AWAITING!! Watching & Praying

"There is one sure way to escape the delusions of religion: Receive Christ as Lord of our lives and begin to obey Him in everything. Submit to the truth and let it search us. Submit and obey are hard and exacting words; but necessary if we would be true Christians." - A.W. Tozer .

                                                Introduction

Aiden Wilson Tozer was born April 21, 1897, on a small farm among the spiny ridges of Western Pennsylvania. Within a few short years, Tozer, as he preferred to be called, would earn the reputation and title of a 20th-century prophet."
Able to express his thoughts in a simple but forceful manner, Tozer combined the power of God and the power of words to nourish hungry souls, pierce human hearts, and draw earthbound minds toward God. When he was 15 years old, Tozer's family moved to Akron, Ohio. One afternoon as he walked home from his job at Goodyear, he overheard a street preacher say, "If you don't know how to be saved just call on God." When he got home, he climbed the narrow stairs to the attic where, heeding the preacher's advice, Tozer was launched into a lifelong pursuit of God.

In 1919, without formal education, Tozer was called to pastor a small storefront church in Nutter Fort, West Virginia. That humble beginning thrust him and his new wife Ada Cecelia Pfautz, into a 44-year ministry with The Christian and Missionary Alliance. Thirty-one of those years were spent at Chicago's Southside Alliance Church. The congregation, captivated by Tozer's preaching, grew from 80 to 800. In 1950 Tozer was elected editor of the Alliance Weekly now called Alliance Life. The circulation doubled almost immediately. In the first editorial dated June 3, 1950, he set the tone: "It will cost something to walk slow in the parade of the ages while excited men of time rush about confusing motion with progress. But it will pay in the long run and the true Christian is not much interested in anything short of that."

Tozer's forte was his prayer life which often found him walking the aisles of a sanctuary or lying face down on the floor. He noted, "As a man prays, so is he." To him the worship of God was paramount in his life and ministry. "His preaching as well as his writings were but extensions of his prayer life," comments Tozer biographer James L. Snyder. An earlier biographer noted, "He spent more time on his knees than at his desk. Tozer's love for words also pervaded his family life. He quizzed his children on what they read and made up bedtime stories for them. "The thing I remember most about my father," reflects his daughter Rebecca, "was those marvelous stories he would tell."

Son Wendell, one of six boys born before the arrival of Rebecca, remembers that, "We all would rather be treated to the lilac switch by our mother than to have a talking to by our dad."
Tozer's final years of ministry were spent at Avenue Road Church in Toronto, Canada. On May 12, 1963, his earthly pursuit of God ended when he died of a heart attack at age 66. In a small cemetery in Akron, Ohio, his tombstone bears this simple epitaph: "A Man of God." Some wonder why Tozer's writings are as fresh today as when he was alive. It is because, as one friend commented, "He left the superficial, the obvious and the trivial for others to toss around. [His] books reach deep into the heart." His humor, written and spoken, has been compared to that of Will Rogers honest and homespun. Congregations could one moment be swept by gales of laughter and the next sit in a holy hush. For almost 50 years, Tozer walked with God. Even though he is gone, he continues to speak, ministering to those who are eager to experience God. As someone put it, "This man makes you want to know and feel God."

A. W. Tozer - Index 

An Excerpt from The Loneliness of the Christian by A. W. Tozer   The loneliness of the Christian results from his walk with God in an ungodly world, a walk that must often take him away from the fellowship of good Christians as well as from that of the unregenerate world. His God-given instincts cry out for companionship with others of his kind, others who can understand his longings, his aspirations, his absorption in the love of Christ; and because within his circle of friends there are so few who share his inner experiences he is forced to walk alone.   The unsatisfied longings of the prophets for human understanding caused them to cry out in their complaint, and even our Lord Himself suffered in the same way. The man [or woman] who has passed on into the divine Presence in actual inner experience will not find many who understand him. He finds few who care to talk about that which is the supreme object of his interest, so he is often silent and preoccupied in the midst of noisy religious shoptalk.  For this he earns the reputation of being dull and over-serious, so he is avoided and the gulf between him and society widens.   He searches for friends upon whose garments he can detect the smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces, and finding few or none he, like Mary of old, keeps these things in his heart. It is this very loneliness that throws him back upon God. His inability to find human companionship drives him to seek in God what he can find nowhere else."   From Man - The Dwelling Place of God, Chapter 39:  "The Saint Must Walk Alone"

 

 

 

Revival: A Divine Visitation

And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as
to carnal, as to babes in Christ. 
-1 Corinthians 3:1

I believe that it might be well for us if we just stopped all of our
business and got quiet and worshiped God and waited on Him. It
doesn't make me popular when I remind you that we are a carnal bunch,
but it is true, nevertheless, that the body of Christians is carnal.
The Lord's people ought to be a sanctified, pure, clean people, but
we are a carnal crowd. We are carnal in our attitudes, in our tastes
and carnal in many things. Our young people often are not reverent
in our Christian services. We have so degraded our religious tastes
that our Christian service is largely exhibitionism. We desperately
need a divine visitation-for our situation will never be cured by
sermons! It will never be cured until the Church of Christ has
suddenly been confronted with what one man called the mysterium
tremendium-the fearful mystery that is God, the fearful majesty that
is God. This is what the Holy Spirit does. He brings the wonderful
mystery that is God to us, and presents Him to the human spirit. 
The Counselor, 66-67.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

   A Growing Hunger After God

As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O
God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. 
--Psalm 42:1-2a

In this hour of all-but-universal darkness one cheering gleam
appears: within the fold of conservative Christianity there are to
be found increasing numbers of persons whose religious lives are
marked by a growing hunger after God Himself. They are eager for
spiritual realities and will not be put off with words, nor will
they be content with correct "interpretations" of truth. They are
athirst for God, and they will not be satisfied till they have
drunk deep at the Fountain of Living Water.

This is the only real harbinger of revival which I have been able
to detect anywhere on the religious horizon. It may be the cloud
the size of a man's hand for which a few saints here and there
have been looking. It can result in a resurrection of life for
many souls and a recapture of that radiant wonder which should
accompany faith in Christ, that wonder which has all but fled the
Church of God in our day.  The Pursuit of God, 7.

Revival: A Purified Church

But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.
Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the
knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss
of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ. 
-Philippians 3:7-8

Our most pressing obligation today is to do all in our power to obtain
a revival that will result in a reformed, revitalized, purified
church. It is of far greater importance that we have better Christians
than that we have more of them. Each generation of Christians is the
seed of the next, and degenerate seed is sure to produce a degenerate
harvest not a little better than but a little worse than the seed
from which it sprang. Thus the direction will be down until vigorous,
effective means are taken to improve the seed....

To carry on these activities [evangelism, missions] scripturally the
church should be walking in fullness of power, separated, purified and
ready at any moment to give up everything, even life itself, for the
greater glory of Christ. For a worldly, weak, decadent church to make
converts is but to bring forth after her own kind and extend her
weakness and decadence a bit further out....

So vitally important is spiritual quality that it is hardly too much
to suggest that attempts to grow larger might well be suspended until
we have become better.  The Set of the Sail, 154-156.

Revival: Blessing on Our Terms

Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone desires to come after Me,
let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me."
-Matthew 16:24

Here is what grieves me, and I believe this also grieves the Holy
Spirit: My hearers rise to this call emotionally, but they will not
confirm it by a corresponding change in their way of life. Their
goodness is like the morning clouds-by 9:00 o'clock the sun has burnt
off the fog. This is what happens to many people's good intentions.
They rise emotionally to an urgent message that we become a New
Testament church, that we become a model church, that we have the
order of the New Testament and the power of the Holy Spirit in order
that we might worship, work and witness. Emotionally they rise to it,
but they will not confirm their emotions by corresponding changes in
their way of life.

They want to be blessed by God, but they want God to bless them on
their terms. They look pensively to God for victory, but they will
not bring their giving into line. They will not practice family
prayer, rushing off without it. They will not take time for secret
prayer and will not forgive those who have wronged them. They will
not seek to be reconciled to those with whom they have quarreled.
They will not pick up their crosses and say, "Jesus, I my cross have
taken, all to leave and follow Thee."  Rut, Rot or Revival: The
Condition of the Church, 146-147.

Revival: Born After Midnight

So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will
find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks
receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be
opened.
-Luke 11:9-10

Among revival-minded Christians I have heard the saying, "Revivals
are born after midnight."

This is one of those proverbs which, while not quite literally true,
yet points to something very true.

If we understand the saying to mean that God does not hear our prayer
for revival made in the daytime, it is of course not true. If we take
it to mean that prayer offered when we are tired and worn-out has
greater power than prayer made when we are rested and fresh, again it
is not true....

Yet there is considerable truth in the idea that revivals are born
after midnight, for revivals (or any other spiritual gifts and
graces) come only to those who want them badly enough....

No, there is no merit in late hour prayers, but it requires a
serious mind and a determined heart to pray past the ordinary into
the unusual.

Most Christians never do. And it is more than possible that the rare
soul who presses on into the unusual experience reaches there after
midnight.  Born After Midnight, 7-8,10.

Revival: Deliverance Comes By Deliverers

Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to
Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians
oppress them. Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh
that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. 
--Exodus 3:9-10

Yes, if evangelical Christianity is to stay alive it must have men
again--the right kind of men. It must repudiate the weaklings who
dare not speak out, and it must seek in prayer and much humility the
coming again of men of the stuff of which prophets and martyrs are
made. God will hear the cries of His people as He heard the cries of
Israel in Egypt, and He will send deliverance by sending deliverers.
It is His way.

And when the deliverers come--reformers, revivalists, prophets--they
will be men of God and men of courage. They will have God on their
side because they are careful to stay on God's side. They will be
coworkers with Christ and instruments in the hands of the Holy
Spirit. Such men will be baptized with the Spirit indeed and through
their labors He will baptize others and send the long-delayed
revival.  This World: Playground or Battleground?, 20.

Revival: Doing the Will of God

By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and
keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His
commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. 
--1 John 5:2-3

We urgently need a new kind of reformation throughout our Christian
churches--a reformation that will cause us not only to accept the
will of God but to actively seek it and adore it!...

The reformation we need now can best be described in terms of
spiritual perfection-which reduced to its simplest form is no more and
no less than doing the will of God! This would expose us all at the
point of our need, no matter how sound we think we are in doctrine
and no matter how great our reputations.

I long for the positive and genuine renewal which would come if the
will of God could be totally accomplished in our lives. Everything
that is unspiritual would flee, and all that is not Christlike would
vanish, and all that is not according to the New Testament would be
rejected....

Do we voluntarily and actively observe God's commandments, making
positive changes in our lives as God may indicate in order to bring
the entire life into accord with the New Testament?

That is the active aspect of the will of God that I would own as
reformation in the church, and it would surely result in revival. 
I Talk Back to the Devil, 89-90.

Revival: The Arrow of Infinite Desire

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they
shall be filled. 
-Matthew 5:6

These words are addressed to those of God's children who have been
pierced with the arrow of infinite desire, who yearn for God with a
yearning that has overcome them, who long with a longing that has
become pain.

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for
they will be filled."...

A dead body feels no hunger and the dead soul knows not the pangs
of holy desire. "If you want God," said the old saint, "you have
already found Him." Our desire for fuller life is proof that some
life must be there already....

In nature everything moves in the direction of its hungers. In the
spiritual world it is not otherwise. We gravitate toward our inward
longing, provided of course that those longings are strong enough
to move us. Impotent dreaming will not do. The religious urge that
is not followed by a corresponding act of the will in the direction
of that urge is a waste of emotion.  The Size of the Soul

Revival: The Curse of Self-righteousness

Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I
do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to
those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize
of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 
-Philippians 3:13-14

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.... 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.  Rut, Rot
or Revival: The Condition of the Church, 10-11.

Revival: The Fire Falls

And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, "These things says He
who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: 'I know your
works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.'" 
--Revelation 3:1-2

For a long time I have believed that truth, to be understood, must be
lived; that Bible doctrine is wholly ineffective until it has been
digested and assimilated by the total life....

We must be willing to obey if we would know the true inner meaning
of the teachings of Christ and the apostles. I believe this view
prevailed in every revival that ever came to the church during her
long history. Indeed a revived church may be distinguished from a
dead one by the attitude of its members toward the truth. The dead
church holds to the shell of truth without surrendering the will to
it, while the church that wills to do God's will is immediately
blessed with a visitation of spiritual powers.

Theological facts are like the altar of Elijah on Carmel before the
fire came, correct, properly laid out, but altogether cold. When the
heart makes the ultimate surrender, the fire falls and true facts
are transmuted into spiritual truth that transforms, enlightens,
sanctifies. The church or the individual that is Bible taught
without being Spirit taught (and there are many of them) has simply
failed to see that truth lies deeper than the theological statement
of it.  That Incredible Christian, 92-94.

Revival: The Urgency of God's Will

Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, "Who are these arrayed
in white robes, and where did they come from?" And I said to him,
"Sir, you know." So he said to me, "These are the ones who come out
of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white
in the blood of the Lamb. 
--Revelation 7:13-14

If we are serious about our Christian witness, the day may be near
when we may be persecuted-even killed-for our faith. We should be
stirred, as John was stirred, as we witness this vast company of
God's saints in heaven who have come through earth's great
tribulation.

I am not saying we are not Christians. I am only trying to find out
why we are so far from revival and refreshing and renewal. I am only
trying to determine why we are so far from recognizing the urgency of
God's will laid upon us by the Holy Spirit.

If we belong to Jesus Christ, we should never compromise our
spiritual decisions on the basis of "What is this going to cost
me?" We ought only to ask, "What is my spiritual duty and my
spiritual privilege before God?"  Jesus Is Victor!, 115.

Revival: Time Is Running Out

The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off
the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. 
--Romans 13:12

The absence of spiritual devotion today is an omen and a portent.
The modern church is all but contemptuous of the sober virtues--
meekness, modesty, humility, quietness, obedience, self effacement,
patience. To be accepted now, religion must be in the popular mood.
Consequently, much religious activity reeks with pride, display,
self-assertion, self-promotion, love of gain and devotion to trivial
pleasures.

It behooves us to take all this seriously. Time is running out for
all of us. What is done must be done quickly. We have no right to lie
idly by and let things take their course. A farmer who neglects his
farm will soon lose it; a shepherd who fails to look after his flock
will find the wolves looking after it for him. A misbegotten charity
that allows the wolves to destroy the flock is not charity at all but
indifference, rather, and should be known for what it is and dealt
with accordingly.

It is time for Bible-believing Christians to begin to cultivate the
sober graces and to live among men like sons of God and heirs of the
ages. And this will take more than a bit of doing, for the whole
world and a large part of the church is set to prevent it. But if God
be for us, who can be against us?  We Travel an Appointed Way, 50-51

Revival: Unity Precedes Blessing

Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one
soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed
was his own, but they had all things in common. And with great
power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord
Jesus. And great grace was upon them all. 
--Acts 4:32-33

..unity of mind on the part of the people of God precedes the
blessing. I have often heard people pray, "Oh Lord, send the Holy
Spirit that we may become a united people." That is all right
except it is precisely backwards. The Holy Spirit comes because we
are a united people; He does not come to make us a united people.
Our prayer should be more like, "Lord, help us to get united in
order that the blessing might flow and there might be an outpouring
of oil and dew and life." That's the way we should pray....

This teaches us that unity is necessary to the outpouring of the
Spirit of God. If you have 120 volts of electricity coming into your
house but you have broken wiring, you may turn the switch, but
nothing works-no lights come on, the stove doesn't warm, your radio
doesn't turn on. Why? Because you have broken wiring. The power is
ready to do its work with all the appliances in your home, but where
there is broken wiring, you have no power. Unity is necessary among
the children of God if we are going to know the flow of power. 
Success and the Christian, 86-87.

Revival: We Need a Revival!

And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many
years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry." But God said to him,
"Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will
those things be which you have provided?" So is he who lays up
treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. 
-Luke 12:19-21

We need a revival! We need a revival of consecration to death, a
revival of happy abandonment to the will of God that will laugh at
sacrifice and count it a privilege to bear the cross through the heat
and burden of the day. We are too much influenced by the world and too
little controlled by the Spirit. We of the deeper life persuasion are
not immune to the temptations of ease and we are in grave danger of
becoming a generation of pleasure lovers.

Any who disagree with these conclusions are within their rights, and
I would be the last to deny them the privilege. But in the name of a
thousand struggling churches and disheartended pastors, may I not
plead for a little more loyalty to the local church during this
season of difficulty?

May God raise up a people who will consult their pleasures less and
the great need more.  God Tells the Man Who Cares, 159-160.

FENCING WITH MASTERS

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but
according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they
will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears
away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. 
--2 Timothy 4:3-4

Every one who has come to the years of responsibility seems to have
gone on the defensive. Even some of you who have known me for years
are surely on the defensive--you have your guard up all the time!

I know that you are not afraid of me, but you are afraid,
nevertheless, of what I am going to say. Probably every faithful
preacher today is fencing with masters as he faces his congregation.
The guard is always up. The quick parry is always ready.

It is very hard for me to accept the fact that it is now very rare
for anyone to come into the house of God with guard completely down,
head bowed and with the silent confession: "Dear Lord, I am ready
and willing to hear what You will speak to my heart today!"

We have become so learned and so worldly and so sophisticated and
so blase and so bored and so religiously tired that the clouds of
glory seem to have gone from us.  Christ the Eternal Son, 108-109.

JUST A HUCKSTER

Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I
do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forward to
those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize
of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 
--Philippians 3:13-14

Some young preacher will study until he has to get thick glasses to
take care of his failing eyesight because he has an idea he wants to
become a famous preacher. He wants to use Jesus Christ to make him a
famous preacher. He's just a huckster buying and selling and getting
gain. They will ordain him and he will be known as Reverend and if he
writes a book, they will make him a doctor. And he will be known as
Doctor; but he's still a huckster buying and selling and getting
gain. And when the Lord comes back, He will drive him out of the
temple along with the other cattle.

We can use the Lord for anything--or try to use Him. But what I'm
preaching and what Paul taught and what was brought down through the
years and what gave breath to the modern missionary movement that
you and I know about and belong to was just the opposite: "O, God,
we don't want anything You have, we want You." That's the cry of a
soul on its way up.  Success and the Christian, 29.

"Lord, give us that hunger to know You; deliver us from the pride
that makes us want to use You. Let me pray today with John, 'He must
increase, but I must decrease.' Amen."

SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP OF ANOINTED MEN

Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out
for your souls, as those who must give account. Let them do so with
joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you. 
--Hebrews 13:17

You cannot deny that the life and vitality of the Christian church
lie in the spiritual leadership of men anointed of the Holy Ghost.
I dare to tell you that there is danger in too much democracy in the
life of the church.

I am sure that some of you with a strong Baptist background will
curl up like a burning leaf in the autumn to hear me say this, but
that is all right: I am half Baptist myself!

But I do not believe that God expects the Christian church to thrive
and mature and grow just on plain democratic principles. If you will
check around you will find that even those who hold to democracy in
their church policy never get beyond first base unless they have
leaders within the denomination who are anointed men, strongly
spiritual in leadership.  Christ the Eternal Son, 100.

"Lord, it seems as though Christian leaders have failed so often and
so visibly that now the church is paranoid. I pray that leaders
today would be faithful and pure; I pray that the church today would
be willing to follow Godly leadership. Amen."

WE LANGUISH FOR MEN

Then Paul answered, "What do you mean by weeping and breaking my
heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die at
Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus."
--Acts 21:13

The Church at this moment needs men, the right kind of men,
bold men....

We languish for men who feel themselves expendable in the warfare
of the soul, who cannot be frightened by threats of death because
they have already died to the allurements of this world. Such men
will be free from the compulsions that control weaker men. They
will not be forced to do things by the squeeze of circumstances;
their only compulsion will come from within--or from above.

This kind of freedom is necessary if we are to have prophets in
our pulpits again instead of mascots. These free men will serve
God and mankind from motives too high to be understood by the rank
and file of religious retainers who today shuttle in and out of
the sanctuary. They will make no decisions out of fear, take no
course out of a desire to please, accept no service for financial
considerations, perform no religious act out of mere custom; nor
will they allow themselves to be influenced by the love of
publicity or the desire for reputation. Of God and Men, 11-13.

WHAT A GREAT RESPONSIBILITY!

For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand? 
--Revelation 6:17

What a great responsibility God has laid upon us preachers of His
gospel and teachers of His Word. In that future day when God's wrath
is poured out, how are we going to answer? How am I going to answer?
I fear there is much we are doing in the name of the Christian
church that is wood, hay and stubble destined to be burned up in
God's refining fire. A day is coming when I and my fellow ministers
must give account of our stewardship:

What kind of a gospel did we preach?

Did we make it plain that men and women who are apart from Christ
Jesus are lost?

Did we counsel them to repent and believe?

Did we tell them of the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit?

Did we warn them of the wrath of the Lamb--the crucified,
resurrected, outraged Lamb of God?

With that kind of accounting yet to come, the question John hears
from the human objects of God's wrath is especially significant:
"Who can stand?" (6:17). Who indeed?  Jesus Is Victor!, 108.

ACQUAINTANCE, NOT HEARSAY

And they said to one another, "Did not our heart burn within us while
He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to
us?"
--Luke 24:32

"It is one thing," said Henry Suso, "to hear for oneself a sweet
lute, sweetly played, and quite another thing merely to hear about
it."

And it is one thing, we may add, to hear truth inwardly for one's
very self, and quite another thing merely to hear about it....

We are turning out from the Bible schools of this country year after
year young men and women who know the theory of the Spirit-filled
life but do not enjoy the experience. These go out into the churches
to create in turn a generation of Christians who have never felt
the power of the Spirit and who know nothing personally about the
inner fire. The next generation will drop even the theory. That is
actually the course some groups have taken over the past years.

One word from the lips of the man who has actually heard the lute
play will have more effect than a score of sermons by the man who
has only heard that it was played. Acquaintance is always better
than hearsay.  The Root of the Righteous, 99-100.

"Lord, as I wait upon You this morning I want to hear afresh the
real sound of the lute. Deliver me from second-hand preaching and
teaching. Fill me with a first-hand knowledge of You, so that my
message might always be that of an alert eyewitness. Amen."

A DIFFERENT MAN IN THE PULPIT

You are witnesses, and God also, how devoutly and justly and
blamelessly we behaved ourselves among you who believe.... 
--1 Thessalonians 2:10

I am afraid of the pastor that is another man when he enters the
pulpit from what he was before. Reverend, you should never think
a thought or do a deed or be caught in any situation that you
couldn't carry into the pulpit with you without embarrassment.
You should never have to be a different man or get a new voice
and a new sense of solemnity when you enter the pulpit. You
should be able to enter the pulpit with the same spirit and the
same sense of reverence that you had just before when you were
talking to someone about the common affairs of life. Worship:
The Missing Jewel of the Evangelical Church, 29.

A SHAKY FOUNDATION

Thus says the Lord: "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not
the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his
riches; but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands
and knows Me...."
--Jeremiah 9:23-24

It is true that much church activity is thrown back upon a shaky
foundation of psychology and natural talents. It is sad but true that
many a mother-in-law is actually praying that her handsome son-in-law
may be called to preach because "he would have such a marvelous
pulpit presence."

We live in a day when charm is supposed to cover almost the entire
multitude of sins. Charm has taken a great place in religious
expression. I am convinced that our Lord expects us to be tough
enough and cynical enough to recognize all of this that pleases the
unthinking in our churches: the charm stuff, the stage presence in
the pulpit, the golden qualities of voice....

I feel sorry for the church that decides to call a pastor because "his
personality simply sparkles!" I have watched quite a few of those
sparklers through the years. In reality, as every kid knows at Fourth
of July time, sparklers can be an excitement in the neighborhood--but
only for about one minute! Then you are left holding a hot stick that
quickly cools off in your hand.  Tragedy in the Church: The Missing
Gifts, 32-33.

I KNOW I'LL BE IN TROUBLE

But even after we had suffered before and were spitefully treated at
Philippi, as you know, we were bold in our God to speak to you the
gospel of God in much conflict. 
--1 Thessalonians 2:2

It is good for us to remember how strong He is--and how weak we are.
I settled this issue a long time ago. I tell you I have talked to
God more than I have talked to anyone else. I have reasoned more
with God and had longer conferences with God than with anybody else.

And what did I tell Him? Among other things, I told Him, "Now, Lord,
if I do the things I know I should do, and if I say what I know in
my heart I should say, I will be in trouble with people and with
groups--there is no other way!

"Not only will I be in trouble for taking my stand in faith and
honesty, but I will certainly be in a situation where I will be
seriously tempted of the devil!"

Then, after praying more and talking to the Lord, I have said,
"Almighty Lord, I accept this with my eyes open! I know the facts
and I know what may happen, but I accept it. I will not run. I
will not hide. I will not crawl under a rug. I will dare to stand
up and fight because I am on your side--and I know that when I am
weak, then I am strong!"  I Talk Back to the Devil, 146.

SHEEP ARE LED

Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our
Maker. For he is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and
the sheep of His hand. 
--Psalm 95:6-7

Cattle are driven; sheep are led; and our Lord compares His people to
sheep, not to cattle.

It is especially important that Christian ministers know the law of
the leader--that he can lead others only as far as he himself has
gone....

The minister must experience what he would teach or he will find
himself in the impossible position of trying to drive sheep. For
this reason he should seek to cultivate his own heart before he
attempts to preach to the hearts of others....

If he tries to bring them into a heart knowledge of truth which he
has not actually experienced he will surely fail. In his frustration
he may attempt to drive them; and scarcely anything is so
disheartening as the sight of a vexed and confused shepherd using
the lash on his bewildered flock in a vain attempt to persuade them
to go on beyond the point to which he himself has attained....

The law of the leader tells us who are preachers that it is better
to cultivate our souls than our voices. It is better to polish our
hearts than our pulpit manners, though if the first has been done
well and successfully it may be profitable for us to do the second.
We cannot take our people beyond where we ourselves have been, and
it thus becomes vitally important that we be men of God in the last
and highest sense of that term.  The Price of Neglect, 151-153.

SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT

Therefore give to Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your
people, that I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to
judge this great people of Yours? 
--1 Kings 3:9

That so-called Bible religion in our times is suffering rapid
decline is so evident as to need no proof, but just what has brought
about this decline is not so easy to discover. I can only say that I
have observed one significant lack among evangelical Christians
which might turn out to be the real cause of most of our spiritual
troubles. Of course, if that were true, then the supplying of that
lack would be our most critical need.

The great deficiency to which I refer is the lack of spiritual
discernment, especially among our leaders. How there can be so much
Bible knowledge and so little insight, so little moral penetration,
is one of the enigmas of the religious world today....

If not the greatest need, then surely one of the greatest is for
the appearance of Christian leaders with prophetic vision. We
desperately need seers who can see through the mist. Unless they
come soon, it will be too late for this generation. And if they do
come, we will no doubt crucify a few of them in the name of our
worldly orthodoxy. But the cross is always the harbinger of the
resurrection.  We Travel an Appointed Way, 111-112.

THE ECONOMIC SQUEEZE

But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of
an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
--2 Timothy 4:5

A number of factors contribute to bad spiritual leadership....

The economic squeeze. The Protestant ministry is notoriously
underpaid and the pastor's family is often large. Put these two
facts together and you have a situation ready-made to bring trouble
and temptation to the man of God. The ability of the congregation
to turn off the flow of money to the church when the man in the
pulpit gets on their toes is well known. The average pastor lives
from year to year barely making ends meet. To give vigorous moral
leadership to the church is often to invite economic strangulation,
so such leadership is withheld. But the evil thing is that
leadership withheld is in fact a kind of inverted leadership. The
man who will not lead his flock up the mountainside leads it down
without knowing it.  God Tells the Man Who Cares, 61-62.

WORTHY TO LEAD

Paul, an apostle (not from men nor through man, but through Jesus
Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead).... 
--Galatians 1:1

Conformity to the Word of God is always right, but obedience to
religious leaders is good only if those leaders prove themselves
worthy to lead. Leadership in the church of Christ is a spiritual
thing and should be so understood by everyone. It takes more than
a ballot to make a leader....

If the church is to prosper spiritually she must have spiritual
leadership, not leadership by majority vote. It is highly
significant that when the apostle Paul found it necessary to ask
for obedience among the young churches he never appealed to them
on the grounds that he had been duly elected to office. He
asserted his authority as an apostle appointed by the Head of
the church. He held his position by right of sheer spiritual
ascendancy, the only earthly right that should be honored among
the children of the new creation.  The Warfare of the Spirit,
162-164.

PLEASE PRAY FOR ME

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the
faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness,
which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and
not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing. 
--2 Timothy 4:7-8

Will you pray for me as a minister of the gospel? I am not asking you
to pray for the things people commonly pray for. Pray for me in light
of the pressures of our times. Pray that I will not just come to a
wearied end--an exhausted, tired, old preacher, interested only in
hunting a place to roost. Pray that I will be willing to let my
Christian experience and Christian standards cost me something right
down to the last gasp! Who Put Jesus on the Cross?, 60.

PUBLIC READING OF SCRIPTURE

Til I come, give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. 
--1 Timothy 4:13

Of course we of this generation cannot know by firsthand experience
how the Word of God was read in other times. But it would be hard to
conceive of our fathers having done a poorer job than we do when it
comes to the public reading of the Scriptures. Most of us read the
Scriptures so badly that a good performance draws attention by its
rarity.

It could be argued that since everyone these days owns his own copy
of the Scriptures, the need for the public reading of the Word is
not as great as formerly. If that is true, then let us not bother
to read the Scriptures at all in our churches. But if we are going
to read the Word publicly, then it is incumbent upon us to read it
well. A mumbled, badly articulated and unintelligent reading of the
Sacred Scriptures will do more than we think to give the listeners
the idea that the Word is not important....

We should by all means read it, and we should make the reading a
memorable experience for those who hear.  The Next Chapter After
the Last, 27.

    THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. --Hebrews 5:12

Probably the most widespread and persistent problem to be found among Christians is the problem of retarded spiritual progress. Why, after years of Christian profession, do so many persons find themselves no farther along than when they first believed?...

The causes of retarded growth are many. It would not be accurate to ascribe the trouble to one single fault. One there is, however, which is so universal that it may easily be the main cause: failure to give time to the cultivation of the knowledge of God....

The Christian is strong or weak depending upon how closely he has cultivated the knowledge of God....

Progress in the Christian life is exactly equal to the growing knowledge we gain of the Triune God in personal experience. And such experience requires a whole life devoted to it and plenty of time spent at the holy task of cultivating God. God can be known satisfactorily only as we devote time to Him. The Root of the Righteous, 7-9.

     ALONE WITH GOD

And Jesus went up on the mountain, and there He sat with His disciples. --John 6:3

Just prior to this miraculous multiplying of the bread and fish, Jesus "went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples"(6:3). That fact is noteworthy. It seems plain that Jesus withdrew purposely from the great press of people who had been pursuing Him.

There are some things that you and I will never learn when others are present. I believe in church and I love the fellowship of the assembly. There is much we can learn when we come together on Sundays and sit among the saints. But there are certain things that you and I will never learn in the presence of other people.

Unquestionably, part of our failure today is religious activity that is not preceded by aloneness, by inactivity. I mean getting alone with God and waiting in silence and quietness until we are charged with God's Spirit. Then, when we act, our activity really amounts to something because we have been prepared by God for it....

Now, in the case of our Lord, the people came to Him, John reports, and He was ready for them. He had been quiet and silent. He had sat alone with His disciples and meditated. Looking upward, He waited until the whole hiatus of divine life moved down from the throne of God into His own soul. He was a violin tuned. He was a battery recharged. He was poised and prepared for the people when they came. Faith Beyond Reason, 130,133.

TO THINK GOD'S THOUGHTS

But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he mediates day and night. -Psalms 1:2

To think God's thoughts requires much prayer. If you do not pray much, you are not thinking God's thoughts.  If you do not read yur Bible much and often and reverently, you are not thinking God's thoughts.....

There also has to be a lot of meditation. We ought to learn to live in our Bibles.  Get one with print big enough to read so it does not punish your eyes. Look around until you find a good one, and then learn to love it. Begin with the Gospel of John, then read the Psalms. Isaiah is another great book to help you and lift you.  When you feel you want to do it, go on to Romans and Hebrews and some of the deeper theological books. But get into the Bible.  Do not just read the little passages you like, but in the course of a year or two see that you read it through. Your thoughts will one day come up before God's judgment. We are responsible for our premeditative thoughts. They make our mind a temple where God can dwell with pleasure, or they make our mind a stable where Christ is angry, ties a rope and drives out the cattle. It is all up to us. Rut, Rot or Revival: The Condition of the Church, 42.

 People Are What They Think About

Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of
life. 
--Proverbs 4:23

Every person is really what he or she secretly admires. If I can learn
what you admire, I will know what you are, for people are what they
think about when they are free to think about what they will.

Now, there are times when we are forced to think about things that we
do not care to think about at all. All of us have to think about
income taxes, but income taxes are not what we want to think about.
The law makes us think about them every April. You may find me humped
over Form 1040, just like everyone else, but that is not the real me.
It is really the man with the tall hat and the spangled stars in
Washington who says, "You can't let it go any longer!" I assure you it
is not consentingly done! But if you can find what I think about when
I am free to think about whatever I will, you will find the real me.
That is true of every one of us.

Your baptism and your confirmation and your name on the church roll
and the big Bible you carry--these are not the things that are
important to God. You can train a chimpanzee to carry a Bible. Every
one of us is the sum of what we secretly admire, what we think about
and what we would like to do most if we became free to do what we
wanted to do.  Faith Beyond Reason, 96.

Personal Holiness

But as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your
conduct, because it is written, "Be holy, for I am holy."
--1 Peter 1:15-16

You cannot study the Bible diligently and earnestly without being
struck by an obvious fact--the whole matter of personal holiness is
highly important to God!

Neither do you have to give long study to the attitudes of modern
Christian believers to discern that by and large we consider the
expression of true Christian holiness to be just a matter of
personal option: "I have looked it over and considered it, but I
don't buy it!"...

Personally, I am of the opinion that we who claim to be apostolic
Christians do not have the privilege of ignoring such apostolic
injunctions. I do not mean that a pastor can forbid or that a
church can compel. I only mean that morally we dare not ignore
this commandment, "Be holy."...

But, brethren, we are still under the holy authority of the
apostolic command. Men of God have reminded us in the Word that
God does ask us and expect us to be holy men and women of God,
because we are the children of God, who is holy. The doctrine of
holiness may have been badly and often wounded--but the provision
of God by His pure and gentle and loving Spirit is still the
positive answer for those who hunger and thirst for the life and
spirit well-pleasing to God.  I Call It Heresy!, 61-62,68.

   Stay in the Secret Place

My voice You shall hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning I will
direct it to You, and I will look up. 
--Psalm 5:3

Retire from the world each day to some private spot, even if it be
only the bedroom (for a while I retreated to the furnace room for
want of a better place). Stay in the secret place till the
surrounding noises begin to fade out of your heart and a sense of
God's presence envelops you. Deliberately tune out the unpleasant
sounds and come out of your closet determined not to hear them.
Listen for the inward Voice till you learn to recognize it. Stop
trying to compete with others. Give yourself to God and then be
what and who you are without regard to what others think. Reduce
your interests to a few. Don't try to know what will be of no
service to you. Avoid the digest type of mind--short bits of
unrelated facts, cute stories and bright sayings. Learn to pray
inwardly every moment. After a while you can do this even while you
work. Practice candor, childlike honesty, humility. Pray for a
single eye. Read less, but read more of what is important to your
inner life. Never let your mind remain scattered for very long.
Call home your roving thoughts. Gaze on Christ with the eyes of
your soul. Practice spiritual concentration.  Of God and Men,
128-129.

   

Sending Something Better

However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you
into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but
whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to
come. 
--John 16:13

Our trouble is that we are trying to confirm the truth of
Christianity by an appeal to external evidence. We are saying,
"Well, look at this fellow. He can throw a baseball farther than
anybody else and he is a Christian, therefore Christianity must
be true." "Here is a great statesman who believes the Bible.
Therefore, the Bible must be true." We quote Daniel Webster, or
Roger Bacon. We write books to show that some scientist believed
in Christianity: therefore, Christianity must be true. We are all
the way out on the wrong track, brother! That is not New Testament
Christianity at all. That is a pitiful, whimpering, drooling
appeal to the flesh. That never was the testimony of the New
Testament, never the way God did things--never! You might satisfy
the intellects of men by external evidences, and Christ did, I
say, point to external evidence when He was here on the earth. But
He said, "I am sending you something better. I am taking Christian
apologetics out of the realm of logic and putting it into the
realm of life. I am proving My deity, and My proof will not be an
appeal to a general or a prime minister. The proof lies in an
invisible, unseen but powerful energy that visits the human soul
when the gospel is preached--the Holy Ghost!"  How to Be Filled
With the Spirit, 29-30.

We Need to Repent

Do not quench the Spirit. 
--1 Thessalonians 5:19

It is time for us to repent, for our transgressions against the
blessed Third Person have been many and much aggravated. We have
bitterly mistreated Him in the house of His friends. We have
crucified Him in His own temple as they crucified the Eternal Son
on the hill above Jerusalem. And the nails we used were not of
iron, but of the finer and more precious stuff of which human
life is made. Out of our hearts we took the refined metals of
will and feeling and thought, and from them we fashioned the
nails of suspicion and rebellion and neglect. By unworthy
thoughts about Him and unfriendly attitudes toward Him we grieved
and quenched Him days without end.

The truest and most acceptable repentance is to reverse the acts
and attitudes of which we repent....

We can best repent our neglect by neglecting Him no more. Let us
begin to think of Him as One to be worshipped and obeyed. Let us
throw open every door and invite Him in. Let us surrender to Him
every room in the temple of our hearts and insist that He enter
and occupy as Lord and Master within His own dwelling.  The
Pursuit of Man, 71-72.

The Holy Spirit: A Bottle in the Ocean

..To know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be
filled with all the fullness of God. 
--Ephesians 3:19

Pentecost means that the Deity came to mankind to give Himself to
man, that man might breathe Him in as he breathes in the air, that He
might fill men. Dr. A. B. Simpson used an illustration which was about
as good as any I ever heard. He said, "Being filled with the fullness
of God is like a bottle in the ocean. You take the cork out of the
bottle and sink it in the ocean, and you have the bottle completely
full of ocean. The bottle is in the ocean, and the ocean is in the
bottle. The ocean contains the bottle, but the bottle contains only
a little bit of the ocean. So it is with the Christian."

We are filled unto the fullness of God, but, of course, we cannot
contain all of God because God contains us; but we can have all of
God that we can contain. If we only knew it, we could enlarge our
vessel. The vessel gets bigger as we go on with God.  The Counselor,
68.

The Holy Spirit: An Instrument for God to Use

If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone
ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies,
that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to
whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. 
--1 Peter 4:11

To please God, a person must be just an instrument for God to use.
For a few seconds, picture in your mind the variety of wonderful
and useful appliances we have in our homes. They have been
engineered and built to perform tasks of all kinds. But without
the inflow of electrical power they are just lumps of metal and
plastic, unable to function and serve. They cannot do their work
until power is applied from a dynamic outside source.

So it is in the work of God in the church. Many people preach and
teach. Many take part in the music. Certain ones try to
administer God's work. But if the power of God's Spirit does not
have freedom to energize all they do, these workers might just as
well stay home.

Natural gifts are not enough in God's work. The mighty Spirit of
God must have freedom to animate and quicken with His overtones
of creativity and blessing.  Tragedy in the Church: The Missing
Gifts, 5-6.

  

The Holy Spirit: As Holy As You Want to Be

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they
shall be filled.
--Matthew 5:6

It may be said without qualification that every man is as holy and
as full of the Spirit as he wants to be. He may not be as full as
he wishes he were, but he is most certainly as full as he wants
to be.

Our Lord placed this beyond dispute when He said, "Blessed are they
which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be
filled." Hunger and thirst are physical sensations which, in their
acute stages, may become real pain. It has been the experience of
countless seekers after God that when their desires became a pain
they were suddenly and wonderfully filled. The problem is not to
persuade God to fill us, but to want God sufficiently to permit Him
to do so. The average Christian is so cold and so contented with His
wretched condition that there is no vacuum of desire into which the
blessed Spirit can rush in satisfying fullness.  Born After
Midnight, 8.

The Holy Spirit: Dead Churches

..These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven
stars: "I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive,
but you are dead."
--Revelation 3:1

I think we are going to have to restudy this whole teaching of the
place of the Holy Spirit in the Church, so the Body can operate
again. If the life goes out of a man's body, he is said to be a
corpse. He is what they call "the remains." It is sad, but humorously
sad, that a strong, fine man with shining eyes and vibrant voice, a
living man, dies, and we say, "the remains" can be seen at a funeral
home. All the remains of the man, and the least part about him, is
what you can see there in the funeral home. The living man is gone.
You have only the body. The body is "the remains."

So it is in the Church of Christ. It is literally true that some
churches are dead. The Holy Spirit has gone out of them and all you
have left are "the remains." You have the potential of the church
but you do not have the church, just as you have in a dead man the
potential of a living man but you do not have a living man. He
can't talk, he can't taste, he can't touch, he can't feel, he can't
smell, he can't see, he can't hear--because he is dead! The soul has
gone out of the man, and when the Holy Spirit is not present in the
Church, you have to get along after the methods of business or
politics or psychology or human effort. 

The Holy Spirit: He Can Be Grieved

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for
the day of redemption. 
--Ephesians 4:30

Because He is loving and kind and friendly, the Holy Spirit may be
grieved.... He can be grieved because He is loving, and there must be
love present before there can be grief.

Suppose you had a 17-year-old son who began to go bad. He rejected
your counsel and wanted to take things into his own hands. Suppose
that he joined up with a young stranger from another part of the
city and they got into trouble.

You were called down to the police station. Your boy--and another
boy who you had never seen--sat there in handcuffs.

You know how you would feel about it. You would be sorry for the
other boy--but you don't love him because you don't know him. With
your own son, your grief would penetrate to your heart like a sword.
Only love can grieve. If those two boys were sent off to prison, you
might pity the boy you didn't know, but you would grieve over the
boy you knew and loved. A mother can grieve because she loves. If
you don't love, you can't grieve.  The Counselor, 51-52.

  
The Holy Spirit: Holiness and Worship First

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His
mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of
the Holy Spirit,...that having been justified by His grace we should
become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. 
--Titus 3:5-7

To teach that the filling with the Holy Spirit is given to the
Christian to provide "power for service" is to teach truth, but not
the whole truth. Power for service is but one effect of the
experience, and I do not hesitate to say that it is the least of
several effects. It is least for the very reason that it touches
service, presumably service to mankind; and contrary to the popular
belief, "to serve this present age" is not the Christian's first
duty nor the chief end of man....

The primary work of the Holy Spirit is to restore the lost soul to
intimate fellowship with God through the washing of regeneration....
God wants worshipers before workers; indeed the only acceptable
workers are those who have learned the lost art of worship. It is
inconceivable that a sovereign and holy God should be so hard up
for workers that He would press into service anyone who had been
empowered regardless of his moral qualifications. The very stones
would praise Him if the need arose and a thousand legions of angels
would leap to do His will.

Gifts and power for service the Spirit surely desires to impart;
but holiness and spiritual worship come first.  That Incredible
Christian, 36-37.

The Holy Spirit: Just Turning the Crank

So he answered and said to me: "This is the word of the Lord to
Zerubbabel: 'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' says the
Lord of hosts."
--Zechariah 4:6

I say this because it is possible to run a church and all of its
activity without the Holy Spirit. You can organize it, get a board
together, call a pastor, form a choir, launch a Sunday school and
a ladies' aid society. You get it all organized--and the
organization part is not bad. I'm for it. But I'm warning about
getting organized, getting a pastor and turning the crank--some
people think that's all there is to it, you know.

The Holy Spirit can be absent and the pastor goes on turning the
crank, and nobody finds it out for years and years. What a tragedy,
my brethren, what a tragedy that this can happen in a Christian
church! But it doesn't have to be that way! "He who has an ear,
let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches"
(Revelation 3:22)....

If you could increase the attendance of your church until there is
no more room, if you could provide everything they have in churches
that men want and love and value, and yet you didn't have the Holy
Spirit, you might as well have nothing at all. For it is "'Not by
might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the Lord Almighty"
(Zechariah 4:6). Not by the eloquence of a man, not by good music,
not by good preaching, but it is by the Spirit that God works His
mighty works.  The Counselor, 38-39.

The Holy Spirit: Preachers Without Power

Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a
good conscience, and from sincere faith, from which some, having
strayed, have turned aside to idle talk, desiring to be teachers of
the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which
they affirm. 
--1 Timothy 1:5-7

Another thing that greatly hinders God's people is a hardness of
heart caused by hearing men without the Spirit constantly preaching
about the Spirit. There is no doctrine so chilling as the doctrine
of the Spirit when held in cold passivity and personal unbelief. The
hearers will turn away in dull apathy from an exhortation to be
filled with the Spirit unless the Spirit Himself is giving the
exhortation through the speaker. It is possible to learn this truth
and preach it faithfully, and still be totally devoid of power. The
hearers sense the lack and go away with numbed hearts. Theirs is not
opposition to the truth, but an unconscious reaction from unreality.
Yet scarcely one of the hearers can tell another what the trouble
is; it is as if they had been hearing an echo and not the voice, or
seeing a reflection and not the light itself.  Paths to Power, 55