Removing the Veil

The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer was published in 1948. But his teaching on how to think about and deal with sin continues to be relevant for today's Christians, and for future generations. Why? Because we are all sinners (Romans 3:23), and we do not consistently seek to confess our sin, rid ourselves of it (Hebrews 12:1-4), or live the life we have been called to live, "But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do" (1 Peter 1:15).

To be holy is to be different or set apart. Is there a noticeable difference in our actions, speech, thoughts, activities, passions, and pursuits from the world around us? Or just a slight one? The battle for our allegiance is fierce (flesh vs. spirit, old man vs. new man, temporal vs. eternal), but God has given us all the resources that we need to go to war--His Word, the Holy Spirit, an open invitation to seek Him in prayer, and fellowship with other like minded believers. The problem is that we don't tap into them, at least not all the time.

Our fleshly desires, the depravity of our minds and our willingness to love the "things" of our world hinder us from growing. So what do we do? WE DIE! Die to ourselves, and live for God (Romans 6:8-14). We have to stop talking about how we want to change or would like to change and just do it. What's the key? It takes discipline, commitment and a targeted, well intentioned approach at each specific sin in our lives. With God's strength, we can do it (Philippians 4:13)!

The following are quotes taken from Tozer's book The Pursuit of God. Specifically, from chapter 3 titled Removing the Veil. I hope you will be just as encouraged and convicted as I was from the words of a man that was truly on fire for God.

--"God wills that we should push on into His presence and live our whole life there. This is to be known to us in conscious experience. It is more than a doctrine to be held; it is a life to be enjoyed every moment of every day."

--"At the heart of the Christian message is God Himself waiting for His redeemed children to push in to conscious awareness of His presence. That type of Christianity which happens now to be the vogue knows this Presence only in theory. It fails to stress the Christian's privilege of present realization. According to its teaching we are in the presence of God positionally, and nothing is said about the need to experience that Presence actually."

--"The world is perishing for lack of the knowledge of God and the church is famishing for want of His presence. The instant cure of most of our religious ills would be to enter the Presence in spiritual experience, to become suddenly aware that we are in God and that God is in us. This would lift us out of our pitiful narrowness and cause our hearts to be enlarged."

--"We sense that the call is for us, but still we fail to draw near, and the years pass and we grow old and tired in the outer courts of the tabernacle. What hinders us?...It is the veil of our fleshly, fallen nature living on, unjudged within us, uncrucified and unrepudiated. It is the close-woven veil of the self-life which we have never truly acknowledged, of which we have been secretly ashamed, and which for these reasons we have never brought to the judgment of the cross."

--"It is not too mysterious, this opaque veil, nor is it hard to identify. We have but to look into our own hearts and we shall see it there, sewn and patched and repaired it may be, but there nevertheless, an enemy to our lives and an effective block to our spiritual progress."

--"This veil is not a beautiful thing and it is not a thing about which we commonly care to talk. But I am addressing the thirsting souls who are determined to follow God, and I know they will not turn back because the way leads temporarily through the blackened hills."

--"To be specific, the self-sins are self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love and a host of others like them. They dwell too deep within us and are too much a part of our natures to come to our attention till the light of God is focused upon them."

--"One should suppose that proper instruction in the doctrines of man's depravity and the necessity for justification through the righteousness of Christ alone would deliver us from the power of the self-sins, but it does not work that way. Self can live unrebuked at the very altar. It can watch the bleeding Victim die and not be in the least affected by what it sees. It can fight for the faith of the reformers and preach eloquently the creed of salvation by grace, and gain strength by its efforts."

--"Self is the opaque veil that hides the face of God from us. It can be removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction. We may as well try to instruct leprosy out of our system. There must be a work of God in destruction before we are free. We must invite the cross to do its deadly work within us. We must bring our self-sins to the cross for judgment. We must prepare ourselves for an ordeal of suffering in some measure like that through which our Saviour passed when He suffered under Pontius Pilate."

--"Let us beware of tinkering with our inner life, hoping ourselves to rend the veil. God must do everything for us. Our part is to yield and trust. We must confess, forsake, repudiate the self-life, and then reckon it crucified. But we must be careful to distinguish lazy "acceptance" from the real work of God."

--"Insist that the work be done in very truth and it will be done. The cross is rough and it is deadly, but it is effective. It does not keep its victim hanging there forever. There comes a moment when its work is finished and the suffering victim dies. After that is resurrection glory and power, and the pain is forgotten for joy that the veil is taken away and we have entered in actual spiritual experience the presence of the living God."

A.W. Tozer