More Tozer

The true Christian has a passion and love for truth, and feels not at all uncomfortable with the imperialistic, exclusive nature of truth. And yet if that passion for truth is not regulated by warm love for our neighbor, we are to the lost but frowning, bitter advocates of something the world finds to be foolish. Truth riding on the crest of love is appealing, but mired in the muck of pride it can be disgusting. In the nature of God these two great forces are never in tension: "Lovingkindness and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other" (Ps. 85:10). Not so in man. If we are not trained by humility, we will attempt to wield truth as a battering ram with which we try to bludgeon our neighbors, our children, and our spouse into submission.

As Tozer focuses on the Holy Spirit in the last third of his book, The Pursuit of Man, he speaks about love and truth:

The blight of the Pharisee's heart in olden times was doctrine without love. With the teachings of the Pharisees Christ had little quarrel, but with the pharisaic spirit He carried on unceasing warfare to the end. It was religion that put Christ on the cross, religion without the indwelling Spirit. It is no use to deny that Christ was crucified by persons who today would be called fundamentalists. This should prove most disquieting if not downright distressing to us who pride ourselves on our orthodoxy. An unblessed soul filled with the letter of truth may actually be worse off than a pagan kneeling before a fetish. We are safe only when the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, only when our intellects are indwelt by the loving Fire that came at Pentecost. For the Holy Spirit is not a luxury, not something added now and again to produce a deluxe type of Christian once in a generation. No, He is for every child of God a vital necessity, and that He fill and indwell His people is more than a languid hope. It is rather an inescapable imperative [A. W. Tozer, 106].

Nowhere is this human, fallen, and wholly unnecessary contradiction between love and truth seen so clearly as in our communications on the Internet. Our flame wars do little more than demonstrate how little the truth has changed us, and I am as guilty as the next. We are like the sons of thunder, who in the face of rejection asked Jesus, "Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" (Luke 9:54). Jesus' response to James and John is one we still need to heed today: "But He turned and rebuked them, and said, “You do not know what kind of spirit you are of; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them" (Luke 9:55-56, while there is a textual issue with His precise words, there is none with the fact of His rebuke).

May God invade us with His Holy Spirit, that our stand for truth would be unyielding but bathed in warm-hearted love and respect for those who do not yet know the Truth, Whom to know aright is life eternal.

Life-verse Number Three

Jeremiah 45:5 “‘But you, are you seeking great things for yourself? Do not seek them; for behold, I am going to bring disaster on all flesh,’ declares the Lord, ‘but I will give your life to you as booty in all the places where you may go.’”

This verse requires a bit of context. The prophet Jeremiah had a secretary named Baruch. The technical, scholarly term is “amanuensis” - you can use it to impress your friends and neighbors, but it means, essentially, “secretary.” An amanuensis was one who would record what another said or dictated (think, court recorder).

Baruch is the one who actually wrote the scroll of Jeremiah, as Jeremiah dictated it to him. Jeremiah the prophet was persona non grata in the royal court of Judah, because his prophecies were condemning the Judean kingdom for their sins as the clock ran down on the southern kingdom. Since Baruch was associated with the hated prophet, he shared in the abuse and contempt. It could not have been pleasant to be hated by your own people while the barbarians were at the gates (actually, it was the Babylonians).

At some low point for the scribe, God gave to Jeremiah a word of encouragement for Baruch, with a promise. “Drop your personal ambitions and dreams of greatness, Baruch. It’s not an appropriate time for that. Instead, I will give you your life as a prize.”

This is for me both a rebuke and a comfort. When I was a young believer, I had dreams and ambitions of “what I would do for God.” Like most ambitions, mine were sullied with prideful desires for personal greatness. Needless to say, my great ambitions did not pan out. And it’s a good thing, too. I already struggle too much with personal pride. Visual success would simply be more than I could handle. God is so gracious.

This promise to Baruch is mine. Christ has given me my life, in that He has saved me and provided me with eternal life. By His good grace, my path has followed His course for me, not my own. Those dreams didn’t pan out, but they were more for me than for Christ. It’s been a far better path than I would have chosen. This is my life verse for the latter portion of my life as a believer, and it is a good one—a blessing.

Are you seeking great things for yourself? Don’t, Christian. God has given you your life as a prize, instead. What He has for you is far better than what you would have chosen for yourself.

Life-verse Number Two

Jeremiah 9:23-24 says:

Thus says the Lord, “Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the Lord.

I love this passage. Somewhere along the line in my earliest days as a believer in Christ, I was reading Jeremiah and these two verses jumped out and grabbed me and carried me around the room a couple times. This is my life-verse.

I am one prone to boast. When I tend to be inflated with pride—puffed up, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 8:1—this passage calls me back, plants my feet on the ground. There is but One of whom to boast—and it’s not me. I will boast of Christ, that by His divine sovereign election I know Him. I will boast of Christ, that by His grace and mercy I know and love His Word. Apart from Christ I would be deaf to His Word and blind to His glory. Apart from Christ I would remain spiritually dead and headed for an inexorable judgment. Apart from Christ the gospel would be foolishness to me, and the ways of the world, wisdom.

When I sign my name, I often add the reference “Je 9:23-24.” When I was at Westminster, some of my instructors took exception to my using that text. They knew my background (fundamentalist), and thought I was staking out some sort of anti-intellectual position. I can understand why they might have thought that: the fundamentalist movement has often fallen prey to that self-defeating and biblically foolish position.

But my use of Jeremiah has never been a statement of that sort. It’s not a rebuke for someone else: it is a reminder for me: I have nothing of which to boast—except Christ, whom to know aright is life eternal. In Him, of Him, I will boast.

Noteworthy: from Murray's Humility

This quote comes from Andrew Murray's little volume entitled, Humility: The Journey toward Holiness, pp 61-62. It makes reference to Luke 18:9-14.

The chief mark of counterfeit holiness is its lack of humility. Every seeker after holiness needs to be on his guard lest unconsciously what was begun in the spirit is perfected in the flesh, and pride creep in where its presence is least expected. Two men went up to a temple to pray: the one a Pharisee, the other a tax collecter. There was no place or position so sacred that the Pharisee could not enter there. Pride can lift its head in the very temple of God and make His worship the scene of its self-exaltation. Since the time Christ so exposed his pride, the Pharisee has put on the garb of the tax collector. The confessor of deep sinfulness and the professor of high holiness must both be on watch. Just when we are most anxious to have our heart be the temple of God, we will find the two men coming to pray. And the tax collector will find that his danger is not from the Pharisee beside him, who despises him, but the Pharisee within, who commends and exalts himself. In God's temple, when we think we are in the holy place, in the presence of His holiness, let us beware of pride. "One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them" (Job 1:6). [Emphasis mine]

I, of course, have no idea how you respond to this. It's part of a larger, and quite excellent chapter (I recommend the book, highly). But as I read this excerpt, I find my heart crying out with Paul (Romans 7:24), "Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?"

I am the tax collector. But more wretchedly, I am the Pharisee.

"Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Paul says, as he continues in Romans.

Jesus Christ our only hope; but for the one who knows Christ truly, we know that He is a fully sufficient hope. He will complete that good thing He has begun in us (Philippians 1:6). And that's worth celebrating!