1And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. 2Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God. 3Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. 4Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy. 5He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels. 6He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
Sermons by A.W. Tozer (April 21, 1897 – May 12, 1963)
Because A.W. Tozer lived in the presence of God he saw clearly and he spoke as a prophet to the church. He sought for God’s honor with the zeal of Elijah and mourned with Jeremiah at the apostasy of God’s people. But he was not a prophet of despair. His writings are messages of concern. They expose the weaknesses of the church and denounce compromise. They warn and exhort. But they are messages of hope as well, for God is always there, ever faithful to restore and to fulfill His Word to those who hear and obey.
Shortly before his death, Tozer wrote: “Another kind of religious leader must arise among us. He must be of the old prophet type, a man who has seen visions of God and has heard a voice from the Throne.” I am convinced that Aiden Wilson Tozer himself was such a man.
In his 1948 classic The Pursuit of God, Tozer challenged the stiff and wooden quality of many Christian lives. He noted: “Complacency is the deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people.” Indeed, Tozer believed that thirst for God was the sign of coming revival.
Tozer’s passion for a deeper knowledge of God led him to study the great devotional writers of the past. “These people know God, and I want to know what they know about God and how they came to know it,” he observed. Prayer and worship were the hallmarks of his life. One biographer states that his preaching as well as his writings were simply an extension of his prayer life. Another noted that Tozer spent more time on his knees than at his desk.
He called for a return to astonishment and wonder at the majesty of God. Then he added: “The God of the modern evangelical rarely astonishes anybody. He manages to stay pretty much within the constitution;very well-behaved, very denominational and very much one of us.”
In modern evangelicalism, contended Tozer, we work, we have our agendas–in fact, we have almost everything except the spirit of true worship. He defined worship as a humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe, astonished wonder and overpowering love in the presence of the unspeakable Majesty. He reminded the pastors, “We’re here to be worshippers first and workers only second; Out of enraptured, admiring, adoring souls God does His work. The work done by a worshipper will have eternity in it.”
Tozer believed that worship rises and falls with our concept of God and that if there was one terrible disease in the modern church, it was that we do not see God as great as He is: “We’re too familiar with God. …that is why I do not believe in these half-converted cowboys who call God `the Man Upstairs’.”
In the Preface to The Knowledge of the Holy, his last book, Tozer stated how important our view of God is: “The church has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and has substituted for it one so low, so ignoble as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshipping men. .. A whole new philosophy of the Christian life has resulted from this one basic error.”
Tozer addressed the state of the evangelical church even more bluntly in Keys to the Deeper Life. In a chapter entitled “No Revival Without Reformation”, he stated: “A widespread revival of the kind of Christianity we know today in America might prove to be a moral tragedy from which we would not recover in a hundred years.” The imperative need of the day, he affirmed, was not simply revival but a radical reformation that went to the root of our moral and spiritual maladies: “Prayer for revival will prevail when it is accompanied by radical amendment of life; not before.” -Walter Unger
9And Moses said unto Joshua, Choose us out men, and go out, fight with Amalek: to morrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in mine hand.
The descendant of several generations of Independent ministers, he was born at Kelvedon, Essex, and became a Baptist in 1850. In the same year he preached his first sermon, and in 1852 he was appointed paster of the Baptist congregation at Waterbeach. In 1854 he went to Southwark, where his sermons drew such crowds that a new church, the Metropolitan Tabernacle in Newington Causeway, had to be built for him. Apart from his preaching activites he founded a pastors’ college, an orphanage, and a colportage association for the propagation of uplifting literature. Spurgeon was a strong Calvinist. He had a controversy in 1864 with the Evangelical party of the Church of England for remaining in a Church that taught Baptismal Regeneration, and also estranged considerable sections of his own community by rigid opposition to the more liberal methods of Biblical exegesis. These differences led to a rupture with the Baptist Union in 1887. He owed his fame as a preacher to his great oratorical gifts, humour, and shrewd common sense, which showed itself especially in his treatment of contemporary problems. Among his works are The Saint and his Saviour (1857), Commenting and Commentaries (1876) and numerous volumes of sermons (translated into many languages).
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All of Thomas Watson’s writings and sermons are replete with sound doctrine, practical wisdom, and heart-searching application. His profound spirituality, gripping remarks, practical illustrations, and beauty of expression make him one of the most irresistible of the Puritans.
He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he was noted for remarkably hard study. In 1646 he was commenced a sixteen year pastorate at St. Stephen’s Walbrook. In 1651 he was imprisoned briefly with some other ministers for his share in Christopher Love’s plot to recall Charles II. He was released on 30th June,1652, and was formally reinstated vicar of St. Stephen’s Walbrook. He obtained great fame and popularity as preacher until the Restoration, when he was ejected for nonconformity. Notwithstanding the rigor of the acts against dissenters, Watson continued to exercise his ministry privately as he found opportunity. Upon the Declaration of Indulgence in 1672 he obtained a license for the great hall in Crosby House. After preaching there for several years, his health gave way, and he retired to Barnston in Essex, where he died suddenly while praying in secret. He was buried on 28th July, 1686.
Amos 4:11 I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.
2 Corinthians 2:11 Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.
Richard Baxter – English puritan divine (1615-1691) was a prominent English churchman of the 1600s. He was a peacemaker who sought unity among Protestants, and yet he was a highly independent thinker and at the center of every major controversy in England during his lifetime.
Born in Rowton to parents who undervalued education, Baxter was largely self-taught. He eventually studied at a free school, then at royal court, where he became disgusted at what he saw as frivolity. He left to study divinity, and at age 23, he was ordained into the Church of England. Within the Anglican church, Baxter found common ground with the Puritans, a growing faction who opposed the church’s episcopacy and was itself breaking into factions. Baxter, for his part, did his best to avoid the disputes between Anglicans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and other denominations, even convincing local ministers to cooperate in some pastoral matters. “In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity,” he was fond of saying.
The interest in cooperation was not due to a lack of conviction. On the contrary, Baxter was opinionated in his theology, which was not quite Separatist and not quite Conformist. Among his more than 200 works are long, controversial discourses on doctrine. Still, he believed society was a large family under a loving father, and in his theology, he tried to cut between the extremes. He eventually registered himself as “a mere Nonconformist” (“Nonconformist” was a technical term meaning “not Anglican”), breaking with the Church of England mainly because of the lack of power it gave parish clergy.
Baxter also found himself as a peacemaker during the English Civil Wars. He believed in monarchy, but a limited one. He served as a chaplain for the parliamentary army, but then helped to bring about the restoration of the king. Yet as a moderate, Baxter found himself the target of both extremes. He was still irritated with the episcopacy in 1660, when he was offered the bishopric of Hereford, so he declined it. As a result, he was barred from ecclesiastical office and not permitted to return to Kidderminster, nor was he allowed to preach. Between 1662 and 1688 (when James II was overthrown), he was persecuted and was imprisoned for 18 months, and he was forced to sell two extensive libraries. Still, he continued to preach: “I preached as never sure to preach again,” he wrote, “and as a dying man to dying men.”
Baxter became even better known for his prolific writing. His devotional classic The Saints’ Everlasting Rest was one of the most widely read books of the century. When asked what deviations should be permitted from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, he created an entirely new one, called Reformed Liturgy, in two weeks. His Christian Directory contains over one million words. His autobiography and his pastoral guide, The Reformed Pastor, are still widely read today.
Joseph Alleine was born in Devizes, Wiltshire, in 1633. He loved and served the Lord from childhood. From eleven years of age onward, “the whole course of his youth was an even-spun thread of godly conversation,” wrote one observer. The times, however, are perilous. Charles I was beheaded and his son, Charles II, at the head of a Scottish army, is defeated by Cromwell’s Parliamentarians at Worcester as young Joseph Alleine sets off for Corpus Christi College. At Oxford, Alleine would sit at the feet of such divines as John Owen and Thomas Goodwin.
Alleine first worked as a college tutor, then later as a chaplain, devoting considerable time to preaching in the county jail, visiting the sick, and relieving the poor.
Alleine would often rise early in the morning, lamenting that others were already at work before he prayed to his Master. His wife commented that he “would be much troubled if he heard smiths or other craftsmen at work at their trades, before he was at communion with God: saying to me often, ‘How this noise shames me! Doth not my Master deserve more than theirs?'” Alleine would customarily have private devotions and meditation upon God from 4 to 8 A.M.
Richard Baxter was impressed with Alleine’s “great ministerial skillfulness in the public explication and application of the Scriptures-so melting, so convincing, so powerful.” He was an excellent teacher who devoted a good part of most weekdays to teaching his people from the Shorter Catechism.
After he was ejected for nonconformity in 1662 along with most of his Puritan associates, Alleine actually increased his preaching. Believing his time was short, he averaged one or two sermons each day for the next nine months, until he was arrested and cast into prison. The evening prior to his arrest, he had preached and prayed with his people for three hours, declaring, “Glory be to God that hath accounted me worthy to suffer for His gospel!” His prison became a pulpit as he preached to crowds through the bars. Released a year later, he continued preaching. He was arrested a second time while preaching on July 10, 1666, and imprisoned again.
Alleine was released after this second imprisonment and spent his last years in danger of further arrest. His health eventually gave way under the hardship. He died at age thirty-four (1668) in full assurance of faith and with much thanksgiving and praise to God. His last words were: “Christ is mine, and I am His-His by covenant.”
Alleine’s Alarm to the Unconverted, the best known of his nineteen treatises, was first printed in 1671.
Alleine’s model of Puritan evangelism is well suited to correct contemporary distortions of the Gospel. For example, he shows us that dividing the offices and benefits of Christ is not a new idea. The true convert is willing to receive Christ, both as a Savior from sin and as Lord of one’s life. He writes, “All of Christ is accepted by the sincere convert. He loves not only the wages but the work of Christ, not only the benefits but the burden of Christ. He takes up the commands of Christ, yea, the cross of Christ. The unsound convert takes Christ by halves. He is all for the salvation of Christ, but he is not for sanctification. He is for the privileges, but does not appropriate the person of Christ. He divides the offices and benefits of Christ. This is an error in the foundation. Whoever loves life, let him beware here. It is an undoing mistake, of which you have often been warned, and yet none is more common” (p. 45).
This book greatly influenced the evangelistic approach of famous preachers such as George Whitefield and Charles Spurgeon.
Iain Murray writes, “Never did the evangel of Jesus Christ burn more fervently in any English heart!”. When Alexander Duff (who devoted his life to mission work in India) read Alleine’s book, he wrote, “What inextinguishable zeal! What unquenchable thirstings after the conversion of lost sinners! What unslumbering watchfulness in warning and edifying saints! What profound humility and self-abasement in the sight of God! What patience and forbearance, what meekness and generosity, what affability and moderation! What triumphant faith-what tranquil, yet rapturous joy!” No wonder John Wesley called Alleine “the English Rutherford.”
Joseph Alleine (1633-1668) had unsurpassed zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of sinners. As one of his contemporaries said, “He was infinitely and insatiably greedy of the conversion of souls, wherein he had no small success.” May the challenges of his life and ministry encourage us to emulate his zeal for the Lord.
William Law – A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life – How to Increase the Spirit…(a) (20 of 38)
William Law (1686 — 9 April 1761) was born at King’s Cliffe, Northamptonshire. In 1705 he entered as a student at Emmanuel College, Cambridge; in 1711 he was elected fellow of his college and was ordained. He resided at Cambridge, teaching and taking occasional duty until the accession of George I., when his conscience forbade him to take the oaths of allegiance to the new government and of abjuration of the Stuarts. His Jacobitism had already been betrayed in a tripos speech which brought him into trouble; and he was now deprived of his fellowship and became a non-juror.
For the next few years he is said to have been a curate in London. By 1727 he was domiciled with Edward Gibbon (1666-1736) at Putney as tutor to his son Edward, father of the historian, who says that Law became “the much honoured friend and spiritual director of the whole family.” In the same year he accompanied his pupil to Cambridge, and resided with him as governor, in term time, for the next four years. His pupil then went abroad, but Law was left at Putney, where he remained in Gibbon’s house for more than ten years, acting as a religious guide not only to the family but to a number of earnest-minded folk who came to consult him. The most eminent of these were the two brothers John and Charles Wesley. The household was dispersed in 1737. Law was parted from his friends, and in 1740 retired to King’s Cliffe, where he had inherited from his father a house and a small property. There he was presently joined by two ladies: Mrs Hutcheson, the rich widow of an old friend, who recommended her on his death-bed to place herself under Law’s spiritual guidance, and Miss Hester Gibbon, sister to his late pupil. This curious trio lived for twenty-one years a life wholly given to devotion, study and charity, until the death of Law on the 9th of April 1761.
Law wrote in three areas. In the area of controversial writings the first was Three Letters to the Bishop of Bangor (1717), which were considered by friend and foe alike as one of the most powerful contributions to the Bangorian controversy on the high church side. His Letters to a Lady inclined to enter the Church of Rome are excellent specimens of the attitude of a high Anglican towards Romanism. His controversial writings have not received due recognition, partly because they were opposed to the drift of his times, partly because of his success in other fields.
In the area of practical divinity he wrote such works as The Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1728), together with its predecessor, A Treatise of Christian Perfection (1726), which deeply influenced the chief actors in the great Evangelical revival. The Serious Call affected others quite as deeply. Samuel Johnson, Gibbon, Lord Lyttelton and Bishop Horne all spoke enthusiastically of its merits; and it is still the only work by which its author is popularly known. It has high merits of style, being lucid and pointed to a degree.
Though the least popular, by far the most interesting, original and suggestive of all Law’s works are those which he wrote on mysticism in his later years, after he had become an enthusiastic admirer (not a disciple) of Jacob Boehme, the Teutonic theosophist. From his earliest years he had been deeply impressed with the piety, beauty and thoughtfulness of the writings of the Christian mystics, but it was not till after his accidental meeting with the works of Boehme, about 1734, that pronounced mysticism appeared in his works. Law’s mystic tendencies divorced him from the practical minded Wesley. These include The Spirit of Prayer (1752); The Way to Divine Knowledge (1752); The Spirit of Love (1754); A Dialogue between a Methodist and a Churchman (1760 ); and An Humble, Earnest and Affectionate Address to the Clergy (1761).
Romans 5:3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope.
James Russell Miller was born on March 20, 1840 at Frankfort Springs, Pennsylvania and died on July 2, 1912. Besides authoring over 80 books, booklets, and pamphlets, Dr. J.R. Miller was the Editorial Superintendent of the Presbyterian Board of Publication and a very active pastor in a succession of churches.
The crucible of J.R. Miller’s education was his service with the United States Christian Commission, an agency set up to minister to the troops, during the civil war. When the war ended Miller completed his theological studies and was ordained and installed on September 11, 1867. On June 22, 1870, when he was thirty, he married Miss Louise E. King.
The end of life on earth came without warning on the afternoon of July 2, 1912. JR’s wife, Louise Miller, and their only daughter, Mary Wanamaker Miller (Mrs. W.B. Mount), were present, but it was impossible to summon the sons — William King Miller and Russell King Miller. One moment Dr. Miller seemed to be resting quietly; the next he was at rest.
JR Miller DD was one of the best selling Christian authors of his era. Rev. Miller’s books had a total circulation of over two million copies during his lifetime and in 1911 the Presbyterian Board of Publication, under his direction, published over 66 million copies of its periodicals.
“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him (I John 2:15).
Horatius Bonar – (1808-1889), Scottish churchman and poet
Horatius Bonar had a passionate heart for revival and was a friend and supporter of several revivalists, He was brother to the more well-known Andrew Bonar, and with him defended D. L. Moody’s evangelistic ministry in Scotland. He authored a couple of excellent revival works, one including over a hundred biographical sketches and the other an addendum to Rev. John Gillies’ Historical Collections bringing it up to date.
He was a powerful soul-winner and is well qualified to pen his brief, but illuminating study of the character of true revivalists.
Horatius was in fact one of eleven children, and of these an older brother, John James, and a younger, Andrew, also became ministers and were all closely involved, together with Thomas Chalmers, William C. Burns and Robert Murray M’Cheyne, in the important spiritual movements which affected many places in Scotland in the 1830s and 1840s.
In the controversy known as the “Great Disruption,” Horatius stood firmly with the evangelical ministers and elders who left the Church of Scotland’s General Assembly in May 1843 and formed the new Free Church of Scotland. By this time he had started to write hymns, some of which appeared in a collection he published in 1845, but typically, his compositions were not named. His gifts for expressing theological truths in fluent verse form are evident in all his best-known hymns, but in addition he was also blessed with a deep understanding of doctrinal principles.
Examples of the hymns he composed on the fundamental doctrines include, “Glory be to God the Father”…..on the Trinity. “0 Love of God, how strong and true”…..on Redemption. “Light of the world,” – “Rejoice and be glad” – “Done is the work” on the Person and Work of Christ. “Come Lord and tarry not,” on His Second Coming, while the hymn “Blessed be God, our God!” conveys a sweeping survey of Justification and Sanctification.
In all this activity, his pastoral work and preaching were never neglected and after almost twenty years laboring in the Scottish Borders at Kelso, Bonar moved back to Edinburgh in 1866 to be minister at the Chalmers Memorial Chapel (now renamed St. Catherine’s Argyle Church). He continued his ministry for a further twenty years helping to arrange D.L. Moody’s meetings in Edinburgh in 1873 and being appointed moderator of the Free Church ten years later. His health declined by 1887, but he was approaching the age of eighty when he preached in his church for the last time, and he died on 31 May 1889.
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