Tozer in the Morning – EASTER-AND MISSIONS
Do we really believe that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is something more than making us the “happiest fellows in the Easter parade”? Are we just to listen to the bright cantata and join in singing, “Up from the Grave He Arose,” smell the flowers and go home and forget it? No, certainly not! It is truth and a promise with a specific moral application. The resurrection certainly commands us with all the authority of sovereign obligation-the missionary obligation! I cannot give in to the devil’s principal., deceitful tactic which makes so many Christians satisfied with an “Easter celebration” instead of experiencing the power of Christ’s resurrection. It is the devil’s business to keep Christians mourning and weeping with pity beside the cross instead of demonstrating that Jesus Christ is risen, indeed. When will the Christian church rise up, depending on His promise and power, and get on the offensive for the risen and ascended Savior?
Tozer in the Evening – Christ’s Unique Sacrifice
In a friendly conversation with a Catholic priest I learned from the lips of this appointed spokesman of the Roman Church the philosophy of the Mass.
He started with the blood offering of Abel and traced the practice of propitiatory sacrifice down through the Scriptures to the cross. “There must always be a sacrifice,” he said, “and in the Mass the sacrifice is repeated each time the bread and wine are consecrated on the altar. At each celebration of the Mass the sacrifice of Christ is repeated.”
If the Mass rests upon the notion of the perpetual sacrifice then its foundation is only sand, for the New Testament is very clear that Christ’s sacrifice is a once-for-all act and can never be repeated. Whatever tradition and dogma may say, thus saith the Lord.
And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God (Hebrews 10:10-12).
And if that is not plain enough the inspired writer further says, “Because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (verse 14); and, “where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin” (verse 18).