I’ve just been reminded again what I like about A.W. Tozer. It’s not because he was an Alliance pastor like I am, or because his church was in Chicago, not far from where I spent my formative years. But it’s because he was weary of people playing Christianity and he called for a whole new reformation in the church.
As a pastor, Tozer faithfully tended to his flock with authoritative preaching and penetrating love. Of course, as a true leader in the Alliance, the denomination started by A.B. Simpson, Tozer preached passionately about the “deeper life.” He devotedly urged the people under his care and influence to live for the Lord without duplicity. He was concerned about the casual nature that most people treated the church, and particularly the Lord Jesus Christ. He called for a reorientation of the people’s hearts, minds, and wills. In short, he desired to see an authentic Christianity reclaimed or restored.
Many considered Tozer to be a modern-day prophet of God because of his uncompromising messages and relentless pursuit of divine truth and justice. He stood firmly in the gap during a time when many others were corrupted by the increasing pressures of liberal theology and the social gospel. And his words of rebuke and exhortation not only served as a warning to the church of his own era over 60 years ago, but they still speak just as clearly and forcefully to us as well.
Tozer also served for many years as the Editor of the Alliance Weekly, now known as the Alliance Life, the magazine of the Christian & Missionary Alliance. During that time, he wrote editorials in the same spirit as his sermons, with hopes to awaken all of the Alliance churches and constituencies from their slumber. Tozer became well known and respected throughout the entire denomination as one who issued the clarion call revival.
But Tozer’s influence extended far beyond the scope of the Alliance. As an author and speaker, his appeal reached across all conservative, Protestant evangelical churches throughout the world. He wrote books such as The Pursuit of God, The Knowledge of the Holy, and The Attributes of God that became instant classics. As his circulation expanded, his overall impact had tremendously increased. Now he is one of the most highly regarded American evangelical leaders of the 20th century. 
With that introduction, I return to why I like to read Tozer. I just finished reading a book by him entitled Reclaiming Christianity. It’s a very simple, easy to read book that is also very convicting. I thoroughly recommend the book, which is in print today, to any serious Christian. And to those who aren’t serious, perhaps you will become serious if you read the book!
In the Introduction, James Snyder gives a terrific characterization of Tozer’s ministry. He shared a few examples of how Tozer reacted to nonsense in the church and then he added these words: ”Tozer believed that when believers gathered, they should cultivate the presence of Christ and honor the One who bore the shame and indignity of the cross for our sins. The Church was not a place to be silly or act crazy. These things were symptoms of the spiritual decline of the Church, and it concerned him greatly.”
Could you imagine what Tozer would have to say about many of our churches today? I’m of the opinion that things have not gotten better since then, but instead they’ve gotten worse. I think this problem of dishonor and irreverence all stems from the fact that we have a replaced the true Almighty, Sovereign, and Infinite God of the Bible with a much smaller and more pedestrian god of our own making. Is it any wonder that many people of today don’t see any relevance with the church!
Consider this excerpt from the Introduction as well: “Tozer saw the need to restore once again to the Church the lofty idea of who God really is. His passion was always to introduce the excellencies of the one called Christ to this generation of Christians. The effort to bring God down to a human level was absolutely anathema as far as he was concerned. The Church needed to get back again to reverent worship – worship deserving of God. He wanted to once again see church services in which the presence of God was so all-inspiring that you could not speak out loud; where the preaching of God was so high and lifted up that the people would go home in silence, unable to talk.
We’ve really lost something in the church. What should be the house of God has become the house of man. And whatever sense of transcendence there ever was has become a faint memory of the past. Whatever power that was generated by the Holy Spirit’s abiding, supernatural presence has been exchanged for the power from the electric company. Tozer didn’t appreciate the trend toward an over-dependence on modern technology. But nobody seems to be saying these things today in our techno-crazed culture.
Here’s another excerpt where Tozer criticizes the addiction to gadgets: “We have externalized worship in our churches. Jesus put it in our heart and we have put it in side rooms. Jesus put it in our heart, but we have put it in the projection booth. The average Christian cannot practice his religion now any more than a Catholic priest can without his oil bottle and beads. If you cannot practice your worship with nothing in your hand but your Bible, you have not got victory. Nobody needs to claim succession from the apostolic church if he has to support his Christianity with a lot of gadgets…”
Tozer continues: “Most churches and pastors are addicted to gadgets and could not run their church without being more cluttered up with a small truckload of junk than you can climb up a moonbeam. We have fixed it that way, and it is taught in Bible College.”
Remember, Tozer was writing these words before the advent of personal computers. There was no PowerPoint then. There were no DVD players. There was no You-Tube. There were no high definition worship videos designed to sensually enhance your worship experience. I know that many would suggest that Mr. Tozer was not in touch with the media advancements of his day, and he certainly wouldn’t be any more so in ours. In other words, he would be irrelevant and obsolete! But I agree with his analysis that we’ve externalized worship. We must certainly never come to depend upon external accommodations. When this happens, people begin to be disconnected from all that is vital in the church – relationships.
I love what Tozer writes to those that want to make excuses about not coming to church. Sometimes they suggest, as I pointed out a few months ago in Barna’s book Revolution, that they can have church by themselves. But Tozer refutes that claim: “Sheep are not solitary creatures. They work together, live together, feed together, and lie down together in the green pastures beside the soft waters. The only time a sheep goes off by itself is when he is lost or sick. A sick sheep does not go with the flock; and when I find a Christian who is such an individualist that he never goes to church, he is a sick Christian. So if you are a healthy sheep, you will go where the flock is. If you wonder where the Shepherd is, I would like to tell you: He is where the flock is.”
He further adds: “If any of you wonder where the flock is, I would like to tell you that it is where the Shepherd is. So the Shepherd and the flock always stay together, and I, for my part, have neither the courage nor the disposition to go off by myself and try to live my Christian life all alone. I need others; I need the other sheep that are of the fold and the other sheep that are not of this fold but are coming into the fold.”
Don’t you just the love the way that Tozer writes and says things? He was incredibly brilliant, without much formal theological education. But he also had the special ability to draw from simple illustrations to emphasize important Scriptural truths. And on top of all of that, he wasn’t afraid to say what he knew that he had to say.
I found Tozer’s book, Reclaiming Christianity, to be wonderfully compelling and convicting. It’s the kind of books that Christians need to read rather than sappy, unbiblical, “Christian” novels that tickle our fancies. In fact, I think that Tozer would have agreed with me on this!