The Dangers of a Shallow Faith: Awakening from Spiritual Lethargy

by A.W. Tozer

Where are those who get caught up in the spirit of reverence before their God? Where are those who have experienced the holy hush in the presence of God? Then we have celebrities who are leading our so-called worship today. This mirrors the culture around us. To be a leader in the Church, a man does not have to have spiritual qualifications as much as a personality and a celebrity status.

Where are those who are willing to go forth conquering and to conquer? The tragedy of this generation of Christians is that men have crept in unawares, as prophesied by Paul in the book of Romans, and by Jude in his epistle. We have lowered our guard, and these false prophets have so positioned themselves that they are controlling the destiny of this generation’s Christian Church.

the word “theology.” It simply means the study of God; and there is nothing greater to pursue in this world. Our hearts hunger for God, asking when shall we come and stand before Him? Then, from the word “theology” comes the word “theologian.” It used to mean a person who has specialized in the study of God, but it has come to mean someone who is an expert in a slice of Christianity. In many cases that slice is rather small and disassociated from the whole.

What have our experts done for the Church except to push it into a rut, allowing the letter of the law to dominate and control while denying the power of the Holy Spirit? I fear that we may have become too apologetic with our apologetics, and in trying to please everyone we end up destroying the truth.

Now we have teams of experts who only know the letter of the law. We have people who have become religious snobs putting on a show for Christians in the hopes that the Sunday offering would be more than sufficient to subsidize a lifestyle of greed. It is not hard to see that a spirit of Babylon creating a condition of spiritual lethargy has invaded today’s Church—all of this orchestrated by spiritually impotent theologians. To minimize the danger is to jeopardize an entire generation of Christians. This is the curse of apostasy.

one of the great dangers facing God’s people is in this area of religious boredom. 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.

What blasphemy. We have so much more to offer God. Importing the culture around us instead of adoring the nature and character of Christ within us is the sad reality of today’s Christian.

Where is that generation that fell on their knees before God with broken hearts for the world around them? Where are those men who gave up everything to reach the world of unsaved men and women?

Where are the Susanna Wesleys? And where are the Lady Julians? And there are many others I could name. The average Christian today is unworthy to loose their shoelaces.

according to today’s definition of success. What the world considers successful, God determines to be an abomination. 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).

Cyrus S. Nusbaum (1861–1937) Would you live for Jesus, and be always pure and good? Would you walk with Him within the narrow road? Would you have Him bear your burden, carry all your load? Let Him have His way with thee.

Would you have Him make you free, and follow at His call? Would you know the peace that comes by giving all? Would you have Him save you, so that you can never fall? Let Him have His way with thee. Would you in His kingdom find a place of constant rest? Would you prove Him true in providential test? Would you in His service labor always at your best? Let Him have His way with thee. His power can make you what you ought to be; His blood can cleanse your heart and make you free; His love can fill your soul, and you will see ’Twas best for Him to have His way with thee.

There are those who would deny sin, or rename it, and, of course, that is falsifying the data. There are those who would treat it as a disease, but they are falsifying the data. God said that sin is a breaking of the law, a rebellion against His will. God says that it’s a nature inherited from our fathers and mothers. God says that it is an act against the faith and love and mercy of God. God says that it is rebellion against the constituted authority of the Majesty on High. God says it is iniquity, and it is personally chargeable to everyone who commits it.

There is a balm for every pain, A medicine for all sorrow; The eye turned backward to the Cross, And forward to the morrow. The morrow of the glory and the psalm, When He shall come; The morrow of the harping and the palm, The welcome home. Meantime in His beloved hands our ways, And on His Heart the wandering heart at rest;

And comfort for the weary one who lays His head upon His Breast.

Evangelists used to set out not to comfort people but to wake people up. They used to say, “You’re asleep, and you’ll be awakened by the trump of the archangel.” That is too true of many people who are busy and happy, at peace and unconcerned, with their social enjoyments around them—their growing family, their comfortable homes. These are all proper and desirable and good things to have, but you can have them and still be morally asleep, not knowing how bad off you are.

I do not look to the devil for my help, but to any honest man of God. We ought to be careful lest we become too professional and develop the tendency to criticize unkindly. If it is a question of trying to improve, that is another matter. If it is a question of trying to push the standards up—to get people to write, preach, pray, talk and exhort better,

What Will You Do with Jesus? A. B. Simpson (1843–1919) Jesus is standing in Pilate’s hall, Friendless, forsaken, betrayed by all; Hearken! what meaneth the sudden call? What will you do with Jesus? Jesus is standing on trial still, You can be false to Him if you will, You can be faithful through good or ill: What will you do with Jesus? Will you evade him as Pilate tried? Or will you choose Him, whate’er betide? Vainly you struggle from Him to hide: What will you do with Jesus? Will you, like Peter, your Lord deny? Or will you scorn from His foes to fly, Daring for Jesus to live or die? What will you do with Jesus? “Jesus, I give Thee my heart today! Jesus, I’ll follow Thee all the way, Gladly obeying Thee!” will you say: “This I will do with Jesus!” What will you do with Jesus? Neutral you cannot be; Some day your heart will be asking, “What will He do with me?”

“Choose you this day,” says the Holy Spirit. What we choose is left to us. If a man cannot sin, he cannot be holy. If he cannot sin, he is not free; and if he is not free, he cannot be holy. Free choice is as necessary to holiness as it is to sin. Holiness is moral freedom of choice resulting in a right choice of holiness and righteousness.

Make no mistake: Today you face the consequences of yesterday’s choices. Tomorrow you will face the consequences of today’s choices.

First, we need spiritual discernment. We need Christians whose eyes have been opened to see the treacherous condition the Church faces today and to show the way out. Along with discernment, we need courage to speak out against those dangers and call the Church back to her Rock, Jesus Christ. In his day, David understood the seriousness of the dangers in the way. The dangers he faced are essentially the same dangers we are facing today;

Since real dangers to the spiritual life do exist, it is proper that God’s people should be alerted to them. Any shepherd desiring to be a faithful shepherd should point them out to the people and also point a way of escape. It is no good to examine the patient if you do not have a cure. It is no good to warn of the danger of attack if you do not have a bomb shelter. It is no good to know that your enemy is coming if you do not know how to meet your enemy. Danger approaches the Christian life from three directions: the world through which we journey, the god of this world and our unmortified flesh. That’s why we need a rock, a fortress, a deliverer, a buckler, a high tower to run to—all names for God.

He is wily, smiling and slick-tempered; works by cunning and deception and wins by compromise, tolerance and patience. He gets your confidence and then sells you the Brooklyn Bridge. This smooth, slick serpent is the “confidence man of hell,” with his tricks and his cunning and his deceitfulness. Satan did not 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 and spoken to a stone and done a miracle outside of the will of God, he would have destroyed the Savior of the world more easily than if he had a put a spear through His heart. However, Satan did not tell Jesus that. It was a compromise. He said, “Poor you, you’re hungry, aren’t you?” Patted His shoulder and whispered, “Poor you, why don’t you get some bread? You’ve got the power, you know you have.” Jesus said, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4).

No matter what a Christian tries to do, the devil blocks him and hits him a blow. Not a hard one, just enough to stun him a bit. Wherever you find the work of God going on, you will find the devil there, counterpunching, hitting back.

Let me point out that the victorious Christian life is not a life absent of any problems or difficulties or failures. Actually, the opposite is true. The victorious Christian life is a day-today or even moment-by-moment victory over enemies and situations that we confront in the way. That is why the man of God said, “For a just man falleth seven times.” We are sometimes given the idea that a “just man” never falls at all. Because of that, we face the danger of arrogance. Arrogance is the sin that follows in the wake of success. I have seen a few

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.

We have freedom to love, so our conduct springs out of love and the freedom not to hate. It is wonderful to be free from hate. Hate is a moral cancer and eats on the soul until it kills the victim. To get free from hatred is like being healed of cancer. Freedom from hatred, from envy, from unholy ambition, from wanting your own way, and the freedom to do the will of God is Christian freedom; that is true Christian liberty. Christian liberty is never about the freedom to commit any sort of sin. 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 determine not to go back to that wallow anymore.

Be free, but do not use your freedom as a license to the flesh. Mortify the flesh and keep your flesh subdued, and lay loving burdens on yourself, for Christ’s sake. A burden I voluntarily lay upon my shoulder is no burden at all.

Let us not fling back in the face of Jesus the charter of freedom that cost Him His blood. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith 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 (see Gal. 5:1,13).