A Man of God - Part 12

Yes. That's what he said. Well, you think in a... It's not what's just in the book of life, as Tozer said to me one day.

He said, Leonard, I don't think I'm ashamed of what I've done since I was saved. It's what I could have done that troubles me. And not what I did, but why I did it.

God has been a way to mortis. I mean, I heard D. Cameron Morgan say... I had talked with a friend of mine the other day, and he'd been preaching in a church I love to go to, and D. Cameron Morgan said, how do you get on? I said, oh, he said, I enjoyed myself. He said he did.

He enjoyed his oratory. He enjoyed his rapport with the people. He enjoyed his eloquence.

He enjoyed himself. What did God get? The question when I finish a meeting is, I didn't get anything out of this meeting. What did God get out of it? What do people say going out? I think, dear brother, if I was where God wants me to be or where I should be, I would leave a meeting with tears running down my face at the glory of God, or that all these people outside have glued to the TV this afternoon, this Sabbath day, and they're a bit interested in God.

Christ could die on the main street today, it wouldn't interest them at all. But we've got... I think we've got to preach till people know that we mean what we say. We've burned... Edwin Hatch was Chancellor of, I think, St. Mary's College in Oxford.

One of the best guys in England. But one day, even though he had crowds and everything, he got so tired, he went in his office and he wrote that gorgeous hymn, Breathe on me, breath of God, fill me with life anew. And the last sentence, Breathe on me, breath of God, till I am wholly thine.

Till all is earthly part of me glows with thy fire divine. People ask me, how do you... You've been preaching 70 years now, how do you keep an edge? Because I read stories on Revival, because I read the Word of God, and I see what the Apostle did. That Paul can laugh at death, and laugh at hardship, and sit in the loudest prison in the world and tell other people to rejoice.

Or he can give you 2 Corinthians 11 and go down seven times in... In perils of the deep, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils, perils, enough to kill ten men. And glory in tribulation. Doesn't just find grace to get through.

He welcomes it. He said, this is the only way. Because when we get to heaven, dear brother, God isn't going to ask you where your diploma is.

He's not looking for medals, he's looking for scars. Most of this call is also, thank we God, without ceasing. Because when you receive the Word of God which you heard of us, you receive it not as the Word of men, but as it is in truth the Word of God, which effectually worketh also in ye that believe.

Do men not believe this Word that has been written to them? Well, because it doesn't work in us. I say, you stand in the pulpit and preach it, but what's it mean to you? Why does it work out in your life? I mean, you have to drive the biggest car, you have to have this, you have to have the other. I have a five-year-old Lincoln Continental, the small one.

Now people laugh at me for having it. I said, well, I'll swap it for anything else. It's reliable, that's why I like it.

I got it because I'm doing long-distance traveling. I don't need it to shop in. If you want to buy it, buy it.

I'll take an older one. But I said, it doesn't mean that much to me. I said, I haven't bought any clothes for five years.

I bought one pair of trousers. It's just that I used to, almost, I didn't like clothes because I was a tailor before I was sane. I wore the best clothes in the country.

In fact, they used to call me the best dressed man in the whole world. But all that's gone, that's trivial, that's silly looking. I said, all that matters, if you can get nearer to God than I get, tell me how did you get there? That's all I'm concerned about.

Paul isn't concerned about anything. I said, you go to the national convention of your denomination and stand up and say, I've got a glorious text for you. There's a thousand pastors here from our denomination.

I've got a glorious text from you. You're dead. What would they do? They'd glare at you.

I said, Paul could. You're dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. Those that believe you're dead, you preach as though you're dead.

You act as though you're dead. Are you dead to all the world's glamour? Are you dead to the rivalry in your denomination? Are you dead to climbing up the ladder? That's how many preachers wept when Chris Farrell finally decided to have Joel Gregory from Travis Avenue as his assistant. Other men thought, well, I deserve it after him.

Truett was there 45 years. He's been there 42 years. I'm a young man.

I should go in. So what? People ask me, what do you do to be great? I say, wash somebody's feet. Was A.W. Tozer your mentor? What was he like? Well, there were different ways to answer that question, but I'll tell you one thing about him.

It was the same with Martin Lloyd-Jones. I talked with him. G. Campbell Morgan, I listened to him often.

So Martin Lloyd-Jones and George Campbell Morgan and Tozer had one thing in common. When they went to the pulpit, they never raised their finger, never raised their voice. They didn't depend on histrionics to get the message.

Dr. Tozer had the habit of like he'd have his Bible in his hand and say, I'm reading from John 17, 1, and I begin to read. And he'd maybe give a little outline. And then he rocked to and fro like this.

Then suddenly he threw his Bible on the pulpit. At that moment, he was airborne. It's like a plane getting off the runway, and off he went.

And he wasn't the greatest preacher I'd heard in my life, but he had the most intimacy with God. Like he read all the mystics, you know. He could quote Ladder of Sanctity, or he could quote Madame Guine, or Faber, or anybody.

And he could put his finger on the whole lot and tell you how he'd read them. His emphasis was the inner man, the inner man, you know. And he was against showmanship.

He wouldn't let anybody play a trumpet on his platform. Hardly let anybody sing unless they sang a hymn and knew what it was. And he had a fellow called Mac something.

Anyhow, he introduced... Well, before that, Tozer got an old Methodist head book and soaked himself in it while this fellow came on. And I can't remember his name, Mac. And he introduced him, and he got a lot of old Methodist head books.

So they printed the sheets, and they sang hymns like, And can it be that I should gain in all those? And Tozer reveled in that kind of thing. He wouldn't have a concert in the place. He wouldn't have any special meetings.

I went, and we had two weeks, three weekends, actually. And he said, This is the greatest revival in the history of this church. We had the altars open until midnight, people weeping and seeking God and coming right across town.

Well, here's the difference. You've got a moody Bible in the studio, and next door is a moody church. The students only had to come out of here into there.

And yet they crossed the town when ice churned up by the cars, and it froze. And people's ankles were snapping, getting off the buses. And they'd rather come across town in a car or walk, some of them, and hear Tozer than go next door to hear whether there was preacher that blogs them part of the time.

And, well, I'll tell you where he was. He was in that place that three times they begged him to become the president of the Christian Mission of Ironford. Everybody wants that.

He turned it down again and again. God didn't ask me to kiss babies and sit in council meetings. My business is the Word of God.

And he would turn them away and not even... But it's a miser with his time. I was privileged to spend a lot of time with him.