjust ourselves, and orientate our soul toward God in heaven. And when that happens, there’s danger. Daniel prayed three times a day, the prophet sought the silences. You will find that God looked for his men in the silence. Men who can’t be silent, might as well be silent, because they won’t say anything when they talk. It is only out of the silence that the Word speaks. In the beginning was silence. Before the beginning was the silence, said the old writers. And then in the beginning was the Word. The idea was that God’s spake out of the everlasting silence of His own holy self-contained being. And we’re so likely to be so busy that we don’t get anything done, and so talkative that we never say anything. The prophets sought the silence. And in the silence, they learned what to say. And then they broke the silence by saying it and relapse back into the silence again.

We could well cut down the decibels in our homes and in our churches. I’m always cautious and be afraid of noisy people. It takes a very wise man to talk all the time and say anything. So let us learn the scriptural silence. And Christ Himself went into the desert, and there in the silence. Forty days and nights He waited on his God under the temptation of the devil. And when he came out from there, he came out in the fullness of the Spirit and went out to preach the Word of God everywhere. And our Lord Himself told us to shut the door. He said, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut the door, pray unto thy Father, which is in secret. And My Father, who hears in secret, shall reward thee openly.

Secular business can ruin men. A man called me up the other day, not a member of this church, a member of some church down south further. And he said, I have been a Christian a few years, and I want to do God’s will. He said, I have a business, a real estate business and I have partners. And he said, we have made it a rule to be only open on weekdays and close on Sunday. He said, Now, my partners want to open on Sunday. What would you say? What would you have told him? What would you have told me? I said, by all means, follow the light. By all means, lose the sale, and keep your good conscience. And if your partners won’t listen, sell out and start something of your own. God will bless you for it.

Not that I’m a sabbatarian, No. Not that I believe that one day is above another day, no, but I believe we ought to have some time for God. And the man who works seven days a week has no time for God. The office that keeps open to get a few more extra nickels on that seventh day, has no time for God. Whether he takes Wednesday, Sunday or Friday off, he ought to take a day off. But Sunday would be the day to take off. It’s a testimony and enables the man to get into the house of God and mingle and raise his voice in songs of Zion with the people of God. Now, I haven’t heard from this business man. I don’t know whether he took my advice or not. But I think he did, because he felt very keenly that he should not open on Sunday. We’re not sabbatarians but we do believe that there’s a time for everything. And secular business can ruin men unless they take time to cultivate God.

But as I have said, excessive religious work can do the same. Unless we take time to cultivate God. Dr. Reuben A. Torrey used to take two weeks out of every year and put on old clothes and go into the hills. Nobody knew his whereabouts but his wife. Nothing short of death was to get a message through to him. No telephone, no telegram, no cables, no anything. Two weeks. He waited, relax, rest, engaged at the sky and listen. And then he came back to the busy world with a heart and the mind filled with truth. Too much busyness in the work of the Lord can destroy the effectiveness of that work.

Now, I want to give you a little motto here. If you’re too busy in the Lord’s work to spend time in the Lord’s presence, then you’re too busy in the Lord’s work. So, let’s be careful to walk circumspectly, looking around. Here’s the broad highway of God. Over on the left, there is idleness and over on the right, is excessive busyness. And then there’s the great broad highway in the middle. We can follow that highway, and go along, and have plenty of room and get a world of work done, and still not rust out from idleness, nor kill ourselves with excessive busyness. There’s a time for everything.

So, we wait on God to renew our batteries. And then, when they’re up to full power, we turn them loose into the work of God. And thus, we go wisely, not as fools, but as wisemen. So let us remember these two dangers. Whoa be to the idle Christian. He will not grow in grace. Even a baby exercises. Six months old Ruthie, down at our house, my wife’s babysitting. Stanley’s little girl six months old and beautiful, but exercise, she can’t walk yet. She can’t even sit up, but exercise. Exercise, she exercises until she grunts just exercising. Exercise, you grow and you exercise, and you will stop growing when you stop. But if we get all worked up and allow the world and the tense jitteriness of the world to excite us; we’re dashing continually in the work of God, it is just as great a danger.

So, let’s ask God for wisdom not to be idle ever, but to be inactive sometimes for the sake of renewing our batteries and relaxing our nerves and quieting our minds and above all things, seeing visions of God. And then we’ll not fall into either ditch. And down the great broad highway of Zion, we will move toward a predetermined end. God grant this is my prayer this morning.

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Tozer Talks

” Dangers of Prosperity and Adversity “

“Message #2 in Dangers in the Way and How to Avoid Them “

March 27, 1955

David says, The Lord is his Rock, and his Fortress, and his Deliver, and his Strength, and his Buckler, and his High Tower. Verse two. The inference we draw from this is, that the man David must have needed a rock, a place to hide, a fortress, a deliver, and a horn of salvation and a high tower. There must have been dangers from which David had to hide, and weaknesses which, for which he needed strength, and arrows aimed at him for which he needed the shield of a buckler.

So, I am dealing these few Sunday mornings up to missionary convention time, and maybe I’ll resume it after that for a couple of Sundays; on the dangers that are in the Christian way. And this Psalm, I have said is a mirror of life. And it indicates that there are dangers in the way. That the way to heaven is hedged-in by perils to our souls. Now, to ignore these perils, is to reject the Bible. The Bible is not only rejected when a man stands and boldly declares, I do not believe the Bible. I believe that the Bible is a saga full of myths. I do not believe the Bible. That’s a rejection of the Bible, but at least it’s an honest rejection of the Bible.

The Bible is more insidiously rejected when a man rises and says, I believe the Bible and then ignores the teachings of the Bible on his own pet subjects. We’re all likely to do that. I’m likely to do it. I want you to pray that I may never do it, that I might be wise not to do it. But well-intentioned men, without meaning to ignore the Scriptures or to deny them, have ignored the dangers in the Christian way and so they have taken away the markers on the highways.

Can you imagine if it were possible, to sabotage this country all over on one night, say, and take down all highway markers from Maine to California, from the Gulf to the Canadian border, not one left? Can you imagine how many thousands of people would be killed the next evening? Thousands would die the next evening, because our Department of Highways have carefully marked dangerous places, warned to slow down, warned even in some places to put in second gear, and so on. The idea is, there are dangers, you don’t have to stop and go back, and you don’t have to drive all jittery and afraid, because the dangerous places are marked. And if we pay attention to the markers and drive with some degree of relaxed care, the possibility of an accident will be cut down to an infinitesimal minimum. But if we pay no attention to the markers, or if the markers are removed, then comes the danger and then multiplies the dead. So, to ignore or remove their markers on the highway is of course to do a great disservice, a dangerous disservice to the people of God. I mean to show these dangers in pairs.

Today, I want to talk about the danger of prosperity and the danger of adversity. We’ll talk about the danger of prosperity first, and we might as well call it financial prosperity to begin with. Now, it is a solemn thought to me that the history of mankind and of nations and of churches shows that we trust in God as a rule when there is nothing else in which there is nothing else to trust. Do I wish it were possible to be realistic and honest and still tell a different story? I’d love to do it. But a Christian, I have insisted, ought to be a realist. That is, he ought to stay by the facts as they are, not invent them and not twist them, but stay by them as they are. The simple fact is, that the history of men, Israel and the church and of nations and individual churches as well as individual men; the history shows that we trust in God last, and we tend to trust in God when we have nothing else in which they trust. And as other trusts appear, we turn from God to them, and excuse ourselves eloquently by saying that we are not trusting them. We are really trusting God. But we do trust them nevertheless.

Now, I thought that to support this, I had better give you some Bible. So, I have selected an Old Testament passage and the New Testament passage. The Old Testament passage is found in Deuteronomy 32:9 and following. Here’s the story of Jacob, that is, Israel. For the Lord’s portion is his people. Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him, that is, he found Jacob and from Jacob came Israel, the nation of Israel. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. And Jacob himself testified that all he had then was a staff with a little bandana hankerchief on the end of it over his shoulder. That’s all he had. With my staff I came over this brook and lo, I am become two bands. That was Jacob’s testimony. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: So, the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him. He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock; Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape.

Then verse 15, but Jeshurun, that’s still Jacob. It’s God’s pet name for Israel, but Jeshurun waxed fat. It was God that made him fat. God gave him butter and milk and honey. You can’t eat butter and milk and honey and not get fat. He says here, I gave him butter and milk and honey and lots of it, and gave him the increase of the fields and gave him the fat of wheat and the pure blood of the grape. But the result was Jeshurun waxed fat. And when he waxed fat, he got independent and sassy, and he kicked. Thou art waxen fat. Thou art grown thick. Thou art covered with fatness. Then he forsook God which made him and lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation.

Now when he was wandering in the desert place in the waist howling wilderness because all he remembered wasn’t the wind was howling, it was like tigers, wolves and bears, not tigers in that land, but wolves and bears. And these wolves and bears were dangerous and so Jacob had to hide in God or else get eaten up. And as long as he was hiding in God, he was all right. But as soon as he got fat, and grew thick and forsook God which made him and lightly esteemed the Rock in his salvation. They provoked him to jealousy was strange Gods. With abominations provoked him to anger. They sacrificed unto devils and not unto God. The gods whom they knew not. The new gods that came newly up whom their fathers feared not. And the remark, remember this, that there would have been eloquent defense of these gods made by men; magazine, articles written and books, and when committees meet strong defense in favor of wisdom and the fact that we mustn’t miss the boat, and that after all, we got to give them something to do.

And so, they will sacrifice unto devils and not under gods, the gods whom they knew not, the new gods that came newly up whom your fathers feared not. But of the Rock that begat them they were unmindful. And thou has forgotten God that formed thee. And when the Lord saw it, he abhorred them because of the provoking that his sons did. And his daughters and He said I will hide my face from them. I will see what their end shall be. For they are a very froward generation. Froward you know, means bold with a hard forehead, brassy, children in whom is no faith. Now, they used the very prosperity that God gave them as a stumbling block.

Now we come to the New Testament. You think humanity would have changed over the hundreds of years. See, when was that back there about 1450 B.C. and this is about 50 or so, A.D.? So, there we have about 1500 years and in that 1500 years now Christ has come and died and ascended to the Father and sent the Holy Ghost and the church has been formed, and now an apostle writes to a church in Laodicea. Third chapter of Revelation. and unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, these things, saith the amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God. I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would thou art cold or hot, so because thou art neither lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I’ll spew thee out of my mouth. Because thou saith, I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing. And knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. In case you think he’s severe, notice he says, as many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous therefore and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. This pitiful condition of the church in the latter days. Rich increased with goods and endowed, beautiful buildings, and the Savior standing outside trying to get in.

Now, there’s the New Testament example. And then we find in Luke 20:12, and 13, and on, the rich fool, who said, I will tear down these barns. They are not adequate. And I will build larger barns in order that I might house my increase crops. And God said bluntly, you fool, you’ve got to die. And you can’t take these barns to the other world with you. Then, whose will these things be?

Now, there we have plenty of Bible and I only quote these verses, because I can’t read the Bible all morning here. The whole Bible teaches this, that plenty, however justly it may be acquired, constitute a great danger, constitutes a great danger. John Wesley admitted this frankly, I’ve told you this before but it fits into perfectly here and illustrates from a classic source. So, I’ll repeat that John Wesley, after his Methodist society got going, and they had circled the world, and they were growing in number, Wesley admitted one time in print, this. He said, we are in a peculiar paradox in our Methodist societies. He said, I have noticed something. I have noticed that as soon as a group of people meet together and form a society, and subscribe to the New Testament doctrines, and bring their lives into line with the truth, they immediately get honest, frugal, saving, hardworking, and upright and industrious. And the result is, they lay up money. Then he said, as soon as they get some money, they begin to trust it. And as soon as they begin to trust their money, they cease to be holy and spiritual and frugal and hardworking and honest and good. And so, they backslide.

And so, he says, here is the vicious circle. Get right with God and you’ll become frugal, saving, honest, hardworking, serious. That makes you tend to get rich. When you tend to get rich, you tend to backslide. So, he said, here’s the vicious circle. What are we going to do? Well, leave it to John Wesley. He wasn’t going to be licked by a vicious circle. He said I have the answer. He said, be honest, holy, hardworking, frugal, saving. Get all you can and then give it all away. And he said, you’ll never backslide because you’ll never have anything there to backslide with. He said, get all you can in order that you may give all you can and continue to trust God and work hard and get more and give that away. He said, and that way, you’ll never backslide.

Now, I thought that was a classic, brethren. And that’s exactly what John Wesley did. They would have laid the wealth of England at his feet. At least the common people would have. But when he died, he died with twenty-eight pounds. Five times twenty-eight, what’s that, over 100 to 125 or so dollars he took with him. I don’t mean he took with him, but he could have taken it with him and taken with him was in order. But he left it, about $130. Now that after a lifetime. He lived eighty-three years and died with $130 to leave behind. He didn’t have to make out a will. It took more than that to bury him.

Now, that was John Wesley. Brethren, unaccustomed with plenty is pretty deadly if you don’t know what to do with it. No boy gets so arrogant and so reckless as a boy who is newly rich. And no girl gets so extravagant and so wild as the girl into the big city making good money. I don’t say that always happens, but I say the temptation is there. Anybody brought up, they say, that men brought up in money, they can wear the old clothes. I said about one old fellow who was going around in an old suit that even I wouldn’t have worn. He said, he can afford to do it. Everybody knows he’s rich. But the fellow that has just come into the money, he wants to prove it by the way he dresses and what he drives and what kind of a house he lives in. But the man who’s has money and inherited money, he doesn’t tend that way because it’s nothing to him. He’s bored with it.

So, unaccustomed plenty is especially deadly to a Christian. Oh, what mine eyes have seen over the years. I have seen young men who while they were in high school and college, struggled and fought and prayed and loved God and got along on little. And then they met a girl and she had had the same experience fighting her way through and working after hours to get, not to continue and help with a home and she had little and he had little and then they met each other and they got married and then they got out of school and settled down and got good jobs, and used his sanctified Christian intelligence to get a good position. And pretty soon the money was coming his way hand over fist and they moved into a finer home, got a bigger car and a bigger television set, and finer of everything. And they began to come to choir less often and prayer meeting rarely and the church less frequently and they take long holiday excursions and then longer ones. And pretty soon, they backslid. I’ve seen it happen over the years. I’ve seen it happen. Brethren, it’s always dangerous. Prosperity is dangerous for a Christian.

Now, what can you do? Is this, is this, am I saying I wish all my people were poor people? If all the people were poor, poverty-stricken people, how would we ever manage to keep missionaries on the field? How would we ever promote publishing societies? How would we ever get books out to the public? How would we ever keep schools going? How would we finance God’s work so as to keep our missionaries going, our radio programs alive, our books flowing out? How do we do it? No, it is not God’s will that His people should all be poor. It’s God’s will that his people should prosper, but know what to do with prosperity.

Now, I’ll give you three rules and if you care enough about it to take this down, I think it may help you. I give you three rules what to do with prosperity. First of all, thank God reverently. You never ought to receive anything, never ought to receive a raise, never ought to receive anything, but that we do not go to God and reverently thank Him and acknowledge the source of it. And know that it cometh from the Father of Lights, from whence every good gift comes. Thank God reverently. Second, share it generously. If you do not share it generously, it will begin to canker and rust on your spirit and soul. And the bigger the bank account, the smaller the heart, unless you share it so generously that your conscience feels good about it and God is satisfied. And then, walk circumspectly, those three things. If you have plenty, thank God reverently. Share it generously and walk circumspectly.

Now, if you want some Bible on this walking circumspectly, I don’t feel it necessary to quote scripture on the other two, because it’s just an essence of Scripture. But I do want to give you a passage or two here, a verse or two here from Luke 21. And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. Now, here of course it means prosperity. Your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting. And of course, that is overeating and drunkenness. And of course, that’s drinking. The cares of this life. The poorer a man is, the fewer cares he has; and the more he gets, the more cares he has. And if he allows his heart to be overcharged, numb, overwhelmed with these earthly things, the day of Christ shall come upon him unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, watch ye therefore and pray always, that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.

Now, there’s an urgent exhortation that we might watch carefully, lest prosperity with its surfeiting, it’s over eating, it’s careless drinking and the cares of this life, unfit us for that day, and we should be caught like a little animal in a snare, when our Lord comes. Rather we ought to pray that we might be worthy to escape these things, and stand before the Son of Man.

Now, it’s an odd thing, but not only is prosperity dangerous, but adversity is dangerous. Brother Van Kepple who incidentally is in the hospital, and need your prayers, getting on all right after surgery. He often quotes when he arrives to testify, give me neither poverty nor riches, lest if I’d be rich I forget God, and lest if I be poor, I’d be tempted to steal. That was a wise practical little verse of the man of God in the Old Testament,

Now, adversity, that is financial reverses or physical afflictions. We’ll deal with them in turn. Financial reverses, that is, that’s the exact opposite of prosperity. And yet it is dangerous too, especially if it follows prosperity. Some people are so habitually in a state of financial reverses. I think they call that monetary impecuniosity. That is the name for it. But a lot of people are in that state so much that that there is nothing to react from. But if you’ve been reasonably prosperous and then you have reverses, it’s especially dangerous because prosperity tends to make us soft. We’re soft compared with our fathers. Now, don’t imagine we’re not.

I rather am glad we are. I’m glad we are. Our sons are getting taller, and our women stay younger looking longer. Down in the hills where a child goes to work in the cornfield at five, and plows at eight, and women milk half a dozen cows and churn the butter and hoe in the garden and help their husband in the field, they are old ladies at thirty. I know, I’ve been around a little. And at thirty, they’re old ladies, wrinkled and weary-looking with a thick, fuzzy voice and a drooping, disgusted attitude toward the world. Too much work and poverty can beat you. And it’s never good. The poets and the philosophers have all sung the praise of poverty. And about the only literary man I ever knew that had honesty enough to come right out and say he didn’t believe in poverty was Dr. Sam Johnson. He said, you can talk about it all you want to, it’s a, it’s a horribly, debilitating and discouraging thing and I don’t believe in it.

Well, too much poverty will beat you down and sicken you and weaken you and make you old before your time. But, if you’ve had prosperity, and then you’re plunged into reverses, you are likely to blow up because you’ve been made soft. Too much prosperity will make you soft. Too much poverty will do what I’ve described a moment ago. So, what do we do about it all? Well, to have prosperity suddenly removed from us means that it’s likely to take away the rock of our trust and plunged us into panic.

Now about physical afflictions. It’s an odd thing, how people react to physical illness, two opposite ways. Some react by using it as a means of grace. David said, before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I’ve kept Thy word. David got ill and while he was was ill, he had time to think it over and pray and wait on God. And he used his affliction as a means of grace. But there are others, who as soon as they’re touched with physical affliction, they throw in the towel. And I suppose, I ought to be ashamed to admit it, but I am in second category. People say, oh, I have been ill two weeks and what a time I’ve had waiting on God and getting caught up on my prayer and all the rest. And if I get a cold in my head, I’m finished until the cold gets out of my head again. If others don’t pray for me, I admit I don’t get very far. I can’t get a hold of myself.

My father was a strong man, a wirery, strong, tough man, and so far as I knew, I don’t think he was ever afraid of anything on four legs or two. I never knew anything my father was afraid of. He was completely fearless almost to the point of psychopathically fearless. But when he got a cold in his head, he became a whimpering baby. And everybody had to run after him and look after him. And he would moan, sigh and look around for sympathy. And it didn’t do him any good to get sick. That’s just as sure as you live. And his son follows in his footsteps.

But some people know how to use physical affliction. David did I say. Before I was inflicted, I went astray. He said, I got careless. But when I got sick, I had time to think it over, and I got right with God. Now, in any case, these are dangers, financial reverses or physical afflictions. But this little verse has comforted me, if thou faintest in the day of adversity, thy strength is small. I don’t know why that verse comforts me, but it does. It doesn’t promise anything. It just makes a rather uncomplimentary statement about a man. And yet, I get help out of that verse. If thou faintest in the day of adversity, thy strength is small. It’s in one of the Proverbs.

Now, I have a conclusion here, and of course, the conclusion ought to be the best part of what I’m telling you. So, listen to it, and if you want to, take down a few notes. How to avoid these dangers, the dangers of having too much and the danger of suddenly having not enough. The danger of a big bank roll, and the danger of debt. Opposite ends, related to each other. One is the seamy side of the other. But they’re here and they are dangers. And we need a Rock and a Shelter and a Hiding Place and a Fortress and a Buckler and a Shield and strength. We need help, because these are two dangers, a fat lion and a skinny, scrawny lion. The fat lion is prosperity, and the scrawny, hungry lion is adversity. But they’re both lions and they’re both sources of danger.

Now, how do we have we avoid it? I will give you about four rules. First of all, get thoroughly detached from earthly possessions. If you are not detached from earthly possessions, your every dollar you accumulate will be a blight on your spirit. But if you have an understanding with God that goes clear down in deep into tears and emotions and moves you, your increasing riches will not hurt you at all, because they’re not yours. You will hold them for the Giver as we sing. You will hold them for the Giver. God gave them and you’ll hold them for Him.

A man is a treasurer of General Motors. I don’t know who he is, but the man who is treasurer of General Motors. Well, for General Motors to prosper, it doesn’t hurt him any, because it isn’t his money. He just works for General Motors. And while he can sign checks, I suppose running into the hundreds of thousands and maybe a million dollars, he never signs them except he signs them for the company. He doesn’t say, look how much money I’ve got. He says the company has so much money and I’m the treasurer.

Now, as treasurer, it was called a steward back in the days of Jesus’ time. And Jesus talked about stewards looking after other people’s money. And if you consider your possessions, everything from the garment on your back, to your factory, or office or store or whatever you have, everything, if you consider it as being God’s and you being God’s steward, it won’t hurt you at all. And no matter how much it multiplies, it still won’t hurt you because it’s outside of you. Money never hurt any man as long as it stayed outside of him. It’s when it gets inside of him that the curse begins.

The monks of old times thought that the way to wit at prosperity was to choose poverty, and they took a vow of chastity in poverty. But a man can take a vow of poverty and go into a monastery and be just as proud and can own the very book and the very table in the very cell and can say, this is my cell. You stay out of it. This is my book, let it alone. This is my bunk, don’t you sleep on it, and he can still possess things even if he’s barefooted. He can be a possessor of something.

On the other hand, a man like, well, a man can own lots and still not possess a thing, and be completely cut away from it. For you see, getting rid of the curse of prosperity is not a physical thing. It’s a spiritual thing. A man is not free from prosperity, if you were to give everything away, and live on bread and water. He’d still have self and pride in his heart. But get rid of your possessions. Blessed is the man who possesses nothing, that’s a sermon I preached once, and wrote it later into a chapter in a book, The blessedness of the man who possesses nothing. And if we possess nothing, God will allow us to have lots. But, if we possess anything, we’re cursed by it.

So, get it outside of you. Get thoroughly detached from earthly possessions. Look out for a thrill, if you get a raise. Look out for a thrill if you get more money. Look out for a thrill that comes from possessions. A man had them one time. He built a great, big beautiful city. And he walked around it. And he said, behold this great Babylon which I have built, and God loved him too much to let him be an idolator. So, he struck me. And when he came back into the throne room, he was shaking his head and muttering, and somebody said, what’s the matter with His Majesty? Well, His Majesty went plain off his head, and had to go out into the field and eat with the beef. Seven years until his fingernails were as long as eagle claws, and his hair like eagle feathers. At the end of seven years, he said, my reason came back to me and I knew that the Lord God on high reined over the affairs of men. He had to take seven years in the pasture field to find out what you can know now, if you will. We’re no better than Nebuchadnezzar was by nature. So, let’s get thoroughly detached from earthly possessions.

Two, let’s break the grip of the world’s philosophies, the magazine ads, the radio, television, newspapers, conversation, social groups. That subtle philosophy underlies it all. I’ve got to keep up with the ads. I’ve got to keep up with the ads. I just must keep up with Life magazine. I must. All right, you’re not a very good Christian if that’s got you. A Christian is one who has said good bye to the philosophies of the world. Keeping up with the Joneses, good bye. They make us ashamed to wear a suit if it isn’t the latest cut. Ashamed to drive a car that isn’t the latest. Ashamed to live in a house that isn’t the latest grotesque monstrosity, like a lot of this stuff they’re building now. They make us ashamed to be a little behind the time. But a man who is big enough to know that he’s above all times, is big enough to dare to live boldly where he pleases, in style or out of style. It’s no act of righteousness to be out of style Mama. Maybe you just are slow. And it’s no sin to be in style. The glory lies in giving not one care to either, saying I will live decently and respectively and strike a happy medium and go my way and I don’t care what the world says.

But they feed it into us from the time we’re in kindergarten. They feed it into us and make us ashamed to wear clothing a little too long. Ashamed to not have, if we have a bicycle, it’s got to be the best one. If we have a car, it’s got to be the best one. Whatever we have has got to be the best. If you don’t get free from that, prosperity and adversity will grind you to pieces. Prosperity, if you have it, will kill you and adversity, if you have it will grind you. But, if you will get free from the world’s philosophies and dare to be a Christian standing on your own feet, thanking God for what you’re have and being an independent Christian, neither one of them will grind you. God will take you out from between the nether and the upper millstone.

These are the days when we’re even ashamed not to have traveled. Have you been to Europe? No, poor fellow. Emerson said best thing about travel is to show you didn’t have to travel. He said to travel around the world and come back and find what you’re looking for in your backyard. No, I think traveling is a good thing. But I’m not running around here with a permanent inferiority complex because I’ve not been to London. I’ve been invited often enough, but I’ve been too lazy to go or else fell I had too much to do and didn’t go. But watch it brethren. This using other people as examples and then trying to keep up psychologically so you don’t feel inferior. What a shame, God’s people.

Jesus was never out of Palestine. Jesus never wore a garment somebody didn’t make for Him. Jesus never owned anything that would have sold at auction probably for more than a dollar and a half. Yet, Jesus was the Lord of Glory and the riches of the world were His. He could have spoken to those stones and they’d been gold. He could have spoken to the trees and they’d have turned to rich wheat bread. He could have spoken to the very air and it would have blown riches to Him. And he walked calmly, quietly through the world and left one garment behind me. Not that he despised possessions, No. And if God gave you possessions, thank God for them.

While I was having breakfast this morning, I got up a little ahead of the rest. And when I was having breakfast, I was reading in dear old Thomas Traherne. Thomas Traherne said this, my sermon notes are already made, so I didn’t get anything from him for you particularly and didn’t get my message certainly from him. But he said this, he said God made a wonderful, beautiful world. And he said, some people think you oughten to enjoy it. He said, I don’t agree with them. I think we ought to enjoy all things that God has made, because God made them to be enjoyed. For instance, if somebody gives me a tie and I don’t wear it, it tells the fellow that I didn’t appreciate the tie. And if God gives you a blue sky or a flowing river or a singing bird or a lovely mountain and you say I don’t believe in enjoying earthly things, you’re saying to God, take it back, I don’t like it. So said Thomas Traherne in my language. I believe with him.

Jessie Penn-Lewis, who worked with Evan Roberts in the revival, and some people said, did him no good, teaches that we’ve got to condemn our enjoyment. All of our enjoyments our soul, she said. Soul and spirit are divided. The spirit is the redeemed part and the soul only can be redeemed if we if we deny it. So she says, we are not to enjoy anything in this world, music, art, literature, poetry, beauty, anything. She says sacrifice all of that enjoyment. Keep it unto life eternal.

I heard the mockingbird sing down in Virginia. Funny, those people down there, I said, oh, a mockingbird! Some of them said, yeah, I had’t noticed them. They said, I never hear them. You never hear a mockingbird? And here they were, up on TV antennas and on telephone poles and on trees, and on church steeples, singing like an angel. Now, somebody tells me, Tozer, if you like to hear that, you’re unspiritual. Who made that mockingbird? Did the devil put that harp together and throw a bunch of feathers around it, give it a tail and a pair of wings? Did the devil make the mockingbird? No, God made the mockingbird and he said, here’s a little present to you. He let it go out of his hand and it went fluttering around began to sing. Now, I’m not to enjoy it? I am to enjoy it. Sure, enjoy all God’s lovely world, but keep it all out of you. Keep everything out of you. Keep your heart clean, and keep God in your heart and keep everything outside.

The missionary in the South, that is the missionary who’s lived in the South and loved the mockingbird, if he’s called to go to Tibet, or Timbuktu where there’s not a bird, it’s his business to get up say, goodbye to the mockingbird. Thank God for the little delight he’s taken in it and go where never a mockingbird is heard. But the idea that when God gives it to you and it’s where you are, you can’t enjoy it, seems to me to be the height of fanaticism. And I still love to see the moon at night. And when I’m outside Chicago, I love to see the stars at night. So, break the grip of the world’s philosophies and make God everything. God is everything. You can have anything and still it won’t hurt you. If God is very little or nothing, anything will hurt you.

And then lastly, accept your status as a pilgrim. You’re a pilgrim dear friend. You’re not a resident here. You’re passing through, if you’re a Christian. We build no nest here for our hearts. We’re migrating to a permanent home. We’re migratory birds. Some of you that live out a little where such things take place. In another three weeks or four, three, maybe, you will see a brown bird with spotted breast and a white ring around its perfectly round eyes. And it will be down on the ground among the bushes scratching about all by itself. And it’ll be singing the gentlest, softest little song you’ve ever heard in all your life. Now, that’s an oven bird, a migratory bird.

The flight song of the ovenbird is one of the great things to hear on the North American continent, but there are no oven birds in Chicago. The ones that come here are migratory. They’re passing through from where they were, to where they’re going to go. And they just stop around your house long enough to give you a little taste of what their beautiful song is. They’re shy and you can’t get near them. But if you just be patient, you’ll hear them sing. Oven birds on their way from the South to the North to hatch and raise their little brood. Then, next fall, they will be back to scratch under your window again, they’re migrating. God’s children are not resident birds. They’re migratory birds. They’re passing through from where they were to where they’re going. And where they’re going of course is God Almighty’s heaven.

William Cullen Bryant when he was a young fellow just out of law school had passed his bar examination and hadn’t established himself yet as a lawyer. He left home to go to, I believe to Boston if I remember. One of the New England cities to hang out his shingle and being a home-loving boy, he was rather lonely and homesick. And sick at heart as he walked one night. One evening, and as he walked as the sun was going down, he looked up and saw a wild duck migrating. Mostly they travel in flocks, but this old duck must have gotten lost. And he was all by himself. And from seeing this wild duck flying all along, beating its way steadily toward the south, he wrote the famous poem To a Water Fowl. There are several verses, two of them being, Whither, ‘midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way? He concludes by saying this, He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone, Will lead my steps aright alright.

I heard William Jennings Bryan quote that in that organ voice of his one time. And Bryan, the young Bryan picked himself up and accumulated himself, as they say, and went away with a big smile on his face and wrote this point. He said, I’m a lonely boy here, on the New England shores, but I know God and Christ and that bird tells me that the God who holds him up there safe as he migrates, will help me a migratory man. It will guide me all the way. And the old man of God said, brief life is here our portion, brief sorrow, short life care, but the life that knows no ending, the tearless life is there. We’re migratory birds. We’re pilgrims passing through. This is not our home.

So, let’s get saved from things and people’s opinions and ourselves and our money and our clothing and our possessions. And you’ll have these things, but use them reverently, thankfully wisely, and give them generously. And remember, we’re pilgrims, and that he who guides through the boundless air, the certain flight of the bird, will also guide us until we arrive at last on those shores that are washed by the water that flows from the throne of God. It’s worth waiting for brethren, it’s worth one little sacrifice it costs. Amen.

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” Dangers in the Way and How to Avoid Them Introduction “

“Sources of Danger”

March 20, 1955

Now, over the next few Sundays, I want to talk to you about dangers in the way and how we can avoid them. I read the other day these words, I will love Thee O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my Rock and my Fortress, my Deliverer, my God, my Strength, my Buckler, the Horn of my Salvation and my High Tower. And I said, How is this? What does a man want and what does he need of a rock or a fortress or deliverer? A rock is a place for a man of course to hide from his enemies. A fortress is a place for a soldier to go in. And a deliverer is somebody that delivers another from his troubles and dangers. A buckler is something you wear on as armor. The horn of salvation was, It was a figure drawn from the animals who won with their horns and he said God was his Horn, and my High Tower, a place where a man got up and looked out over the terrain, watched for approaching enemies and warned the fortress below.

Now, I said why are these words necessary here in a psalm and the answer came, because the Psalms are a reflected image of the Christian life. All life’s experiences are found in the Psalms. You will find here, life’s dangers, life’s joy, life’s sadness, life’s victories, life’s work and labor and defeat; you will find life’s night and life’s day, or shadows under sunshine, and life and even death itself, you will find here in the Psalms.

The Psalms are a mirror of this spiritual life. And in this Psalm we find words which indicate, that obviously, there are dangers in the Christian way, dangers from which we must escape, or know how to meet and conquer. And this is not my personal conclusion, but the whole Bible says the same thing. I conclude therefore, that since real dangers to the spiritual life do exist, it is proper that God’s people should be alerted to them, and that any Shepherd desiring to be a faithful Shepherd should point them out to the people. And then, not only point them out, but point a way of escape from them. It’s no good examining the patient if you don’t have a cure. It’s no good warning of the danger of attack if you don’t have a bomb shelter. It’s no good knowing that your enemy is coming if you don’t know how to meet your enemy.

So, over the next weeks, I’m going to speak in the mornings on “Dangers in the Way” and how we can avoid them. Now this morning, I’m not going to talk about any dangers, that is, I am not going to mention them specifically, but I want to mention the directions from which they come. There are only three directions from which danger comes to the Christian life. These are not in themselves dangers, but they are the cardinal directions from whence the dangers come. They are, the world through which we journey, and the god of this world, and our own unmortified flesh. Now, those are the three directions from whence dangers come that make it necessary that we have a rock, a fortress, deliverer, a buckler and a high tower and so on.

Now, I want to mention these briefly and explain them so that as we go on we will have  them as a background against which we can do our religious and spiritual thinking. There’s first of all the world. Now when I say that the world is a source of danger to the Christian. I don’t mean the wind and the storm and the lightning and the sea and the desert, all of which are very beautiful and very wonderful. I do not mean these dangers. Now, I know that there is danger. How long ago was it that the storm came through Southern Illinois and I think there were 800 killed and a couple of thousand injured and a hundred million dollars worth of damage done, if my figures are correct.

Now, I know that the wind is a source of danger, but it’s not a source of danger to the soul. It’s only a source of danger to the body and I have not that before me. And then the lightning, I know. I saw a man helped carry a man in who was struck down by lightning. He was standing in a new building that was being put up. And the porch was put up and the bricklayers had laid the chimney. And he was standing by that chimney when a storm came up. And the lightning struck the old gentlemen and killed him instantly. Now, there is danger from the lightning, but it’s not a real danger. David was thinking, as David was a spiritual man. And David might have been thinking as the external shell of proof of his physical enemies. But always David saw the spiritual side of things. And the Holy Ghost didn’t put this Psalm here to remind us that there was danger from lightning and storm and soldiers. Neither is the sea a source of danger, neither is the desert. There are certainly many bones lying in the desert, and how many bodies are floating around in the deep tomb that we call the oceans of the world. All that I well know, but you can destroy a human body and not injure a man at all.

We Christians ought to get hold of that as a basic philosophy of the Christian life, that you can destroy a man’s body and not injure the man at all. You can tear down the temple and not hurt the Spirit that dwells within. You can cause a man’s bones to lie in the desert and the man’s spirit can be unharmed in the presence of its Father and its God, so that the dangers that I say that are in the world are not the ordinary dangers, not even the A-bomb. I think it’s time that we Christians call a moratorium on A-bomb and H-bomb scares. I think that we ought to remember that that’s not our source of danger. You can polarize a man with an H bomb, but not all the H-bombs in no world can touch his immortal spirit. Real dangers are dangers that get through to the soul and get through to the spirit of a man.

Now, these threats I say are only to the body. There was John the Baptist; soldiers cut his head off, but they didn’t hurt John at all. When our Savior died on the cross, His body was destroyed, that is, it was broken for me as He put it, broken for you. But the man Christ Jesus was preserved in the bosom of God. And so with Paul, when they cut off his head. Why, he said, I know that there is prepared for me, and that there’s laid up for me a crown of glory. So, he went to that crown, rather than to defeat when they cut his head off. No real harm can come through the physical body to a man, but only through the soul. 

What then do we mean by the world when we say that real dangers come to the Christian through the world? Well, it is through human society. A gentleman out in front of this church the other day, gave me a little booklet about the size of the average Gospel of John. He said he was an Episcopalian. He comes here sometimes Sunday night. He lives down the block. A very wonderful, friendly Christian brother. And they they put out, the Episcopal Church puts out a little booklet for Lent, and my wife and I have been looking that over and reading it Sunday mornings, I mean on mornings for prayer. And yesterday, quite to my delight and surprise there was a message on the world, and a warning, a sharp warning that we should avoid the world and escape it and get away from it; that it was dangerous to us. And it said, what do we mean by the world?  It said, society organized outside the will of God.

Now, you couldn’t find a better definition for the world than that, society outside the will of God. And that’s human society. As long as sin remains, human society will be a threat to the Christian soul. Its sin, its unbelief, its diversions, its ambitions, and its spirit. However, skillfully disguised, the world is still the world. And that is why the Bible is so very stern and so very insistent. You will find lots of Christian leaders who will apologize and compromise and smooth things over, but you’ll find nothing but stern insistence in the Bible that we are to forsake the world. And that we ought not to in anywise be influenced by its sin, nor its unbelief, nor its diversions, nor its ambitions, nor its spirit. In any sense of the word, the dangers that come to the Christian, come through the world party. That’s one of the directions from whence they come.

Now, blessed are you if you know what I’m speaking about. And blessed are you if you know how to put it in practice. Blessed are you if God has opened your eyes to know what I mean. If He has not, I don’t know very much that I can do. I sometimes feel as Jesus must have felt when He said, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killeth the prophets and stoneth them that are sent unto thee. How often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings and ye would not. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. And verily I say unto you, ye shall not see me until the time come when you shall say, blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord.

I would like to prophesied a little. I would like to stand here to tell you something. I foresee it, that the man that God’s eyes, whose eyes God has opened, I see the time coming, I see the time coming when worldly evangelicalism will be deserted one by one, by all the holy men whose eyes are open, and their house will be left desolate, and they’ll not have a man of God, nor a man in whom the Holy Ghost dwells, left among them. We have become so worldly. And I say, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I, but she you would not listen. 

Then so, the man who sees it is put on the shelf and written off as being somewhat of a decent chap, but somewhat fanatical. And watch it my brethren, when the day is going to come, I’d like to live a hundred years yet. I don’t want to die, but I’m willing to die tonight. But I would like to live a hundred years yet to watch its developments and see how things are going. And I’d like to see that which I foresee come to pass. And I would like to live to see the time when the holy and the separated and the envisioned walk out of worldly fundamentalism and form a group of their own. And get off the sinking ship and let her go down in the brackish cruel waters of worldliness while we form a new ark and ride out the storm. Because the world is upon us and the Bible has no compromise to make with it. The Bible has a message for it. And the Bible calls it back home and the Bible sends us to it, but never to compromise with it. And never to walk its way, and only and rather to save it if possible, or save as many as we can. That’s one direction.

So my Christian friend, you’re settling back snugly into your foam rubber chair, and resting in your faith and John 3:16 and the fact that you accepted Christ. You had better watch yourself. Take heed to thyself, lest thou also be found wanting. Take heed and search your own heart lest, and all has been said and done, it is found that you have been tied up with the world. A stock illustration which you can’t refrain from giving. I don’t use many, except the ones I make up myself. But, I heard this and I think it’s true. They said when it was still snowing and cold up at Niagara Falls, when there were great blocks and chunks of ice going over the falls and sheep had died; I’ve seen the same thing happen. I could see how it would be. When sheep had died and had been thrown, or had fallen into the waters. They said that they were floating down, these great bloated sheep, floating down and over the falls, and some great American eagles were swooping down on the sheep and riding along and tearing at their flesh, and eating and gorging until they started over the falls. And then they screamed and waved their wings and circled and soared into the sun and back up the river again to find another carcass. And then getting down onto it, and tearing it, and eating until it started over the falls, and then pulling loose and circling away.

But it was very cold weather and it was those times when you freeze and don’t know you’re freezing. And they said, one great Eagle was tearing away with its great talon buried in the wool of the sheep, and unknown to it, its talons had frozen into the wool. And when it felt the sheep give away under it and ready for the plunge, it screamed once more and waved its wings, but it was frozen into the wool. And with one last screem, it went over the falls to its death on the rocks below.

Now, we have been living off the world and floating around on the world and then gracefully pulling away when it went into the gutter. But still, we’ve been riding the carcass of the world, and then just guess, getting away in time. How far can I go and not go over? How far can I go and still not go over? Would you please answer in your magazine and tell me what I can do and still not be lost? Just how far can I go? Well, we’ve been doing that and doing that, and one of these days, we’re going to freeze our claws into the world’s wool and go over with the world. There’s only one thing today to do, spread your broad wings and soar into the sun and let the floating carcasses of the world alone to the god of this world, Satan. That’s another source. That’s a direction from whence all these dangers come; any danger may come.

Now, the devil is called by four names in the Bible. He’s called the Dragon, the Serpent, the devil and Satan. He’s called the Dragon in such places as Revelation 12. That is, it’s the devil when he’s in government. When the devil in the Roman Empire was busy destroying the church, they named him the Dragon. And they said, he is like the dragon. And I can see how the Romans; they say that thirteen million Christians alone perished around the city of Rome in the first two centuries. And I can see as they saw their loved ones led away and beheaded one after the other. I can see how they said this is the Dragon. This is the devil in government. And I think of the six million Jews that died in gas chambers and other means and methods of execution under Hitler. I can see how they might say, Satan is in this man Hitler, and he’s threshing his dirty destructive tail around and killing people. Whenever the devil gets into government and starts persecuting, he’s called the dragon in the Bible.

Communism today is killing them over there. We have hope and optimism, but we don’t know how many are dying, but we do know it must be many. That’s the devil in government. Now, I don’t say the devil is in every government. It would be pretty hard for me to believe that the devil could ever get into as kindly a man as our President, or as fine a young man as our Vice President, or as fine a man as our Governor, or as fine an old gentleman as our mayor. I’m not saying the devil is in these men. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that politicians are devil-possessed men. I’m only saying that there are times when this dragon can so wind himself into government that he takes it over and starts his destructiveness, then it’s the dragon. He’s the Dragon when he’s destroying it.

And then, there he’s called the Serpent also. The same one only he’s got a different mask on this time. In here, he wouldn’t hurt you for the world. He wouldn’t kill you. He wouldn’t put you in jail. He wouldn’t cut your head off. He’s a wily, smiling, slick tempter working by cunning and deception, and winning by compromise and tolerance and patience, and getting your confidence and then selling you the Brooklyn Bridge. The confidence man of Hell with his tricks and his cunning and his deceitfulness. That’s the serpent; the smooth slick serpent. He didn’t go to the desert to destroy Jesus with a blow on the head. He went and said, speak to these stones that they be made bread. He knew that if Jesus the Son of God had listened to the devil and turned and spoke to a stone and and done a miracle out of the will of God, that he would have destroyed Him more easily than if he had put a spear through His heart. But he didn’t tell Him that. He was a compromiser. He said, poor you, you’re hungry aren’t you. Patted his shoulder and said, poor you. Why don’t you get some bread here? You’ve got the power, you know you have. And Jesus said, a man shall not live by bread alone. He said, I’ll give you all the kingdoms of the world, and Jesus said something to the effect that He was not to fall down and worship anybody, but worship God alone. But he was also smooth and slick. Ah my brother, the devil is an orator, and he’s a smooth as a salesman, the wrong kind. He’ll sell you anything. So that’s a direction.

Now I don’t want you to become devil-conscious. Even though I’m talking about the god of this world at the same time, I don’t want you to be devil-conscious, because I have met Christians who are jumpy because of the devil. The best thing to do is keep your eyes on Jesus and let him take care of the devil. But always remember, he is a source of danger. And then, he, this god of the world is called the devil. I’ve called him the Dragon,  the Serpent, and now he is called the devil. That he is diabolus. He is the opposer. He is what you call a counter puncher.

I’ve always been interested in boxing. Just the wind off a good blow would knock me out. But I’ve always been interested in it anyhow. And I listen to them sometimes on the radio, the counter puncher and not much anymore. But I used to be much interested. I used to box when I was a kid, a very, very lot. And I could at least lift the gloves. But there’s such a thing as a punch and there’s a counter puncher. and the counter puncher is this, he never leads, but he waits for the other fellow to lead, and then he ducks and counter punches. Always, for every blow that is aimed at him, he has a defense and then and a quick counter punch. And there have been great fighters who are not punchers, but counter punchers. And the devil is a perfect counter puncher. No matter what a Christian tries to do, the devil blocks him and hits him a blow. Not a bad one, just enough to stun him a bit. And wherever you find the work of God going on, you’ll find the devil there counterpunching, hitting back, hitting back, always hitting back, always hitting back. He’s not omnipresent, but he’s ubiquitous. There’s a difference. God is omnipresent, present everywhere at once, but the devil gets you around so fast that it adds up to almost the same thing.

So, no matter where the work of God is going forward, you will find the devil there blocking and countering and hindering. I told you when I preached some years ago about how the devil got his name, the devil. There used to be in the Greek Olympic races, they had some fellow who they didn’t want to win, and some scoundrel would hide with a long javelin, a long, lance affair, like a clothesline pole. You wouldn’t know what I mean by that. And as a racer would go racing down on his way to win, this fellow would hide behind a hedge somewhere, and as the racer raced by, he would just throw that lance between the fellow’s legs. But you know what would happen? He’d be rolling yet, because he was doing time pretty fast, and when that lance went in between, it didn’t hurt him much, but it just tumbled him over, and by the time he got untangled, the other fellow is five miles down the road. And that’s the way the devil works. That follow was called Diabolus. And they just put that name right on to the devil. They said, that’s the way he works. And a child of God is running the holy race. Satan is either blocking him, always blocking him and and tripping him so that he falls. Now that’s a danger.

Then another. Another name for the devil is Satan. And as Satan, he is the accuser of the brethren. He tries to destroy a reputation before God and before men. Whenever a man’s reputation is torn down, you may be sure who did it. Whatever agent he may have used, or whatever old gossip he may have gotten into, he’s the author of it. So, we have this god of the world; the Serpent, the Dragon, the devil and Satan.

Then, the third source of danger is the unmodified self. That’s the direction from which great dangers come to the Christian. Now, I’m going to bring this to a close, but this is only really an introduction. But, I point out the dangers I’m to preach about, and these sources of danger are very, very real. They’re not imaginary. They are real and only the very reckless will ignore them. Only a reckless driver will ignore a red light. Only a very reckless driver will ignore a sign says, “S Curve” or “Slippery when Wet.” It takes a fool of some kind to ignore danger signals. And no Christian who is serious, I’m preaching, I want to at least preach to serious-minded Christians. And if you’re a serious-minded Christian, then you will not take this as just one more sermon to fill up time. But you will take this series in a very serious way. The serious and the wise want to know where the dangers are. And they want to know what they are. And they want to know how they can recognize them, and how they can overcome.

Now, I’m going to name some for instance, I won’t name all now, but I’m going to preach on the dangers of prosperity. I believe there’s real danger to the souls of men in prosperity. I’m going to mention the dangers of adversity. I think there’s a real danger to the sons of God in adversity. I’m going to talk about the dangers of idleness, with nothing to do, and I’m going to talk about the dangers of busyness, with too much to do, and dangers of victory and dangers of defeat. There are dangers that come from one of these three directions, but they come.

Now, what are you going to do? Just name dangers over the next weeks, Ah, my brethren, we’re going to name them and show you how to escape them. And then we’re going to show you what God said here to this man David. Notice, he said the Lord is my Rock and Fortress and Deliverer.  He had to have help. So he said, I will call upon the Lord who was worthy to be praised. So shall I be saved from mine enemies. And he said, God sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy and from them which hated me, for they were too strong for me. He brought me forth also into a large place. He delivered me because He delighted in me. I believe that deliverance is is not only possible, but normal for the child of God, if we have our eyes open.

God doesn’t want us to walk around with our eyes closed nor careless. But if our eyes are open, we don’t need to be struck down. If our eyes are open, we don’t need to fall, for our eyes are open. No matter what direction, no matter what the enemies are, we have David’s God for our help. And if we will call upon the Lord and cry unto Him, He will hear from His holy temple and He will send from above and take us and deliver us out of many waters. And He will deliver us because He delights in us.

And never was a time when I felt that God’s people should be more optimistic than now. Never a time when I felt that they should be more encouraged in God than right now. We’re living in wild, turbulent, dangerous, dramatic days. The four winds are striving on the great sea. And the moon is mourning the time when it shall be turned to blood. You and I need not fear. God is on our side. And God’s on His holy throne and in His holy temple. And all is right with the man or woman who dares to believe. Do you believe it? Amen.