Publishing Information:
ISBN:
978-1-60066-795-4
Copyright:
1950, renewed 1978 by Lowell Tozer
Previously
published under the titles The Divine
Conquest and The Pursuit of Man
and is a sequel to The Pursuit of God.
141
pages
Chapter 1. The Eternal Continuum
Key Verses:
Joshua
1:5 – “As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee.”
Habakkuk
1:12 – “Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One?”
John
1: 1-3 – “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by
him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”
Key Quotes:
“God
is the great Antecedent.” This is regrettably an ignored truth.
“Neglected
Christian truths can only be revitalized when by prayer and long meditation we
isolate them from the mass of hazy ideas with which our minds are filled and
hold them steadily and determinedly in the focus of the mind’s attention.”
“We
cannot think rightly of God until we begin to think of Him as always being
there, and there first.”
“In
my creature impatience I am often caused to wish that there was some way to
bring modern Christians into a deeper spiritual life painlessly by short, easy
lessons; but such wishes are vain. No shortcut exists. The man who would know
God must give time to Him.”
“Whatever
else it embraces, true Christian experience must always include a genuine
encounter with God. Without this, religion is but a shadow, a reflection of
reality, a cheap copy of an original once enjoyed by someone else of whom we
have heard.”
“We
habitually stand in our now and look back by faith to see the past filled with
God. We look forward and see Him inhabiting our future; but our now is
uninhabited except for ourselves. Thus we are guilty of a kind of temporary
atheism which leaves us alone in the universe while, for the time, God is not.
We talk of Him much and loudly, but we secretly think of Him as being absent…”
“With
God Abram’s day and this day are the same. By one single impulse of life He
created all days and all times, so that the life of the first day and the life
of the remotest future day are united in Him.”
“In
saving men God is but doing again (or rather continuing to do) the same
creative work as at the beginning of the world. To Him each ransomed soul is a
world wherein He performs again His pleasant work as of old.”
Chapter 2. In Word, or in Power
Key Verses:
1
Thessalonians 1:5 – For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in
power, and in the Holy Ghost.
2 Corinthians 5:17 – If any man be in Christ,
he is a new creature.
Revelation
3:1 – I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou lives, and art dead.
Key Quotes:
“the
true quality of faith is almost universally missed, namely, its moral quality.
It is more than mere confidence in the veracity of a statement made in Holy
Writ. It is a highly moral thing and of a spiritual essence. It invariably
effects radical transformation in the life of the one who exercises it. It
shifts the inward gaze from self to God. It introduces its possessor into the
life of heaven upon earth.”
“For
sin’s human captives God never intends anything less than full deliverance. The
Christian message rightly understood means this: The God who by the word of the
gospel proclaims men free, by the power of the gospel actually makes them free.
To accept less than this is to know the gospel in word only, without its
power.”
“With
this desire to please men so deeply implanted within us how can we uproot it
and shift our life-drive from pleasing men to pleasing God? Well, no one can do
it alone, nor can he do it with the help of others, nor by education nor by
training nor by any other method known under the sun. What is required is a
reversal of nature and this reversal must be a supernatural act. That act the
Spirit performs through the power of the gospel when it is received in living
faith…The way it works in experience is something like this: The believing man
is overwhelmed suddenly by a powerful feeling that only God matters; soon this
works itself out into his mental life and conditions all his judgments and all
his values.
Chapter 3. The Mystery of the Call
Key Verses:
1
Corinthians 1: 1-2 – “Paul, called by the
will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, …. 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…”
1
Corinthians 15:47 – “The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the
second man is from heaven.”
John
3:6 – “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the
Spirit is spirit.”
Key Quotes:
“The
little word called as used here…is
like a door opening into another world, and when we enter we shall find
ourselves in another world indeed. For the new world into which we pass is the
world of God’s sovereign will where the will of man cannot come, or if it
comes, it is as a dependent and a servant, never as a lord.”
“…in
their pride men assert their will and claim ownership of the earth. Well, for a
time it is true that this is man’s world. God is admitted only by man’s
sufferance. He is treated as visiting royalty in a democratic country. Everyone
takes His name upon his lips and (especially at certain seasons) He is feted
and celebrated and hymned. But behind all this flattery men hold firmly to
their right of self-determination. As long as man is allowed to play host he
will honor God with his attention, but always He must remain a guest and never
seek to be Lord. Man will have it understood that this is his world;”
“There
is another and worse evil which springs from this basic failure to grasp the
radical difference between the natures of two worlds. It is the habit of
languidly “accepting” salvation as if it were a small matter and one wholly in
our hands. Mean are exhorted to think things over and “decide” for Christ, and
in some places one day each year is set aside as “Decision Day,”at which time
people are expected to condescend to grant Christ the right to save them, a
right which they have obviously refused Him up to that time. Christ is thus
made to stand again before men’s judgment seat; …. Has not God by such words as
these taken out of our hands the ultimate choice?
‘It is the spirit that quickeneth;
the flesh profiteth nothing….No man can come to me, except the Father which
hath sent me draw him …. No man can come unto me, except it were given unto him
of my Father….(John 6:63, 44, 65)’. “
“Salvation is from our side a choice, from the
divine side it is a seizing upon, an apprehending, a conquest of the Most High
God. Our “accepting” and “willing” are
reactions rather than actions. The right of determination must always
remain with God.”
“God
has indeed lent to every man the power to lock his heart and stalk away darkly
into his self-chosen night, as He has lent to every man the ability to respond
to His overtures of grace, but while the “no” choice may be ours, the “yes”
choice is always God’s. He is the Author of our faith as He must be its
Finisher.”
Chapter 4. Victory Through Defeat
Key Verses:
Genesis
32:28 – “And he said, Thy name shall be called no
more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men,
and hast prevailed.”
Galatians
6:14 – “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”
Key Quotes:
“The
experiences of men who walked with God in olden times agree to teach that the Lord
cannot fully bless a man until He has first conquered him.”
The
story of Jacob wrestling with God is described…”It was only after he had gone
down to humiliating defeat that he began to feel the joy of release from his
own evil strength, the delight of God’s conquest over him. Then he cried aloud
for the blessing and refused to let go till it came. …Now he became another
man, the stubborn and self-willed rebel was turned into a meek and dignified
friend of God. He had prevailed indeed, but through weakness, not through
strength. Only the conquered can know true blessedness…We are created beings,
and as such are derived, not self-existent. Not to us has it been given to have
life in ourselves. For life we are wholly and continually dependent upon God,
the Source and Fountain of life. Only by full dependence upon Him are the
hidden potentialities of our natures realized. Apart from this we are but
half-men, malformed and unbeautiful members of a noble race once made to wear
the image of its Creator.”
”The
strength of our flesh is an ever-present danger to our souls.”
Chapter 5. The Forgotten One
Key Verses:
John
14:26 – “The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost.”
Key Quotes:
“In
religion more than in any other field of human experience a sharp distinction
must always be made between knowing about and knowing… A man can die of
starvation knowing all about bread, and a man can remain spiritually dead while
knowing all the historic facts of Christianity. “This is life eternal, that
they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou has sent’
(John 17:3)
“How
shall we think of the Spirit? The Bible and Christian theology agree to teach
that He is a Person, endowed with every quality of personality, such as
emotion, intellect and will. He knows, He wills, He loves; He feels affection,
antipathy and compassion, He thinks, sees, hears and speaks and performs any act
of which personality is capable.”
“He
can invade the human heart and make room for Himself without expelling anything
essentially human. The integrity of the human personality remains unimpaired.
Only moral evil is forced to withdraw.”
“When
we insert the iron in the fire we achieve the penetration of the iron and we
have not only the iron in the fire but the fire in the iron as well. They are
two distinct substances, but they have co-mingled and interpenetrated to a
point where the two have become one. In some such manner does the Holy Spirit
penetrate our spirits. In the whole experience we remain our very selves. There
is no destruction of substance. Each remains a separate being as before; the
difference is that now the Spirit penetrates and fills our personalities and we
are experientially one with God.”
“To
the reverent question, “What is God like?” a proper answer will always be, “He
is like Christ.” For Christ is God, and the Man who walked among men in
Palestine was God acting like Himself in the familiar situation where His
incarnation placed Him. To the question, “What is the Spirit like?” the answer
must always be, “He is like Christ.” For the Spirit is the essence of the
Father and the Son. As they are, so is He. As we feel toward Christ and toward
our Father who art in heaven, so should we feel toward the Spirit of the Father
and the Son.”
Chapter 6. The Illumination of the
Spirit
Key Verses:
John
3:27 – “A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.”
Key Quotes:
“There
is a kind of truth which can never be grasped by the intellect, for the
intellect exists for the apprehension of ideas, and this truth consists not in
ideas but in life. Divine truth is of the nature of spirit and for that reason
can be received only by spiritual revelation.”
“Through
the light of nature man’s moral reason may be enlightened, but the deeper
mysteries of God remain hidden to him until he has received illumination from
above.
“But
the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are
foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:14)
“A
man can receive nothing.” That is the burden of the Bible. Whatever men may
think of human reason God takes a low view of it. “Where is the wise? Where is
the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the
wisdom of this world?” (1 Corinthians 1:20).
“For
a man of God to understand revealed truth requires an act of God equal to the
original act which inspired the text.”
Chapter 7. The Spirit as Power
Key Verses:
Acts
1:8 – “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.”
Key Quotes:
“Ye
shall receive power.” By those words our Lord raised the expectation of His
disciples and taught them to look forward to the coming of a supernatural
potency into their natures from a source outside of themselves. It was to be
something previously unknown to them, but suddenly to come upon them from
another world. It was to be nothing less than God Himself entering into them
with the purpose of ultimately reproducing His own likeness within them.”
“Christianity
takes for granted the absence of any self-help and offers a power which is
nothing less than the power of God. This power is to come upon powerless men as
a gentle but resistless invasion from another world, bringing a moral potency
infinitely beyond anything that might be stirred up from within”.
“Where
adequate power is present almost any means will suffice, but where the power is
absent not all the means in the world can secure the desired end. The Spirit of
God may use a song, a sermon, a good deed, a text or the mystery and majesty of
nature, but always the final work will be done by the pressure of the in-living
Spirit upon the human heart.”
“We
may be sure of one thing, that for our deep trouble there is no cure apart from
a visitation, yes, an invasion of power from above. Only the Spirit Himself can
show us what is wrong with us and only the Spirit can prescribe the cure.“
Chapter 8. The Holy Spirit as Fire
Key Verses:
Acts
2:3 – “And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat
upon each of them.”
Key Quotes:
“Only
God knows God in any final meaning of the word, “know.”
“Even
so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God” (1 Corinthians
2:11).
“…if
we could conceive of His greatness, He would be less than the human mind which
could form the conception….one speaks of Him as light; this is an account of
part of His creation, not of Himself. It does not express what He is. Or
suppose one speaks of Him as power. This too sets forth in words His attribute
of might, rather than His being. Or suppose one speaks of Him as majesty. Once
again, we have a declaration of the honor which is His own, rather than of Him
in Himself….To sum up…, every possible statement that can be made about God
expresses some possession or virtue of God, rather than God Himself. What words
or thoughts are worthy Him, who is above all language and all thought?”
Novatian (c. 250 A.D.)
“Just
because God cannot tell us what He is He very often tells us what He is like.
By these “like” figures He leads our faltering minds as close as they can come
to that “light which no man can approach unto””.
“…judging
from the Scriptures one would gather that His favorite similitude is fire. In
one place the Spirit speaks expressly, “For our God is a consuming fire”
(Hebrews 12:29)
“…As
a fire He spoke to Moses from the burning bush; in the fire He dwelt above the
camp of Israel…; as fire He dwelt between the wings of the cherubim in the Holy
of Holies; to Ezekiel He revealed Himself as a strange brightness of “a fire
infolding itself” (Ezekiel 1:4)
“With
the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost the same imagery was continued. “And
there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each
of them” (Acts 2:3)…The God who had appeared to them as fire throughout all
their long history was now dwelling in them as fire. He had moved from without
to the interior of their lives…This was Deity giving Himself to ransomed men.
The flame was the seal of a new union. They were now men and women of the
Fire.”
“Whoever
would be filled and indwelt by the Spirit should first judge his life for any hidden
iniquities; he should courageously expel from his heart everything which is out
of accord with the character of God as revealed by the Holy Scriptures.”
“The
true Christian ideal is not to be happy but to be holy. The holy heart alone
can be the habitation of the Holy Ghost. “
“Cleanse
your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. Be afflicted,
and mourn, and weep; let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to
heaviness. (James 4:8-9)
“The
blight of the Pharisee’s heart in olden times was doctrine without love. With
the teachings of the Pharisees Christ had little quarrel, but with the
pharisaic spirit He carried on unceasing warfare to the end. It was religion
that put Christ on the cross, religion without the indwelling Spirit. It is no
use to deny that Christ was crucified by persons who would today be called
fundamentalists. This should prove most disquieting if not downright
distressing to us who pride ourselves on our orthodoxy. An unblessed soul
filled with the letter of truth may actually be worse off than a pagan kneeling
before a fetish.
Chapter 9. Why the World Cannot
Receive
Key Verses:
John
14:17 – The Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive.
2
Corinthians 13:5 – Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your
own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except
ye be reprobates?
Romans
8:9 – But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit
of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none
of his.
James
4:4 – Ye adulterers and adulteresses. Know ye not that the friendship of the
world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is
the enemy of God.
Key Quotes:
“The
gulf between the true Christian and the world is as great as that which
separated the rich man and Lazarus. And furthermore it is the same gulf, that
is, it is the gulf that divides the world of ransomed from the world of fallen
men.”
“…men
do not become Christians by associating with church people…..they become
Christians only by invasion of their nature by the Spirit of God in the new
birth.”
“The
difficulty we modern Christians face is not misunderstanding the Bible, but
persuading our untamed hearts to accept its plain instructions.”
“When
faith becomes obedience then it is true faith indeed.”
Chapter 10. The Spirit-filled Life
Key Verses:
Ephesians
5:18 – Be filled with the Spirit.
Key Quotes:
“I
want here boldly to assert that it is my happy belief that every Christian can
have a copious outpouring of the Holy Spirit in a measure far beyond that
received at conversion, and I might also say, far beyond that enjoyed by the
rank and file of orthodox believers today. It is important that we get this
straight, for until doubts are removed faith is impossible. God will not
surprise a doubting heart with an effusion of the Holy Spirit, nor will He fill
anyone who has doctrinal questions about the possibility of being filled.”
”Before
a man can be filled with the Spirit he must be sure he wants to be. And let
this be taken seriously. Many Christians want to be filled, but their desire is
a vague romantic kind of thing hardly worthy to be called desire. They have
almost no knowledge of what it will cost them to realize it.”
“Before
we can be filled with the Spirit the desire to be filled must be all-consuming.”
