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.

When a generation comes along dissatisfied with the status quo and has a hunger for God that cannot be quenched by ritual and tradition, most of these do not come out of the religious hierarchy, but come stomping in unceremoniously with such a passion for God that they upset everything they come in contact with and bypass religious protocol, much to the affront of the religious Pharisees and scribes in control at the time.

This spirit of Babylon, in the form of entertainment, has not only seeped into the Church but has also been welcomed through the front door with inviting arms and has come in like a flood.

Performance has replaced worship. We no longer have worshipers but rather observers and spectators who sit in awe of the performance. The demand is for something that will make us feel good about ourselves and make us forget about all of our troubles.

The Church Fathers came into the presence of God with a sense of overwhelming reverence, which captivated them and brought them before God in holy silence.

Their expertise is in the area of rethinking doctrinal positions in light of contemporary society and culture. For some reason, they believe that because society has changed so drastically, our doctrinal positions need to change accordingly. To reexamine the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture, for example, is an exercise in futility.

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.

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

In the Early Church, everybody was part of the ministry team. Everybody was expected to go out into the world and preach the glorious redeeming message of Jesus Christ. Certainly, there were categories—such as elders and bishops and apostles. The Church ran quite efficiently by all Christians working together, each of them knowing where they belonged, and doing their part.

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. Religion, however, with all of its tiresome dos and don’ts, sets us up for such boredom.

The first cult dominating Christianity today is to imitate what we see outside of the Church. This is a characteristic of immaturity, like a little toddler who sees someone do something and tries to imitate it without knowing what it really means.

Importing the culture around us instead of adoring the nature and character of Christ within us is the sad reality of today’s Christian.

The Christianity of the New Testament is incomprehensible to the world. There is absolutely no way to build a bridge between the world’s standards and the Church’s standards.

The true Christian has an insatiable appetite for Christ and the things of Christ, while the world has no such appetite.

the most destructive heresy poisoning the evangelical church today. The idea that religion is a form of entertainment is so far removed from New Testament teaching that it amazes me that otherwise good churches have succumbed to it.

The third cult dominating the evangelical church today is the cult of celebrity.

St. Ignatius said, “Apart from Him, let nothing dazzle you.”

The Early Church was in wonderment at Christ. He dazzled them and stirred within such feelings of amazement that they could never get over Christ. All they talked about was Christ. All they thought about, from morning to night, was Christ. Christ was their only reason for living, and they were more than willing to die for Him.

The first worship is at the altar of publicity. Many evangelical Christians feverishly worship publicity marketing as though it were the panacea for all problems.

Many Christians worship at the altar of success.

Many in today’s evangelical church worship at the altar of money.

to them was that money represented a means to accomplish something; whereas, today money is the goal.

The Church also worships at the altar of activity.

The most perplexing altar in the evangelical church today is the altar of pleasure.

What we must remember is that only he who takes orders from Jesus Christ belongs to Him. The evangelical church is in the process of compromising this very thing and ignoring “thus saith the Lord.” Yes, we want any benefits that Christ may confer upon us. We want His help, protection and guidance. We even get misty-eyed over His birth, life, death, teaching and example. The problem comes when we will not take orders from Him. Christ cannot save the one He cannot control. To claim to be saved while ignoring His commandments is to live in utter delusion.

Nonconformity to the truth brings disaster.

False teaching is the falsifying of data on vital points about God, about ourselves, about sin and about Christ.

Men are not willing to let God be what He says He is. They attempt to change, correct, alter and apologize for God, in an attempt to make Him be other than what He is.

Some Christians have taken all the justice, judgment and hatred of sin out of the nature of God and have nothing left but a soft god. Others have taken love and grace out and have nothing left but a god of judgment. Or they have taken away the personality of God and have nothing left but a mathematical god—the god of the scientists. All these are false, inadequate conceptions of God.

we had better make the study of His Word the business of our lives to find out what He is, and then we must conform our views to His.

Science has discovered many things about God, but they have not discovered it in context. They have not begun with God and reasoned down to His world. They have begun with the world and tried to reason up to God, but stop short of finding God.

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.

The preacher who misjudges or miscounts the truth concerning sin and man and God will damn his hearers, which is infinitely more terrible.

Does this mean we must be tolerant? Actually, men are tolerant only with the unimportant things. What would happen to a tolerant scientist or a tolerant navigator? The liberal religionist simply admits that he does not consider spiritual things as vital.

Build up—“building

Pray—“praying

Love—“keep

Look—“looking

Dare to contend without being contentious. Dare to preserve truth without hurting people. Dare to love and to be charitable.

So it is with people who may be in a moral sleep. They may be in danger and not even know it. The danger may be approaching without giving the sleeper any concern at all.

This kind of sleep leads to a condition of lethargy that has brought the evangelical Christian Church to a fearful state of spiritual bondage that manifests in contrasting areas—the moral and the spiritual.

Moral lethargy is to live and have habits and commit acts that are deeply rooted and hateful to God, without knowing it; these acts are dangerous to the soul.

It is entirely possible to be intellectually and physically awake and yet be morally asleep. I believe that is one thing wrong with us now; we sleep on in dangerous sin.

few sinners are semiconscious; they are slightly troubled but remain drowsy. A few others are deeply troubled but rather numb, like someone who is awake but not quite awake.

You get used to things and you get sophisticated. Spiritual sophistication lacks freshness and warmth; God is far away, and there is little communion and little joy in the Lord. To have a cold heart with little pity, little fire, little love and little worship is spiritual lethargy.

If there is anything I have asked God for, it is spiritual discernment. It makes you just about as popular as a hawk in a henhouse or a skunk at a picnic. You are not popular at all, and you will never be popular, because nobody wants to be awakened.

A Christian ought to be, above all other things, a good man. If he is not basically a good man, I cannot see how he can be a Christian. Now, he is not good by nature.

“The modern religious revival leaves me cold for this reason. Men are trying to use God in place of offering themselves to God to be used by Him.”