Tozer in the Morning – Mired in the “Rote”
. . . Everybody knows just what will happen, and this has become our deadliest enemy. We blame the devil, the “last days” and anything else we can think of, but the greatest enemy is not outside of us. It is within–it is an attitude of accepting things as they are. We believe that what was must always determine what will be, and as a result we are not growing in expectation. As soon as someone begins talking like this, the Lord’s people respond by getting busy. What I am talking about, however, is internal. It is a matter of the soul and mind that ultimately determines our conduct. Let me show you the progressive stages. I begin with what I will call the rote. This is repetition without feeling. If someday someone would read the Scripture and believe it and would believe what is sung in the great Christian hymns, there would be a blessed spiritual revolution underway in a short time. But too many are caught up in the rote, repeating without feeling, without meaning, without wonder and without any happy surprises or expectations. In our services God cannot get in because we have it all fixed up for Him. We say, “Lord, we are going to have it this way. Now kindly bless our plans.” We repeat without feeling, we repeat without meaning, we sing without wonder, and we listen without surprise. That is my description of the rote.
Tozer in the Evening – AUTHORITY IN PREACHING
Because we are Christians who believe the inspired Word of God and because we believe that the Holy Spirit is the abiding third person of the Trinity, there should be more divine authority in our preaching ministries. A preacher of this gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ should have the authority of God upon him, so that he makes the people responsible to listen to him. When they will not listen to him, they are accountable to God for turning away from the divine Word. A preacher under God’s unction should reign from his pulpit as a king from his throne. He should not reign by law or by regulation or by man’s authority. He ought to reign by moral ascendancy! The divine authority is missing from many pulpits. We have “tabby cats” with their claws carefully trimmed in the seminary, so they can paw over the congregations and never scratch them at all! The Holy Spirit will sharpen the arrows of the man of God who preaches the whole counsel of God!