The Pursuit of God Part 1

The Pursuit of G.o.d.

by A. W. Tozer.

Introduction

Here is a masterly study of the inner life by a heart thirsting after G.o.d, eager to grasp at least the outskirts of His ways, the abyss of His love for sinners, and the height of His unapproachable majesty--and it was written by a busy pastor in Chicago!

Who could imagine David writing the twenty-third Psalm on South Halsted Street, or a medieval mystic finding inspiration in a small study on the second floor of a frame house on that vast, flat checker-board of endless streets

Where cross the crowded ways of life Where sound the cries of race and clan, In haunts of wretchedness and need, On shadowed threshold dark with fears, And paths where hide the lures of greed ...

But even as Dr. Frank Mason North, of New York, says in his immortal poem, so Mr. Tozer says in this book:

Above the noise of selfish strife We hear Thy voice, O Son of Man.

My acquaintance with the author is limited to brief visits and loving fellows.h.i.+p in his church. There I discovered a self-made scholar, an omnivorous reader with a remarkable library of theological and devotional books, and one who seemed to burn the midnight oil in pursuit of G.o.d. His book is the result of long meditation and much prayer. It is not a collection of sermons. It does not deal with the pulpit and the pew but with the soul athirst for G.o.d. The chapters could be summarized in Moses' prayer, "Show me thy glory," or Paul's exclamation, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of G.o.d!" It is theology not of the head but of the heart.

There is deep insight, sobriety of style, and a catholicity of outlook that is refres.h.i.+ng. The author has few quotations but he knows the saints and mystics of the centuries--Augustine, Nicholas of Cusa, Thomas a Kempis, von Hugel, Finney, Wesley and many more. The ten chapters are heart searching and the prayers at the close of each are for closet, not pulpit. _I felt the nearness of G.o.d while reading them._

Here is a book for every pastor, missionary, and devout Christian. It deals with the deep things of G.o.d and the riches of His grace. Above all, it has the keynote of sincerity and humility.

_Samuel M. Zwemer_

New York City

Preface

In this hour of all-but-universal darkness one cheering gleam appears: within the fold of conservative Christianity there are to be found increasing numbers of persons whose religious lives are marked by a growing hunger after G.o.d Himself. They are eager for spiritual realities and will not be put off with words, nor will they be content with correct "interpretations" of truth. They are athirst for G.o.d, and they will not be satisfied till they have drunk deep at the Fountain of Living Water.

This is the only real harbinger of revival which I have been able to detect anywhere on the religious horizon. It may be the cloud the size of a man's hand for which a few saints here and there have been looking.

It can result in a resurrection of life for many souls and a recapture of that radiant wonder which should accompany faith in Christ, that wonder which has all but fled the Church of G.o.d in our day.

But this hunger must be recognized by our religious leaders. Current evangelicalism has (to change the figure) laid the altar and divided the sacrifice into parts, but now seems satisfied to count the stones and rearrange the pieces with never a care that there is not a sign of fire upon the top of lofty Carmel. But G.o.d be thanked that there are a few who care. They are those who, while they love the altar and delight in the sacrifice, are yet unable to reconcile themselves to the continued absence of fire. They desire G.o.d above all. They are athirst to taste for themselves the "piercing sweetness" of the love of Christ about Whom all the holy prophets did write and the psalmists did sing.

There is today no lack of Bible teachers to set forth correctly the principles of the doctrines of Christ, but too many of these seem satisfied to teach the fundamentals of the faith year after year, strangely unaware that there is in their ministry no manifest Presence, nor anything unusual in their personal lives. They minister constantly to believers who feel within their b.r.e.a.s.t.s a longing which their teaching simply does not satisfy.

I trust I speak in charity, but the lack in our pulpits is real.

Milton's terrible sentence applies to our day as accurately as it did to his: "The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed." It is a solemn thing, and no small scandal in the Kingdom, to see G.o.d's children starving while actually seated at the Father's table. The truth of Wesley's words is established before our eyes: "Orthodoxy, or right opinion, is, at best, a very slender part of religion. Though right tempers cannot subsist without right opinions, yet right opinions may subsist without right tempers. There may be a right opinion of G.o.d without either love or one right temper toward Him. Satan is a proof of this."

Thanks to our splendid Bible societies and to other effective agencies for the dissemination of the Word, there are today many millions of people who hold "right opinions," probably more than ever before in the history of the Church. Yet I wonder if there was ever a time when true spiritual wors.h.i.+p was at a lower ebb. To great sections of the Church the art of wors.h.i.+p has been lost entirely, and in its place has come that strange and foreign thing called the "program." This word has been borrowed from the stage and applied with sad wisdom to the type of public service which now pa.s.ses for wors.h.i.+p among us.

Sound Bible exposition is an imperative _must_ in the Church of the Living G.o.d. Without it no church can be a New Testament church in any strict meaning of that term. But exposition may be carried on in such way as to leave the hearers devoid of any true spiritual nourishment whatever. For it is not mere words that nourish the soul, but G.o.d Himself, and unless and until the hearers find G.o.d in personal experience they are not the better for having heard the truth. The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of G.o.d, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very G.o.d Himself in the core and center of their hearts.

This book is a modest attempt to aid G.o.d's hungry children so to find Him. Nothing here is new except in the sense that it is a discovery which my own heart has made of spiritual realities most delightful and wonderful to me. Others before me have gone much farther into these holy mysteries than I have done, but if my fire is not large it is yet real, and there may be those who can light their candle at its flame.

A. W. Tozer Chicago, Ill. June 16, 1948

I

_Following Hard after G.o.d_

My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me.--Psa. 63:8

Christian theology teaches the doctrine of prevenient grace, which briefly stated means this, that before a man can seek G.o.d, G.o.d must first have sought the man.

Before a sinful man can think a right thought of G.o.d, there must have been a work of enlightenment done within him; imperfect it may be, but a true work nonetheless, and the secret cause of all desiring and seeking and praying which may follow.

We pursue G.o.d because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit. "No man can come to me," said our Lord, "except the Father which hath sent me draw him," and it is by this very prevenient _drawing_ that G.o.d takes from us every vestige of credit for the act of coming. The impulse to pursue G.o.d originates with G.o.d, but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after Him; and all the time we are pursuing Him we are already in His hand: "Thy right hand upholdeth me."

In this divine "upholding" and human "following" there is no contradiction. All is of G.o.d, for as von Hugel teaches, _G.o.d is always previous_. In practice, however, (that is, where G.o.d's previous working meets man's present response) man must pursue G.o.d. On our part there must be positive reciprocation if this secret drawing of G.o.d is to eventuate in identifiable experience of the Divine. In the warm language of personal feeling this is stated in the Forty-second Psalm: "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O G.o.d. My soul thirsteth for G.o.d, for the living G.o.d: when shall I come and appear before G.o.d?" This is deep calling unto deep, and the longing heart will understand it.

The doctrine of justification by faith--a Biblical truth, and a blessed relief from sterile legalism and unavailing self-effort--has in our time fallen into evil company and been interpreted by many in such manner as actually to bar men from the knowledge of G.o.d. The whole transaction of religious conversion has been made mechanical and spiritless. Faith may now be exercised without a jar to the moral life and without embarra.s.sment to the Adamic ego. Christ may be "received" without creating any special love for Him in the soul of the receiver. The man is "saved," but he is not hungry nor thirsty after G.o.d. In fact he is specifically taught to be satisfied and encouraged to be content with little.

The modern scientist has lost G.o.d amid the wonders of His world; we Christians are in real danger of losing G.o.d amid the wonders of His Word. We have almost forgotten that G.o.d is a Person and, as such, can be cultivated as any person can. It is inherent in personality to be able to know other personalities, but full knowledge of one personality by another cannot be achieved in one encounter. It is only after long and loving mental intercourse that the full possibilities of both can be explored.

All social intercourse between human beings is a response of personality to personality, grading upward from the most casual brush between man and man to the fullest, most intimate communion of which the human soul is capable. Religion, so far as it is genuine, is in essence the response of created personalities to the Creating Personality, G.o.d.

"This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true G.o.d, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."

G.o.d is a Person, and in the deep of His mighty nature He thinks, wills, enjoys, feels, loves, desires and suffers as any other person may. In making Himself known to us He stays by the familiar pattern of personality. He communicates with us through the avenues of our minds, our wills and our emotions. The continuous and unembarra.s.sed interchange of love and thought between G.o.d and the soul of the redeemed man is the throbbing heart of New Testament religion.

This intercourse between G.o.d and the soul is known to us in conscious personal awareness. It is personal: that is, it does not come through the body of believers, as such, but is known to the individual, and to the body through the individuals which compose it. And it is conscious: that is, it does not stay below the threshold of consciousness and work there unknown to the soul (as, for instance, infant baptism is thought by some to do), but comes within the field of awareness where the man can "know" it as he knows any other fact of experience.

You and I are in little (our sins excepted) what G.o.d is in large. Being made in His image we have within us the capacity to know Him. In our sins we lack only the power. The moment the Spirit has quickened us to life in regeneration our whole being senses its kins.h.i.+p to G.o.d and leaps up in joyous recognition. That is the heavenly birth without which we cannot see the Kingdom of G.o.d. It is, however, not an end but an inception, for now begins the glorious pursuit, the heart's happy exploration of the infinite riches of the G.o.dhead. That is where we begin, I say, but where we stop no man has yet discovered, for there is in the awful and mysterious depths of the Triune G.o.d neither limit nor end.

Sh.o.r.eless Ocean, who can sound Thee?

Thine own eternity is round Thee, Majesty divine!

To have found G.o.d and still to pursue Him is the soul's paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too-easily-satisfied religionist, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart. St. Bernard stated this holy paradox in a musical quatrain that will be instantly understood by every wors.h.i.+pping soul:

We taste Thee, O Thou Living Bread, And long to feast upon Thee still: We drink of Thee, the Fountainhead And thirst our souls from Thee to fill.

Come near to the holy men and women of the past and you will soon feel the heat of their desire after G.o.d. They mourned for Him, they prayed and wrestled and sought for Him day and night, in season and out, and when they had found Him the finding was all the sweeter for the long seeking. Moses used the fact that he knew G.o.d as an argument for knowing Him better. "Now, therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight"; and from there he rose to make the daring request, "I beseech thee, show me thy glory." G.o.d was frankly pleased by this display of ardor, and the next day called Moses into the mount, and there in solemn procession made all His glory pa.s.s before him.

David's life was a torrent of spiritual desire, and his psalms ring with the cry of the seeker and the glad shout of the finder. Paul confessed the mainspring of his life to be his burning desire after Christ. "That I may know Him," was the goal of his heart, and to this he sacrificed everything. "Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may win Christ."

Hymnody is sweet with the longing after G.o.d, the G.o.d whom, while the singer seeks, he knows he has already found. "His track I see and I'll pursue," sang our fathers only a short generation ago, but that song is heard no more in the great congregation. How tragic that we in this dark day have had our seeking done for us by our teachers. Everything is made to center upon the initial act of "accepting" Christ (a term, incidentally, which is not found in the Bible) and we are not expected thereafter to crave any further revelation of G.o.d to our souls. We have been snared in the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have found Him we need no more seek Him. This is set before us as the last word in orthodoxy, and it is taken for granted that no Bible-taught Christian ever believed otherwise. Thus the whole testimony of the wors.h.i.+pping, seeking, singing Church on that subject is crisply set aside. The experiential heart-theology of a grand army of fragrant saints is rejected in favor of a smug interpretation of Scripture which would certainly have sounded strange to an Augustine, a Rutherford or a Brainerd.

In the midst of this great chill there are some, I rejoice to acknowledge, who will not be content with shallow logic. They will admit the force of the argument, and then turn away with tears to hunt some lonely place and pray, "O G.o.d, show me thy glory." They want to taste, to touch with their hearts, to see with their inner eyes the wonder that is G.o.d.