Articles
Revival: God in Our Midst
by A.W.Tozer on February 18, 2020
Revival: God In Our Midst
By A.W.Tozer
“And He said, "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest."Then he said to Him, "If Your Presence does not go with us, do notbring us up from here." -Exodus 33:14-15
It was this (the manifest presence of God) that filled with abiding wonder the first members of the Church of Christ. The solemn delight which those early disciples knew sprang straight from the conviction that there is One in the midst of them. They knew that the Majesty in the heavens were confronting them on earth: They were in the very Presence of God. And the power of that conviction to arrest attention and hold it for a lifetime, to elevate, to transform, to fill with uncontrollable moral happiness, to send men singing to prison and to death, has been one of the wonders in history and a marvel of the world.
In what I have to say I may not be joined by any ground swell ofpublic opinion, but I have a charge to make against the church. We are not consciously aware of God in our midst. We do not seem to sense the tragedy of having almost completely lost the awareness of His Presence...
Revival and blessing come to the church when we stop looking at apicture of God and look at God Himself. Revival comes when, no longer satisfied just to know about a God in history, we meet the conditions of finding Him in living, personal experience....
We desperately need a divine visitation-for our situation will never be cured by sermons! It will never be cured until the Church of Christ has suddenly been confronted with what one man called the mysterium tremendium-the fearful mystery that is God, the fearful majesty that is God. This is what the Holy Spirit does. He brings the wonderful mystery that is God to us, and presents Him to the human spirit.
We need a revival! We need a revival of consecration to death, a revival of happy abandonment to the will of God that will laugh at sacrifice and count it a privilege to bear the cross through the heat and burden of the day. May God raise up a people who will consult their pleasures less and the great need more.
How much does a revival cost? Absolutely nothing and absolutely everything-that is how much it will cost. It will cost not one dime, and it will cost everything we have.
The Counselor, 66-67
Men Who Met God, 121-122,127.
God Tells the Man Who Cares, 159-160.
Rut, Rot or Revival: The Condition of the Church, 158-159.
The Pursuit of Man.
"Oh Lord, show me Your glory. I don't want to be satisfied with justa second-hand picture of You; I want to sense Your living presencewith me today. I long to know You. Amen."