Tozer Speaks: Volume One: 128 Compelling & Authoritative Teachings of A.W. Tozer

by A.W. Tozer

The members of the redeemed Church should be bound into a bundle of love with the Holy Spirit.

Let me say that whenever you read about Jesus, our Lord, interpreting the Old Testament, you stay close by His interpretation.

First is what we may call the period of the promise, from the time of John the Baptist to the resurrection of Christ.

The second period outlined is the period of preparation.

Christianity has leveled down and down and down. We are as light as butterflies—though we flit, flit, flit around in the sunshine and imagine that we are eagles flapping our broad wings.

The third period indicated was that of the period of realization, and I read that the Holy Spirit came upon them suddenly.

I have noted that this word “suddenly” as found in the book of Acts occurs often in places in the Scriptures.

Everyone is willing to be filled with the Holy Spirit providing God does it very gingerly, very slowly, and doesn’t embarrass or frighten them!

It seems to be an embarrassment to believers to get down on their knees to seek Almighty God, to have to get out a handkerchief to wipe away the tears, and then to find themselves saying, “Thank God, the Comforter has come!” It might take something away from their reputation—chairman of the board, Sunday school teachers, workers in the ladies’ aid.

We are now living in the latter days when God will pour out His Spirit on all flesh.

A second question: Does the new birth of the first century make my new birth unnecessary?

A third question: Have you ever seen anyone in the Christian church today that received at conversion what Peter received in the upper chamber?

Now, a final question: Is modern fundamental belief a satisfactory fulfillment of the expectation raised by the Father in Christ, and does your heart personally witness that what you now enjoy is what our Lord promised to His people?

“Oh, God, stay your power, or I’ll die!”

The Holy Spirit is to the Church what your own spirit is to the body God has given you.

Nothing in the whole world is quite so wonderfully made as the human body, and it is small wonder that the Holy Spirit said through David, “We are fearfully and wonderfully made.”

In Romans 12, Paul, being a great illustrator, broke things down for us so that we could easily understand when he said that the Church is a body—Christ is the head and the true Christian is a member of that body.

Now the Holy Spirit is to the Church what your spirit is to the body which God has given you. It is the life, the union, the consciousness—and as each member recapitulates the local church, each local church recapitulates the entire Church of Christ, Paul asserts.

First, there is the gift of an apostle, or an ambassador or messenger. There is the gift that makes a prophet. There is the gift that makes a teacher. Then, there is the gift that makes an exhorter. There is the gift that makes the ruler. That would be someone like the old Presbyterians called a ruling elder. Then there are the gifts of wisdom, of knowledge, of faith, of healing. There is a gift of miracles, a gift of tongues, a gift of interpretation, a gift of discernment, a gift of helps, a gift of mercy showing, a gift of government, a gift of liberality, and the gift of the evangelist.

When you have a Bible and a mind, a mouth and the Holy Ghost, why do you have to study psychology?

I’m not dumb about psychology, but there is no use to bring psychology to the pulpit when you have the Holy Ghost.

So it is in the Church of Christ. It is literally true that some churches are dead. The Holy Ghost 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.

Contrary to what professing christians like to think, many of God’s people are not willing to walk in perfect agreement with Him, and this may explain why so many believers do not have the power of the Spirit, the peace of the Spirit and many of the other qualities, gifts and benefits which the Spirit of God brings.

The question is: Are we willing to walk with Him in love and obedience? The answer is that we cannot walk with Him unless we are agreed and if we are not agreed, we will not walk with Him in harmony and fruitfulness and blessing.

There are those who are most interested in Christianity for its “insurance” value.

Some people keep on supporting the church, and they even abstain from some gross pleasures because they want protection—they are interested in the insurance value of Christianity.

Of these people, we have to say that they are influenced far more by Hollywood than they are by Jerusalem. Their spirit and mode of life is more like Hollywood than it is like Jerusalem.

Whenever the Word of God reaches us and convicts us, it disturbs us.

I am talking about the human heart that goes out sympathetically to the Word of God.

Now, if you are a spiritually hungry person, Christ is more than insurance against hell, and Christianity is more than an opportunity to mingle socially with good people.

First, the Holy Spirit is a living Person, and He can be known in an increasing degree of intimacy.

Actually, I do find Christians these days who seem to have largely wasted their lives. They were converted to Christ but they have never sought to go on to an increasing knowledge of God. There is untold loss and failure because they have accepted the whole level of things around them as being normal and desirable.

Walking with the Spirit can become a habit.

Our second pointer is this: Be engrossed with Jesus Christ.

We must always remember that we will know the Spirit more intimately as we make more of Jesus Christ the Lord.

We must walk in righteousness if we are to know the Holy Spirit in increasing intimacy.

Read the Sermon on the Mount and the other teachings of Jesus, and you will see that He does expect His people to be clean and pure and right.

I don’t think you can be a Christian without being a disciple.

The idea that I can come to the Lord and by grace have all of my sins forgiven and have my name written in heaven, and have the carpenter go to work on a mansion in my Father’s house, and at the same time raise hell on my way to heaven is impossible and unscriptural. It cannot be found in the Bible.

We are never saved by our good works, but we are not saved apart from good works.

It isn’t my righteousness that saves, but the salvation I have received brings righteousness.

I think we must face up to this now—that we must walk in righteousness if we are going on to know the Lord.

Can you imagine a man with malicious and evil thoughts in his heart having companionship with the loving Holy Spirit?

Can you imagine a man bloated with egotism knowing the Holy Spirit in anything like intimacy?

Can you imagine a man who is a deceiver having blessed fellowship with the Holy Spirit? Never!

Every problem that touches us is answered in the Book—stay by the Word! I want to preach the Word, love the Word and make the Word the most important element in my Christian life. Read it much, read it often, brood over it, think over it, meditate over it—meditate on the Word of God day and night. When you are awake at night, think of a helpful verse. When you get up in the morning, no matter how you feel, think of a verse and make the Word of God the important element in your day. The Holy Ghost wrote the Word, and if you make much of the Word, He will make much of you. It is through the Word that He reveals Himself. Between those covers is a living Book. God wrote it and it is still vital and effective and alive. God is in this Book, the Holy Ghost is in this Book, and if you want to find Him, go into this Book.

I do challenge you to meditate, quietly, reverently, prayerfully, for a month. Put away questions and answers and the filling in of blank lines in the portions you haven’t been able to understand. Put all of the cheap trash away and take the Bible, get on your knees, and in faith, say, “Father, here I am. Begin to teach me!”

Let me remind you again that Jesus Christ had outlined a program of world evangelization for the disciples, and promised that they would receive the power of the Holy Spirit in order to witness effectively unto the uttermost parts of the earth. He said they were to enter a new era. God was about to introduce a change of dispensation, but He was not to introduce a change of dispensation apart from a stepped-up and elevated spiritual experience.

His dispensations have to do with people—not with calendars.

The power of the Holy Spirit is something infinitely higher, grander and more wonderful than that. They worked miracles before the Spirit ever came.