The Overcomer Trust

By A.W.Tozer.

Mary and Joseph, with a number of friends and relatives, were travelling back home from Jerusalem and, supposing the young Jesus to be in the company, went a whole day’s journey before discovering that He had been left behind.

They assumed that what they wanted to believe was so in fact. They took too much for granted. A simple check at the start of the journey would have saved them fear and uncertainty and two days unnecessary travel.

Theirs was a pardonable mistake but it is one that we ourselves are in danger of making. Some Christians are in danger of ‘travelling home’ supposing things which may not be true. We had better check before we go any further. Our failure to do so could have more serious consequences than those suffered by Mary and Joseph.

There is the danger that we take Christ for granted. We “suppose” that because we hold New Testament beliefs we are therefore New Testament Christians, but it does not follow. The devil is a better theologian than any of us and is the devil still. We may, for instance, assume that salvation is possible without repentance. Pardon without penitence is a delusion which honesty requires that we expose for what it is. To be forgiven, a sin must be forsaken. 

We are also in danger of assuming the value of religion without righteousness. Through the various media of public communication we are being pressured into believing that religion is little more than a beautiful thing capable of bringing courage and peace to a troubled world. Let us resist this effort at brainwashing. The purpose of Christ’s redeeming work was to make it possible for bad men to become good, deeply, radically and finally. God translates men out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of His love. 

In spite of all that James said, we are still likely to take for granted that faith without works does somehow have a mystic value after all. But “faith works by love” said Paul, and where the works of love are absent we can only conclude that faith is absent also. Faith in faith has displaced faith in God in too many places.

A whole new generation of Christians has come up believing that it is possible to “accept" Christ without forsaking the world. But what does the Holy Spirit say? “You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred towards God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes the enemy of God” (James 4 v4), and “if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2 v15). This requires no comment, only obedience.

We may also erroneously assume that we can experience justification without transformation. Justification and regeneration are not the same, they may be thought apart in theology but they can never be experienced apart in fact. When God declares a man righteous He instantly sets about to make him righteous. Our error today is that we do not expect a converted man to be a transformed man, and as a result of this error our churches are full of substandard Christians. A revival is, among other things, a return to the belief that real faith invariably produces holiness of heart and righteousness of life. 

Again, we may go astray by assuming that we can do spiritual work without spiritual power. I have heard the notion seriously advanced that whereas once to win souls to Christ it was necessary to have a gift from the Holy Spirit, now religious movies make it possible for anyone to win souls, without spiritual anointing. Surely such a notion is madness. 

A person without the power of the Spirit trying to do spiritual work has been compared to a workman without fingers attempting to do manual labour. The illustration is striking but it does not overstate the facts. The Holy Spirit is not a luxury meant to make de luxe Christians as an illuminated frontispiece and a leather binding make a de luxe book. The Spirit is an imperative necessity. Only the Eternal Spirit can do eternal deeds.

Without exhausting the list of things wrongly taken for granted I would mention one more. Millions take for granted that it is possible to live for Christ without first having died with Christ. This is a serious error and we dare not leave it unchallenged. The victorious Christian has known two lives. The first was his life in Adam which was motivated by the carnal mind and can never please God. It can never be converted; it can only die (Rom. 8 v5-8). The second life of the Christian is his new life in Christ (Rom. 6 v1-14). To live a Christian life with the life of Adam is wholly impossible. Yet multitudes take for granted that it can be done and go on year after year in defeat. And worst of all they accept this half-dead condition as normal.

For our own soul’s sake, let’s not take too much for granted. 

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