The Epistle to the Torontonians - Part 2 — A.W. Tozer

The Holy Spirit's Guidance in Witnessing

At the proper time for witnessing. And then again, when you just aren't supposed to say a word, you just don't say it. I think that's beautiful. The Holy Ghost controls us, so we aren't always talking, but we talk when we should.

Victory Through Jesus and His Blood

But now, O praise Jesus, the Holy Spirit in me does the talking, and the blessed opportunities I have had with Catholics and so on. Satan is now defeated in our life. Praise to the Lord Jesus, glorious name.

We have victory in Jesus and are covered with the blood. It seems I could go on forever. The words just keep tumbling out, and this has become a much longer letter than was intended. Oh, Dr. Towles, the Lord is so good, and we are so unworthy and so on.

I just want you to know what God is doing for people. I'm not up here talking way up here on cloud nine and talking about things that can happen in people's lives, mothers and housewives and students and clerks and truck drivers and salesmen and businessmen.

I'm right here now in Toronto. That's God's epistle to the Torontonians. God Almighty's word did tell us that he will deliver us and we can be a free people, and that he doesn't mean that we should live a discouraged life when we have our human brother joined to God by the mystery of the incarnation, the right hand of God, leading our cause victoriously and efficaciously so that you never need to be afraid.

Freedom From Inward Defeat

You young Christians, don't you worry for a minute in the morning if you get up and feel a little bit blue. Perfectly normal, every Christian has gone through that. Don't worry about it. But don't let it become chronic in your life.

Rise above it. Open your heart to the fulness of God and see whether he doesn't sweep in to set you free. How about it? That deep, inward defeat that can be cured only by an equal, inward release. When the Lord releases a man, he is free.

And until he is released, you can't sing him free and you can't pound him free and you can't preach him free and you can't get him free in any way known to mortal man. And yet the Church spends millions of dollars every year putting on religious stuff in order to try to get people free.

One simple act of the Holy Ghost will free a man. Free him and free him forever and set him loose and turn him loose. And you can get bold about it. You can go to God and get bold about it. I remember well, when I was a young fellow, I got in some kind of an inward jam and the burden was on me and I was bound and I was miserable.

I was walking around bound. I remember one day I was walking along the street over in West Akron. I used to know the name of that street, but it slipped out of my mind for the moment. I was walking along that street and I'd had enough of it.

I'd had enough of that, but I knew God wasn't mad at me and I knew the devil was bothering me. So suddenly I stopped and stamped my foot in bold daylight and looked up through the trees to God and said, God, I won't stand this anymore!

And I didn't. Right there I was a free man. That particular thing left me. God set me free because he knew faith took it, you see, faith took it. I wasn't mad at the Lord, I was mad at the devil. And it wasn't the Lord that had me bound, it was the old devil that had me bound.

The old devil. I got free. I believed that the Lord's people could be a happy people, and then if you become a happy people, souls will get converted, and then shall sinners be converted unto thee. It always follows.

A Happy Church That Attracts Sinners

A happy church that's happy from the inside out would be something to astonish Toronto. A happy church that didn't cost them a dime to be happy, not a penny. They didn't have to import anything, it was there already.

The Lord in his temple praised the Lord, let everybody rejoice. That would be a sample of a church. I don't know, I still am believing, and it looks as if it was coming. I want Toronto Avenue Road Church to be a sample church, and this is what I'm talking about tonight.

How about it? I think that we ought to pray, and I think we ought to be free. I'm glad Wednesday night meetings are turning into meetings of confession as well as declaration of what the Lord is doing.

Confession and Revival in the Church

Over in Africa there is a group of Christians called the Rwanda, that's the area where they are, and they make a great deal of confession. They just confess to each other and to the Lord. If anything goes wrong, they just find out where the block is and go confess it and get rid of it.

Two deacons, one deacon gets a little jealous of the other deacon, he goes to the other deacon and tells him, I've been jealous of you, please forgive me, now God you forgive me. They've had a revival that's talked about all over the world because they confessed.

Repentance in Marriage and Family Life

I think confession is a beautiful thing, and I think we ought to confess. I think, Sister, you've been trying so hard to get inward freedom, but you've been grouchy to your husband, mistreated him and snarled at him, and then you wonder why he doesn't come running to the front and say, I want to be saved too.

He can't get over you, you see. But if you'd go to him and tell him about that, break his heart. Just break his heart. You just go tell him about that. Control yourself best you can and say, Honey, I'm sorry, I'm a Christian for a long time and I've been trying to get you saved, but I haven't lived the life before you.

See what it'll do for that man. Oh, you know, he won't break down and cry too. He'll probably cough and act embarrassed and walk away, but he'll have got an arrow in his heart he'll not get rid of until the Blessed Savior takes it out and puts it in the oil and ointment.

Heals him. Same with you, mister. You may be a deacon in the Church, or an elder, or have a high position that you've been throwing your weight around. Why don't you tell the little woman about that? Some of you parents, you can't hope to have the Holy Ghost sweep through you in victorious power.

You've yelled at those poor kids of yours until they don't pay a bit of attention. You've yelled too much. They don't trust you. Oh, I don't mean to say they think you're a hypocrite, but they just don't seem to think Mama quite has what she thinks she has.

That can be deadly. I'm not saying it's true of any particular individual, I have nobody in mind, but I'm just drawing a bow at a venture. Why don't we get rid of all this? Get rid of it. And you can know what this young lady writes about, and what's perfectly possible for any child of God to know.

Removing the Log Jam That Hinders Conversion

Sinners will be converted. I know there are unsaved people here tonight. And they're not just wanderers that come in to see a three-headed calf. They are people who came because they're in touch with Christians that are so hot and so joyous and so enthusiastic that they're concerned.

I know they're here. And if we Christians get out of their way, they'll be coming one after the other, one after the other. But gossiping and backbiting and grouching and blaming and censoriousness, these things prevent sinners from coming.

If we just get it out of the way, it'll break the log jam. My dad used to drive logs as a boy, and he was a young fellow. I never saw it, but when he was a younger man, and I knew what the log driving was in those times, they'd cut them down and make logs out of them and put them in the river.

They'd float down the river to the sawmill, down to the dam and then to the sawmill. And he was taking them down the river. Suddenly the whole thing would jam. And some of those wise men knew what to do.

They called that a log jam. Obviously enough, it was. And they would send a man out there. Now, not anybody could do it, but they'd send a man out there. They had great sharp spikes on their shoes, and they had what they called canthooks.

Some of you wouldn't know what a canthook was if you met it on the sidewalk, but canthooks were common around where I lived. And they had these canthooks, and that man would go out carefully, cautiously, but very fast, walking over these great growling pile of logs, this great pile of logs, and he'd find the log that had blocked it.

He'd catch that thing with his canthook, spin it a couple of times, turn it, shove it, and it would slip away like loosing traffic would be a better word for it in our day. That car that's got the traffic tied up, get it out of there, and the traffic just melts away.

So he would get that log out of there and get it going, and then he'd hit for sure. By the time he got to shore, the whole thousands of logs would be once more on their way down to the dam. You can have a log jam in a church.

One or two logs get crossed. Some fellow gets his nose out of joint, or some woman. And there we are, a log jam. The work of God can't go on, but the Holy Ghost is wonderfully able to find what that is.

A preacher doesn't know, he's innocent as an unborn baby in arms, but the Holy Ghost knows. So he finds that person, and if he can get the cooperation of that fellow that's got the thing, way it goes and the blessing of God comes.

The Holy Spirit's Call to Prayer and Release

Well, I'm going to ask you to do something while we sing. We're going to sing a number here that we used to sing, they used to sing in the early days of the Alliance. The Comforter has come, a familiar and loved hymn, cheering our hearts with the knowledge that the Holy Ghost has come.

And if there should be those here this night who would say, I feel I'm in the way. Some young Christian, some young unsaved person, some sinner, who wants to be converted unto God, you find your way into the prayer room.

Some Christian who feels that you've got that inward defeat and you want release, find your way to the prayer room. We see God together. All talents and ability can do what has to be done here, only thy spirit.

And it is not by might nor by power, but by my spirit saith the Lord. So Lord, thou didst send the Holy Spirit to the world, the Comforter, to convince the sinners of their sins and show the Christians the beauty of Jesus.

So we turn over this to the Blessed Comforter, the Holy Spirit. We make these people accountable to the Holy Spirit, thy vicegerent in the earth. Not to us, they are not responsible to us. They are responsible to the Holy Spirit.

So we pray that each one may see this and feel it and know it and respond accordingly. We trust thee for this as we wait on thee just a little longer. Amen. Dear friends, we're not pushing this. This is one beautiful thing.

Responding Without Pressure to the Holy Spirit

Whoever gets converted around here does it because some happy Christian has led him to the Lord. Any Christian finds his way to God in a new and wonderful experience, it's because he decides it's to be that way.

No pressure, no unfair advantage, no psychological cruelty. We won't have that here. But if the Spirit is speaking to you without pressure, except the joyous pressure within, would you obey him and slip through this door or that one back there and meet us in the chapel?