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The Saint Must Walk Alone--A.W. Tozer


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#1 Jesus_Lolly

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Posted 21 October 2017 - 05:42 AM



#2 Tkulp

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Posted 24 October 2017 - 08:58 PM

Thank you!

 

It is very good of you to make such an interesting post in support of the concept of holiness. The idea that, in order for someone to be holy or a saint, one is "free from sin and sinful affections". This is according to Noah Webster, A. W. Tozer and others. When the Holy Spirit is in control, rather than the flesh, there will not be a life of sin. {Whosoever abideth in him (Jesus) sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him. 1John 3:6}

 

In case anyone is interested, the following quote is the concluding statement from Chapter 38, entitled 'The Saint Must Walk Alone'. It is the last paragraph of the book entitled, "Man - The Dwelling Place of God" by A. W. Tozer.

 

From what I currently read in this forum, it does not appear that any of the contributors believe it is possible to be a "saint (someone that is holy)". They do not consider it to be a Biblical Truth. All appear to be amazed that anyone can currently live a new life in Christ, free from sin.

 

Mr. Tozer obviously believed that living a new life free from sin was possible!

 

Here is Tozer's quote.

 

 

"The weakness of so many modern Christians is that they feel too much at home in the world. In their effort to achieve restful "adjustment" to unregenerate society they have lost their pilgrim character and become an essential part of the very moral order against which they are sent to protest. The world recognizes them and accepts them for what they are. And this is the saddest thing that can be said about them. They are not lonely, but neither are they saints." A. W. Tozer

 

The highlighting is my own; I agree with Tozer's statement completely!

 

 

The definition of saint and holy from two dictionaries.

 

 

 Word Web

 

saint -

1. A person who has died and has been declared a saint by canonization

2. Person of exceptional holiness

3. Model of excellence or perfection of a kind; one having no equal

 

holy -

1. Belonging to, derived from or associated with a divine power

 

 

 

Noah Webster

saint -

1. A person sanctified; a holy or godly person; one eminent for piety and virtue. It is particularly applied to the apostles and other holy persons mentioned in Scripture. A hypocrite may imitate a saint. Psalms 16:3.

2. One of the blessed in heaven. Revelation 11:18.

3. The holy angels are called saint. Deuteronomy 33:3. Jude 1:14.

 

holy -

1. Properly, whole, entire or perfect, in a moral sense. Hence, pure in heart, temper or dispositions; free from sin and sinful affections. Applied to the Supreme Being, holy signifies perfectly pure, immaculate and complete in moral character; and man is more or less holy as his heart is more or less sanctified, or purified from evil dispositions. We call a man holy when his heart is conformed in some degree to the image of God, and his life is regulated by the divine precepts. Hence, holy is used as nearly synonymous with good, pious, godly.

 

 

The textual copy of, , "Man - The Dwelling Place of God", can be found at...

https://www.worldinv...5j00.0010.c.htm

 

Thank you again for your post relating Tozer's support for the Truth of Holiness and his thoughts on the lives of the modern church society! I could not have stated the truth as well as he did!



#3 Jesus_Lolly

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Posted 25 October 2017 - 03:28 AM

I have never inferred that I was against holiness. What I HAVE stated is that I am not holy IN myself but IN Christ.

Complete and total reliance upon HIM produces a YIELDING in me that allows for HIS holiness to manifest.

The alternative is SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS. That kind of false-holiness is abhorrent to the Lord. 

 

One can see the difference through the fruit produced--is the person self-centered? Are they trying

to dominate others? That is not true holiness but deception--similar to what the Judaizers did in the early church.

 

In contrast, fruit produced by the Holy Spirit is characterized by this Scripture:

 

Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

 

True holiness is loving and gentle. 


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#4 Jesus_Lolly

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Posted 25 October 2017 - 04:18 AM

Luke 18

 

The Pharisee and Tax Collector

9To some who trusted in their own righteousness and viewed others with contempt, He also told this parable: 10“Two men went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like the other men—swindlers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week and pay tithes of all that I receive.’

13But the tax collector stood at a distance, unwilling even to lift up his eyes to heaven. Instead, he beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’ 14I tell you, this man, rather than the Pharisee, went home justified. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

 

Consider Sam Childers--he is like the tax collector in the Lord's parable. I feel that he is justified, for he has

taken up his cross and followed after Christ (see Matthew 16:24). He doesn't fit T. Kulp's definition of holiness, but he does do what Jesus commands.


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#5 Charles Miles

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Posted 25 October 2017 - 09:07 AM

" God have mercy on me, a sinner" A prayer, an indication that I know who I am. Just how do I know I`m a sinner? Well there is the Law of God. and Jesus discussed about sinning in the heart even if the sin was not physically committed. However hard I try, however I work on my life, I know in my heart that I do sin at times. Not that I want to sin, but I may look back several hours or days and remember a unkind word, a bad thought, maybe shading the truth for what I thought was a good reason, getting angry, and things that just "slip up" when least expected. Can we all agree those things happen? I`m not happy about those things, I`m sure God is not happy about them either, but when I do identify such a situation there are 2 ways to go....1. I could say that I never sin. Deny it happened. Refuse to repent. Approach God and tell Him that His Law is not good, so I can choose to not obey it.            2. Get on my knees and ask God to forgive me for a mistake. I love Him, but much more importantly, He loves me! As imperfect as I am, I am His.  He lives within me and tells me I am forgiven. I then go and do my very level best to not do these things again.   Here`s the thing, if I am a child of the living God, and I mess up, and I don`t think a child of God can sin, where does that leave me? Logic would tell me that I am NOT a child of God at that point. I do not take God for granted, nor do I take His grace, Love, and forgiveness lightly. He is my Father, my Savior, my only Hope, but He is also Abba Father( my daddy). I can crawl up into His arms, rest my head on His eternal shoulder, and experience the greatest peace in the universe.

 

God`s Love is a verb and is shown to us daily. God`s forgiveness is forever as is His Grace.


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#6 Candice

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Posted 25 October 2017 - 10:10 PM

As a quote on Tozer’s biography...”Few knew about his awkward family life and most of us would prefer not to know these things about our heroes. Yet the truth is the truth and we should be grateful to Dorsett for filling out our picture of Tozer. Great men often have feet of clay, and though it dims our view of their greatness, it does magnify the God who uses redeemed sinners to do great things.”

How bout we think the best, hope all things are possible in Christ, but really admit that Tozer missed the mark at times.
So what? He loved the Lord cause He forgave him. If Tozer missed that, I am sad for him.

TKulp, if you are without sin, keep tossing.... you know...fill in the blank. A condemning spirit is not of God. Please considering repenting of what you are doing here.
I pray now that your heart and mind are renewed by God Almighty.
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#7 Meema

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Posted 27 October 2017 - 03:45 AM

My perspective on this topic comes from searing personal experience with a cult that put perfection and holiness at the center of their doctrine worship as though those two interests were specific. However, as l learned the hard way, these nouns are completely subjective and as such dependent upon interpretation. What is holiness then? Define perfection?  More importantly who is holy enough to define these glorious attributes? 

 

In a nutshell, it comes to this - anything that is determined to keep our focus on our internal striving, that keeps us in a constant state of looking inward instead of out and up is just another way to entrap us in the fruitless, jogging-in-place state of SELF.

 

To allow anyone but God to set the bar is a fool’s choice. I don’t, and really have never, been inclined to make an idol out of any human or doctrine. Perhaps this is why I was not a good fit for a cult. 


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#8 Charles Miles

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Posted 27 October 2017 - 09:20 PM

Tozer was a great man who went about doing the Lord`s work as he saw it. Evidently he did have a temper that he controlled for the most part. He was one of those that are worth listening to in order to glean out the "good stuff" 

,


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#9 Meema

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Posted 29 October 2017 - 03:23 AM

Where we set ourselves up for disillusionment is with the notion that we must meet a criteria of perfection that is not Scriptural - it’s doctrinal - meaning man’s interpretation. We also have a fixed concept that our heroes, those whom we look to for the answers to our questions, must be super human, perfect in every way we define perfection. But that is the illusion. 

 

T. Austin-Sparks addressed this many years ago.

 

With God nothing is ever impossible and no word from God shall be without power or impossible of fulfillment. (Luke 1:37 AMP)

 

It seems that when the Lord Jesus chose His twelve disciples there was, at the back of the choice and back of the purpose of having a company of men always with Him – the intention of showing and expressing what the character of the Firstborn is so far as relationship to other members of the Family is concerned. To put that in another way: if we study the characteristics of the Lord Jesus in relation to His own when He was here on the earth, we have a good example of what family characteristics are in the thought of the Father. For instance, take the imperfections, the shortcomings, the weaknesses of the twelve and see what the attitude of the Lord Jesus was toward them. The Holy Spirit takes no pains to cover up those faults and those flaws. There is no attempt made whatever to present those men as an ideal group. Their picture is painted true to life and all the difficult lines are there – the bad and the good – and nothing unpleasant is hidden from view. None of the lines are taken out of their faces. They are all clearly seen. The Lord Jesus was not dealing with an easy company, but a company which might often have provoked despair. But one thing was characteristic of Him in relation to a difficult handful, and that was His faith for them.

 

What faith the Lord Jesus had for those men! It was not that He had faith in them, neither was it that He had faith for them because of what He saw in them; but He had infinite faith in the Father for them. His attitude was: "Well, nothing is impossible with God. Here are these men; they are difficult and they could easily be My despair; they never seem to understand what I say! They always seem to get the wrong interpretation; they always seem to miss the point. When I say a thing they get it from an altogether wrong angle; they are utterly materialistic in their outlook, in their expectation and in their desires. They never see far beyond this world and their own personal interests. They seem totally incapable of getting a spiritual conception. And yet the Father can do wonders with a handful of men like that; nothing is impossible."

 

By T. Austin-Sparks from: Filled Unto All the Fullness of God - Chapter 10 


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#10 LampstandDevotions

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Posted 01 November 2017 - 11:43 PM

TKulp--

 

I think you may have a sincere heart, but you are misreading/misunderstanding the Word of God. You quote 1 John 3:6: "No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him." I understand this to mean that you do not continually practice sin, or that you wouldn't, as some early meddlers in the church were trying to assert, that you could use God's grace as an excuse to sin more.

 

You can't rip a scripture out of context or have it stand alone. 1 John 2:1-2 says, "My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world."

 

1 John 1:5-10 also states, " This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all[b] sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us."

 

The web/dictionary definitions of the word "saint" do not matter. These are senses of the word that have developed down through the centuries, mainly because of the Catholic Church's teaching & practice. The bible defines a saint as simply a believer: "To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours." (1 Cor 1:2) Now, here, and in many other places of the bible where it uses the word saint, the people addressed were not sinless! We are sanctified, or made holy, in Christ Jesus. We are clothed with white robes because of the blood of Christ: “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." (Rev 7:14)

 

There is a vast difference between living our life to honor God and obey him, and seeking a sinless state and perfection. This is more of a Buddhist idea. I fear the devil is tempting you to go beyond what is written in the Word and trap you when you fail. What is your motive for writing what you did? Do you want to be perfect to please God, or attain a higher spiritual experience? Do not chase experience, seek the Lord himself. Let love be your motive, not fear, not striving, not looking at the abuse of grace today in the church and some popular teachers and thinking insistence on perfection is the answer. Love is the answer. Prayer is the answer. The Holy Spirit is the answer. Patience is the answer. God is in control of our growth as his child.

 

Also, my experience has been that most Christians who mature in their spiritual walk actually feel more sinful the closer they draw to God. I'm talking about internal sins, thoughts and attitudes. When you glimpse God's holiness, and he only gives us a glimpse of his unveiled glory, your sense of utter inadequacy in acute. Isaiah, a great prophet, a saint (yes?), said:

 

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;

the whole earth is full of his glory!”[b]

And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:3-5) 

Please pray for discernment and wisdom. I will pray for you, too.

 

 

 

 


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#11 Tony Davison

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Posted 03 November 2017 - 03:34 AM

I have not posted for a long time because of TKulp's post which seemed to be always loaded questions or answers, there are too many critical "Christians" as it is. No wonder non believers hate us.


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#12 BHerr

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Posted 08 February 2018 - 11:04 PM

I thought this forum was for believers who wanted to pursue "the deeper life"...not unbelievers. Why would any child of God or born again person be offended by posts that encourage a deeper walk or freedom from sin?

I wonder if the reason there is such a misunderstanding of what tkulp is trying to say is because the "fear of God" has been replaced by an adoption of the notion that God is "love" in the humanistic sense of the word; not according to I Cor. 13. God wants to conform us to the image of His Son...that's what the deeper life is about. The closer we get to Him, the more He points out to us the things that don't please Him, then we must choose "death" to the flesh which encourages more of His influence (grace) to operate in our lives...we become more humble, gentle, meek, sensitive....like Him. This is what it means to take up our cross and follow him. We're not saved by our own works...we're saved by Christ...He leads us out of our doings and into His (this is salvation)....a life of holiness without which no one will see the Lord (Heb 12:14).

Before being born again...
I followed sin (knowing what's right to do but not doing it, Jam.4:17)... (flesh was my master) self worked hard to be good but it was according to me and my understanding...and I kept messing up...and looked down on everyone who wasn't trying as hard as I was...and had to really try not to be mad at people who chose to be bad...or were mean on purpose.

After being born again...
I follow Christ...I'm hungry for His word...I pursue Him and learn from Him and hear from Him and be steered by the gentle voice of the Spirit...and I don't want my own way...or be noticed...or enjoy pursuing worldly pleasures...now when someone hurts me, I don't get angry...I don't even have to try...His nature takes over and surprises even me...

This is why God sent Christ!
1. To free us from sin and death
2. To lead us into life everlasting

But how can He lead us if we won't follow?

I love not having to "try" so hard not to sin...it's no longer I but Christ who lives in me...because I walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit (Gal. 2:20, Rom. 8:1)...this freedom is available to anyone...but, not everyone will receive it because it requires a turning around...a death...a yielded spirit...is there anything He's pointed out to you that is not of Him that you're not willing to give up or turn from? If so, then you're choosing the wrong master...and that leads to sin. This is is to be "not saved" or "not delivered"...sadly, there are few who want to be truly "delivered" and would rather believe it to be impossible. Please don't be that person....it's a miserable road of try and fail...when the victory is so near at hand!

I just read this yesterday...
"When the people heard the thunder and the loud blast of the ram’s horn, and when they saw the flashes of lightning and the smoke billowing from the mountain, they stood at a distance, trembling with fear. And they said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen. But don’t let God speak directly to us, or we will die!” “Don’t be afraid,” Moses answered them, “for God has come in this way to test you, and so that your fear of him will keep you from sinning!”
Exodus 20:18?-?20 NLT
https://bible.com/bi...xo.20.18-20.NLT

#13 Charles Miles

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Posted 05 March 2018 - 08:58 AM

God hates sin. He actually hates it! Why would I sin if I knew God hates it? Do I know what sin actually is? If I never, ever want to sin again then I must know what this thing called sin actually is, right? Let`s see now, God gave us The Law, His Law, and since God is eternal, His Law is eternal. To violate His Law, His Instructions, would be committing an offense against God`s Law, and therefore a sin. That seems easy enough. Let`s just memorize these laws and never violate any of them and then we are no longer a sinner, right? But this may be a little harder than one might think. It seems that to even think about violating any or part of this Law is to violate the whole thing.

  As we study God`s Law we find it is very difficult to obey, and we sometimes violate it without thinking or accidently, or more often we just violate it. I challenge anyone here to go 24 hours without violating some part of the Law It simply cannot be done! If someone says they do not violate the Law, even one small portion, several times daily, then they need to understand what God has to say about them. God`s Law is still in effect and perfect, but due to man it is not working to identify any of us as not being sinners. The Law simply shows us our sin and then condems us for it. The Law is perfect but man is not, no matter how hard he tries. The Law shows us our need for a savior, one who DID live within the Law. An advocate. One who can give us his righteousness and make us acceptable to God. Without that, we are dead, we are damned, there is no hope, and this bad ending is deserved by us all. I don`t care how good you are, how much you say you don`t sin, how often you attend church, or how often you study the word and quote it. 

  "If we claim we are without sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us".  For someone to say they don`t sin...well in God`s words, they are liars and have no truth in them.  Not my words but the word of God. Yes, we should be good people and always try to follow the Law, but being good and TRYING to follow the Law won`t give you salvation and won`t give you fellowship with the Father. He KNOWS you have sinned, you KNOW you have sinned, and you KNOW He KNOWS you have sinned. 

  Anyone who says he does not sin could certainly deny the need for Jesus, the Incarnation, the Crucifiction, the Resurection, and the Advocacy of Christ. Interesting pattern for a Christian? 

 

I thank the Father for sending His Son as my substitute and I thank Jesus for what He did and what He does every day as my advocate in heaven. May God bless us all and bathe us in Light and Truth.

 

 

Charlie



#14 Phil

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Posted 05 March 2018 - 09:58 PM

Thank you Jesus_Lolly for sharing that great video. Were never alone with Jesus!