(Steps Towards Spiritual Perfection) - Beg to Be — A.W. Tozer

I went to the barber shop to get what I sometimes refer to as my hair cut. The Italian barber said, I've been sick a couple of days and you know my throat. So they had that, what do you call it, orange ice.

And didn't I get his orange ice? Couldn't be here this morning. But I didn't want to disappoint the people who I knew had come tonight. Fortunately, before I got more anxiety and had to go to bed, I got an assignment.

So Betty McCarthy, if you come up here and read me a text, I'll fix the time. I want you to read it again. Philippians 4, 7 to 15. But what things were counted to me, but what things were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ.

Pressing Toward the Knowledge of Christ

Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but lost 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 that I may win Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.

That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his suffering be made conformable unto his death. If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead, not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, for getting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Let us, therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded, and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same faith.

When we give new years, as Anthony once said, and we'll not miss anything, and by Wednesday I'll be okay and be teaching my class as usual. I had an objective before us, and that objective, let me repeat again, is to know Christ.

It is to live by the power of Christ's resurrection, to be conformed to his death. It is to experience in us that which we have in Christ. And in order to do that, it is to count all things for the excellency of this knowledge.

Experiential Union With Christ

I have read a prayer, and we refer to it often. The prayer of the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, who says that he wants God to pray for him so that we may have the intent of our hearts to claim that we may perfectly love God and verily praise him.

When I listen today on the radio, from early morning to the afternoon, lying in bed listening to the religious service, with everything from Catholicism down to spiritualistic meetings, it could be that some of you would say, well, Tozer is a nice chap, but he is a bit off-base.

I ask you if, in the light of the New Testament, this sounds fanatical. By seeking a place in God, a perfectly loving, verily praising, united living, not only judicially but experientially. If that's fanatical, then of course there's only one thing for you properly to do, and that is not to come back anymore, because I don't believe in fanaticism.

But if this is worth listening, this is worth preaching about, worth listening to, then you might well try to hold power and conform to a superior resurrection in ourselves, that which we have in Christ, in united living, experientially as well as judicially, here in this present world.

Then let's relax and say, this is not fanaticism, this is New Testament Christianity. Now, the object of the Holy Spirit is two-fold. It is to convince Christians that this which I have talked to you about is possible.

Joshua led Israel into the promised land. The answer to this is not hard. To convince Christians that that which I've talked about is possible in this life, that's not hard, because people are ready to accept it.

They'll accept if you die hard, but universities and colleges and Bible schools and conferences of every kind have evangelical and fundamentalist persuasions asking for this. So it's not hard to convince Christians that these things are true.

But it is impossible to leave them into it. For a man, it's totally impossible. That must express impossible for the Spirit of God. So it must be the Holy Spirit who moves any individual into this place of what we call a special kind of Christian, superior to and different from the common Christian.

The Difference Between Doctrinal Perfection and Obedient Practice

Now, I want to read something to you, just a brief snapshot here, from an old print he published. So, a persuaded mind and even a well-intentioned heart is a long way from exact and faithful practice.

Nothing has been more common in every age, and still more so today, and we could add and still more so nowadays. Nothing has been more common than Mr. Meek says, who are perfect and saintly in speculation.

Do you hear this? Nothing is more common in the fine Christians who are perfect and saintly in speculation. But the Savior of the world says, You will know them by their wit and by their behavior, and this is one rule which is never deceived, and by which we should judge ourselves.

Go ahead, come along. Now, I'm going to go out on a limb tonight and claim to know something which I don't have any way to know except by a sure guess based upon known spiritual laws. I'm going to state here now that for some of you, and I don't know how many, but for some of you, last week was your worst week spiritually.

I have been disappointed in these talks. You heard about them, and you said, This is what I've been looking for, and you heard four of them. But last week was your worst week. You hoped it would be your best, and you hoped that the path of the just would turn more and more unto the perfect day.

But instead of that, you had more discouragement last week than you've had in many a long week before. You were filled with doubt and deceit. Instead of what you've been learning these nights, lifting it up, you have found that it has passed you down.

But you know, I want those who have been told the truth, and those who have known the right piece of God speaking at them, and those who have bumped their foreheads and chins on the sidewalks as a result of deceit, are the same very ones who are getting nearer to God.

But those who have been unaffected and are unaffected, who leave the temple not cared for, who continue to be worldly, not minded, you have not been affected when you have made the least progress. But those of you who have found things going against you, and when you are longing and yearning to know Jesus Christ better, instead of it helping you, it has actually discouraged you, you are very close to the thing.

Seeing by Grace and Hearing God's Word

Now, I want to give you another little phrase out of the Bible, and this sums up the teaching of the Bible, too. He says this, See who by grace ye may. I want you to put that down. See who by grace ye may.

Or, to put it in our modern English, let those who see by the grace of God. Or, to put it in the language of the Scripture, he that hath ears to hear, let him hear. He that hath eyes to see, let him see.

Before we talked about eyes, we said it is. See who by grace ye may. Now, I explained the first night that I'm a bit different from the old gentleman who wrote the book, in that he simply walked out on people if they couldn't see.

He said, I've always seen janglers and rauners and spiritually bothers and gossips and money lovers. I don't want you even to look at my book. But I'm trying to help you, so I'm going to be a little broader than that, and I'm going to tell you that God seeks out those who cannot see in order that he may lead on by grace those who can see.

For remember that those who will be as the sands of the seashore where the remnants shall be saved. And the Lord said that in the last days, few should be found who were right. The love of the many should wax cold.

Now, here was a man named Gideon. And Gideon was buried in Bethsaida, and we got 32 ,000 told. And the Lord said, You've got too many. Let them go who by grace may. So, he said, Everybody that's afraid, you turn back.

And 22 ,000 out of the 32 ,000 turned back. He said, You've still got too many. I can see people among you that cannot see, and that you'll never be able to make these religious soldiers out of. Test them.

So, he took them to the river and tested them. He was all over. He had 300 left. Now, there's scarcely a preacher anywhere on the top side of this terrestrial ball that would have given his right hand to get those 32 ,000, and would have mourned in the night to be cut down to 10 ,000.

But 10 ,000 is too many. God is not thinking about numbers, but about quality. So, God seeks out those who cannot see, but see who by grace he may. He leads on those who by grace do see. Now, as an explanation of why you had a pretty bad week some of the last week, and why your efforts to go on with God only got you into more bumps, remember Christ's journey to immortal triumph.

The Dark Night of the Soul and Christ's Suffering

Remember the garden where he shed blood. Remember Pilate's hall where they put a purple robe on him and smote him. Remember the desertion from all that took him in his place. Remember the journey up the hill to Calvary.

Remember the nailing on the cross. Remember the six hours. Remember the hiding of the Father's face. Remember the darkness, and remember the surrender of his spirit in death. This is the path that Jesus took to immortal triumph and everlasting glory, and if he did, so are we in this world.

Now, that's what some call the dark night of the soul. There is certainly a Christian that will be willing to go into this dark night of the soul, and that's why there are very few Christians that ever enter into the light.

They don't know the morning, because they won't know the night. Now, but some people say, Mr. Churchill, I have known quite a while this darkness of which you speak. God has chopped me down and cut me down, and he's not done the business, and he's made

I've actually been tempted by the devil, but the morning hasn't come in my heart. Why? Why does it take so long? Well, it doesn't need to take long. Here's what the clouds say. This work asketh no long time before it be once truly done, as some men wean, that is, some men think, believe.

For it is the shortest work of all that men may imagine, for it is neither longer nor shorter, but even according to the stirring that is within thee, even thou wilt. The trouble is, my brother, that the stirrings within thee aren't enough.

There isn't a vacuum in there yet, and so the Holy Spirit can't rush to him because there's most not enough stirring within. I have said to you, everybody's as full as he wants to be, and everybody is as holy as he wants to be.

And when we think we want and don't, then of course we wonder why it takes so long. I'll tell you why we haven't gone on faster, and why you that are seeking but still trouble, why you have not come up into the land.

It's because you have not come to the end of yourself. We interfere with God's working in us. He wills, God wills, but look on him and let him alone. But we can't get, God can't get us to let him alone.

We struggle to keep up a good front. Instead of being humble and meek, Christians want a good front. Most hardly a Christian. He wants to go to heaven when he dies to see old George Rose, but he wants to have a good front while he's here.

And he says, as Paul the apostate said before him, he says, O God, honor me now before these people. And then we hide our inner state. It is the teaching of the Bible that we ought to expose our inner state to God, but we hide our inner state.

And because we hide our inner state, God can't change that inner state. We hide it, and we disguise our poverty spirit. I said, I think, once already, that if we were suddenly to look on the outside the way we do in our souls to Almighty God, we would be the most embarrassed people in all the state of Illinois.

There would be people barely able to stand. There would be people in rags. There would be people completely too dirty to be decent. There would be people that have great sores on their bodies. There would be people, Christians, that even Skid Row would turn them out.

But we won't let God know how poor we are in spirit, and we won't tell it. That's why we have to wait so long. And that's why we want to go on this job, but why we don't. Because we disguise our poverty of spirit and hide our inner state to preserve our reputation.

Surrendering Control and Personal Glory

And then we want to teach some authority to ourselves. We don't want to turn the last key over to Jesus Christ. We want to have our dual controls and let the Lord run us, but have controls before us in case the Lord says.

So, we're not turning over all the authority. We just don't tend to do it, and that's why we have to wait so long. And we want to keep some glory for ourselves, for one little bit. We're willing to sing the glory of Zion, and Zion is the kingdom and the glory, but we want a little glory for ourselves.

St. Helene said again this, "...we are strangely ingenious in perpetually seeking our own interest. And what worldly souls do crudely and openly, people who want to live for God often do more subtle.".

You get that? It's almost human, but it is so true that we're strangely ingenious. A man that couldn't invent anything can invent a way of seeking his own interest, because what worldly souls do crudely and openly, people who want to live for God often do more subtle with the help of some pretext which, serving them as a screen, prevents them from seeing the ugliness of their own behavior.

I think that's a classic, brother, that our strange ingenuity, our strange ability to seek our own interest under the guise of seeking the interest of God. And I haven't the remotest fear to say that there are thousands of people who are using missions and healing and prophecy and the deeper life and all the rest for no other purpose than secretly to promote their own private interest, but using it as a pretext and letting the pretext serve them as a screen so they'll never know how ugly they are inside.

Now, we contradict, I say. We rescue ourselves from the cross. Nobody wants to die on the cross, and yet Paul said, I want to die on that cross, and I want to know what it is to die on the cross in order that if I die like him, I might have a superior resurrection.

Those who know the Greek know that that's what he said. Indeed, he didn't say, so he'll raise me from the dead. Every Christian will be raised from the dead, but he said, I want a resurrection like his, a superior resurrection, and in order to do it, I've got to die like him.

Now, we're willing to die a little bit, and we're willing to die a piece at a time, but we're always wanting to rescue a little part of ourselves from the cross, and it's that part of yourselves that you rescue that keeps you in trouble all the time.

Begging to Be Filled While Resisting God

Now, we're contradicting ourselves. You know, it's entirely possible to do it. It's entirely possible to beg to be filled and yet resist the filling, beg and plead to be filled and yet hinder God from filling.

He wishes and wills, thou do but look on him and let him alone. But we beg him to help us and then won't let him help us, like a spoiled child. If you want to take their temperature or a pill or do something for them, and they howl and bawl and yet beg for help, I'm sick, Mama, but won't take a thing, won't take a thing, and won't let you help me.

Just stubborn little fellows. And so, we beg to be filled and at the same time resist the filling. And there's that strange ingenuity, there's that strange contradiction that's in us that our wills won't stir enough.

And what will people do crudely, we who live for God often do more subtle. Before God, of course, it isn't subtle, but it's subtle before us. Thus we contradict ourselves, and that's the problem. We live in a state of contradiction.

We beg, fill me now. There's one song that I never wanted to sing around here. Oh, you know, I don't make any show out of it, and if somebody's announced it, why, it's okay, I can sing it. But I think one of the most hopeless songs ever written in all this wide world is the song, fill me now, fill me now, fill me now, fill me now.

I think that's a hopeless song. It's so gloomy and hopeless, and I'll pay, I'll give an autographed book to any man who will find me anybody who has ever filled while singing, fill me now, fill me now.

It doesn't work that way. We resist God and say, fill me now, and sing all four verses and repeat the last one in a mournful melody. Fill me now, fill me now, but we're resisting God. We're part of it, we won't let die.

We want to keep it alive, and we're never going to let anybody know the poverty of our spirit or the terrible condition of our inward state. We're going to preserve our reputation and our glory, a little glory anyhow, and thus live in a state of perpetual contradiction.

And that's one reason why Christians are not happy. A man who's always on a cross isn't happy. It's when he gets over with that and says, into thy hand I commend my spirit, and ceases to defend himself and let go, it's then that he dies, but also there's a resurrection that follows.

Mediocrity and the Refusal to Die With Christ

Now, if we're ever going to be anything more than common, mediocre Christians. You know, Christians halfway up. That is, halfway up from where we are. Not halfway up to heaven, that's not. I've peddled for that for the time being, but I don't mean that.

I mean halfway up from where we were to where we ought to be. That's what I mean. Halfway up the peak. Not to heaven, but halfway up to where we ought to be. That's what mediocre means, you know, I told you.

And the reason that we're most all mediocre Christians is that there's not enough stirring within, and we'll never be anything but that until we give up our own interest and cease to defend ourselves and put ourselves in God's hands and then let God alone, not try to tell God how to do it.

I'm perfectly certain that being the kind of man I am, that if I were having a surgical operation, I'd want a spinal block so I could stay awake and help the surgeon and instruct him. I know it. I always am prepared to put up a stiff argument and tell the doctor what to do, and he said amen.

But it's this thing carried into the spiritual life that hinders us. We want to tell God what he ought to do. We lay it all out. We read the life of Adonai and Judson, and we say, now God, I want you to do that.

Or we read Moody's life, and then we say, Lord, we want you to do what you did for Moody. Now, God couldn't pour the Holy Ghost on you walking down the street of Philadelphia. Some of you have never been in Philadelphia.

But we want to tell God how to do it, at the same time preserving a little bit of the glory and having some areas in our lives that have not been crucified. We want to be crucified technically, and we're very happy to go listen to another exposition of the sixth chapter of Romans on how we're crucified with him.

But nobody wants it in reality. We want to hold out something, and until we put ourselves in the hand of God and let him alone and let God go and let ourselves go and let go and let God, we'll just be what we are, mediocre Christians singing happy songs to keep from being completely blue and trying to keep up a little the best we can.

But at the same time, we're not making progress, and we don't know what it is to be one with him experientially, to have the intents of our hearts so cleansed that we may perpetually love him and worthily praise him, that we may be filled with his spirit and walk in victory.

We just can't come to it, and it's all our fault. So remember, remember, this work passes no long time before it be wants to be done, as some men wean. You're one of the fellows that wean. It takes a long time.

I want to unwean you and tell you right now you've got it wrong. He says it's one of the quickest, shortest works ever men may imagine, and it's just as short or as long as your will. Just as short. This reminds me of the old cat meeting preacher I used to hear.

This old fellow, he's saying the same things I used to hear them preach in the cat meeting time. And people wanted to be holy. Now, brothers and sisters, what about you? Are you ready to let yourself go?

Fear of God's Will and the Call to Surrender

Some of you young people are afraid of the will of God, and I won't talk about the will of God next Sunday more, but you're afraid of the will of God, and you're hanging on hard onto something. You're afraid if you let go.

Some of you, you have a little baby and you love that little baby, and if you let that little baby go, God will take him, God will take him. God will take him away, you say, and sob it out as I did, and lay on the floor.

And you had two boys, but no. Lay on the floor, and for as they entertained when God spoke to me and wanted those two boys, and I thought he meant he wanted them to die. My wife was back home taking care of them, and I was in the evangelistic meeting.

And I lay on the floor beside my bed and kicked my toes on the carpet and cried to God and finally gave up my two boys. They were big, strapping, healthy fellows, except one of them was in the war and got his leg hurt, but by the grace of God he didn't lie there and die in the cold.

He was all right, saw him in the day, feeling fine. Both boys were all right, and four others. After that, so you see, God didn't want my boy, he just wanted me to get rid of my boy. He just wanted to know he could have him, that's all.

He just wanted me to know that I wasn't partly dying, that I was willing to give up anything. We had our girl. She'll excuse me, I suppose, and be embarrassed, but when she was born, I had to die again.

I did some dying, I tell you, brother. We dedicated it, but that was nothing. Dedication before the congregation. It's possible to do that and not amount to much. But my dedication was a terrible, bloody, sweaty thing.

And I finally, before God, said, Yes, you can have her. I knew that God wasn't going to let her die, because I had learned my lesson way back there when they were two older brothers. But I didn't know what he wanted, and I told this in the testimony.

I said, The dearest thing we have is our little girl. She was a little tight then, a year old or so, and I said, But God can have her whenever he wants her. Somebody came and said, Mr. Church, aren't you afraid to talk like that?

Aren't you afraid? And I said, Afraid? Why, I put her in the hands of perfect love, and love can't wound anybody, and love won't hurt anybody. So, if Jesus Christ was a devil, if he was a cruel beast, I'd shield her from it.

But his name being love, and his hands being fierce, and his face shining like the beautiful sun, and his heart being the tender heart of God in compassion and loving-kindness, I know he doesn't kill babies.

So, she was safer with him than she was with us, and nobody was ever a better mother of a small baby than my wife. And I said it to her, and I say it to you, that they never came better, and we kept that little thing, and she didn't die.

God didn't want her to. He just wanted me to put her in his perfectly loving hands. Now, you've got something. I don't know what it is, but it's something. You've got a boyfriend, and you hang into that boyfriend.

You can't say, you can't say, I'll give him up. You've got a girlfriend. You can't say, I'll give her up. You've got a job. You can't say, I've got an ambition. You've got a profession, and you can't bring yourself to say, Yes, God.

You've got money. You've got a nicely lined nest egg in it, and you just can't bring yourself to quit calling it yours. You just can't let go. You don't know what it means to look on God and let him alone.

You're afraid of him. You hope he's all right, and you believe he's all right, and you know it says, God so loved, and all that. But still, for you, you're afraid if you let go, what will happen to you?

Letting Go Into the Loving Hands of God

I was going to tell a story about a man who was down in a well. Today on the radio, I heard a preacher. I think he was a Lutheran, if I remember. I don't know where this story came from or what it was supposed to illustrate, but it perfectly illustrates what the old, Cervantes' old book, Don Healthy, that's the way it's pronounced.

Remember that there was a kind of a clown in the book by the name of Sancto Panza, and one night, Senor Panza hung to a remnant cell all night, hung all night long, afraid to let go, for if he let go, he knew he'd plunge down and die below.

And when the morning light came, he found he was two inches off of the green grass. But he hung all night on the window sill. In the morning, his red face, he saw if he'd just let go, he'd been down on the ground, perfectly safe.

Now, that sounds humorous, but there are some of you who've knuckled your life from hanging on to the window sill. And the Lord's been saying to you, lift on me and let go. But you won't do it. You won't do it.

You are not going to do it. You're going to go to heaven. You couldn't miss that because you accepted Christ, of course. We know that by the books. But I may know him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering be made conformable unto his death.

But when I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and you can't, and reaching forth unto those things which are before and you're afraid to, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high callings of God and Christ Jesus.

See who by grace see may, and the rest can sit around, get old, and wait for the undertaker. Go to conferences year after year and get nothing out of them. Do sermons year after year and not get anything.

Go and Bible study year after year and not make any progress. Just barely keep your chin up above the water. See who by grace see may. But we're ingenious, surprisingly ingenious, in fixing our Christian life so we get a little bit of glory out of it and get our own way instead of getting God's way.

What about you? Bert Miller, I want you to come up to the platform, please, while I talk. Brother Reverend Bert Miller. Bert Miller. He's here and will come. Yes, he should. All right. Now, my friends, what about it?

Christ's Humiliation, Exaltation, and the Believer's Victory

Here we are. We're the church that's supposed to be the deeper life church here in the city. We're not Pentecostal, and we're not eradicationists, but we believe there's a life of supreme victory in Christ, a yin and yang, that will lift us above our troubles and will take us through the dark valley of dying and bring us out without the weight and burden of sin.

Having given up everything and yet having everything, having let go and still being safe. Now, what about you? That's all my talk for tonight. We'll make some advance next Sunday night, and I'll feel better and I'll teach a little longer.

But that's all for tonight. Now, what about you, my friends? Do you remember Jesus? Remember what was said about him, that, "...let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, sought it not robbably for equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and being found in passion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.".

Now, do we stop there and close the book? No. Wherefore, "...God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name, that it is the name of Jesus. Every knee should bow for things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Up out of his holy grief he raised a basket. Up out of his dying came a living, and exultation, and triumph, and victory. And so it is for every child of God. We won't let him conquer. We'll never conquer till he's conquered us.

And the way we conquer our enemy is to let God conquer us. Not lash out at your enemy, but submit and let God conquer you. And by doing that, God conquered every enemy. Will you do it? Are you interested?

Would you like to be supremely victorious in this life, filled with God's Spirit, gifted of his Spirit, to walk out a special kind of Christian? Not to be proud of it, but to be meekly, meekly, humbly thankful.

For by the good grace of God, you see. For remember, see who by grace he made. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. But there's a lot that won't hear. You have too many, Gideon. Too many. Too many.

Tell everybody it's afraid to go back. Twenty-two thousand went back. Still got too many, Gideon. Put them to a test down by the river. Three hundred of them went out to victory. Three hundred out of thirty-two thousand.

What is that? One percent? Brother Miller?