A small book in length just 90 pages. I was encouraged by a social media posts to read this book as its content was both challenging and full of instruction.
This is a list of the contents of the book and apart from the Introduction and Preface there are just 10 chapters in total.
This book "deals with the deep things of God and the riches of his grace."
The Preface sets out clearly A W Tozer's reason for writing this book - he has found increasing numbers of people whose religious lives are marked by a growing hunger after God. They are eager for spiritual realities and will not be put off with words, nor will they be content with correct 'interpretations' of truth.
"There is today no lack of Bible teachers to set forth correctly the principles of the doctrines of Christ, but too many of these seem satisfied to teach the fundamentals of the faith year after year, strangely unaware that there is in their ministry no manifest Presence, nor anything unusual in their personal lives They minister constantly to believers who feel within their breasts a longing which their teaching simply does not satisfy. The lack in our pulpits is real.
To great sections of the Church the art of worship has been lost entirely and in its place has come that strange and foreign thing called the 'program'. This word has been borrowed from the stage and applied with sad wisdom to the type of public service which now passes for worship among us.
Sound Bible exposition is an imperative must in the Church of the Living God. Without it no church can be a New Testament church in any strict meaning of that term. But exposition may be carried on in such way as to leave the hearers devoid of any true spiritual nourishment whatever. For it is not mere words that nourish the soul but God himself and unless and until the hearers find God in personal experience they are not the better for having heard the truth.
The bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into him, that they may delight in his Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God himself in the core and centre of their hearts.
Chapter 1 - Following Hard After God
Christian theology teaches that before a man can seek God, God must first have sought the man. Before a sinful man can think a right thought of God, there must have been a work of enlightenment done within him; imperfect it may be, but a true work nonetheless and the secret cause of all desiring and seeking and praying which may follow.
We pursue God because, and only because, he has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit. "No man can come to me" said our Lord, "except the Father which hath sent me draw him" (John 6 verse 44) and it is by this very prevenient drawing that God takes from us every vestige of credit for the act of coming. The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after him; and all the time we are pursuing him we are already in his hand: "Thy right hand upholdeth me." (Psalm 63 verse 8)
In practice, however (that is, where God's previous working meet man's present response) man must pursue God. "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?" Psalm 42 This is deep calling unto deep and the longing heart will understand it.
The whole transaction of religious conversion has been made mechanical and spiritless. Faith may now be exercised without a jar to the moral life and without embarrassment to the Adamic ego. Christ may be "received" without creating any special love for him in the soul of the receiver. The man is "saved" but he is not hungry nor thirsty after God. In fact he is specifically taught to be satisfied and encouraged to be content with little.
God is a Person, and in the deep of his mighty nature he thinks, wills, enjoys, feels, loves, desires and suffers as any other person may. In making himself known to us he stays by the familiar pattern of personality. He communicates with us through the avenues of our minds, our wills and our emotions. The continuous and unembarrassed interchange of love and thought between God and the soul of the redeemed man is the throbbing heart of New Testament religion.
This intercourse between God and the soul is known to us in conscious personal awareness. It is personal; that is, it does not come through the body of believers, as such, but is known to the individual, and to the body through the individuals which compose it. And it is conscious: that is, it does not stay below the threshold of consciousness and work there unknown to the soul but comes within the field of awareness where the man can "know" it as he knows any other fact of experience.
Being made in God's image we have within us the capacity to know God. In our sins we lack only the power. The moment the Spirit has quickened us to life in regeneration our whole being senses its kinship to God and leaps up in joyous recognition. That is the heavenly birth without which we cannot see the Kingdom of God. It is, however, not an end but an inception, for now begins the glorious pursuit, the heart's happy exploration of the infinite riches of the Godhead.
Moses used the fact that he knew God as an argument for knowing him better. "Now therefore I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight" and from there he rose to make the daring request, "I beseech thee, show me thy glory." God was pleased by this display of ardor, and the next day called Moses into the mount, and there in solemn procession made all his glory pass before him.
Paul confessed the mainspring of his life to be his burning desire after Christ. "That I may know him" was the goal of his heart and to this he sacrificed everything. "Yea doubtless and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may win Christ."
Everything is made to center upon the initial act of "accepting" Christ (a term, incidentally, which is not found in the bible) and we are not expected thereafter to crave any further revelation of God to our souls. We have snared in the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have found him we need no more seek him. It is taken for granted that no bible-taught Christian ever believed otherwise. Thus the whole testimony of the worshipping, seeking, singing Church on that subject is crisply set aside. The experiential heart-theology of a grand army of fragrant saints is rejected in favour of a smug interpretation of scripture which would certainly have sounded strange to an Augustine, a Rutherford or a Brainerd.
In the midst of this great chill there are some, I rejoice to acknowledge who will not be content with shallow logic. They will admit the force of the argument and then turn away with tears to hunt some lonely place and pray "O God show me thy glory." They want to taste, to touch with their hearts, to see with their inner eyes the wonder that is God.
The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to his people. He waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us he waits so long, so very long, in vain.
Every age has its own characteristics. Right now we are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart. The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship and that servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day, know God only imperfectly and the peace of God scarcely at all.
If we would find God amid all the religious externals we must first determine to find him and then proceed in the way of simplicity. Now as always God discovers himself to "babes" and hides himself in thick darkness from the wise and the prudent. We must simplify our approach to him. We must strip down to essentials (and they will be found to be blessedly few). We must put away all effort to impress, and come with the guileless candor of childhood. If we do this, without doubt God will quickly respond.
We need not fear that in seeking God only we may narrow our lives or restrict the motions of our expanding hearts. The opposite is true. We can well afford to make God our All, to concentrate, to sacrifice the many for the One.
When the Lord divided Canaan among the tribes of Israel Levi received no share of the land. God said to him simply "I am thy part and thine inheritance" and by those words made him richer than all his brethren, richer than all the kings and rajas who have ever lived in the world. And there is a spiritual principle here, a principle still valid for every priest of the Most High God.
The man who has God for his treasure has all things in One. Many ordinary treasures may be denied him or if he is allowed to have them, the enjoyment of them will be so tempered that they will never be necessary to his happiness. Of if he must see them go, one after one, he will scarcely feel a sense of loss, for having the Source of all things he has in One all satisfaction, all pleasure, all delight. Whatever he may lose he has actually lost nothing, for he now has it all in One, and he has it purely, legitimately and forever.
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