Mystic and Prophet

by James L. Snyder

"Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones and I were discussing the mystics over dinner one evening and he related an interesting experience. With his permission I repeat it here.
"'Dr. Tozer and I shared a conference years ago,' he said, 'and I appreciated his ministry and his fellowship very much. One day he said to me, "Lloyd-Jones, you and I hold just about the same position on spiritual matters, but we have come to this position by different routes." '
"'How do you mean?' I asked.
"'Well,' Tozer replied, 'you came by way of the Puritans and I came by way of the mystics.' And, you know, he was right!"

Warren W. Wiersbe
Walking With The Giants


TOZER'S PASSION FOR GOD LED HIM to the Christian mystics. In his day their writings were not popular, even among the clergy. But Tozer discovered that these great souls, however flawed their theology, were uncontrollably in love with God. His own pursuit of God put him in their debt.
The writings of these Christian mystics Tozer wove like threads of silver and gold into the fabric of his discourses. He cited them, paraphrased them, imitated them. He breathed their spirit, he relied upon their support. "These people," he would say, "know God, and I want to know what they know about God and how they came to know it." He so identified with the struggles and triumphs of certain devotional writers that many people referred to him, also, as a mystic-a label to which he never objected.

Utter devotion to God

Tozer's list of these "friends of God" grew with the years. Nothing delighted him more than to discover some long forgotten devotional writer, and he was always eager to introduce these discoveries to others. His admiration for their writings was not an endorsement of everything they did or taught, he was careful to point out. It was their utter devotion to God and their ability to share their spiritual insights that he valued.
Once in a sermon, Tozer referred to Lady Julian of Norwich as his girlfriend. The statement raised many eyebrows. "I think," Tozer explained, "that anyone who has been dead for more than 500 years is safe to be called a girlfriend." He discovered in her writings an attitude and passion for God that corresponded with his own spiritual quest.

"The word mystic," Tozer explains in his introduction to The Christian Book of Mystical Verse, "refers to that personal spiritual experience common to the saints of Bible times and well known to multitudes of people in the postbiblical 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.

"[The mystic] 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 knowing that which passes knowledge."

The word mystic did not scare Tozer. The term mysticism simply means "the practice of the presence of God," the belief that the heart can commune with God directly, moment by moment, without the aid of outward ritual. He saw this belief at the very core of real Christianity, the sweetest and most soul-satisfying experience a child of God can know.

Tozer was an enthusiastic admirer of Francois de Salignac de la Mothe Fenelon, the seventeenth-century French saint whose eloquent sermons contributed greatly to the spiritual education of his contemporaries and whose generosity did much to mitigate the sufferings caused by the war of the Spanish-French Succession.

Fenelon was a man who knew God, who lived in Him as a bird lives in the air. Providentially, he was endowed with the ability to lead others into the same kind of life. In Fenelon there was no trace of the morbidity that has marked some of the men and women who have be known as mystics.




Encouraged others to read mystics

When Harper & Row republished Fenelon's Christian Counsel under the title Christian Perfection, Tozer was delighted. He wrote an article on the subject, urging Alliance Life readers to secure a copy. "Come [to the book]," he said, "with a spirit of longing. Without strong desire nothing will do you much good. Be determined to know God. Read only after prayer and meditation on the Word itself. The heart must be readied for this book, otherwise it will be like any other and have little effect.

"Come in an attitude of devotion, in silence and humble expectation. If possible, get alone to read it. The presence of even the dearest friend often distracts the heart and prevents complete concentration. Get surrendering and consecrating done before coming to Fenelon; he begins where others leave off. Be in earnest. Fenelon assumes the seriousness of his readers. If anyone should be infected with the strange notion that religion should afford amusement as well as salvation, let him or her pass Fenelon by. "This book is for the person who thirsts after God. . . Never read more than one chapter a day. It would be a mistake to hurry through the book. It is to be studied, meditated on, marked, prayed over and returned to as often and as long as it continues to minister to the soul."

For inner nourishment, Tozer turned constantly to these masters of the inner life. He sat long and lovingly at the feet of these saintly teachers drawing water from their wells with reverence and gratitude. He lifted thankful eyes to God for the men and women who taught him to desire the better way: Nicholas Herman of Lorriane, Nicholas of Cusa, Meister Eckhart, Frederick William Faber, Madame Jeanne Guyon. Only two stipulations did Tozer make: that his teachers must know God, as Carlyle said, "otherwise than by hearsay," and that Christ must be all in all to them.

Tozer discovered that the companionship of Christ had to be cultivated. That is why he withdrew so often and spent so much time alone. "You can be straight as a gun barrel theologically," Tozer often remarked, "and as empty as one spiritually." Perhaps that was why his emphasis was not on systematic theology but on a personal relationship with God. For him it was a relationship so real, so overpowering as to utterly captivate his attention. He longed for what he fondly referred to as a God-conscious soul-a heart aflame for God.

But the pursuit of God had its counterpart in proclamation "Years ago," Tozer once said, "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 people."

A call to modern-day Prophets

In frequent lectures to young preachers he sought for those who would join his "Fellowship Of the Burning Heart," who would pay the price and, like himself, take mystical approach to the ministry. He issued a distinct call for modern-day prophets.

Tozer recognized there are in the church today many good men of spotless life-splendid, Spirit-filled teachers. "I'm profoundly grateful for these men and have benefited from their ministry," he would say. "But I believe the times call for a few men who will be specially anointed and endued with gifts peculiarly suited to the needs of this hour. These men will know the mind of God for their day and will speak with calm assurance. They will be in one sense prophets to their generation."

"It will cost you everything to follow the Lord," Tozer told these young men, "and it will cost you more to be God's man for the hour. Anybody can go around and teach the Bible. Many do it and do it do well. Many pastors do well in building up a congregation by Bible teaching, and we need Bible teaching and Bible teachers. But there is a tremendous need for prophets in each generation. These are the spiritual originals, the God-intoxicated few, who, in every age, have spoken God's clear message into the duller ears of the multitudes."

Tozer emphasized the importance of teaching people how to worship God. "Lead them," he advised, away from the frivolous to a meaningful, dignified worship service. Teach them to sing some of the old hymns of the church-hymns that glorify God, hymns with some meaning to them."

Once at a Bible conference he testified to a spiritual experience he had as a young preacher. "A preacher friend joined me for a walk out in the woods for private Bible reading and prayer. He stopped at a log and, if I know him, probably fell asleep. I went on a little farther, as Jesus did, and knelt down and began to read my Bible. I was reading about the camp of Israel in the wilderness and how God laid it out in a beautiful diamond pattern. All at once I saw God as I never saw Him before. In that wooded sanctuary I fell on my face and worshipped. Since that experience, I have lost all interest in cheap religious thrills. The vacuous religious choruses we sing hold no attraction for me. I came face-to-face with the sovereign God, and since that time only God has mattered in my life."

In his early ministry Tozer recognized that the anointing oil of the prophet was upon him. It humbled him, but more than that it drove him to his knees. Often during the early years in Chicago he would take a morning streetcar out to Lake Michigan, only his Bible with him, and spend the day in solitude with God.
Tozer could speak prophetically because he had encountered God. He earned his reputation as a twentieth century prophet and functioned, as someone observed, as the "conscience of evangelicalism" not only in his own generation but for the generations that have succeeded him.

PRAYER

O God and Father, I repent of my sinful preoccupation with visible things. The world has been too much with me. Thou hast been here and I knew it not. I have been blind to Thy presence. Open my eyes that I may behold Thee in and around me. For Christ's sake. Amen.

"The Universal Presence"
The Pursuit of God

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