The Dangers of a Shallow Faith: Awakening from Spiritual Lethargy

by A.W. Tozer

The Bible has no compromise whatsoever with the world. The Bible has a message for the evangelical church, calling it back home. The Bible always sends us out into the world, but never to compromise with the world; and never to walk in the way of the world, but only to save as many as we can. That is the one direction.

To negotiate with the world is to forfeit the sense of God’s presence.

We are not worshiping God on the throne but have come to the point of worshiping the shadow of the throne.

The converted football player wields more influence in churches today than the man who is before God on his knees with a broken heart for his community. Celebrities are now leading us, but they are not leading us down the same pathway the Fathers of the Church established.

is amazing that in a generation of Christians with more modern translations of the Scriptures than all the other generations put together, it is just about the weakest group of Christians we have ever seen.

It is not by reading the Scriptures in the original languages or in some contemporary version that makes us better Christians. Rather, it is getting on our knees with the Scriptures spread before us, and allowing the Spirit of God to break our hearts. Then, when we have been thoroughly broken before God Almighty, we get up off our knees, go out into the world and proclaim the glorious message of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world.

I fear that we may have become too apologetic with our apologetics, and in trying to please everyone we end up destroying the truth.

Apostasy starts when certain men creep in unawares and replace the Holy Spirit as the guiding force of the Christian movement. The Church was never designed to be piloted by men; rather, the Holy Spirit birthed the Church on the day of Pentecost as a vehicle through which He could do His work in each generation.

Boredom with religion is conceivable, but being bored with God is not. Those who have encountered God and His mighty, awesome presence could never come to the point of boredom.

Publicity now is to do what the Holy Spirit did under the Fathers of the Church.

The successful Christian is one who realizes he is but a pilgrim in this world looking for a city whose builder and foundation is God (see Heb. 11:10; 13:14).

It would be a great and bitter error for a man or woman to go on for a lifetime believing certain things about God only to learn they were not true. To think they were talking to the God of heaven and earth and find that they were talking to a god fashioned out of their own imagination.

Any wrong idea of God is bound to give us a wrong idea of ourselves.

Believe about yourself what God says about you. Believe you are as bad as God says you are, and believe you are as far from Him as God says you are. Then believe in Christ and that you can come as near to Him as He says you can, and accept what He says about you as being true.

We are not called to always show a smile. Sometimes we are called to frown and rebuke with all long-suffering and doctrine. We must contend but not be contentious. We must preserve truth but injure no man. We must destroy error without harming people.

If God never answered another prayer for me as long as I live, I still want God to know that I want to serve Him until I die. If He never did another thing for me from this day on, if He withdrew His hand and let me go to pieces physically, mentally, emotionally, financially and every other way, I would still want Him to know I want to serve Him just because He is God.

A person under some great pressure of bereavement or fear turns to God for a while, but the instinct to stay there is not in them.

The simple illustration is that of the egg in the nest. The egg lying in the nest is an effect of another act, the previous act of the bird that laid it. While it is a consequence of an act, it is also the cause of another thing, and that is the new bird that will be hatched. It is a link between what was and what will be. Just so is every thought you have and every deed you do a link between something that made you do or think or say this thing and that which will be the result of your having said or thought or done this thing.

For what we are will determine our destiny. Our moral fabric will determine heaven or hell for us.

In the Bible, the word “fool” is not describing a man of mental deficiency. A fool is a man who acts without regard to consequences.

In the Bible, a wise man is not necessarily an educated man or one of high cultural level, although he could be. A wise man is a man who acts with an eye to consequences. He thinks, “What will the result of this be?” Then he acts in a way that will bring him consequences he will not have to be ashamed of or afraid of in the day to come. This explains the difference between wisdom and folly as God sees it.

But you will find nothing but stern insistence in the Bible that we ought to forsake the world and not in any way be influenced by its sin or unbelief or diversions or ambitions or worldly spirit. The dangers that come to the Christian come through this world.

The best thing to do is to keep your eyes on Jesus and let Him take care of the devil.

Do not write out your resignation when you are discouraged. Do not resign from anything when you are discouraged. When you are down and blue, do not make a move.

When twins are born in some parts of the primitive world, they save the first twin because they say God sent that one, but take the second one out and kill it. It is a child of the devil.

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 your sins, freedom from fear of God’s service, 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, and freedom from the iron yoke of traditions. Christian liberty is freedom to live in the Spirit and worship God in spirit and in truth.

There will always be a cloud warning you to stay indoors; the wise man will know which cloud to regard and which to disregard.

One year of sitting around sulking will do more to rust your soul than 100 years of hard work, if God granted you that many years.

If you are too busy in the Lord’s work to spend time in the Lord’s presence, you are too busy in the Lord’s work.

After the Methodist society became established and had circled the world and were growing in number, John Wesley admitted, “We are in a peculiar paradox in our Methodist societies.” He said, “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 out money.” Then he said, “As soon they get some money, they begin to trust it. As soon as they begin to trust their money, they cease to be holy and spiritual, frugal, hardworking, honest, good, and so they backslide and so, here is the vicious circle. Get right with God and you become frugal, saving, honest, hardworking, serious. That is the path to get rich. When you get rich, you tend to backslide.” He said, “Here’s the vicious circle. What are we going to do?” Leave it to John Wesley. He was not 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, then give it all away, and that way you’ll never backslide. Make all you can, save all you can, give all you can.” That is exactly what John Wesley did. The wealth of England would have been laid at his feet—at least the common people would have laid their money there—but when he died, he died with 28 pounds, approximately $130, after a lifetime. He lived 83 years a...

It is God’s will that His people should prosper but know what to do with prosperity.

If Jesus Christ cannot make a man good on earth, then He cannot justify him in heaven. If Jesus Christ cannot deliver me from the power of sin in this life, I do not believe He can deliver me before the face of my Father in heaven.

If you want to be holy—if you want to serve God—you have to give time to God. Grace and holiness take time, and the cultivation of the Spirit takes time.

There is only one way to bless mankind, and that is by opposing mankind.

A man commits a deep wrong against his own soul when he listens to a sermon and judges whether it was as good as the one he heard last week. What a terrible thought that with the final judgment coming, and our lives ebbing away, that we should compare instead of doing something about it.

Instead of assuming that things are all right, assume that they are always wrong, and then prayerfully prepare for them and anticipate them in whatever direction they come.