I was reading the biography of Tozer.  Today he is criticized by a lot of preachers primarily because of his family life and his relationships.  He actually believed that, if you are going to be used mightily by God, then you couldn’t be burdened down with friends or spend an unnatural amount of time with your wife and your children.  He believed that, if you would be much for God, then you must be much with God.  Today he would be criticized for that, but he and men like him would lock themselves in their prayer closets, forgo friendships and acquaintances, would travel and be gone for days, weeks, and months at a time preaching the gospel.  For many of the preachers today who would sit back and criticize him for that, I would ask the question: where is your fruit, and is it remaining?  Because it’s by our fruit that we are known.

Do I agree with all of his application?  No, but I would be very careful before I criticized the fruit.  I would be very careful before I criticized the Lord who called him, who had no place to lay His head, and who spent an inordinate amount of time with His Father as it pertained to those around Him.  I think “forsaking all” means all.  You say “Well, not all of us are Tozer and not all of us are Moses not all of us are Paul.”  Understand what I mean when I say this:  God’s hand came upon them, but Moses chose to be Moses and Paul chose to be Paul.  If we are going to see revival, the refreshing of the church, we must come believing for the Breath of God to come upon us as we gather together.  I don’t know about you, but I want to be a better me today than I was last week.  I want to have a greater hunger for the presence of God tomorrow than I have today.  I want to be caught up with that expectation of looking into His face, to see Him as He is, and to be like Him.  Oh, beloved, let’s hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches, and let’s break up the fallow ground until He rains righteousness upon us.  Hallelujah!

Father, we come and we covet Your visitation.  We are not what we should be and we are surely not what we could be.  It’s about choices; it’s about choosing this day whom we will serve.  As You finished this great sermon You said, “He that heareth these words and doeth them is a wise man, who has built his house upon the Rock.”  The rains and floods of persecutions and trials are coming, Lord; they are coming upon us soon.  If we will dig deep into this Rock by obeying what we have heard, not only will we not be cast down, we will not be shaken.  Father, it says that they were astonished at His doctrine.  Help us to dig deeper; help us to obey quickly, and not allow these words that we have heard this morning to be taken out of our hearts.

Let us establish new priorities:  let us fast recreation, playtime, television, computer time, and parties, and shut ourselves in with You to hear what the Spirit of God has to say to His church today.  We are running to and fro in an hour when we need to be quiet.  Help us to be wise men who raise a wise generation as we point them to these real treasures of life.  The pursuit of the other is the broad way of destruction; and though one gains and prospers and has temporal enjoyment, he is in danger of losing his own soul.  Let that be a clear message to all of us, and especially to the generations that are coming should You tarry.  O God, they need Your grace and Your mercy!  Let us be teachers:  for, if we teach these things and do them, we will hear, “Well done.”  That’s our hearts’ desire, Father, in Jesus’ name; amen.