The Quotable Tozer: A Topical Compilation of the Wisdom and Insight of A.W. Tozer

Snyder

Ambitions

We have desires, ambitions, and programs, and we try to push them forward not knowing that God has a well-laid-out plan for us.

Alive in the Spirit

God will lead me into a rich place and make me rich with treasures that can never die. If I want my own way, God will let me go my own way. Many Christians do just that.

My Daily Pursuit

We have been offered the face of God and the glory of Christ. We have been offered holiness and righteousness and indwelling by the Spirit. We can have our prayers answered and have hell fear us because we have a hold on God who invites us to draw on His omnipotence. We are offered all this, and yet we sit and play second violin without ambition.

Rut, Rot or Revival

Who wins when it’s a choice between God and money, between God and ambition?

Success and the Christian

Some people are religiously ambitious. Sometimes what we want is not in the will of God but rather for self-aggrandizement, and the result is there is a cloud between us and God.

The Crucified Life

Here is the secret, if there is any such thing. Give up your friendships, your possessions, your comforts, your ambitions, your reputation, your health, and even your life and you will find that God will give it all back to you. Pressed down, shaken together, and running over (Luke 6:38).

The Crucified Life

Ambitions drive men, enslave them, send them on, and then at last hurl their victims down in disappointment. Human society has also arranged amusements in order to quiet the victim while death creeps nearer all the time.

The Wisdom of God

Angels

The angels have certain capacities. They are holy and obey God. The seraphim sit around the throne and know God, but they do not know God as man knows God. God meant for man to be higher than the angels, and He made him in such a way that, for a little while, he is lower than the angels so that He might raise him higher than the angels. When it is all over and we are known as we are known, we will rise higher in the hierarchy of God than the very angels themselves.

The Crucified Life

Never imagine that the archangels, seraphim, and angels in heaven are God Almighty’s helpers that He created in order to help Him get along, much as a farmer might hire ten men to help him at harvesttime so that he will not be stuck when the rains come.

And He Dwelt Among Us

Christ could be incarnated in the form of a man, but not in the form of an angel. No matter how high in the order of beings the angels may be, they were never said to be created in the image of God.

Experiencing the Presence of God

God made you a Christian, and when He made you a Christian, He honored you above angels and seraphim and cherubim and archangels.

God’s Greatest Gift to Man

We are made in the image of God, only a little lower than the angels, and are to be higher than the angels. That is what we were and that is what we potentially are. But without the new birth and redemption and forgiveness and cleansing, we will find our place in that hell reserved for the devil and his fallen angels.

Living as a Christian

If angels can be envious, they might look upon ransomed sinners and desire to look into the mystery of God’s atonement. The angels, who can bear the burning bliss before the throne, have never known a sinful world like this. God merely tells them to go help His people and sends them out to be ministering spirits to those who shall be heirs of salvation, but He never explains the atonement to them.

My Daily Pursuit

In my thinking of angels, it occurs to me that although the angels wonder at the grace of God, they can never fathom the depth of that grace. No angel can sing with any meaning, Marvelous grace of our loving God. No angel can sing, Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.

My Daily Pursuit

The Bible as a whole talks about angels, mentioning them 297 times. A few times, the word angel in our English Bible refers to a human messenger, for the word means messenger, but the vast majority of times, it refers to a being from heaven. That being is usually large, powerful, immortal, holy, wise, and closely associated with God. Jesus our Lord said about angels that they do not marry and are not given in marriage. Neither can they die; so they are immortal, holy, and wise. They go back and forth doing the errands of the Almighty.

Preparing for Jesus’ Return

I notice that in the Scriptures the angels are more active in times of crisis and less apparent in quieter times. Jehovah describes to Job the dawn of creation and asks, Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? (Job 38:4). Even though Job was not there, the angels were. It was such a spectacular event that God continues, When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (38:7).

Preparing for Jesus’ Return

When our Lord came into the world and was born of a woman, the angels were seen then; a great multitude of the heavenly host were praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest (Luke 2:14). Later on, when our Lord had risen from the dead, the angels were there again. When you get to the book of Revelation, and the crisis begins to churn, and gets tighter and fiercer, the angels appear seventy-five times in that one book.

Preparing for Jesus’ Return

The question I must pose is why modern evangelical Christians have little place for angels in their thinking. Everybody else talks about angels, usually in the wrong connotation, but modern-day Christians do not talk much about angels.

Preparing for Jesus’ Return

The Bible talks about angels, archangels, principalities, powers, might, and dominions. That tells us there are gradations, or lesser and greater authority. The idea that everybody is put in a sack and shaken up and all come out exactly alike is wrong.

Preparing for Jesus’ Return

In the New Jerusalem, only the redeemed will appreciate the musical strains directed toward the throne. Even the angels will stand in silent wonder as the redeemed sing to the Lamb the song of the soul set free.

Preparing for Jesus’ Return

The devil can come as an angel of light. So you have to learn to know an angel of light from an angel of God. You have to learn to know pseudo truth from truth.

Reclaiming Christianity

When the Lord lays His hand upon a man, that man ceases at once to be ordinary; he immediately becomes extraordinary; his life takes on cosmic significance; the angels in heaven take notice of him and go forth to become his ministers (Hebrews 1:14).

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1952

Anger

Every deed done out of anger or spite, for instance, will be found at last to have been done for the enemy and against the kingdom of God.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1953

It is doubtful whether any sin is ever committed until it first incubates in the thoughts long enough to stir the feelings and predispose the will toward it favorably. Even the sudden flash of anger, which of all sins would appear on the surface to have the lowest mental content, is anything but a sudden eruption of the emotions.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1957

The instructed Christian knows that the wrath of God is a reality, that His anger is as holy as His love, and that between His love and His wrath there is no incompatibility.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1960

Authority

No man has the authority to divide the truth and preach only a part of it. To do so is to weaken it and render it without effect.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1950

Whether or not the Christian should separate himself from the world is not open to debate. The question has been settled for him by the sacred Scriptures, an authority from which there can be no appeal.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1950

The true Christian will be loyal to his country and obedient to those in authority, but he will never fall into the error of confusing his own national culture with Christianity. Christianity is bigger than any country, loftier than any civilization, broader than any human ideology.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1951

Without the remotest intention to accept the authority of Christ, many religious leaders nevertheless use His name as an attractive front to give them entry to the masses.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1955

The average church has so established itself organizationally and financially that God is simply not necessary to it. So entrenched is its authority and so stable are the religious habits of its members that God could withdraw himself completely from it, as He once withdrew the Shekinah from the Temple, and it could run on for years on its own momentum.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1957

Christians today have developed the perilous habit of accepting the authority of the New Testament on matters that do not concern them, and rejecting it on matters that do.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1960

Except in cases where governments go over to the devil, as in prewar Germany and in Russia today, a follower of Christ will represent his Lord better by living a holy life within the law than he will by holding that law in contempt. And he will find in the common round of life all the opportunity he needs to prove that he is a true believer in Christ.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1950

Believer

Every believer, as well as every minister of Christ, must decide whether he will put his emphasis upon the majors or the minors. He must decide whether he will stay by the sober truths that constitute the beating heart of the Scriptures or turn his attention to those marginal doctrines that always bring division and which, at their best, could not help us much on our way to the Celestial City.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1950

That Christian is a happy one who has found a company of true believers in whose heavenly fellowship he can live and love and labor. And nothing else on earth should be as dear to him or command from him such a degree of loyalty and devotion.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1950

Before God, every true believer is reckoned to have died when Christ died. All subsequent experience of personal crucifixion is based upon this identification with Christ on the cross.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1953

Throughout the New Testament, after Pentecost, one marked characteristic of all Christian meetings was the believers’ preoccupation with their risen Lord.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1955

Every worshiper should keep before him the thought of Christ and His church. However humble the external circumstances, if Christ is present, the place is a holy temple and every believer a priest before the altar.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1955

The believer seeks adjustment, not to the world, but to the will of God, and just to the degree that he is integrated into the heart of Christ is he out of adjustment with fallen human society.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1955

A community of believers must be composed of persons who have each met God in individual experience. No matter how large the family, each child must be born individually. Even twins or triplets are born one at a time. So it is in the local church.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1955

There comes a time when the true believer must take his stand on the oath and covenant of God and refuse to be shaken. He must lift high his happy affirmation, not in arrogance, but in faith and in deep humility.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1956

It is doubtful whether we can be Christian in anything unless we are Christian in everything. To obey Christ in one or two or ten instances, and then, in fear of the consequences, to back away and refuse to obey in another is to cloud our life with the suspicion that we are only fair-weather followers and not true believers. To obey when it costs us nothing, and refuse when the results are costly, is to convict ourselves of moral trifling and gross insincerity.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1956

In the book of Acts, faith was for each believer a beginning, not an end; it was a journey, not a bed in which to lie while waiting for the day of our Lord’s triumph. Believing was not a once-done act; it was more than an act, it was an attitude of heart and mind that inspired and enabled the believer to take up his cross and follow the Lamb whithersoever He went.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1957

Public worship embraces the community of believers and is genuine only as the individuals who compose the company assemble in the mood of reverent devotion. Anything short of this is sheer formality and must surely be unacceptable to God.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1959

But the Christian is more than a student, more than a philosopher. He is a believer, and the object of his faith makes the difference, the mighty difference.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1959

The true believer owns Christ as his All in All without reservation. He also includes all of himself, leaving no part of his being unaffected by the revolutionary transaction.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1960

The believer thinks, it is true; but he thinks because he believes, not in order that he may.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1960

The word doctrine simply means religious beliefs held and taught. It is the sacred task of all Christians, first as believers and then as teachers of religious beliefs, to be certain that these beliefs correspond exactly to truth.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1960

When true believers gather around a present Christ, it is all but impossible to have a poor meeting. The drabbest sermon may be endured cheerfully when the sweet fragrance of Christ’s presence fills the room. But nothing can save a meeting held in the name of an absentee God.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1962

The truth is that while Christ dwells in the believer’s new nature, He has strong competition from the believer’s old nature. The warfare between the old and the new goes on continually in most believers.

The Alliance Weekly/Witness, 1962

Bible

We believe in the whole Bible, not bits and pieces. The whole Bible supports the idea of progressing toward spiritual perfection in our Christian lives. Spiritual perfection is what the apostle Paul longed for and spoke about.

The Crucified Life

For so long we have heard the complaint that people do not read and study the Bible because the language is antiquated. Yet the generation who had only the King James Version was the generation that sparked revivals and missionary movements around the world. It just may be that the Bible translation was not the problem. It is my observation that the natural man does not understand spiritual principles. The problem has never been the translation. The problem has never been academic. The problem has always been spiritual.

The Crucified Life

One important point many fail to understand is that the Bible was never meant to replace God; rather, it was meant to lead us into the heart of God. Too many Christians stop with the text and never go on to experience the presence of God.

The Crucified Life

I would recommend that you go to some secondhand bookstore and buy a used King James Bible. You might have to put down a few dollars, but it will be the best investment you have ever made. I know the thees and thous are rather cumbersome, but one of the most beautiful things about these words is that they slow you down when you read. Probably there is no greater offense in all of Christendom than speed-reading the Bible. The Bible must be read slowly and meditatively, allowing the Spirit of God to open up our understanding.

The Crucified Life

Show me the condition of your Bible and your hymnal and I will accurately predict the condition of your soul. Our souls need to be nurtured and cultivated, and nothing does that better than the Christian hymnal. I cannot imagine a Christian not spending quality time in the hymnal. Hardly a morning passes when I don’t kneel down with an open Bible and a hymnal and sing, comfortably off-key, the great hymns of the church.

The Crucified Life

Although it may have happened unintentionally, the Scriptures have become for some a substitute for God. The Bible has become a barrier between them and God. We have our Bible, they say with a certain amount of pride, and we need nothing more. Examine their lives and you may discover that the Bible has not really made an impact on their lifestyles.

The Crucified Life

One problem some have is to believe that if they read it in the Bible, they have already experienced it. It is one thing to read about the new birth in the Bible and quite another thing to be born from above by the Spirit of the living God.

The Crucified Life

It’s all right, a man might say, I have a flashlight in my pocket. Simply having a flashlight in your pocket does not light your way until you pull it out and turn it on. Simply believing the Bible does no good until we pull those promises of God out of the Bible and by faith appropriate them into our lives.

The Crucified Life

Unfortunately, there are those who want nothing apart from the New Testament. They live among God’s people everywhere. I find them here and there in my travels, and I believe there are some in almost every religious group. Remember this: You and I are brought to the Bible, which is our rock from which we drink our water. This is our manna. This is our blueprint upon which we build our cathedral. This is our guide through the desert in the wilderness. This is our all in all, and we want nothing else. The people I’m talking about want nothing except what is in the New Testament.

The Crucified Life

The Bible is never an end in itself. I pray that God will raise up someone who is able to make the Orthodox Church, the Bible people, the fundamentalists, the evangelicals, see and understand this. Remember that God himself said that He was a jealous God (Exodus 20:5). We do not want anything or anyone to remotely take His place.

The Crucified Life

A casual reading of the Scriptures could bring one to the conclusion that there are contradictions in the Bible. The enemies of the Bible have worked overtime to bring all of these apparent contradictions to light. Perhaps of all the contradictions in the Bible, no other author of the New Testament has been accused of contradicting himself more often than the apostle Paul.

The Crucified Life

Everything must be tested by the Word of God, which is the final authority for the Christian. The place of the Bible in someone’s teaching should clue us in to the genuineness of a spiritual guide.

The Crucified Life

The difficulty we modern Christians face is not misunderstanding the Bible, but persuading our untamed hearts to accept its plain instructions.

The Pursuit of Man

You will find that everything in the Bible is practical, moral, and spiritual. Each book of the Bible has a specific purpose to it. The specific purpose of the book of Hebrews, for example, is to take men and women who are alienated from God and reconcile them to Him. Very simply put, the message of Hebrews is to make sinful men good, to take men neglecting their future lives and persuade them to become concerned about their futures.

A Disruptive Faith

The five unanswered questions are: Where did we come from? How did we get here? What are we? Why are we here? and Where are we going? These questions cannot be answered except by going to the Bible for the answers. Man, in his ignorance, does not know and can never discover the answers by himself.

A Disruptive Faith

I believe it is possible to read my Bible, and read it regularly, and yet not know what it means until I hear a voice in it.

A Disruptive Faith

A basic truth of the Bible is that the source of most evil is a low opinion of God.

A Disruptive Faith

The Bible has very few definitions. Definitions have to do with philosophy and reason, whereas the Bible is a spiritual book directed to the heart.

A Disruptive Faith

The Bible is not a book of reason about good or bad. The Bible is an authoritative book telling us what is good and what is bad. We need no textbook on ethics when we come to the Word of God. God has written the only textbook there is that is valid and binding upon all men.

A Disruptive Faith

We should read the Word in meekness, humility, full trust, and ready obedience. Then, and only then, can we know the true profit of Bible reading.

A Word in Season

We are called to preach the Bible, not to prove it. The Holy Ghost is all the proof we need.

A Word in Season

Not Bible reading, but Bible obeying counts with God. And the winners will not be known till we all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

A Word in Season

It takes all of the Bible to make all of the Bible. When we splinter the Bible, pulling out a single brushstroke, we lose what it is all about.

Alive in the Spirit

I think if I am going to have a Spirit-filled life, I need to have a deep love and appreciation for the Word of God. Those early Christians embraced the Bible, and it cost many of them their lives. If you read down through church history, you will find many believers lost their lives because of the Scriptures.

Alive in the Spirit

Christians should be the happiest people in the world, and should not have to acquire it anywhere but in the Bible and from God above.

Alive in the Spirit

I am so over arguing about which is the right translation. I think that has been manufactured by the enemy to draw our attention away from the priority we should be giving to the Word of God.

Alive in the Spirit

My experience is to open up the Bible, get on my knees before this open Bible, and begin reading not in a race to finish but in an attitude to receive. As I give God’s Word priority in my life, He begins to honor that priority by unfolding to me what the Word of God is all about.

Alive in the Spirit

It would be impossible to say too much about the Bible. However, as a young Christian, I became hungry for the Word of God. I wanted to read it and to meditate upon it. I did not have to memorize it because as I meditated upon it, I began to learn it. Some people can memorize a verse of Scripture and not really know what it is talking about. I was storing it in my heart for the Spirit’s ready access. The techniques of our study pale in comparison to the work of the Holy Spirit through the Word of God in our hearts.

Alive in the Spirit

The Bible is just as specific as a doctor is. A man feels ill, and when he goes to a doctor, the doctor does not reach under the table and pull out a general book of symptoms and say, I’m not going to prescribe specifically now. I’m just going to give you a general prescription.

And He Dwelt Among Us

I think the first mistake is assuming that because it is in the Bible, it is in us.

Delighting in God

We can have everything the Bible tells us we can have, but we cannot assume that we have it because the Bible says it. We must come to the point of personally experiencing everything that the Bible is teaching us. To know the first step is important, but it is only the first step, and we must persevere unto perfection; that is, experiencing what God wants us to experience in the Lord Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Delighting in God

I believe that is why the Twenty-Third Psalm is so beautiful—because it honors God. And I think that goes with the whole Bible itself. This book I hold in my hand is a shining, beautiful book. It is lovely no matter whether it is bound in the cheapest of paper or in the most expensive leather, whether it is printed on plain paper or the finest India paper available; nevertheless, it is a beautiful book.

Delighting in God

As I meditate on the Word of God, my heart is stirred, and my concept of the Bible is a direct result of my growing appreciation of God. The more I know God, the more I understand His character and nature. The more I delve into the attributes of God and the more I meditate upon His Word, the more I begin to appreciate everything around me. My relationship with God, through Jesus Christ, has given me new glasses from which I can look upon the world in deep appreciation and see what God intends for me to see.

Delighting in God

The Bible is not a textbook so I can answer questions on a quiz somewhere. The Bible cannot be compared to any other book in the world. When I come to the Bible, and when I spend time reading and meditating upon the Scriptures, I am entering a world where God is dominant and desires to reveal himself to the worshiping heart.

Delighting in God

It is impossible to separate the Old Testament from the New Testament. It takes the whole Bible to make the Word of God.

Delighting in God

Trying to isolate one part of the Bible from another part is to do great damage to the Word of God. Trying to separate law from grace is a very dangerous thing and usually leads to heresy. There can be no law without grace, and no grace without law.

Delighting in God

I believe that the most important verse in the Bible is—and this is a very hard thing to say because the Bible is such a magnificent book—In the beginning God . . . (Genesis 1:1).

Delighting in God

Two aspects of the Bible that are critical to coming into God’s presence are revelation and inspiration.

Experiencing the Presence of God

God wrote the Bible as originally given, and it is a trustworthy sourcebook of authentic truth. What we have in the Bible is true, but not everything that is true is in the Bible. You can learn everything from the Bible that the Bible teaches, but you cannot learn everything from the Bible, for the reason that the Bible does not teach everything. It does not pretend to. We must distinguish between revealed truth and truth.

Experiencing the Presence of God

The Bible reveals the truth we need to know to save us from sin, to regenerate us, to rehabilitate us morally and spiritually, and to prepare us for the day of the Lord. It is all in the Word, and that is what we mean when we say the Bible is the only sourcebook for our rule and practice. The Bible is the only final, authentic sourcebook of information concerning those things that have to do with our salvation.

Experiencing the Presence of God

The Bible and nature bear the same signature upon them, so that we can conclude that whoever made one, made the other.

Experiencing the Presence of God

The Bible teaches that all of God’s presence is everywhere. The Bible teaches that God’s face—God’s realized, manifest, enjoyed presence—may be the precious treasure of all the people of God.

Experiencing the Presence of God

Some Christians read the Bible only to find some proof text to use in their witnessing, which is more arguing than witnessing.

Experiencing the Presence of God

We must discipline ourselves to come to the Word with holy anticipation to meet with God. To come to the Bible and not be fed is the sad plight of many people today.

Experiencing the Presence of God

I would suggest we discipline ourselves to read the Bible until it comes alive—until we can almost feel the breath of God breathing upon us. David felt this way, particularly when he wrote, As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God (Psalm 42:1). He knew what it was to pant after God.

Experiencing the Presence of God

Also, part of the discipline of meditating on the Scriptures is to