“It is my opinion that the Christian conception of God current in these middle years of the twentieth century is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God and actually to constitute for professed believers something amounting to a moral calamity” (A. W. Tozer).
While Tozer was assuredly correct when he wrote the above statement, things are also worse if not much worse now than they were then. This statement should be declared from every pulpit in the land and then there should be much lamentation and mourning before God. However, when the conception of God is so low even within the professing Church, there is the corresponding hardness of heart and blindness. People are so hard and blind in this day that they have no idea of what Tozer said and is continuing to say in his book. People are so consumed with themselves and their worldly pursuits that they don’t even think of such things. In fact, the thoughts they have of God are limited to what they think God does for them in their pursuit of the world.
Professed believers in the early 21st century have turned the conception of God into little more than a sort of divine helper. Man develops his plan for the growth of the church and then asks God to bless his plans and works. Man wants to see a moral change in the nation so he makes a political plan and asks God to bless his plan. Man wants to build a business or to change his lifestyle so he simply prays and asks God to help him out. In this way it is thought that man prays and then gains the blessings of God. But all that this does is to make God out, at least in conception, to be the helper and enabler of the plans of men.
God is now pursued as One who rewards those who seek Him with large amounts of money. It is no longer thought that to pursue great wealth and possession is the same thing as being worldly, but it is now thought of as a blessing of God. But again, what we see is the conception of God by which He gives things that people desire more than Him. We see that people actually appear to desire material possessions as their greatest love and they seek God in order to obtain those. In this view God is thought to be little more than a benevolent banker. God is thought to be frustrated and thwarted by man at every turn. God is said, as one commercial for a “church” in Topeka, KS said on the radio, to be dependant on preachers. What has happened is that man wants God to bless his plans in all facets of life instead of seeking God for the plans of true wisdom. In other words, God has not become focused and centered on man instead of man being centered on God.
God is thought of as too loving to send anyone to hell. God is thought to help people with their self-esteem and self-worth. God is supposed to help people with their inadequacies. He is supposed to help people in whatever low feeling they have about themselves and to help them in whatever they want to do. He is said to be on a person’s side or team no matter what the person says or does. God has become like man in the modern conception in that man thinks that all things including God is there to focus on and help him to be what he wants and to think of himself as he wishes. So man has turned the biblical concept that God is focused on His own glory to that God serves man for man’s own glory. This is also what is declared from the majority of pulpits across the land, declared in seemingly endless Bible studies, and dispensed in countless counseling situations. It is all an utter travesty.
Instead of all that nonsense, God is utterly sovereign and is under man’s control in no way at all. Man is to seek the will of God and not try to manipulate God to do what man wants. God does all for His own glory and man is to repent of seeking his glory to seeking the glory of God. God does all out of love for His own name and glory and man is to love God with all of his being. It is no wonder that God is turning this generation over to hard hearts because of how they have treated His holy name. It is no wonder that the Church is in such a mess because people have treated God as less than holy and as nothing more than a help to them in earning their way to heaven and developing social clubs. Arthur Pink says this: “How different is the God of the Bible from the God of modern Christendom! The conception of Deity which prevails most widely today, even among those who profess to give heed to the Scriptures, is a miserable caricature, a blasphemous travesty of the Truth. The God of the twentieth century is a helpless, effeminate being who commands the respect of no really thoughtful man. The God of the popular mind is the creation of a maudlin sentimentality. The God of many a present-day pulpit is an object of pity rather than of awe-inspiring reverence” (Sovereignty of God). It is not just that Pink was right in his day and that our day is worse, but he understated the case. Words cannot express the decadent view of God in our day.
God Loves... Himself 
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