Referring to the message of his book, The Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer says this: “It is called forth by a condition which has existed in the Church for some years and is steadily growing worse. I refer to the loss of the concept of majesty from the popular religious mind. 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. This she has done not deliberately, but little by little and without her knowledge; and her very unawareness only makes her situation all the more tragic.” This book was originally published in 1961. What Tozer wrote about is far worse now than when he first wrote about it.
In this article we will focus on how “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.” If the Church does indeed have one so low and ignoble as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshipping men, then how unworthy is it of the infinite God of all glory. Could it be true that the Church in our day of so much technology that we have surrendered the lofty concept of God? Is the Church so focused on being relevant with technology and science that it has lost its true relevance? Without any real question the lofty concept of God is gone within the Church today. Did the Church really surrender that concept? Why did it do that?
The Church has indeed given up any real concept of God. In fact, it could be argued that the Church has such a low view of God that it is really being given over to the practice of idolatry. In 1930 Arthur Pink wrote in his introduction to The Sovereignty of God that “more and more men are men in their philosophisings and theorisings, relegating God to the background.” Man has forgotten that all the nations are as nothing before Him and are as a drop from a bucket (Isa 40:15-18). Man has forgotten that it is God who upholds all things by the power of His word. Man has forgotten that all things belong to God and every knee will bow before Him on judgment day.
To quote Arthur Pink again, from his book on the attributes of God, “The “god” of this twentieth century no more resembles the Supreme Sovereign of Holy Writ than does the dim flickering of a candle the glory of the midday sun. The “god” who is now talked about in the average pulpit, spoken of in the ordinary Sunday School, mentioned in much of the religious literature of the day, and preached in most of the so-called Bible Conferences is the figment of human imagination, an invention of maudlin sentimentality. The heathen outside of the pale of Christendom form “gods” out of wood and stone, while the millions of heathen inside Christendom manufacture a “god” out of their own carnal mind. In reality, they are but atheists, for there is no other possible alternative between an absolutely supreme God, and no God at all.”
The Church, it appears to me, wants to be relevant and respectable in the world. It wants to get along with the world and it wants to be tolerant of the world. When it does that, it inevitably gives up what makes the Church the true Church. The world is at enmity with God and it hates God. So the Church must make up a nice, warm and friendly God in order to maintain respectability with the world. The world is not really offended by a God who loves all equally and is something like Rodney King who just wants people to get along. The world can tolerate those who are nice to them and make no demands on their ownership of self and their right to do as they please. When the Church, however, begins to declare a sovereign God who demands that people repent and that He owns all things including them, the world gets upset.
The Church has surrendered its once lofty concept of God in order to be like the world. How utterly damning it is that the Church has chosen to be like the world rather than to be like God. How despicable it is that the Church has chosen the favor of the world rather than the favor of God. Should the Church complain that God has left when the Church has chosen the enemies of God over God? Should the Church use the methods of God’s enemy (the world) in order to obtain the blessings of God? Maybe, just maybe what the Church needs to do is to fall on its face with broken hearts and plead for the return of the living God. Only when the Church has been restored to where God’s majesty shines through it will the Church be the Church. The way things are now, the Church is unworthy of thinking, worshipping men. It is also, even infinitely more importantly, unworthy of the living God.
God Loves... Himself 
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