Adapted from the writings of the Rev. James L. Snyder, author of In Pursuit of God: The Life of A.W. Tozer.
The Early Years: His Conversion to Jesus Christ
“I fear that we shall never see another Tozer. Men like him are not college bred but Spirit taught.” Leonard Ravenhill
Aiden Wilson Tozer was born on April 21, 1897, in La Jose (now Newburg), a tiny farming community in a mountainous region of western Pennsylvania. From early on he preferred using his initials “A.W.” rather than his given names.
Tozer was converted to Christ in 1915, when he was seventeen years old. As he was walking home from his work at a rubber factory in Akron, Ohio, he noticed a small gathering of people along the way. There was an old man who was talking to them. Young Aiden went over to investigate the situation because he wondered what the man was talking about.
The speaker had a strong German accent, but it did not take Tozer long to realize that he was preaching to the crowd. Tozer began to wonder about him: “Doesn’t this man have a church to preach in? It isn’t even Sunday! Why is this old man so excited?”
Aiden was startled out of his thoughts by these words from the preacher: “If you don’t know how to be saved, just call on God, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me—a sinner,’ and God will hear you.” Those words burned their way into Tozer’s heart, and he could not get the preacher’s voice out of his mind. As he walked home, he gave serious thought to what the preacher had said. He had never heard such a message before. The man’s words deeply troubled him.
“Saved,” he muttered to himself, “‘if you don’t know how to be saved.’ That’s what the preacher said.” At home, young Tozer headed straight to the attic to be alone so he could think these things through.
A.W. Tozer emerged from that attic as a new creation in Christ Jesus. His was a radical conversion experience, and it was the beginning of a new life, a new world, and a new outlook.
It was Tozer’s future mother-in-law who helped him grow in the things of God. She encouraged him to read good books, study the Bible, and pray.
She also urged him to preach, and she often gathered people in her home to hear him.
A Man of Faith and Prayer
Though the Tozer home was crowded with Aiden’s siblings and several boarders, he managed to find a regular time and place for prayer and Bible study—a small corner of the basement behind the furnace. He cleaned up that spot and set it up as a place to regularly meet with God, his heavenly Father. Here he was able to get alone with God, to pray, meditate, and read the Word of God. This was the foundation for his upcoming ministry.
Aiden’s older sister, Essie, would hear her brother groaning in prayer behind the furnace. The first time she heard him, she was frightened; then she realized it was her brother who was praying and “wrestling” with God.
This began a pattern in Tozer’s life. He would withdraw from others and seek a quiet place where he could be alone with God. It was then that he also began a habit of taking a small notebook with him in order to keep a journal of his prayers and God’s answers to them. Quietness and solitude became very important to him.
Called to the Ministry of the Gospel of Jesus Christ
He began his Christian ministry five years later. Though he had no formal theological education, his ministry with the Christian and Missionary Alliance would last for forty-four years.
In the early days of his ministry, money was hard to come by. Nonetheless, the Tozers made a pact to trust God for all their needs. He said, “We are convinced that God can send money to His believing children —but it becomes a pretty cheap thing to get excited about the money and fail to give the glory to Him who is the Giver!”
In 1919, Tozer was called to the pastorate of a small, storefront church in Nutter Fort, a little village that was located in the rolling hills of central West Virginia. In these humble beginnings Tozer and his new bride, Ada Cecilia Faust, launched a ministry that continues to influence people to the present day. He later served churches in Indiana and Ohio, as well. The Tozers lived a simple lifestyle with their seven children: six boys and one girl. They never owned a car and always used public transportation.
After serving churches in West Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana, Tozer’s next charge proved to be a long-term one. For thirty-one of his forty-four years of ministry he gained prominence as the pastor of Southside Alliance Church in Chicago, Illinois. He served there from 1928 to 1959. He ministered as a pastor, author, editor, Bible conference speaker, and denominational leader. To many people, he was a reliable spiritual mentor.
A commercial illustrator, Francis Chase, attended Tozer’s first service in the Chicago church. He said, “He [Tozer] said very little and I didn’t expect much. He was slight with plenty of black hair, and certainly not a fashion plate, as we say. He wore a black tie about one and a half inches in width. His shoes were even then outmoded: high tops with hooks part way up. I introduced him and left the platform. He said nothing about being pleased to be there or any other pat phrases usually given on such occasions, but simply introduced his sermon topic, which was, ‘God’s Westminster Abbey,’ based on the eleventh chapter of Hebrews.” Francis Chase became a close friend to Tozer through the years.
Tozer’s last pastorate was at the Avenue Road Church in Toronto, Canada.
Writer and Editor
Tozer always searched for and ministered to those who were hungry for God. He was the editor of The Alliance Weekly, the official publication of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. This periodical received a new title in 1958 when it became The Alliance Witness, which then became Alliance Life in 1987. Under Tozer’s leadership, the magazine flourished, and its circulation doubled.
In his first editorial for The Alliance Weekly he wrote, “It will cost something to walk slow in the parade of the ages, while excited men of time rush about confusing motion with progress. But it will pay in the long run and the true Christian is not much interested in anything short of that.”
The Alliance Weekly, more than anything else, helped to establish Tozer as a spokesman to the Evangelical church at large. Many people subscribed to the magazine mainly to read Tozer’s prophetic editorials, which were published in Great Britain in The Life of Faith magazine. H. F. Stevenson, editor of The Life of Faith, said, “His [Tozer’s] survey of the contemporary scene was as relevant to Britain as to his own country, so that his articles and books were read avidly here also.”
Dr. Nathan Bailey, the late President of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, was likewise amazed at the freshness of Tozer’s writings. He said, “In his writings he left the superficial and the obvious and the trivial for others to toss around, giving himself to the discipline of study and prayer that resulted in articles and books that reached deep into the hearts of men.”
Tozer wrote many books, as well. Some of his best-known works include: Let My People Go; Man: the Dwelling Place of God; Paths to Power; The Divine Conquest; The Knowledge of the Holy; The Pursuit of God; The Root of the Righteous; The Attributes of God; The Radical Cross; Whatever Happened to Worship?; and Warfare of the Spirit.
Dr. Tozer’s books sprang from a deeply burdened heart. He had a message from God that he knew he had to give. In his preface to The Divine Conquest (now entitled The Pursuit of God), he explained, “The sight of the languishing church around me and the operation of a new spiritual power within me have set up a pressure impossible to resist. Whether or not the book ever reaches a wide public, still it has to be written if for no other reason than to relieve an unbearable burden on the heart.”
The last literary work he created was completed just before his death and was published posthumously several months after he went home to be with his Lord. It was entitled The Christian Book of Mystical Verse. This volume was a compilation of a wealth of mystic poetry that had blessed Tozer’s heart throughout the years. In the introduction of this book he defined “mystic” as follows: “The word ‘mystic’ as it occurs in the title of this book refers to that personal spiritual experience common to the saints of Bible times and well known to multitudes of persons in the post-biblical era. I refer to the evangelical mystic who has been brought by the gospel into intimate fellowship with the Godhead. His theology is no less and no more than is taught in the Christian Scriptures. He walks the high road of truth where walked of old prophets and apostles, and where down the centuries walked martyrs, reformers, Puritans, evangelists and missionaries of the cross. He differs from the ordinary orthodox Christian only because he experiences his faith down in the depths of his sentient being while the other does not. He exists in a world of spiritual reality. He is quietly, deeply, and sometimes almost ecstatically aware of the Presence of God in his own nature and in the world around him. His religious experience is something elemental, as old as time and the creation. It is immediate acquaintance with God by union with the Eternal Son. It is to know that which passes knowledge.” (From The Christian Book of Mystical Verse, Christian Publications, Harrisburg, PA.)
A Daily Walk with God
The preceding paragraph gives an apt description of Tozer’s daily walk with God. He had a profound sense of God that enveloped him in reverence and adoration. His one daily exercise was the practice of the presence of God, pursuing Him with all his strength and energy. To him, Jesus Christ was a daily wonder, a recurring astonishment, and a continual amazement of love and grace.
Tozer was a man of prayer. He often commented, “As a man prays, so is he.” His entire ministry flowed out of fervent prayer.
His sermons were powerful, and his outstanding books established him as a classic devotional writer. In addition, Tozer had a weekly radio broadcast that was aired on WMBI—the radio station of the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. His program was called “Talks From a Pastor’s Study,” and those talks emanated from Tozer’s study at Southside Alliance Church. As a result of those broadcasts, he received frequent invitations to minister at Chicago-area Bible colleges, which he greatly enjoyed.
To truly understand Tozer, one must focus on his devotional life. For him, correct doctrine was not enough. He said, “You can be straight as a gun barrel theologically and as empty as one spiritually.” When he preached and taught, he did not stress systematic theology; instead, he emphasized the importance of a personal relationship with God—a relationship so personal and so overpowering as to entirely captivate a person’s attention. He longed for what he called a “God-conscious soul”—a heart that is aflame for God.
He constantly called evangelicals to return to the authentic biblical positions that had characterized the Church when it was most faithful to Christ and His Word. While his messages were profound and sober, Tozer spiced them with his wonderful sense of humor. However, one will find little of his humor in his books.
Tozer loved to have fellowship with God. He once wrote, “I have found God to be cordial and generous and in every way easy to live with.” In a similar vein he wrote, “Labor that does not spring out of worship is futile and can only be wood, hay, and stubble in the day that shall try every man’s work.”
A.W. Tozer loved hymns, and he acquired an extensive collection of old hymnals. He often used these hymnals as means for meditation and devotional reading. Often, he would counsel people to get a hymnbook —“but don’t get one that is less than a hundred years old.” In one of his articles for The Alliance Weekly he wrote, “After the Bible the next most valuable book for the Christian is a good hymnal. Let any young Christian spend a year prayerfully meditating on the hymns of [Isaac] Watts and [Charles] Wesley alone, and he will become a fine theologian. Then let him read a balanced diet of the Puritans and the Christian mystics. The results will be more wonderful than he could have dreamed.” The Importance of Worship
Worship was vitally important to Tozer. He wrote, “Worship is to feel in your heart and express in some appropriate manner a humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe, astonished wonder, and overpowering love in the presence of that most ancient Mystery, that Majesty which philosophers call the First Cause, but which we call Our Father in Heaven.”
Tozer’s hunger for God led him to study the Christian mystics, and in them he found a deep knowledge of God and absorbing love for Him, which propelled him to go deeper with God. He said, “These people know God, and I want to know what they know about God and how they came to know it.”
Mr. Ray McAfee was the associate pastor, choir director, and song leader for Dr. Tozer in Chicago for fifteen years. They often met together for prayer and conversation. McAfee wrote, “On a day that I shall never forget, Tozer knelt down by his chair, took off his glasses and laid them on the chair, rested back on his bent ankles. He clasped his hands together, raised his face with his eyes closed and began, ‘O God, we are before Thee.’ With that there came a rush of God’s presence that literally filled the room, and we both worshiped God in silent ecstasy, wonder, and adoration.”
McAfee went on, “I’ve never forgotten that moment, and I don’t want to forget it. The memory lingers in my mind, almost with the same freshness and vivacity as that morning. That, to me, was Dr. Tozer.” The Beat of a “Different Drummer”
Tozer, of course, was not a perfect man. He had the disposition of a recluse at times and a very heavy schedule. This left little time for his wife, Ada, and their children. Many, even members of his own family, did not truly understand him, particularly when he insisted on being alone so often. Some people even regarded him as being a bit odd, but what others thought of him did not bother Tozer in the least. His primary business was the worship of God, and nothing else really mattered all that much to him.
Tozer marched to the beat of “a different drummer,” but not in the same way a rebel might do. It was simply that he was totally sold out to Jesus Christ. His family, friends, and even the ministry had to take a back seat to his pursuit of God. He entitled one of his essays, “The Saint Must Walk Alone,” and this provides us with important insights into his perspective and priorities.
At times he would come to the family dinner table, especially after the children had left, and not speak a word—not because he was mad at anyone, but because he was completely focused on God, and he refused to violate that focus even for fellowship around the table with family and friends. In light of this, Tozer did not spend much time perfecting his “social graces.”
Tozer loved to be shut in alone with God. He cultivated his ability to focus on Him every day. In so doing, he would quiet his heart and adore and worship his heavenly Father.
At conferences it often seemed as if Tozer was preoccupied with something, which he was, because he was musing about some aspect of the God he loved so much. He told others that he had dreams of God, as well, so his focus on God continued even after he went to sleep!
Tozer generously shared the lessons he had learned through worship with all who seemed interested. He firmly believed that his ministry had to flow from worship and that any work that does not flow from worship is unacceptable to God.
He never entangled himself in social or political issues, even though he was highly opinionated regarding many of them. As a minister of the gospel, however, he realized that his job was to preach the good news and to lead people to Jesus. Because of this, his writings are as fresh today as they were when he first wrote them; they appeal to the essential needs of human beings, regardless of the age in which they live.
Tozer criticized entertainment in churches, and this made him somewhat infamous and less popular with some Christians. This attitude stemmed from his high regard for worship, which he felt was violated oftentimes by attempts to bring entertainment to God’s people. To him, worship was to be pure and untainted by worldly things.
Tozer, like many other preachers, was greatly concerned about the ways in which worldliness was making inroads in the Church and how it was affecting Christians. He was particularly critical of some forms of evangelism, which he felt lowered the standards that the Church should be upholding.
His Goal in Preaching
Tozer’s goal in preaching was to lead the listener straight into the presence of God. Therefore, everything that would distract from the message, and particularly from God, he ruthlessly cut out.
In prayer God would lay a burden on Tozer’s heart. Then, as time passed, he would preach a series of sermons related to this burden. When he was away from his own pulpit, he would preach the same sermons to others. As he did so, sometimes the weight of the burden would increase. Sometimes it would weigh him down to the point that even in preaching he could find no release. This would then lead him to begin writing and the fruit would eventually take the form of a book.
In 1945, Dr. Tozer was preaching along a particular line of Bible truth. Shortly before this, he had experienced a fresh encounter with God and was sharing this meaningful experience with his congregation. The sermons were richly blessed of God, and the people in the Chicago church were deeply touched by them.
As he went forth to preaching missions in other locations, he continued to share his experience with each congregation. In preaching these sermons he sensed a strange pressure building within himself. At first this phenomenon confused him, but after long hours of prayer and meditation, he began to see how God was leading him.
About this same time, Dr. Tozer received an invitation to preach in McAllen, Texas. He reasoned that this would be an opportunity for him to do something about the burden and the pressure he was experiencing. He was certain that the long train ride from Chicago to Texas would give him ample time for thinking and writing.
He wrote all night, as the Pullman train rumbled through the middle part of America. The subject he was writing about had taken full control of him.
When the train pulled into the station the next morning, the rough draft of the book was finished. It was later published as The Pursuit of God, a very successful bestseller. To date, the book has sold over 1,000,000 copies, and it has been translated into a multitude of languages for readers around the world.
Tozer’s method of preaching included the strong declaration of biblical principles, never merely an involvement in word studies, clever outlines, or statistics. Listening to his recorded sermons or reading any of his many books, the observer will notice the absence of alliteration. His style was the simple unfolding of truth as naturally as a flower unfolds in the sunlight.
According to Tozer, every preacher must develop the habit of “reading good writing.” He urged people to go back to the classics and said, “Read some of the great Puritan authors and some of the mystics. Read and memorize good poetry. Observe how these writers express themselves. Become word conscious. Pay attention to words and the effect they have. Get and use a dictionary. Whenever I come across a word I’m not familiar with, I look it up immediately and study it. With a large vocabulary you are able to be precise in what you are saying. Nothing takes the place of using the right word. Flaubert used to say there are no synonyms. Find the right word, and use it.”
One of Tozer’s trademarks in preaching was that he always seemed to have the right word at his disposal.
There were many times when Tozer preached and his audiences felt that they were standing on the holy mount, witnessing the Savior transfigured before them and, like Peter, never wanting to leave.
Psalm 104, a meditation upon the majesty and providence of God, thrilled Tozer’s heart, and he often preached from it. At the close of one of the sermons he gave on Psalm 104, a member of the congregation stated, “He out-Davided David!”
Clearly, he was a defender of the faith that was once delivered unto the saints. He once made this statement: “I believe everything is wrong until God sets it right.” Tozer’s Legacy
The legacy left by Tozer is found in the majesty of God. His supreme desire was to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ. “If you major on knowing God,” Tozer once wrote, “and cultivate a sense of His presence in your daily life, and do what Brother Lawrence advises, ‘Practice the presence of God’ daily and seek to know the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures, you will go a long way in serving your generation for God. No man has any right to die until he has served his generation.”
Tozer was recognized by many as being a prophet to the Body of Christ. Because he was such a respected man of God, many would come to him for advice and counsel, including students from nearby Wheaton College. Tozer said, “Years ago I prayed that God would sharpen my mind and enable me to receive everything He wanted to say to me. I then prayed that God would anoint my head with the oil of the prophet so I could say it back to the people. That one prayer has cost me plenty since, I can tell you that. Don’t ever pray such a prayer if you don’t mean it, and, if you want to be happy, don’t pray it, either.”
Regarding his preaching, he said, “I like to compare the preacher to an artist. An artist works in water, oil, sand, stone, gold, glass. On the other hand, the preacher works in the stuff called mankind. The artist has an idea of abstract beauty and he seeks to reproduce it in visible, concrete things. The preacher has Christ and tries to make Him visible in human lives. The artist has genius while the preacher has the Holy Spirit. The artist draws his inspiration from other artists while the preacher draws his inspiration in prayer alone with God.”
“The tools of the artist are brushes, chisels, paint. But the tools of the preacher are words. Ninety-nine percent of your public service will be using words. A preacher, like the artist, must master his tools. He must toil and labor and strive for mastery in this area. At first he will make awkward attempts, but if he keeps at it, he will become an expert.”
Regarding his preparation for preaching, Tozer said, “Many times I come here to my study as uninspired as a burnt shingle. I have editorials due, the preaching ministry here, plus outside preaching engagements. Often when I come here I kneel by that old sofa over there with my Bible and a hymn book. I’ll read some Scripture, softly sing a few hymns and in a short time my heart is worshiping God. God begins to manifest Himself to me and pour matter into my soul. Before long I take up my pencil and begin jotting down sketches and outlines for editorials and sermons.”
Toward the end of his ministry, Tozer asked for prayer from his congregation. He said, “Pray for me in the light of the pressures of our times. Pray that I will not just come to a wearied end—an exhausted, tired old preacher, interested only in hunting a place to roost. Pray that I will be willing to let my Christian experience and Christian standards cost me something right down to the last gasp!”
On May 12, 1963, A.W. Tozer’s earthly labors ended. His faith in God’s majesty became sight as he entered His presence. At the funeral his daughter Becky said, “I can’t feel sad; I know Dad’s happy; he’s lived for this all his life.”
Although his physical presence has been removed from us, Tozer will continue to minister to those who are thirsty for the things of God. Some have referred to him as the “conscience of evangelicalism.” As such, he recognized modern Christianity sailing through a dense spiritual fog and pointed out the rocks on which it could flounder if it continued its course. His spiritual intention enabled him to scent error, name it for what it was and reject it—all in one decisive act.
Tozer was buried in Ellet Cemetery in Akron, Ohio. His epitaph gives us a precise description of him: “A.W. Tozer—a Man of God.” Tozer-grams
“It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.”
“Faith is seeing the invisible, but not the nonexistent.”
“Our religious activities should be ordered in such a way as to leave plenty of time for the cultivation of the fruits of solitude and silence.”
“I am convinced that the dearth of great saints in this day is due at least in part to our unwillingness to give sufficient time to the cultivation of the knowledge of God.”
“God discovers Himself to ‘babes’ and hides Himself in thick darkness from the wise and the prudent. We must simplify our approach to Him. We must strip down to essentials, and they will be found to be blessedly few.”
Prayer Lord, I would trust Thee completely; I would be altogether Thine; I would exalt Thee above all. I desire that I may feel no sense of possessing anything outside of Thee. I want constantly to be aware of Thy overshadowing Presence and to hear Thy speaking Voice. I long to live in restful sincerity of heart. I want to live so fully in the Spirit that all my thought may be as sweet incense ascending to Thee and every part of my life may be an act of worship. Therefore I pray in the word of Thy great servant of old, “I beseech Thee so for to cleanse the intent of mine heart with the unspeakable gift of Thy grace, that I may perfectly love Thee and worthily praise Thee. And all this I confidently believe Thou wilt grant me through the merits of Jesus Christ Thy Son. Amen.”