Category: Formation

Many tender-minded Christians fear to sin against love by daring to inquire into anything that comes wearing the cloak of Christianity and breathing the name of Jesus. They dare not examine the credentials of the latest prophet to hit their town lest they be guilty of rejecting something which may be of God. They timidly remember how the Pharisees refused to accept Christ when He came, and they do not want to be caught in the same snare, so they either reserve judgment or shut their eyes and accept everything without question. This is supposed to indicate a high degree of spirituality.

But in sober fact it indicates no such thing. It may indeed be evidence of the absence of the Holy Spirit. Gullibility is not synonymous with spirituality. Faith is not a mental habit leading its possessor to open his mouth and swallow everything that has about it the color of the supernatural. Faith keeps its heart open to whatever is of God, and rejects everything that is not of God, however wonderful it may be. Try the spirits is a command of the Holy Spirit to the Church. We may sin as certainly by approving the spurious as by rejecting the genuine. And the current habit of refusing to take sides is not the way to avoid the question. To appraise things with a heart of love and then to act on the results is an obligation resting upon every Christian in the world. And the more as we see the day approaching.

A. W. Tozer Sermon: Testing the Spirits

Images and video tell the story that the photographer/videographer wants to tell from the angle they want to tell it…even before Photoshop. We tell the story that we want heard.

We’ve each seen far too many “selfies”, Instagrams and Tik Tok’s of distressed, insecure, jealous, depressed and miserable people living a “seemingly” full, exciting, airbrushed life on social media to NOT know this to be true.

John 12:43 ESV for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.

1 Samuel 16:7 ESV …For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”

Self-righteousness is terrible among God’s people. If we feel that we are what we ought to be, then we will remain what we are. We will not look for any change or improvement in our lives. This will quite naturally lead us to judge everyone by what we are. This is the judgment of which we must be careful. To judge others by ourselves is to create havoc in the local assembly. Self-righteousness also leads to complacency. Complacency is a great sin and covers just about everything I have said about the rote and the rut. Some have the attitude, “Lord, I’m satisfied with my spiritual condition. I hope one of these days You will come, I will be taken up to meet You in the air and I will rule over five cities.” These people cannot rule over their own houses and families, but they expect to rule over five cities. They pray spottily and sparsely, rarely attending prayer meeting, but they read their Bibles and expect to go zooming off into the blue yonder and join the Lord in the triumph of the victorious saints.

A. W. Tozer Sermon: Spiritual Smugness

What a great verse to be reminded of today as I think back over all that God has done in my life and in our ministry over the last many months and even into the new year. The enemy has tried to isolate and depress us, to divide and conquer us, to lie to us and scare us into hibernating through the darkest days this generation of the world has ever seen – rather than walking in the Light, as He is in the light so that others may see His Light and give glory to our Father in heaven.Not today, enemy of the cross.

Not today! You’ve gotten nothing from me that God did not first allow. And what He allowed to be removed from me or placed on me, it was for His glory and the good of His people. Amen, and only AMEN!

Genesis 50:20 ESV As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.

Matthew 5:14-16 ESV “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. [15] Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. [16] In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

1 John 1:5-7 ESV This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. [6] If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. [7] But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

If the actions of another “christian” would cause you to lose faith or step away from your faith, your faith was in the wrong thing…the wrong person.

There has been much in the last year that has rocked people’s faith in humanity as well as their faith in God Almighty. Though I’ve totally seen and experienced the acts of humanity that have caused this, my faith has not wavered in God…but increased.

I have been encouraged by the power of His Holy Spirit in those humans who choose to mortify the flesh and surrender to His Spirit.

There is a separating of the wheat from the tares. So be it, Lord. Show is Your Power!!

I Tozer. I don’t have a date for when he preached this sermon, but Tozer died nearly 60 years ago so the sermon could be 60 to 90 years old. It’s context would fit perfectly today.

“We have developed in recent times a peace-loving, soft-spoken, tame and harmless brand of Christian of whom the world has no fear and for whom it has little respect. We are careful, for instance, never to speak in public against any of the false cults lest we be thought intolerant. We fear to talk against the destructive sins of modern civilization for fear someone will brand us as bigoted and narrow. Little by little we have been forced off the hard earth into a religious cloud-land where we are permitted to wing our harmless way around, like swallows at sundown, saying nothing that might stir the ire of the sons of this world. That Neo-Christianity, which seems for the time to be the most popular (and is certainly the most aggressive), is very careful not to oppose sin. It wins its crowds by amusing them and its converts by hiding from them the full implications of the Christian message. It carries on its projects after the ballyhoo methods of American business. Well might we paraphrase Wordsworth and cry, “Elijah, thou shouldst be living at this hour; America has need of thee.” We stand in desperate need of a few men like Elijah who will dare to face up to the brazen sinners who dictate our every way of life. Sin in the full proportions of a revolution or a plague has all but destroyed our civilization while church people have played like children in the marketplace. What has happened to the spirit of the American Christian? Has our gold become dim? Have we lost the spirit of discernment till we can no longer recognize our captors? How much longer will we hide in caves while Ahab and Jezebel continue to pollute the temple and ravage the land? Surely we should give this some serious thought and prayer before it is too late–if indeed it is not too late already.”

A. W. Tozer Sermon: Standing for Truth

I have observed many a man (and woman) self destruct in their own arrogance and self righteousness. It is excruciating and heartbreaking to watch. You cannot defend God’s Way by transgressing His Word.

God have mercy upon me, a sinner. Have mercy upon us all. Expose our arrogance. Give Light to Your Way.

2 Corinthians 10:12 ESV Not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding

Proverbs 26:12 ESV Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.

Proverbs 3:7 ESV Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil.

Luke 14:11 ESV For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Philippians 2:3-5 ESV Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. [4] tLet each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. [5] Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,

Another 60, 70 or 80 year old sermon from Tozer that could have just as easily been written yesterday.

It is sad indeed to know that there are Christian leaders among us who are too timid to tell the people all the truth. They are now asking men and women to give to God only that which costs them nothing! The contemporary moral climate does not favor a faith as tough and fibrous as that taught by our Lord and His apostles. Christ calls men to carry His cross; we call them to have fun in His name! He calls them to suffer; we call them to enjoy all the bourgeois comforts modern civilization affords! He calls them to holiness; we call them to a cheap and tawdry happiness that would have been rejected with scorn by the least of the Stoic philosophers! When will believers learn that to love righteousness it is necessary to hate sin? That to accept Christ it is necessary to reject self? That a friend of the world is an enemy of God? Let us not be shocked by the suggestion that there are disadvantages to the life in Christ!

A. W. Tozer Sermon: Tell the Whole Truth

“The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. BLESSED be the name of the Lord.”

Upon finding out that within moments of one another, Job lost all of his wealth, livestock, nearly all of his servants and his 10 children were killed through a series of raids, fire and a tornado, we pick up in verse 20.

Job 1:20-22 ESV Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. [21] And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” [22] In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.

What would it take for you to refuse to worship God and instead charge God with being unfair to you and move forward into offending God’s nature by willful and careless sin?