The Heart Is the Best Theologian — A.W. Tozer

The Revelation of Jesus Christ and the Comprehensive Gospel

I leaped upon the mountain hills and touched just a few high spots. The first three verses yesterday. I'll do the same of the next. Is in the chapter beginning with verse 4 John. To the seven churches which are in Asia Be unto you and peace from him which is and which was.

And which is to come Seven spirits which are before his throne and from Jesus Christ who is the faithful witness the first begotten of the dead the Prince of the kings of the earth unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood and Has made us a king and priest unto God and his father.

To him be glory and dominion forever and amen. Behold he cometh with clouds and every eye shall see him. They also which pierced him. All kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him even so. Amen.

I'm alpha and Omega the endings of the Lord. Which is and which was and which is to come? The Almighty. Now I often say about Easter that if a man can't preach at Easter He's not called to preach and not immediately resign.

Because there's something about Easter that put preach in the man. If there's if he has any remote trace of come out at Easter. But no other time when we hear in them say the Lord is risen indeed. This passage in your hearing here from the first chapter of the book of Revelation Is the chapter that also challenges And provides him with plenty of material to preach and if a man can't preach Helpfully on these verses revelation, then I venture to say you'll not be able to preach helpfully.

Many other passages scripture anywhere not even the 23rd because I want you to note here How deeply rich all this is how completely and utterly there's gold over here and silver from the mine and there's money out of the rock by ease of Adler and There's milk here and fat butter for the child of God.

Is everything here. Somebody wrote a letter one time and I had quoted Samuel Rutherford. And then I'd made some inane comments on what Rutherford had said. Oh Thanks me for what I had commented. He said that my mother used to say that you could make a pretty good meal if you had a good and he said you Set up a good meal.

But you had a good piece of meat to start with and I would say to you that this is a good piece. Because here is the sweeping comprehensive view of Christianity this is it my. This is what we Christians believe here that grace and peace come from God who is and one and From the sevenfold Holy Ghost which hovers before his throne and from Jesus Christ.

Who's this and the first begotten of the dead and the prince of the kings of the earth? And then he gives us that benediction and us and washed us from our own sins in his own blood. And made us kings and priests unto God and the Father the glory and dominion forever and ever.

Then he says behold he cometh with clouds and every eye shall see him. Then he ends with saying I am Alpha and Omega the beginning and the ending. Says the Lord which is and was and is to come the all.

Now there is a compendium of Christianity. There's what we're supposed to believe now. I want to stand here now and warn about something. I Want to warn you about the slow? Erosion that's taking place in our Christie's days.

The Erosion of Evangelical Faith

Men who call themselves Evangelicals are whittling away at how much we got we can believe. And they're approaching it from the high Olympian towers of the the ivory tower egghead ism and From up there.

They're making us ashamed of ourselves. That we're all simple-hearted believers. And you know, I think some of it's got here in Carnegie Hall. You don't have the lung five years ago. He all got pneumonia.

I remember there was a day when I couldn't have said much as I've said now without the death on the rising. Very wonderfully, but I've only heard one squeak and that was from Mary. And of course you can't keep her now my brother and sister.

Let's watch out that we don't allow our faith to be eroded. Nobody will come to any of us in the Christian and missionary alliance. I don't believe the Bible. You're a fool to believe the Bible. Nobody will come and look you in the eye.

You are an educated tadpole and you came up from the slimy ooze of the prolacloplasic Mud for you're simply the best that nature's been able to do evolution wise. Nobody will say that to an alliance man.

He can walk away. But what they've done is they've eroded our faith. They've whittled it down as a boy whittles on the pencil. Nip it and breaks the point and whittles it some more and by evening He's got nothing left but the rubber and out there in the great learned feeder and field, you know.

We've got a new brand of evangelicalism now. It's what I call Evangelical rationalism a neo neo, you know. Neo is a Greek word meaning new and if you have much education you say new that's Anglo Sac farmer can say I'm going to get a new pair of shoes.

But if you've been to college you say I'm going to get a neo pair of shoes, you know, it shows you drink, you know. Prove proves you've been to college and got cultivated. And so from these we are making us ashamed of ourselves and by the use of and about a high approach.

That they make I still believe that theologian and I still believe that God can bless a man. Greatly, if he has a big heart, even if he doesn't have much of a think that there is any necessary Incompatibility between having a fine mind and having a pure heart.

But a choice between having a childlike heart set on the Lord Jesus Christ forever and having a very learned in capable of Analysis and synthesis and they all the rest. I'll take the childlike heart. Because any home to where a child is but not everybody can get up to where the professor is.

So if you start down where the child is up, he'll set Jacob's ladder there and let you climb it Mr. Chances are the Lord wants you to stay down where you are right. Go. I guess that's over in the church women.

All right. Thank you. No, I could tell time on the thing which sides up. All right. Thank you, but Where was I I was saying? That if we don't want you to have we're going to get a secularized mentality.

I think we've got it pretty much in the Alliance now. We have in charity that is old Adam and his brood of civilized brain washers have working. Until we think like the world thinks. I just went through a copy of Time magazine I go through them in a hurry and was in a hurry.

And I went through the thing and I had to shake my head to get the bugs out of it. Because after you've read the Athena readers digest or almost any other of the kind You begin to think the way they think you place your values values.

Let's watch that let's play that we might have the mind of Christ and think like Christ and Count that God places great value on and Was dismissed with a snap of our finger that which God counts to be trash.

The world is calling that wonderful which God calls Abominable and vice versa. So let's say to this thing here now. My brethren is what Christians are supposed to believe. This is Christianity all about the eternal father of his eternal Son and the blessed Holy Ghost the Comforter.

All about the washing in the blood and the coming again and the rainings and priests on the earth all this is here. This is Christianity, and I am NOT going to be frightened out of it by any of these Irrationalists who make the human mind to be the arbiter of all theological questions.

I don't accept it. Revelation is the arbiter and when God Almighty has spoken I say like the old Greeks used to say if she dicks that he has. And let every man be a liar, but let God be true. And if you look at a thing and it looks as if it wasn't true and God said it's true and God will make it true to you now.

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in Christian Faith

This is the beating heart of Christianity. What do we have here? Well, we have here in high concentration God the Father who is and who was and who is to come. And the spirit and for the Christ of God who is Jesus and it tells us what he is.

That he's prophet priest and king and what he's washed us from our sins in his own blood. And what he has made us kings and priests under God the father a certain triumph. That'll be ours. And then he says grace be unto you and peace now here is sounding down from the churches found the churches.

From our Lord Jesus Christ by the Apostle John is this wonderful? Benediction all who this one who calls himself your brother this John and Companion in tribulation heard the voice of God and he lies enough to be an echo and a voice.

Speaking again the words of God to us. There's great be unto you and peace Brothers and sisters. I don't know any two things. I need more than grace and peace God no, I don't think the man who wrote amazing grace how sweet the sound loved it any better than I do.

I Don't sing to a mouth when these fine singers. I keep just as mute as a mud turtle. Because I don't want to show off what a bad voice I have. So boy, you ought to hear me, you know, I have the remotest idea what key it is.

But who who discovered keys anyhow? My old day when one of the children would be eating with his fingers and mother rebuke. Ah, she'd say let him alone fingers were made before force and he that Worshipping hearts were made before keys were discovered so Bach and Beethoven can turn over and rest a while.

Money singing amazing grace. I believe the angels fold their wings because I for one know what I'm talking about. If I got what I deserve being in hell right now with a dog Hitler and Caligula and Nero the murderer I'd be down there.

But here I am bouncing all to my feet trying to preach to a few sleepy people in north side Pittsburgh on a Monday afternoon about the great old instead of roasting in the hell. I'm preaching in Pittsburgh.

I don't mean any fun either by that. But anyhow here that This is the great grace of God and the peace of God now if I need the grace of God I also need the peace. These are days that don't contribute to your peace.

That's all they just don't do it. These are times that contribute to nervous Brahma's ulcers. I never had no sir. I thought I hadn't a doctor. Photographed my insides and told me I was as clean as a pin and didn't have a crack in the wall.

I guess I get rid of my nervous tension by jittering around and they tell me I do. So it's all right, but peace. I need peace for the of the nervous breakdown. This is the hour. This is the hour of the heart attack.

And this is the hour when there's no peace. Grace and peace he says now it's coming from the glorified head of the church, but this mighty declaration All inclusive. It's also all Exclusive, you know what?

I believe and I'll throw this in for sure. I won't get to say it. I'll throw it in here though. It isn't in the notes at all. But I believe we're going to die one of these days of too much tolerance. I don't believe God be as tolerant as we are.

Christ's Intolerance of Sin and Hypocrisy

It's a very odd thing that right at the hour when everybody's tolerating everybody else and you never any Subject at all that you're not sure to have agreement on before you start. Lest you'll find yourself being intolerant.

And sisters the most Intolerant man that ever walked this earth of ours was none other than Jesus Christ our Lord. He ate the devil. He would not tolerate sin. He would not tolerate unbelief. He would not tolerate the fees with their hypocrisy.

He would not tolerate the Sadducees and the scribes with their learned pride. He tolerated babies and Republicans and sinners and bums and beatniks and scrubs off the street corner, but he wouldn't tolerate Chrissy's and religious hypocrites.

He stood right up to them and when all them sent word that look out. They said Harrod's after you he turned around. Calm as a Jew that go tell that old fox. I'll be here until I'm finished. Turn walked away.

I like that kind of downrightness. Told a hair of that no doubt. Harrod turned red and his face flushed and his neck got thick. He wasn't used to that kind of talk. But the one who called him he was talking about.

And I believe that if the children of God didn't want to please so many people and wanted to please God. Maybe a little harder to live with but we'd have a little more edge on our sword. We have all our swords wrapped in cotton batting fear we'll chip and raise and draw a little blood.

They fear some dear fellow who believes something else and has a purpose under the Constitution. But here you get a little bit mad. Let him get mad. He'll get over it if he doesn't have a heart attack.

It's all right. The people of God and people aren't mad at us anymore in the Church of Christ. Nobody's been mad at me for years except a few people loyal. And write me and tell me that I'm a bum and ought to be burnt to stake, you know I'm nice language, but they tell them that's what it adds up to and I don't have many enemies.

I don't have enough enemy. The man is known by his friends and he's known by his enemies and works that gets accepted by the society. Around it and when Northside Pittsburgh Avenue Road, Toronto or South.

When we get accepted by the carnal unregenerate society around us brother. We've had it and we to go along another half a generation or another whole generation and never find out that we died like the Irishman ahead of a mud turtle and the turtle crawled away and the Irishman said he Didn't hadn't found it out and there are church and don't know it.

And they take the fact that they're accepted by the carnal world to be a proof that they're having great success. Oh, it's a proof that they're having no success. But that the Holy Ghost has withdrawn in hurt silence and left them.

Here's the declaration all Inclusive. It includes only those who qualify this grace and be unto you in peace. You can't say that to a sinner. You can't say that to a hypocrite. You can't say that to a liberal preacher be unto you in peace.

You can't say that to the man who believes the Bible is the book of myths and Jesus was the son of Mary and a German soldier. You can't say that to the world out there either. That's all inclusive and it's all exclusive.

Wish God knows and my heart's desire is that this benediction could mean the whole world's total population and if it could. Total population of the world believed on Jesus Christ. Savingly, you don't have to all be in the Alliance.

Of course, I. But if they believe savingly on Jesus Christ, mr. K wouldn't be throwing rocks at mr. K anymore. Couldn't be any more summit conferences, you know, I'm going to a summit conference one of these times.

I don't know exactly what I'll represent. Here when you elect a man they call it the district but up there they called a writing up in Canada. I don't know what writing I'll represent when I conference, but I'm on my way there and every day.

What was a little bit of the time? Gotta spend here before I go there on turns. I Wish that all of the people of God may have it said about them properly great and peace be unto you. Mount grace on a rebel.

You can't say peace to a man who has no peace but His cruciate this now, this is objectively true. But it's got to be made subjectively true. You know the difference I'll explain it for the chair the rest of us all know what the difference between objective and subjective.

Objective Truth Becoming Subjective Faith

Objective is the thing is out there handing alone. Unsupported and it makes no difference whether I believe it or not. There it is. That's an eternal truth. Objective truth, that's the cream. That's the fourfold gospel.

That's the Bible. That's the scriptures. That's the that's what that's objective truth. But it'll do you no good till it becomes Subjective truth that is until it gets inside the object has got to become the subject and the two got to unite.

That which is spoken about me has got to become part of me. To assimilate and receive into myself the great truths of God. One of the great difficulties I find it true in these and full gospel and deeper life meetings everywhere.

I Find the great difficulty is to get people the belief that if it's true in the Bible, it's true in them. You know David said the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want that thing fit and think it's true him, too.

Well, it could be but it's not necessarily. So and Paul said I'm crucified the less I live and we quote that and we think because Paul said it. It's true. It is true Objectively, but it's not necessarily.

Unless I die with Paul, then I can't say I am dead with Christ. Unless I ride and with Paul I cannot say I am risen again. You've got to make these things real by faith and love and Obedience hard, you know, that's what's hard to get anybody to take the thing into themselves.

You can get people to admire the low. He did that's quite another matter now. Notice the authority of this declaration here the eternal father was and is to come and Somebody will say well, then how about this?

Didn't you say somewhere that God dwells in all and has no yesterday and no tomorrow that God lives in an everlasting now? Yes, sir. I said it and I'll stick to it. I still blood has no past and God has no future.

Past and future and present are three tenses of time and time the bosom of God and God contains in himself all that was and all that will be and all it is. When we say God was and is and is to come we are talking about our Tenses.

God's adapting himself to our will be and our is God there were never a time when God was not and there'll never be a time when God will not be. Generally now dwelling in an everlasting now. But you and I we dwelt in yesterday and we'll dwell in tomorrow.

Hey is simply a little bridge between yesterday and tomorrow. So God adapts himself to us and God says to his poor time back. He says I am the eternal God who was. I was in your yesterday. And I'm in your today and I will be in your tomorrow.

One of the most I guess quoted passages ever quoted in the Alliance is he Jesus Christ the same yesterday today and forever. Now, what does that mean? That mean there was a time when he was. That he is the slave of time and that he pays tribute to the passing of the days and all.

It means Jesus Christ the same today as he is in my today and as he will be in my tomorrow. For the great eternal God who comprehends all in himself. Comprehends me within himself and God has lived all my tomorrows.

God isn't waiting to see he knows the end from the beginning because he has already lived the end as he lived the beginning. Yet the things God was and at the end of all things God will be. But it's because God is.

God didn't say I was he said I am that I am. And that is my name forever. And that is my memorial unto all generations. The eternal father, you know, I don't think we preach enough about God these days.

I Go around preaching on the attributes of God me everywhere I've gone people come to me and shake their heads and grip my hand and they talk as if they've been listening to Saint and they're Not they've been listening to a Pennsylvania farmer with a nasal twang and bad grammar.

They haven't heard great sermons. It's the great sermon in my life, but they've simply heard somebody preaching about a great God and Their hungry Christian hearts react. I don't think we preach enough about God these days.

I don't think we see God big enough. I don't think we magnify churches. I don't think so at all God the eternal God and there are the seven spirits now who wants to know about the seven spirits I suppose know about it.

So I'll go back and read that that good old verse in Isaiah the 11th chapter and the sport shall rest upon him and the spirit of wisdom and Understanding the spirit of counsel and might the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.

They are the spirit, but it's one Holy Ghost. Let's keep that in mind. There's only one father and there's only one son and there's oh. The old adamaisian creed says that The God is the father is eternal and the son is eternal and the holy yet.

There are not three eternal but one eternal. But father is incomprehensible as some is incomprehensible and the Holy Ghost is incomprehensible yet. They're apprehensible, but one incomprehensible. But the God the father is Lord and the son is Lord and the Holy Ghost is Lord yet.

There are one Lord. So The father is God and the son is God and the Holy Ghost is God. But there are not three God but one God for all the attributes of deity. There is only one Holy Ghost. And that blessed Holy Ghost is the bond between some the old theologians used to say, you know That God the eternal father almighty maker of heaven and earth being absolute.

He had so much love that he wanted to pour out That in the eternal somewhere back there in the eternal generation the mysterious fact and out of the substance of the father. The son was generated. Had always been and was colleague.

But he came he came to be the father's son in that awful mysterious Moment in what the theologians call the eternal generation. So they said in order that God might pour out all of his infinite love. He had to have a vessel that could contain all of it to the of it.

So there was the son equal to the father, but that the old mystic theologians There had to be at which he could pour his love the everlasting and infinite love of the father into the ever lasting heart of the son.

So there was the Holy Ghost to come to and so through the equal Holy Ghost the co-equal father Poured his love into the heart of the co-equal son. Oh Heaven will be like, you know, some of you won't want to go to heaven.

Tell me you won't. I remember my mom on approval. They had a little trick in those days. They'd say then I take this on a pool take it on 30 days. And if you don't like it chicken gives you you can send it back to her that some of us busy 20th century American rocket-conscious Christians, we wouldn't want to go to heaven and stay there long did of course so we could come back and show pictures.

Just that we'd want to visit Bahamas, you know in Florida but we wouldn't because the one who gets all the glory up there is the father and the son of the Holy Ghost and American people don't like that once you get a little cut of the glory somewhere.

They're willing to give God 90 of the hosannas, but they'd like to take three hosannas to put in their scrapbook. So we want a little cut on the glory of God brother. God won't let you have any cut and if you insist on any glory God God Almighty will chase in you with scorpions until you repent and the blood washes you clean.

Who's ready for heaven isn't somebody that's gulped twice and said I accept Jesus. The man who's ready for heaven is the man who has been Jesus Christ in faith and identification to a point where he thinks the way Jeep father and about heaven.

That's why I believe God's people ought to be worshipers these Sunday these morning sermons. You're hearing from Thomas Williamson. Y 'all ought to be young. You hear about how wonderful God is. I was thinking I was the only one who was doing that.

I think he's at it. God won't be raising up a lot more men around over the country who spend all of their ministry telling about how wonderful God is. Well spirit from the eternal son and says about the eternal son.

But he is the faithful witness that is he's the prophet and he is the dead. That is he's a priest and he is the prince of the kings of the earth that he is the king. Remember we used to say he's the prophet priest and king that you know, he's still the prophet.

He's still the priest and he's still the king and they close with the benediction. The benediction here are words that I kind of like doxology and benediction now, you know one comes from the Greek and means the word of praise and one means the word of blessing and If a service is five minutes long and you've got a doxology and the benediction you've had a meeting but it just is we ought to begin every service with a doxology that is with a word of praise and We ought to close every service with with a preacher can't pronounce the benediction.

That's the odd part. We stand up, you know I do it all the time too, but I keep my fingers crossed between and I'm just conforming to the situation but we say The Lord bless you and keep you and you say that brother only God can say that and if the preacher says it If he's just an echo of God's voice, he's got to be.

I Can't bless any of them are going through an old folks home one time and I got to praying with a dear little old lady God bless her. I suppose she's somewhere long ago. She was a Roman Catholic and I used to pray for her and she warmed up to me.

I was a young preacher and She said before me today and I'd pray for that day. And then the next time I don't would you pray for me? Not pray for again. So finally, I saw that I wasn't satisfied to make woman and finally she said to me.

She said would you put your hands on my head and bless me? So I put my hands ahead and prayed for God to bless her, but I couldn't bless her. I never you know, we read in the Old Testament about a man who blessed himself.

Brother, if you blessed you're stuck before nightfall. Just as sure as you live it won't last. Because you're not the source of blessing the blessed one who come of the blessed. He can only pour out benediction.

Only he can do that. So if you if you hear him you hear him say from the text. Or is it here and yes grace may you and then he turns around and say glory and dominion be unto him there you have your service and after all what is the service, but a mother and Saying glory be unto God and God saying grace be unto you there.

You've had your service no matter whether you have Vance Havner Hibson or A .W. Tozer. You have a company of people get together and they say praise be to God and God hears it and says grace be to you.

You'll have the meeting that's a good meeting. Benediction and doxology grace and peace be unto you glory and him now this puts things in their right position. You know grace for our wretched sinfulness and peace for our uprooted alien lives.

God's Love Is Rooted in His Nature

Then it says unto him that loved us. This was the reason for all else. Unto him that loved her. I'm a great lover of hymns and I'm not a hymnologist precisely, but I'm bordering on it and I'm a great lover of hymns.

But there has me sick to my stomach. I want to go off somewhere, you know and be sick after I read them. Because it put God in such an awful one fellow. One fellow writes a song like this. He says he says deeper into the heart of Jesus deeper.

Seeking to learn the reason why he should love me so I Get a feeling when I sing that song or hear it song as if I'd been hit by their pillow a kind of a swashy Squishy feeling, you know full of wind and confusion.

Sister, why should we be so silly? Do you suppose you'll ever know why God loves you if to know why God loves you? God never loved anybody because they deserved it. God loved somebody because he's God.

That's all That God is the real. If I had to look inside of myself I had to take two pieces of paper and put my good qualities on one and my bad on the postage stamp for one and a whole ream of paper for the other for the bad qualities a big piece of paper and a few little things.

May be that only after I might put on the back of the Postage stamp, but do you suppose my little list of virtues brought God's love out? God loved a dirty-tongued a high-tempered filthy minded Mouthy little guy.

He loved him and he just loved him because they loved him and he's never given me any Reason to know why I wouldn't spend one split kick of this watch. Trying to tell why God loved me I never know. No, he's God and God can't help himself.

It's just like a butterfly out here in a couple of months wandering around saying It creation deeper and deeper. I go trying to find the reason why the sun should shine on me. So well, the sun shines on a butterfly on and that same sun shines on a toad frog in a caterpillar.

Because the Sun that's all and God just loves that's all so he loved us. But he loved this and love is an active thing. Love isn't a passive the disease of the stomach nowadays in Hollywood, you know, we we go to the barnyard and we say and we young girl Young lady on at the at the plane and he'll say are you in love now?

And she'd say love at the moment brother. Down on the farm. They call that by another name that being in love I'm too much of a gentleman. Every farmer knows what they mean when they said. You blush rub your face.

You'll get to know some things. We ought to know that love is not an emotion. Love is not a tickling thing say love is something that gives to the object of its love and. So he loved me and washed me from my thing blood that's what.

Well, we brought up seven children, you know dragged him up and tried to keep him from that and Tried to teach him to say yes. No, and thank you and succeeded reasonably. Well and Here they are scattered now.

But I know that in in my my wife never One in order that she might love you wished it because she loved it and there's all the difference in the world. A little boy comes in out and he's got an inch and a quarter cup of sheer downright good old-fashioned Wonderful dirt based on him and he was a clean as a painter to go and you don't understand how it ever could happen.

But you figure he's a boy Made up of noise dirt and appetite. So you take him and wash him and you love him before you see what color he is. But you'll love him anyhow because he's you got him cleaned up and you set him down.

He looks like a little gentleman. You wouldn't think he was a beatnik. He'd been five minutes before. But in her dirty didn't affect your love you love him anyhow. So he loved us because he was God and then he cleansed us in order to love us without embarrassment.

He cleansed us so he could love us fully and completely and he did it. So he washed us in his own blood a little girlfriend by the name of Lady Julie and I quote her. She's a 600 years dead. So it's safe.

But she's my girl little book around called revelations of divine love and she was a little nun in Norwich England and she'd never heard the loser. He wasn't born there's and of course there was no Reformation.

So she did the best he couldn't but she had to work with him to the Christian life hadn't been published in days days of Headprint at the time so she just had to get on the best she could but somehow brother.

She rose to meet God in a marvelous mighty Julian and she helped me. I carry around in my suitcase that is her book a lot and She figured things out, you know God she'd figure them out and put them down.

She said this. She said God has already done the great things for me. First he created and then he redeemed me and now he's keeping me. She said those are the three great things. She said I can believe him for anything else if he'll do the great I believe she's right.

All right. I like that kind of logic if God will create me when he had no no Obligation then when I send he redeemed me when he had no obligation to do it and then he keeps me shaved Of me and redeem me.

He'll do anything else that I want him to do because when you do the big thing You'll do the little one that's so reasonable that I think any professor ought to take it now. It says here that he made his kings and priests unto God.

The Priesthood of Believers and Christ's Return

I'll be finished in a minute brother Fraser. But he made his kings and priests unto God, you know, I believe in two doctrines. I believe in the doctrine of the dominion of the same the doctrine of the priesthood and believers.

I Think if we were one more like God we didn't. Tom Hare has a little talk. He gives he's not a good talker. He's just a good prayer. But he has little talk. He gives about God making man in his dominion.