Is sin different today than in the past?

To some, this may seem like a rhetorical question, but from what I hear and read, I’m not sure even knowledgeable Christians think clearly on this point.  One thing I’m happy that God has helped me understand is that man has been sinful (not just having an old sin nature) since the fall of the first Adam.

                                     
Yet, as I read commentary on religious history or simply listen to people talk about how sinful man has become, I’m somewhat perplexed … especially when I hear people discuss this through the lens of the last 500 years of Western thought.


No reasonably informed Christian would find it surprising that man is sinful by nature and has been so since the fall in Eden.  But, that knowledge seems to escape many people when they view society as a whole and they lament its condition.

I suggest we take a very close look and examine the culture and practices of non-Jewish peoples throughout the biblical account  (Yes, the Hebrews were wayward, but that's a topic for a different post.)

I think what we will find is that man as a species isn’t any more or less sinful today than in 70 AD or in 1,000 BCE than he was at Adam and Eve’s disobedience.  Yes, there is a certain kind of societal entropy that occurs until the second advent (I hope not to digress into an eschatological debate here).  But, our standard is not one that compares man to man, or age to age.  Our standard is the one God gave us: a standard of righteousness.

With righteousness, there is no grey or degree.  A person is either righteous or not; he sins or he doesn’t sin.  The Bible clearly teaches us that all sin and fall short of the standard God set for us.  Thus, with that perspective, it should be easy to see that sin is sin, regardless of the era.  Instead of seeing the world around us as waxing or waneing in sinfulness, we should simply see our need for a solution to our unrighteousness -- Jesus Christ.

Tozer Made Easy - Part 10 of 10

by Dan Grubbs

The Pursuit of God - Chapter 10: "The sacrament of living"

Editor's note: If you’ve been following along, you know that the editor has taken each chapter of the book The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer and published here a short study in the form of articles. Chapter 10 is the final installment of this series. We hope you have found the series helpful to you in your walk with Christ.

Basing his last chapter on the doctrine found in 1 Cor. 10:31, Tozer ends his book on a triumphal note. “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” His main point for us to understand is that we cannot have internal peace if we divide our lives into the sacred and the secular.

This false division of life causes inner turmoil and tends “to break up so that we live a divided instead of unified life.”

Merging two worlds

We live in two worlds simultaneously, the fleshly or natural and the spiritual. When we keep them separate, we “are uneasy most of the time ... with a feeling of deep frustration.” This is not the light yoke that Christ promises the repentant believer. But, we subject ourselves to this by trying “to walk a tight rope between two kingdoms and [we] find no peace in either.”

Tozer’s claim is that this dualistic life is not only unhealthy physically and spiritually, it is “wholly unnecessary.” He teaches that a divided life between the sacred and the secular is not founded in the New Testament. Christ Himself is the example, saying He does all things to please the Father.

This example was echoed by Paul who teaches us that we are to do all things to the glory of God. This isn’t just platitudes, this is the genuine way of the Christian walk. Tozer explains it this way, “It opens before us the possibility of making every act of our lives contribute to the glory of God.”

All things can glorify God

It begs the question, can eating and drinking and the banal things of life be an act of reference? Tozer, as well as the Apostle Paul, teaches that this is the case. “It may be said that every act of life is or can be as truly sacred as prayer or baptism or the Lord’s Supper.

Many may still disagree with this notion. However our author wrote that if we are saved and give ourselves wholly to God, all acts are holy. “By one act of consecration of our total selves to God we can make every subsequent act express that consecration.”

As Christians, we must not make a mental or actual division between the sacred and the secular or we will live divided lives. Once we get past this dilemma, the reality of living in a unified manner for Christ, it will “condition the complexion of our thoughts.”

Our morning meditations must include this training. We must recall to our mind frequently that our daily acts can be acts of worship and can give glory to God. “The knowledge that we are all God’s, that He has received all and rejected nothing, will unify our inner lives and make everything sacred to us.”

Disciplined sacramental living

Tozer explains that the old way of thinking will want to creep back into our lives because Satan doesn’t want the whole of our lives to be about God. He writes, “It will take intelligent thought and a great deal of reverent prayer to escape completely from the sacred-secular psychology.”

Offer every thing we do to God. He will accept them. Remind God in our time of private communion that our intention is to make all our activities for His glory. Or in Tozer’s wonderful style, “Let us practice the fine art of making every work a priestly ministration.”

A contributing factor to our erroneous belief that we keep things separate is the fact that many Christians believe in sacred places or things.

“It is little short of astonishing that we can read the New Testament and still believe in the inherent sacredness of places as distinguished from other places.” Tozer laments that this false doctrine has been allowed to be perpetuated for centuries.

An omnipresent spirit of worship

When Christ was crucified, many things took place. Not the least of which was the total access of the true believer to God. No longer was God limited to the High Priest on the Day of Atonement. The veil before the Holy of Holies was torn in two. Remember Christ’s own words, “Neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.” Worshipping God is a spiritual matter, not a matter of place or time or things.

Many denominations have let the sacredness of things creep back into the liberty we enjoy through Christ’s work. And it was from this “bondage reformers and puritans and mystics have labored to free us.”

Tozer also cautions us to understand that the concept of sacramental living doesn’t mean that all things are equal or of equal importance in this world or the next. “One act of a good man’s life may differ widely from another in importance.” He uses the example of Paul’s work as a tentmaker as an example. “Paul’s sewing of tents was not equal to his writing of an epistle to the Romans, but both were accepted of God.”

Why we act is most important

Driving home his point with his best shot, Tozer continues to explain, “It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it,” (emphasis added). Lay people should never consider what they do as inferior to that of the act of a preached sermon. It is the motive of the act that is the key to it being a sacred act done for God’s glory or not.

A spiritual condition is required. Tozer tells us that we must, “Sanctify the Lord God in [our] heart.” Upon doing so, except for our sins, nothing we will ever do will be secular. One who lives this way is pleasing to God. “All he does is good and acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For such a man, living itself will be sacramental and the whole world a sanctuary.”

The Pursuit of God along with The Knowledge of the Holy are two of Tozer’s most popular and impactful writings. I strongly encourage everyone to read and re-read these important, yet short, books.

Tozer Made Easy - Part 3 of 10

by Dan Grubbs

The Pursuit of God, Chapter Three: Removing the Veil

Tozer begins his third chapter with one of the most famous quotes in the history of man. He does this to ensure that there is no ambiguity about what he believes is the purpose of created man. Tozer quotes Augustine, “Thou has formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.”

He explains this as the origin of our kind because it’s critical to our understanding of our relationship with God. He echoes it in his own words, “God made us for Himself: that is the only explanation that satisfies the heart of a thinking man, whatever his wild reason may say.”

All this is preamble to the point that we are created to be in a right relationship with God, but are guilty of sin. Our “foul revolt” broke this communion and man now lives alone outside of the “manifest Presence” of our heavenly Father. Or more metaphorically, a veil has been erected between us and our Lord because of our sin.

Tozer explains that the redemptive work of God is to “undo the tragic effects of that foul revolt and bring us back again into right and eternal relationship with Himself.”

Why is the veil there?

The veil was what separated the inner chamber of the tabernacle from the holy of holies where the very Presence of God above the mercy seat atop the arc of the covenant. The children of Israel did not have direct access to the holy of holies. They annually sent in the high priest to seek the atonement of his own sins and those of Israel from God. According to Tozer, this was the “beating heart of the Levitical order.” He helps us understand our condition by using the holy of holies and the separating veil and the Flame of the Presence of God as an identical description for us.

He writes, “At the heart of the Christian message is God Himself waiting for His redeemed children to push in to conscious awareness of His Presence.”

Tozer encourages us to remove the veil so that we can know of His Presence not only intellectually, but, more importantly in our hearts, leading to a personal relationship with the Creator.

What will we find when we push through the veil? Tozer answers that God will uncover Himself in “ravishing fullness to the humble of soul and the pure in heart.”

It’s because we don’t push through as believers, that Tozer says we are at a serious loss in the world. “The world is perishing for a lack of the knowledge of God, and the church is famishing for want of His Presence.”

Yes, God is omnipresent. People can understand that intellectually. But, it’s the manifast Presence that we have fled like Adam or Peter after their great sins. However, it is the manifast Presence for which we should seek. This is a spiritual communion — man can know Him really in a “deep spirit” where his “fire must glow or his love is not the true love of God.”

The reason for pushing through

There is something expected when we remove the veil between ourselves and God. It is that communion with a God “so vastly wonderful, so utterly and completely delightful that He can, without anything other than Himself, meet and overflow the deepest demands of our total nature, mysterious and deep as that nature is.”

This is the love of God to which Tozer refers. Our relationship with God is an ever overflowing satisfaction of our nature to the point of our hearts being fit to break with love for our God. He writes that it is believers with such breaking hearts who have looked with open eye and lived within the Presence.

The point here is that this level of access and relationship with God is available to us. Every believer has the same access to the Presence as the high priests did and the prophet who reports what he sees.

Sadly, Tozer writes that the church is at a loss for want of those who have removed the veil and entered into the company of the Creator. He tells us that “the church waits for the tender voice of the saint who has penetrated the veil and has gazed with an inward eye upon the Wonder that is God. And yet, thus to penetrate, to push in sensitive living experience in the holy Presence, is a privilege open to every child of God.”

Do we have access today?

As Tozer has already expressed, the joyous report is that every believer has access to God in the holy of holies. It was through the work of Christ on Calvary. Now there is nothing to keep us from His Presence. Nothing except our pride and sinful nature. Tozer asks, “Why do we tarry without? Why do we consent to abide all of our days just outside the holy of holies and never enter at all to look upon God?”

Scripture records for us that at the time of Christ’s crucifixion, the actual veil in the temple in Jerusalem was torn completely in two, forever revealing the holy of holies to all men. Why did God do this? Was it just to send a message to the Sanhedrin or the Pharisees? No, it is a clear message to all men, forever, that Christ has opened the way to the Father because of His shed blood, the atonement secured forever.

But why do we not all take this free gift from God? Tozer explains that it’s more than a cold heart, it is a veil over our own hearts. It’s a veil we must all tear from ourselves so that we do not hide the face of God from our own hearts. Tozer explains this as the veil of the self-life that hides our hearts from the joyous life that could be ours should we remove the veil once and for all. “Self is the opaque veil that hides the face of God from us. It can be removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction.”

To remove this veil will be painful as it is part of our fleshly life. It will tear living spiritual tissue to rend it from our hearts. But, as Tozer writes, “Our part is to yield and trust. We must confess, forsake, repudiate the selflife, and then reckon it crucified.”

When this is done, like labor pains, it will be a faint memory. “After that is resurrection glory and power, and the pain is forgotten for joy that the veil is taken away and we have entered, in actual spiritual experience, the Presence of the living God.”

Tozer Made Easy - Part 2 of 10

by Dan Grubbs

The Pursuit of God: Chapter 2 - The blessedness of possessing nothing

In our pursuit of God, it’s obvious that we can be interrupted. In the second chapter of his book, Tozer illustrates the most common obstacles to a closer union with God are things — even those things God gives us. Things were “always meant to be external to the man, and subservient to him.” However, man has allowed things to replace God on the internal throne of man.

The throne metaphor is accurate because we were created by God to have a place within our inner self to be an eternal shrine for God. When we let other priorities push God out of that place, we end up with what’s known as a God-shaped vacuum. When it’s empty, “men have now by nature no peace within their hearts, for God is crowned there no longer.”

Is “mine” part of the old-sin nature?

Our sinful nature now has an unnatural desire to possess, according to Tozer. It covets things. Don’t fool yourself to believe things are just material possessions. Things also include our children, our jobs, our homes. We use possessive pronouns, such as my and our, simply enough, but they should be stricken from the vocabulary of every true believer because nothing is ours. These words demonstrate “the old Adamic man better than a thousand volumes of theology could do.”

We have let things become necessary, but this was not God’s intent for His creation. Tozer teaches that God’s gifts now take the place of God. Similar to the Beatitudes, Christ tried to help us understand this by describing what we have to do to follow Him.

"…let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wishes
to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake shall
find it." (Matt. 16:24-25)

Our pursuit of God, according to Tozer, must have at its beginning a “soul poverty and abnegation of all things.” We’re taught in this chapter that because of our covetous nature, we experience a tyranny of things. The poor — the internally poor — are “no longer slaves to the tyranny of things.” Though they are not bound by the sense of possessing, Christ teaches they have all things because they have the kingdom of heaven.

What may God do with the things?

What if the “things” this chapter is talking about is a child or a job? Tozer helps us understand what the scriptures illustrate through the story of Abraham and young Isaac. According to Tozer, the story is a “dramatic picture of the surrendered life as well as an excellent commentary on the first Beatitude.”

It’s clear that Isaac became the idol of Abraham’s heart. Any true parent or grandparent can understand this. Tozer describes that as the boy grew to a young adult it would be fair to characterize that the “relationship bordered on perilous,” spiritually speaking. It’s at this point that God intervenes to point the fact out to Abraham.

We may think it a difficult thing to wrest free the things in our life that interrupt our relationship with God. But, what must have that night before he was supposed to slay Isaac been like for Abraham? What agony was he going through? But, Abraham did not fail this trial even though it must have torn a significant piece of him, tendrils and all, from his heart.

Abraham was the living example of Christ’s words, “...whoever will lose...for my sake will find.” Finally, God stayed Abraham’s hand and allowed him to free his son; saying, in effect, “I only wanted to remove him from the temple of your heart that I might reign unchallenged there.”

Examine the whole of Abraham’s life. Can we say that he had nothing? Quite the contrary. He was a wealthy man with flocks and herds. He had his family and his clan. He even had his son preserved by his side. Didn’t he have everything? In fact, Tozer helps us to understand that Abraham actually had everything, but possessed none of these things. “There is the spiritual secret. There is the sweet theology of the heart which can be learned only in the school of renunciation,” Tozer writes. In short, when we learn the true lesson in our hearts, we learn peacefulness of life and the joy of a union with the Creator.

Tozer poses the question that prompts us to ask if “my” and “our” ever held the same meaning for Abraham again. Can we use Abraham’s pain for our own gain and ensure that we not let things usurp the throne of our lives that is rightfully God’s?

Like Abraham, can we free our inner selves from the desire to posses? Maybe the world around Abraham said, “he is rich.” But, Tozer believes that Abraham was tolerant of these because, “he could not explain it to them, but he knew that he owned nothing.”

What would you dispossess?

Gifts, talents, material things, jobs, loved ones; all are things that can interrupt our relationship with God. Yet, these things are only from God and not from our own doing. “The Christian who is alive enough to know himself even slightly will recognize the symptoms of this possession malady.” If we truly want to pursue God, then what should we do?

Tozer wrote that we must be completely honest with ourselves, because God knows our hearts anyway. The truly pursuing Christian should “trample under foot every slippery trick of his deceitful heart” and only allow an honest and true relationship with the heavenly Father. Tozer continues in pointing out that this is holy business and no lie can be present.

The Christian heart may need to discuss with God the specific things in one’s life that transplant themselves in the heart — naming them by name singularly. “If he will become drastic enough he can shorten the time of his travail ... and enter the good land long before his slower brethren.”

There is a warning here in Tozer’s writing, too. The possessive heart will not go easily or quietly. We must be prepared for the constant knocking at the door of our hearts of this self-pity.

If we are to truly pursue God, we must be ready and make this renunciation because it’s likely that God, sooner or later, may bring us to this test.

Will we be equipped for this fire?

Worship of the Eternal God - Part 2 of 3

by Dan Grubbs

In an essay by Lee Campbell, PhD, he wrote, “substantial arguments could be raised against” the use of the word worship among Christians today. I believe he makes this assertion because our dictionary definition of worship differs from that of the Greek or Hebrew terms; while the generally understood meaning of worship differs substantially from biblical teaching on the topic.

In this second part of the three-part examination of worship, we’ll look at a few definitions before we explore three principles of worship to helps us all gain insight into this element of our relationship with God.

The word worship in English originated from the Old English word “weorthscipe” which we can understand as being worthy or to merit something. This grows problematic because the Hebrew word “aboda” and the Greek work “latreuo” are often translated as worship. According to Campbell, these might be better understood as service or to minister. Additionally, other terms are translated as worship. Often, the Greek “proskyneo” and the Hebrew “shachac” refer to a reverent posture to reflect submission to a higher entity. But, as Campbell asks, do the terms that are usually translated as worship tell us how we are show these attitudes?

But, what do today’s Christians believe worship is? It might be said that many feel it is the liturgical or congregational forms which involve various rituals and corporate and individual praise giving. But is that all?

The Bible teaches that worship is much more inclusive — involving our entire lives and all facets therein. Worship may be thought of as the true believer’s reaction to the Creator of all physical and spiritual existence. Campbell enumerates it this way, “the response of a grateful and humble people to the living God where submission, sacrificial service, praise, profession, testimony and gratitude are freely expressed in innumerable ways.” As Christians, we must ask ourselves if this is what we see in our own local assembly or in our individual lives. If not, what should our response to God look like?

Reality one: worshiping in spirit

Let’s start by going back to John 4 when Christ was talking to the Samaritan woman at the well. She wanted to debate rituals and practices and even the location of worship as prescribed under the old covenant. Christ wanted to point her (and us) in a new direction. He told her that it wasn’t on a mountain or in a city or even in a specific building that the Father sought true worship from His faithful. “Woman, believe me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall you worship the Father.”

Didn’t that beg the question? Wouldn’t, if you were her, ask Christ “okay, so where are we supposed to worship?” Two verses later He answers her un-posed question.

"But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

This is such a challenging message from Christ that many believers just let it go without trying to understand it. However, as we always should, let the Bible interpret the Bible. What may help in understanding of what Christ was teaching is something that Paul wrote to the Roman church. Romans 12:1-2 can go a long way to give us guidance on what Christ meant by worshiping in spirit and in truth. Paul’s inspired words were:

"I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect."

In these two verses, we have an entire guidebook of how to live our lives in a godly manner; which, according to these scriptures, is worship. In this guidance from Paul, we see he sacrificial service, submission, testimony and profession that today’s church should ensure is part of individual and corporate worship. In verse two, we even see the accountability and discernment that is so desperately needed in our congregations. To put it even more succinctly, if we love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, then we are living Paul’s words.

But, the point not to miss here is that worship is a way of daily living. Worship is not a program or a sequence of events or “a service” to attend. Can true worship happen at our typical weekend gatherings? Let’s pray it is the normative experience in our congregations. But, it could sadly be said that worship is not happening at all our assemblies.

Reality two: worshiping in truth

The typical praise and worship segment of the programmed “worship service” is coming under more frequent attack. Many generalizations are made about this element of the program as becoming entertainment and not worship. This is true for many local churches today. We see experienced praise soloists and ensembles, bands, choirs and even orchestras all produced and packaged together much like what we might see on television. Is this bad in itself? Only if the purpose and intent drifts from glorifying the triune God. This question must be answered by each individual and as a congregation because worshiping in truth means that it must be genuine, it must be sincere.

God wants a right attitude. Therefore, worship is significantly a matter of the heart. We see scores of occurrences in the Old Testament where God was displeased with the worship the Israelites were offering. This was largely because the worship was mechanical, without the sincere attitude of reverence and gratitude behind the offerings. They had the days and practices right, but they had their hearts in the wrong place.

Do we find ourselves going through the motions at our worship gatherings? Do we even know why we do what we do in a “worship service”? Was the heart right at first, but now we feel our worship is flat and cold?

Reality three: a worship and sin conflict

When Israel’s heart was not genuine, a prophet usually came along and pointed out that they were coming to God with sin still in their lives. It can be reasoned that we loose true worship because our hearts are not right with God because we have unconfessed sin.

We see in many cases with the Hebrews that their prayers and praises were not reflective of the truth of their daily lives. At one point, Christ quoted Isaiah saying their worship was in vain. In short, they were worshiping in deceit. Christ said we are to worship the Father in truth, not in deceit. This means we must eliminate the hypocrisy from our lives and our local churches in order to be worshiping in truth.

God knows our hearts and our sins. Therefore, do we still believe that we are worshiping Him in truth if we show up on Sunday morning to sing praises after a week of behavior that we wouldn’t want our pastor to see? True confession and subsequent repentance is vital to a worship relationship with God. We must come to him with a clean heart in order to worship in truth.

As we examine Christ’s church today, let’s be sure that when we discuss worship, that we understand it to be an inclusive term describing the way we are to live our lives as a “response of a grateful and humble people to the living God.” And, that this worship is a response of a sincere heart with a right attitude coming from a confessed and repentant soul. Does this describe the actual activities of worship? Not really. But it does help us understand that any act of worship, whether it be singing, tithing, studying, prayer, testimony, profession, sacrifice or any multitude of things, must be done in spirit and in truth.

Be sure to read our final installment of this series on worship in the next posting.