By
ministry of Hope
november 12 2008
Excerpts are taken from "Key’s to
The Deeper Life" by A.W. Tozer.
How is it that modern Evangelical Christianity, has great
problems with this expression, for it seems that we are advancing to
great things, global unity of the faith, almost like it depends on
the organizations to usher in the Kingdom of God.
How tragic to see that the Church it’s self has come to believe
that everything is centered on revival and the longing for revival
has become the standard for the evangelical Christian as a way to
pursue the Kingdom.
So strongly is the breeze blowing for revival that scarcely
anyone appears to have the discernment and lean into the wind, even
though the truth may easily lie in that direction.
What we see today, in the world could easily be understood as a
revival, we have seen the ‘Toronto blessing’, ‘revival in Florida’,
Southern Africa and other places on earth. Let us not forget that
Islam is now enjoying a revival in many countries and has become a
strong force to make its mark among the world religions in our day.
Eastern religions have made a remarkable comeback after World War
II, Roman Catholicism and liberal Protestantism have gained ground
to the point that men would describe it as "revival", and this
without any perceptible elevation of moral standards, but rather to
be noticing a sharp decline, by its devotees.
Tragically we have seen in the past thirty years a boom in
popular Christianity, T.V. ministries and others have captured the
interest of the wayward believer, and been able to create a boom
altogether divorced from the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.
Vast parts of the evangelic church now have embraced the
techniques of the eastern religions and ‘New Age’ type ministries to
place themselves on the plateau of God’s holy mountain, through
experiencing the deception of the counterfeit, and so leave the
church of the next generation worse off than it would have been if
the boom had never occurred.
It is my considered opinion that in reality we don’t want true
revival at all. A widespread revival of the kind we see in the world
and in the U.S.A. today might prove to be a moral tragedy, which we
will not recover in a hundred years.
As I read the books of E.W. Tozer, and see what happened 40 years
ago and was seen as liberation from the old standards of the
Christian faith, then we must conclude that the acceleration to
apostasy has been phenomenal.
Fifty years ago E.W. Tozer wrote the following; I quote, "A
generation ago, as a reaction from Higher Criticism and its
offspring, Modernism, there arose in Protestantism a powerful
movement in defense of the historic Christian faith. This for
obvious reasons, came to be known as Fundamentalism. It was a more
or was more a less spontaneous movement without much organization,
but its purpose wherever it appeared was the same: to stay "the
rising tide of negation" in Christian theology and to restate and
defend the basic doctrines of New Testament Christianity. This much
is history".
Though many long for a true revival, in a sense that
Fundamentalism could have provided, I sadly must conclude that this
same Fundamentalism, so needed in its day, and even today, has
fallen victim on its own virtues, I quote Tozer again from the
"deeper life", "What is generally overlooked as that
Fundamentalism, as it spread throughout the various denominations
and in particular the nondenominational groups, fell victim to its
own virtues. The Word died in the hands of its friends. Verbal
inspiration, for instance {a doctrine which I have held and do now
hold}, soon became afflicted with ‘rigor mortis’".
The voice of the true prophet was silenced and the scribes
captured the minds of the faithful. The result was that in large
areas the religious imagination was withered and a unofficial
hierarchy decided what Christians ought to believe, rather than the
scriptures.
Not the Scriptures, but what the scribe thought the Scriptures
meant, became the Christian creed, resulting in textualism.
Instead of the Holy Spirit speaking through scripture, we now
have taking scripture to support our belief, wrenching it out of
context, to form new doctrine.
Bible institutes, conferences, popular Bible expositors, all
joint in to promote the cult of textualism.
Let me tell you what is meant by textualism, many ministries are
build on this concept these days, such as some of the Charismatic
Movement and even stronger the Word-Faith movement and some Healing
Ministries.
In this letter I will not mention any particular minister
or ministries, since the mix is not easily recognized, we
recognize then by the fruit and you can find much
information on the website of
Ministry of hope.
Textualism is an extreme system of dispensationalism {a wrong
concept of the dispensation of Grace} which was devised, and
relieved the Christian of repentance, obedience and the
cross-carrying in any other than the most formal sense.
Whole sections of the New Testament were taken from the church
and disposed of after a rigid system of "dividing the Word of
truth."
All this resulted in a counterfeit "Early Church" inimical to the
faith of Christ, A kind of cold mist settled over the fundamental
church, (charismatic danger)
faith became something other than Christ’s faith and the power of
the Holy Spirit to transform lives, changed into manifestation of
power.
This was New Testament Christianity, to be sure. The basic
doctrines of the Bible were there, but the love as is inspired by
the Holy Spirit, resulting in that sweet fruit of the Spirit wasn’t
and isn’t there today.
The mood is all together different from that of the Early Church
and of the great souls who suffered and sang and worshiped in the
centuries past.
When we read scripture, we can feel the sense in which the
apostle Paul wrote when he mentioned his sufferings as a doorway to
know Christ imminently.
Phil 3:7 but whatever former things I had that might have
been gains to me, I have come to consider as [one combined]
loss for Christ's sake. Phil 3:8 Yes, furthermore, I count
everything as loss compared to the possession of the
priceless privilege (the overwhelming preciousness, the
surpassing worth, and supreme advantage) of knowing Christ
Jesus my Lord {and} of progressively becoming more deeply
{and} intimately acquainted with Him [of perceiving and
recognizing and understanding Him more fully and clearly].
For His sake I have lost everything and consider it all to
be mere rubbish (refuse, dregs), in order that I may win
(gain) Christ (the Anointed One),
The error of textualism is not a doctrinal error, but a far more
subtle than that and far more difficult to discover, but the effects
are just as deadly. It is in the assumptions and not in the
theological beliefs, where the sting of death is hidden.
It assumes that if we have the word for a thing we have the thing
itself. If it is in the Bible, it is in us. If we have the doctrine,
we have the experience. If something was true of the apostle Paul
than it is true of us, because we accept Paul’s epistles as divinely
inspired as the Word of God.
The whole Bible tells us how to be saved, but textualism goes
on to make it tell us that we are saved. Which in the very
nature of things, it cannot do. The assurance of individual
salvation has become a logical conclusion, drawn from doctrinal
premises, whereby the experience is wholly mental and not spiritual.
Now almost anybody can call himself to be saved, after gone
through the steps of a simple prayer in three or more steps.
Salvation is a witness in our spirit which tells us that we are
children of God. Rom 8:16 The Spirit Himself [thus] testifies
together with our own spirit, [assuring us] that we are children of
God.
And thus makes it a spiritual experience, in which the Holy
Spirit assures us that we belong to Him.
Unless we intent to reform we may as well not pray for revival,
unless the men praying have insight and faith to amend their whole
way of living to the New Testament pattern, there can be no true
revival.
We must return to New Testament Christianity, not in creed only,
but in the whole manner of life, thinking and acting as true
Christians, separating themselves from the world in obedience,
humility, simplicity, gravity, self-control, modesty, cross-bearing,
all these must become a common practice of the Christian life.
We must cleanse the temple of the hucksters and the money
changers, and come fully under the authority of the risen Lord
again. And this applies to me as well and everyone that names the
name of Jesus. Then we can pray with confidence and expect true
revival.
