Enjoy this excerpt from our other Pure Gold Classic by A.W. Tozer
This closing piece is a promotional excerpt from a different Pure Gold Classics title by A. W. Tozer, bound at the back of the source edition. It ends here in the original book — the sermons on the Holy Spirit are complete in the chapters above.
Fellowship of the Burning Heart
John 14:13-14 (KJV) “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.”
1 John 5:14-15 (KJV). “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.”
The focus of my subject is faith as confidence in God. This may have a familiar ring inasmuch as it will constitute my philosophy of faith and it is, among evangelicals, a theme we like to dwell on.
Let me say to begin that there is a great deal of praying being done that doesn’t amount to anything. It never brings back anything to us. No possible good can come in trying to cover this up or deny it. We will do a great lot better by admitting that there is enough prayer made any Sunday to save the whole world, even four or five suburbs of the world. But the world isn’t saved and much of our praying is the echo of our own voices.
This has a very injurious effect upon the Church of Christ—not only injurious but sometimes disastrous. Unanswered prayer does five things in a congregation over an extended period: (1) It tends to chill and discourage the praying people. If we continue to ask like a petulant child that doesn’t expect to get what it asks for but continues to whine for it, if we continue to do that and never get an answer, the temptation is that we will get chilled and cold inside our hearts and become discouraged.
(2) Then it confirms the natural unbelief of the heart. For, remember this —the human heart by nature is filled with unbelief. It was unbelief that led to the first act of disobedience. Therefore, not disobedience, but unbelief, was the first sin. While disobedience is the first recorded sin, in back of the act of disobedience, there was the sin of unbelief, or the disobedience never would have taken place.
Here is the danger as I see it. To pray and not receive an answer and to have a church pray and never see the answer is detrimental to solid spiritual growth. When we pray for the sick and have them not recover or even die, when we pray for deliverance and never see it, when we pray for a thousand things and never see one of them brought to pass, I say the effect is to confirm the natural unbelief in the human breast.
(3) Then it encourages the idea that religion is unreal. A great many people have the idea that religion is unreal. They believe it is a subjective thing purely and there is nothing real about it and there is nothing to which it can be referred. I use the word, “horse.” Everybody’s mind jumps to a large animal with short hair and ears that stand up, an intelligent face, fast on its feet, and powerful. Everybody knows what the word “horse” means because our English word “horse” has a reference—something to which the word refers.
I use the word “lake” and everybody thinks of a large body of water. I use the word “star” and everybody thinks of the heavenly bodies. But we can use the words “faith” and “belief” and “God” and “Heaven,” and there is nothing to which they refer. They are just words. Like pixies and fairies and such things that have no referance in the real world.
(4) Then it gives plenty of occasions to the enemy to blaspheme. The enemy loves to blaspheme. He is a dirty-mouthed, obscene blasphemer. I don’t like to even abuse the devil, but I have a lot of secret sympathy, though I wouldn’t myself use it, but I have a lot of secret sympathy for that rough old Irishman, William Nicholson, who calls the devil a “dirrrty ole pig.” And he is just that. He is an obscene old pig and he loves to blaspheme. And if he can get a lot of Christians howling to high heaven for weeks on end and see to it that they never get an answer, I don’t know what he says, but I know what he says has more obscenities in it and he blasphemes God.
(5) Worst of all, it lets the enemy take possession of the field. In the failure of a military drive, the worst part is not the men they lose. The worst part is not the face they lose. The worst part of the failure of a military drive is that it leaves the enemy in possession of the field. And when the people of God pray and pray and get nowhere, it leaves the enemy in possession of the field.
This, in itself, is a tragedy and a disaster. The devil should be on the run. We should never see anything but the back of his neck. He should always be retreating and retreating, and his worst fighting should be rear-guard action, scorched-earth policy, burning, and destroying as he goes, but he should always be on the run. Instead of that, the obscene and blasphemous enemy smugly and scornfully holds his position, and the people of God let him have it. This, of course, retards the work of the Lord greatly.
Having no prayers answered—having prayers sent up to Heaven that come back empty—is like sending an army out without weapons. It like setting a pianist without fingers down to a piano. It is like sending a woodsman without an axe into the woods. It is like sending a farmer without a plough into the field. And the work of God stands still.
Now, Jesus said that we could have anything we ask in His name. John said that this is the confidence, the boldness, and the assurance. Our English tongue is a highly versatile, almost volatile tongue, and we can say anything we want to say. It is the richest of all the languages, because it has received tributaries from everywhere. But, our difficulty is that we sometimes have to use a half dozen words to mean as much as one word in another language. So, when the Holy Ghost said, “This is the confidence we have in Him,” that English word “confidence” is not enough. So, the translators call it: “This is the boldness we have in Him.” And another says, “This is the assurance we have in Him.” So it takes the words, “confidence,” “boldness,” and “assurance” to mean what God meant when He said, “This is that which we feel toward Him.”
Right here comes the parting of the ways between the man of faith and the man of unfaith. The man of unfaith rejects flatly this kind of teaching: that this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He will give it to us. The man of unfaith says that this can’t be so. And he will not accept it and he demands the proof of human reason.
Unbelief is not a mental thing at all, but a moral thing. Unbelief is always sinful because it almost presupposes an immoral condition of the heart before it can exist. Unbelief is not the failure of the mind to grasp the truth; it is not a bad conclusion drawn from logical premises; and it is not the failure of unsoundness of a logical premise. It is a moral sin. But we’ll leave that aside for a little bit and simply say that the man of unfaith cannot understand the language that I’m giving you now. This is the confidence that we have in God—that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us. Jesus said, “If you ask anything in my name I will do it.”
The man without faith says, “I’ve got to have a reason for this.” The man of faith feels confidence. The man of faith does not dare rest upon human reasoning.
I have wondered sometimes why somebody didn’t come out; and say that I have used reason to prove that reason was no good. But, here is what I have done: I have used reason to do what reason CAN do—mainly to show that there are some things that reason cannot do. I have never been against human reason, but I have been against human reason trying to do things human reason is not qualified to do.
The great difference today in the world is not between the liberal and the fundamentalist. But the great gulf fixed today is between the evangelical rationalist and the evangelical mystic, the one who believes God and disbelieves human reason and the one who believes the things of God can be proved by and grasped by human reason.
I won’t live to see it, but some of you younger people will live to see that I am right in what I am saying. We have evangelical rationalists who insist upon trying to reduce everything down to where it can be explained and proved. The result is that we have rationalized faith and we have pulled Almighty God down to the low level of human reason. There are some things human reason cannot do. But you can use human reason to discredit human reason. Anything human reason can do, I’m for it. Turn human reason loose. You have a can opener in your house. And what woman doesn’t? You don’t use it to mend your little boy’s stocking. You use it to open cans. Your husband has a hammer and a saw; he doesn’t use them to paper the walls of the living room. He uses them to cut boards and pounds nails. Everything was created for a purpose, and I claim that there are some things human reason cannot do.
Human reason and faith are not contrary to each other, but one is above the other. When we are believers, we enter another world altogether, a realm that is infinite above little reason. “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are my ways your ways.” As high as the heaven is above the earth so are the thoughts of God above the thoughts of man. Faith never goes contrary to reason; faith simply ignores reason and rises above it.
Reason could not tell us that Jesus Christ should be born of the Virgin Mary, but faith knows He was. Reason cannot prove that Jesus took upon Him the form of a man and died under the sins of the world, but faith knows that He did. Reason cannot prove that the third day He rose from the dead, but faith knows that He did. Faith is an organ of knowledge.
Fundamental rationalists say the human brain alone is an organ of knowledge. They forget there are at lest two other organs of knowledge. Feeling is an organ of knowledge, too. All the reasoning in the world couldn’t tell you the temperature was 98 today. You felt that is was. I can stand heat like a lizard, but I’ve had enough of this. And I know it was hot today. I had an organ of knowledge today—feeling.
A young man loves a young woman. How does he know it? Does he read the Encyclopedia Britannia and apply reason to it? No. He listens to the ticking of his own heart. He knows it by feeling. Feeling is an organ of knowledge. Reason is an organ of knowledge and faith is an organ of knowledge. And we have to believe that.
Reason cannot say, “Jesus rose from the dead.” Faith knows He did. Reason cannot say, “He sits at the right hand of God Father Almighty.” Reason doesn’t know, but faith knows that He did. Reason cannot say, “He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.” But faith knows that He will come. Reason cannot say, “My sins are all gone.” But faith knows they’re gone. So, all down the line, faith is an organ of knowledge. And the man who believes is having knowledge that the man who merely thinks can’t possibly have. Our poor little old brain can come staggering along like a little boy trying to keep up with his dad—coming along on his little, old, short, stubby legs, trying to reason.
That’s why in the New Testament the word “wonder” appears. “And they wondered at him.” “And they all marveled.” Faith was going ahead, doing wonders, and reason was coming along, wide-eyed, marveling. That’s always the way it should be.
Nowadays, we send reason ahead on his little, short legs, and faith never follows. Nobody marvels because they can explain the whole business. I claim that a Christian is a miracle and just the moment you can explain a Christian, you have no Christian left anymore.
Some of you may have read William James’ Varieties of Religious Experiences. I’ve read it two or three times.
It’s helpful to me because I’m a man of faith. But William James tried to understand the wonders of God working in the human breast through psychology. But when the early disciples were on Solomon’s porch in prayer and praise, people stood back awe-struck and dared not join themselves to them. And the real Christian is somebody that can’t be explained by human reason. Something happens that psychology cannot explain. Faith is the highest kind of reason. Faith takes us straight into the Presence of God and goes behind the veil where also our Lord Jesus Christ, our Forerunner has gone for us, and engages God Almighty and reaches that for which He was created. It is here where the man of faith communes with the source of his being and loves the Fountain of his life and prays to the One who begot him, and knows the God who made Heaven and Earth. He may not be an astronomer, but he knows the God who made the stars. He may not be a physicist, but he knows the God who made mathematics.