Modern Heroes of the Christian Faith
The Bible is filled with biography – one character after another parade across the pages. God loves to teach lasting lessons through the lives of individuals. With that in mind, Stephen Davey has undertaken a special biographical series illustrating biblical truths through the lives of contemporary believers. These ordinary men and women provide a wonderful legacy. They are influenced and influential because of their faith in God. They are Modern Heroes of the Christian Faith.
Modern Heroes of the Christian Faith
The Life and Legacy of AW Tozer: A Street Preacher's Journey to Spiritual Influence
Ever wondered what street preacher's words could ignite such a passion in a man, that it would lead him to become a major spiritual influence on others? In this episode, Stephen Davey uncovers the life and legacy of the great AW Tozer. From his beginnings as a spiritual leader, to his unconventional methods of developing his voice - including reading Milton's Paradise Lost aloud and blowing up balloons in his briefcase - we delve into how Tozer's teachings continue to inspire believers today.
In this compelling episode, we discuss the crucial role of preachers as prophets delivering ultimatums, not diplomats delivering compromises. Discover Tozer's belief that the purpose of genuine exposition is application, and his surprising view that the devil is a better theologian than any of us. We also explore his thoughts on the importance of music in the church, and why he encouraged younger believers to invest in a hymnal more than 100 years old. Finally, join us as we celebrate Tozer's most significant contribution: the exaltation of Jesus Christ. Don't miss this enlightening journey into the life and teachings of AW Tozer!
Welcome to Modern Heroes of the Christian Faith. As you listen, through this series, stephen Davie will introduce you to ordinary men and women whose lives and legacies were influenced by their faith in God. I'm your host, scott Wiley. This series is produced by Wisdom International. You can learn more and access all of our other resources at WisdomOnlineorg. Today, stephen introduces you to AW Tozer. Few writers have magnified the Church's perspective of God like Tozer, his deepest desire was to see the glory of God, and His words still radiate from that vision. Let's meet AW Tozer.
Speaker 2:There are a couple of texts that I want to highlight as we look at this particular biography tonight. So take your Bibles and turn to Acts, chapter 2. We'll look there at one particular verse, and then over to Colossians, chapter 3, eventually. If you're familiar with those inaugural days of the New Testament, and certainly this day of Pentecost, you're aware that the Apostle Peter stood and delivered the sermon that would effectively launch the New Testament church era. And in that message he delivered an invitation It was the first of its kind to potential New Testament Christians. It was actually a quote. It's there in verse 21, from the prophet Joel, where Peter uses this in his sermon and invites them. He says this and it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Isn't that a great verse. That's a wonderful text.
Speaker 2:We actually aren't given the full manuscript of Peter's sermon. In fact, the writer here actually makes the comment that with many other words, peter kept on exhorting his audience to be saved. Look there at verse 40, that's what he writes. And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying be saved from this perverse generation. So we're not told what those words were, we're just told that, with many more words, he continued to preach and deliver this exhortation and this invitation. Luke goes on to add, of course, that about 3,000 people believe the gospel bound up and delivered in that sermon, the man that they had crucified had resurrected from the dead. In fact, with what we have learned this morning in our study, look at the significance of verse 36. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ. Same person, this Jesus whom you crucified. Wow, that was stunning news that this one was indeed both sovereign Lord and anointed Messiah. And, of course, thousands believe they accepted the invitation and effectively called upon the name of the Lord and were saved. It was this text and this invitation that would be acted upon some 1900 years later in the heart and life of a farm boy named Aiden Wilson Tozer.
Speaker 2:Aiden was born in 1897 in a small farming community in western Pennsylvania, and his family was extremely poor, struggled to make ends meet. In fact, when he was 15 years of age, the Tozer family moved to Akron, ohio, in an attempt to land jobs in that growing automobile industry, and this particular industry was the tire industry. In fact, aiden got a job at Goodyear back in the early 1900s. One afternoon, in fact, it was 1912, aiden was walking home from his job from Goodyear and he overheard a street preacher exhorting the crowd from this text to call upon the Lord and be saved. Now Tozer knew enough of the gospel to be convicted. In fact, the Spirit of God, he said, convicted him at that moment. But he went home and immediately climbed up into the attic of their house and fell on his knees and called upon God to save him.
Speaker 2:He knew immediately that he was different. In fact, he would often write that he knew instinctively that Christians were supposed to be different than anybody else. He would later write this are you willing to live with the fact that you as a Christian are an odd number? You feel love for one you've never met. You talk every day to someone you can't see and expect to go to heaven because of what somebody else has done already for you. How different can you be? Well put So, aw Tozer's life began in Christ and he began to grow and he loved to study.
Speaker 2:He would be out of step with his world. In fact he would be out of step with the majority opinion of the rest of the Christian community. His ministry was almost prophetic. He was calling people to a different kind of life, to break free from the status quo. He considered himself a prophet, not receiving revelation from God, but declaring revelation from God with power.
Speaker 2:Seven years after that event, when he was saved in his attic at the age of 22, without any formal training, he began 44 years of pastoral ministry. He struggled with weak lungs and in that day we didn't have microphones and and took a good barrel chest to be a pastor and and he struggled with his voice. In fact, he complained that his voice had a had a nasal quality to it that he didn't really like himself and and he felt it needed improving. So, as biographer James Snyder writes, typical of Tozer, he goes to a bookstore and purchases a volume on voice training to learn all that he can about voice control in his office would be a large copy, over the years, of Milton's Paradise Lost, and Tozer would place it on a music stand borrowed from the sanctuary and read it aloud. He would read that book through four times in his early years in order to strengthen his voice and gain better control. He even carried balloons in his briefcase and blew them up while traveling to help strengthen his lungs.
Speaker 2:When you tell right away this is a dedicated man and it wasn't vanity, it was just as deep rooted, passionate desire to be the best spokesman for God that that he could possibly be. And so obviously he didn't care what people thought of me. Imagine him on a train sitting there in a seat blowing up balloons. He really didn't care what people thought about him, simply wanted to preach the truth. In Warren Wearsby's biographical comments on Tozer he wrote I heard Tozer preach many times and it was about as safe as opening the door of a furnace.
Speaker 2:Tozer would preach anywhere. The nominations meant nothing to him. Instead, he would, he would go preach and he would look for what he called the fellowship of burning hearts. That's what he looked for, and he was blatantly critical of the fact that he didn't seem to find it as much as he felt he ought to. He was critical of Christian authors that were popular in his day. Can't imagine now, 60 years later, what do you think? for instance, he once read a Christian book after which he commented that it had as much spiritual benefit as shaving with a banana. The author never quite forgave him for that.
Speaker 2:30 of his years in the pastor. It would be at one church in Chicago, southside Alliance church. It was a missionary and Alliance church. It grew from about 80 people to nearly a thousand during his ministry. He was later a elected editor of that denominations magazine called the Alliance weekly and his and that's where he really began to to impact the world. His first article appeared on June 3rd 1950. Those articles immediately challenged would be a nice word the status quo of the church. In fact, in his first editorial Tozer wrote in this sort of signaled the direction he would take, and I quote it will cost something to walk slow in the parade of the ages while excited men of time rush about confusing motion with progress.
Speaker 2:Throughout Tozer's 44 years of ministry he would continually call the church and the individual Christian to another reformation, a key phrase he loved to use. He constantly warned the church of her spiritual decline. For instance, he wrote this he said until we have a reformation, all our books and all our schools and all our magazines are only the working of bacteria in a decaying church. If you could, if he could, summarize the ministry passion of a w Tozer, the verse that he quoted at the very beginning of one of his most famous books sort of serves as his life verse. And that's Colossians, chapter 3. You might turn there and I don't know. As we go through these, you might feel the freedom to write the last name of the individual next to their text. It'll remind you, perhaps in an encouraging way.
Speaker 2:Right tozer, by verse 1, paul is writing to the Colossians and he says therefore if, literally, since, since you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth, for you've died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. To see Jesus Christ exalted, seated, sovereign, to see God majestic and glorified, for that to be your vision, was his passion. This would be his driving passion in life. In fact he wrote in his book the knowledge of the holy, which you ought to write that down somewhere and read that he writes. This so necessary to the church is a lofty concept of God that when that concept in any measure declines, the church with her worship and her moral standards declines along with it. The first step down for any church is taken when it surrenders its high opinion of God, and we do the greatest service to the next generation of Christians by passing on to them, undimmed and undiminished, that noble concept of God. He would sell several million copies of his books, by the way, and give all the money away. That created problems for his family, and I'll talk about that in a moment. But Tozer obviously and passionately believed in this exalted vision of Christ to whom every believer must entirely surrender. In fact, he coined the term Lordship before the term Lordship had been coined, he was the first to use it and he used it often.
Speaker 2:Tozer was often offensive to anyone who felt short of this vision of a high and lofty God. He would write So much of what passes for New Testament. Christianity is a little more than truth, sweetened with a little music and made palatable by religious entertainment. He once offended a holiness church. He'd been invited to preach on Sunday morning Before he spoke. The service, packed to the walls, was, in his view, nothing less than a service pandering after silly music and other forms of entertainment. So when his turn to preach came, he got up and, without any warmth or introduction, said Never happened to the holiness of God, to you, holiness people. He then said his sermon aside and proceeded to preach on the holiness of God. No wonder he said that later in life he had preached himself off every platform in the country.
Speaker 2:Keep in mind Tozer is challenging a church 50 years ago. What would he say today? Imagine what he would say to our generation, to the world of Christians. 50 years ago Tozer wrote, and I quote The church has sold out to carnal methods, carnal philosophies, carnal viewpoints, carnal gadgets, and have lost the glory of God in our midst. We are a starving generation that has never seen the glory of God. That isn't painful enough to hear. Tozer's criticism becomes even sharper. He would write The church today is limping from one gimmick to another, like so many drunks in a fog Not exactly the most popular way to communicate your point, but his point is well taken.
Speaker 2:He wasn't all criticism. He preached and wrote of biblical solutions. He would write these powerful words To regain her lost power, the church must have a transforming vision of God, not the utilitarian God who is having a run of popularity today, whose chief claim to men's attention is his ability to bring them success. The God we must learn to know is the majesty in the heavens, who sits upon the circle of the earth, who stretches out the heavens as a curtain, who brings out his starry host by number and calls them all by name through the greatness of his power. Again, can you hear the echo of Colossians 3? To see Christ exalted in the glory of God enthroned.
Speaker 2:I have tried and I'll try each week to summarize the legacy of these individuals, and it's impossible to summarize the legacy of AW Tozer, but there are at least three aspects of his ministry that continue to demand another hearing, another challenge, another evaluation for us as an assembly, for us in this generation. Let me give you two or three of them. One relates to the matter of preaching and teaching. So for all the teachers and the preachers, these are important words and for the congregation to accept nothing less than this. He said that the lack of genuine exposition of Scripture is oftentimes nothing more than the teacher's unwillingness to get himself into trouble. That's a powerful statement. I think we'll skip over that verse, you know. I think we'll avoid that chapter. That'll get us into trouble.
Speaker 2:Tozer would remind those who teach the Word of God, and he focused especially on preachers. He said preachers are not diplomats delivering compromises, they are prophets delivering ultimatums. And that's because, he would note, the purpose of genuine exposition is application, while preaching desires nothing less than moral reform. And he would write that, i quote, no one is better off by simply knowing more about God, knowing that God in the beginning created heavens and the earth. The devil knows that. So do they have in Judas Iscariot. No one is better for just knowing that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son to die for their redemption In hell. There are millions who will know that The purpose behind all doctrine and the preaching of it is to secure moral action. In other words, it isn't just biblical knowledge for the sake of knowledge. In fact, tozer once shocked his world. He may have heard this quote, it's a familiar one, but he shocked his world by writing it this way. The devil, he said, is a better theologian than any of us, yet he remains the devil.
Speaker 2:As I read through pages and pages of Tozer's comments on the pulpit and the pastoral, it became pretty obvious to me that he would have little patience with the contemporary preaching of our generation that skips to one favorite verse after another, where the audience is sovereign and the consumer mentality plagues the church Platitude after platitude, avoiding the hard passages, hard doctrines, anything doctrinally divisive, effectively encouraging a growing biblical illiteracy in the church, applauding knowledge without application or action, or conviction or purity, tozer would issue this warning. He wrote we must not select a few favorite passages to the exclusion of all others, for nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian. It's a great statement. Another lasting legacy was Tozer's attitude toward the value of music. Now, from what I've just told you, the last thing you might think Tozer would enjoy is a good piece of music. No, he loved music And he was passionate about its value. Now he decried the entertainment aspect, simply music for the sake of entertaining. He felt that that had entangled the church 50 years ago. But he loved the music of the church. He required that it exalt Christ, of course be true to the doctrines of Scripture. But he would often counsel younger believers to buy a hymnal. He would say get one, but he would, caution, make sure it's not less than 100 years old.
Speaker 2:Back throughout his ministry, tozer risked offending his denomination, the Missionary Alliance denomination, by refusing to use their hymnal, the denominational hymnal. Instead he stacked in his church pews an old version of a brethren hymnal more than 100 years old. Does that mean you're over 100 years old, tozer? I mean he just simply understood, like the reformers of old, like a Martin Luther who would pen hymns Isaac Watts and Wesley. In fact he said this. He said let any new Christian spend a year meditating on the hymns of Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley and he will become a fine, fine Christian. So he would be referring to hymns, like when I survey the wondrous cross, and can it be that I should gain?
Speaker 2:It was more than just advice. He collected hymns it shelves of them. He could be seen on his way to an appointment with his nose buried in a hymnal. He would spend hours on his knees with his Bible and his hymnal. In fact, i found this interesting fact about him he would wear pants with reinforced material at the knees so that he wouldn't wear holes in his pants as he spent so many hours on his knees with his Bible and his hymnal. He once offered this profound advice. Maybe this will be the thing that you hear that will encourage you more than anything else. I quote sometimes our hearts are strangely stubborn and will not soften or grow tender, no matter how much praying we do.
Speaker 2:It is often found that the reading or singing of a good hymn will melt the ice jam and start the inward affections flowing. Once again, i say it without qualification For the sacred scriptures. The next best companion for the soul is sacred music. I would encourage you to do that too. Build that into your life. Great texts, lyrics, good music that honors Christ can lift your heart and spirit like nothing else, save the scriptures themselves. One final legacy Without a doubt this is the most critical contribution of AW Tozer And it's the most obvious one. Of course we've already talked about it In and through his writings. It would be the exaltation of Jesus Christ. His ability to write in such a way that you read a few lines and your perspective of God is immediately magnified, improved, elevated.
Speaker 2:On one occasion he spent all night awake as the train he was on traveled from Chicago to Texas. He had asked the porter for a small table to be brought to his room and there, in that little compartment, he began writing away. Eventually the porter became a little worried. The light was on, but Tozer hadn't come to the dining car and he knew he hadn't eaten. And so he knocked on his door and he said friend, would you like me to bring you some supper? Tozer never looked up but just mumbled yes, bring me some toast and tea, please. At the end of the train ride, tozer walked into the station with a rough draft under his arm completed, started and finished that night with a book entitled The Pursuit of God. It would sell more than a million copies, but, more importantly, it would reveal the very nature of God that was being lost. He believed in his generation And if you will read it, you will discover that we are losing it still. In this, he would write.
Speaker 2:God is never surprised. God is never amazed. He never wonders about anything. He doesn't need information unless he's drawing it out of someone, as he did with Adam in the garden when he asked Adam where are you? God has never learned from anyone. God cannot learn. Could God, at any time or in any manner, receive into his mind knowledge that he did not possess and had not possessed from eternity? he would be less than himself. To think of a God who must sit at the feet of a teacher, even though that teacher be an archangel, is to think of someone other than the most high God, maker of heaven and earth. God knows effortlessly all matters, all relations, all causes, all thoughts, all mysteries, all feelings, all desires, every unuttered secret, god never discovers anything. How's that for a refreshed vision of the omniscience of God? Now, i could put a period here. We might wonder at the amazement of his life, a man who obviously lived on the mountain tops of intimacy with God.
Speaker 2:The truth is like any reader of biography, and I hope you are the more you learn about someone, the more you discover what ought to be emulated and what needs to be forgotten. Even the apostle Paul would put it this way be imitators of me as I imitate Christ. In other words, don't just follow me because I'm an apostle for the sake of imitating me. Imitate me only insofar as you see me imitating Christ. So we have to be careful. No Christian from the past or the present should be shown as perfect. You know, kind of, with all the warts and the bumps and the bunions, all just sort of airbrushed away, the halo always straight and a hundred watt. The truth is, tozer would never want accolades or tributes And to be honest, in these sketches I need to give you both sides of what I discover.
Speaker 2:To a certain degree He was well aware of his shortcomings, not aware of other shortcomings. One author wrote and I've struggled, in fact even with this statement but he wrote that tozer battled depression. He may very well have, but the more I read of him, the more I wonder if it was something more akin to struggling with this deep sense of introspection That can come across. Looking similarly, he often seemed muddled in a painfully silent fog, as if no one else was around. It wasn't unusual for him to come to the family dinner table and not say a word The entire dinner, with everyone else at the table awkwardly afraid to do so themselves. He was an imposing man. I get the impression from reading enough of him to know that he'd really rather have been alone than with people. In fact, after church services, i read, tozer often attempted to avoid people By shunning conversations. He would often slip into the church nursery until everyone left. If you find me in the nursery, i'm trying to imitate tozer, just in case you're wondering. I'd be afraid to go there. They put me to work.
Speaker 2:While he commended his wife's gift of hospitality, he really didn't like it when she used it. He disliked having people over to their home. What's worse, he even refused to allow his wife's family to visit their home. He felt it distracted them. It was a decision that brought a great deal of hurt and frustration to that family, as you can well imagine. Little but one of his children didn't understand him, felt estranged and never felt close to him except his youngest daughter. Even though tozer brought in thousands of dollars from book sales, he never explained why he refused to make his family's life, and his wife's life especially, more bearable by purchasing a family car. Instead, they all, including tozer, were forced to use buses and trains and borrowed rides from other believers. He made sure they lived near enough to the church so that they could walk. You can only imagine how terribly difficult this would make life, especially for his wife with six children, to have to endure this kind of demanding frugality. Three years after accepting a church in Canada on the agreement that all he would have to do was preach I guess in working in the nursery He suddenly died of a heart attack when he was only 66 years old. It was only after his death that his wife would discover he had failed to purchase a pension, that he had given half his paycheck back to the churches he pastored and had taken no royalties from the millions of books sold which he had authored.
Speaker 2:Tozer is proof that while it's possible to see God in fresh and intimate ways, it's possible to miss seeing other people around you at the same time. The old adage the cobbler's wife has no what Shoes is too often true, and in some ways it was true in the life of AW Tozer. Here was a man whose mind and affections were so set on Christ above that he missed some things that needed attention on earth below. The truth is, we're all more like him than we knew, aren't we? We all have blind spots. We need each other to share those to help us along. I think people were afraid his wife was, his children, his associates, to challenge him.
Speaker 2:Aw Tozer's advice and perspective still rings true. In fact, as you think about it, i fear for the average Christian the opposite is true. So much of our affection, so much of our attention is based on the things of earth that the things of Christ are never pursued with passion. We care more about our car than Christ. I mean, not many of us are going to err on the side of Tozer. I mean, think about it. How many of us would give away thousands of dollars in royalties only to be forced to ride a bus with your six kids in tow. Don't misunderstand. I think he should have bought a car. I think a Chevy pickup would have been perfect for him. But as Warren Wearsby wrote of him, he wrote these words Tozer was in so many ways a man who walked to the beat of a different drummer.
Speaker 2:He simply wanted God more than anything else, and he was never content with where he was in his pursuit of the glory of God. I'd like to err more on that side. More often than not, listen to a prayer he composed, and I close with this Oh God, i have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully aware of my need for further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. I want to want Thee. I long to be filled with longing. I thirst to be more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory. I pray Thee so I may know Thee. Indeed, begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty, low land where I have wandered so long. In Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 1:That was Stephen Davy, the president of Wisdom International. You're listening to his series called Modern Heroes of the Christian Faith. If you enjoyed hearing the story of AW Tozer, please leave a rating and review on Apple Podcast or wherever you're listening, And please subscribe so that you won't miss an episode. Stephen has a website filled with resources to help you know what the Bible says, understand what it means and apply it to your life. Learn more at WisdomOnlineorg. I'm Scott Wiley. Thanks for listening. Join us again next time on Modern Heroes of the Christian Faith.
