Before the Christian Church goes into eclipse anywhere there must first be a corrupting of her simple basic theology. She simply gets a wrong answer to the question, ‘What is God like?’ and goes on from there. Though she may continue to cling to a sound nominal creed, her practical working creed has become false. The masses of her adherents come to believe that God is different from what He actually is; and that is heresy of the most insidious and deadly kind
Interpretation
The quote warns that a decline in the church's fundamental beliefs leads to a distorted understanding of God.
Aiden Wilson Tozer emphasizes that before any significant decline in the Christian Church occurs, it first experiences a corruption of its basic theology. This distortion starts with an incorrect understanding of God's nature, which ultimately affects the beliefs of its members, leading to a form of heresy that is both dangerous and deceptive, as they may continue to hold onto the outward expressions of faith while their true understanding is flawed.
In practice
During a sermon on faith and theology.
Peace of heart that is won by refusing to bear the common yoke of human sympathy is a peace unworthy of a Christian. To seek tranquility by stopping our ears to the cries of human pain is to make ourselves not Christian but a kind of degenerate stoic having no relation either to stoicism or Christianity.
The average Christian is so cold and so contented with His wretched condition that there is no vacuum of desire into which the blessed Spirit can rush in satisfying fullness.
Let a man set his heart only on doing the will of God and he is instantly free. If we understand our first and sole duty to consist of loving God supremely and loving everyone, even our enemies, for God's dear sake, then we can enjoy spiritual tranquility under every circumstance.
The church that can't worship must be entertained. And leaders who can't lead a church to worship must provide the entertainment.
People who are crucified with Christ have three distinct marks: 1. they are facing only one direction, 2. they can never turn back, and 3. they no longer have plans of their own.
Nothing that God has ever said about Himself will be modified; nothing the inspired prophets and apostles have said about Him will be rescinded. His immutability guarantees this.
Mind is the absence of meditation. The moment meditation arises in you, mind is found nowhere.
The roles of art, morality, religion, political faith, science itself are not to repair organic exhaustion nor to provide sound functioning of the organs. All this supraphysical life is built and expanded not because of the demands of the cosmic environment but because of the demands of the social environment.
Stereotypes should never influence policy or public opinion.
Think not thy time short in this world, since the world itself is not long. The created world is but a small parenthesis in eternity, and a short interposition, for a time, between such a state of duration as was before it and may be after it.
Down through the ages, there has always been the spiritual path. It's been passed on - it always will be - and if anybody ever wants it in any age, it's always there.
Art thou angry with him whose armpits stink? Art thou angry with him whose mouth smells foul?
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