the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Morning and Evening with A.W. Tozer
Tozer in the Morning
Encountering the Whole Word of God
Almost every cult with which we have any acquaintance practices this art of selecting and ignoring. The no-hell cults, for example, habitually stress everything in the Bible that seems to support their position and play down or explain away all the passages that deal with eternal punishment.
But we do well to look closer to home. Proneness to heresy is not confined to the cults. By nature, we are all heretics. We who count ourselves to be in the historic tradition of sound doctrine may in actual practice become heretics after a sort. We may unconsciously select for special attention such Scriptures as comfort and encourage us and pass over the ones that rebuke and warn us. This trap is so easy to fall into that we may be in it before we are aware.
Take, for instance, the "well-marked" Bible. It might be an illuminating experience to peep into one sometimes and note how the owner has underscored almost exclusively the passages that console him or that support his views on doctrine. We habitually love the verses that are easy on us and shy away from the ones that disturb us.
Tozer in the Evening
Determining the Cause of Pain
But how can we tell in a given situation whether our pain is from the cross or the rod? Pain is pain from whatever source it comes. Jonah in flight from the will of God suffered no worse storm than did Paul in the center of God?s will; the same wild sea threatened the life of both. And Daniel in the lion?s den was in trouble as deep as was Jonah in the whale?s belly. The nails bit as deep into the hands of Christ dying for the sins of the world as into the hands of the two thieves dying for their own sins. How then may we distinguish the cross from the rod? I think the answer is plain. When tribulation comes we have but to note whether it is imposed or chosen. ?Blessed are ye, ? said our Lord, ?when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you? (Matthew 5:11). But that is not all. Four other words He added: they are ?falsely, for my sake.? These words show that the suffering must come voluntarily, that it must be chosen in the larger choice of Christ and righteousness. If the accusation men cry against us is true, no blessedness follows.
