A tragedy above all tragedies! (by A.W. Tozer)

 

The average person in the world today,

without faith and without God and without

hope, is engaged in a desperate personal

search throughout his lifetime.

He does not really know where he has been.

He does not really know what he is doing

here and now. He does not know where he

is going.

The sad commentary is that he is doing it

all on borrowed time and borrowed money

and borrowed strength; and he already

knows that in the end he will surely die!

Man, made more like God than any other

creature, has become less like God than any

other creature. Created to reflect the glory

of God, he has retreated sullenly into his cave;

reflecting only his own sinfulness.

Certainly it is a tragedy above all tragedies

in this world that man, made with a soul to

worship and praise and sing to God's glory,

now sulks silently in his cave.

Love has gone from his heart.

Light has gone from his mind.

Having lost God, he blindly stumbles on through

this dark world to find only a grave at the end.

The fall of man has created a perpetual crisis.

It will last until sin has been put down and

Christ reigns over a redeemed and restored world.

Until that time the earth remains a disaster

area and its inhabitants live in a state of

extraordinary emergency.

To me, it has always been difficult to understand

those Christians who insist upon living in the crisis

as if no crisis existed. They say they serve the Lord,

but they divide their days so as to leave plenty of

time to play and loaf and enjoy the pleasures of the

world as well. They are at ease while the world burns!

I wonder whether such Christians actually believe in

the Fall of man!

Let a flood or a fire hit a populous countryside and no

able bodied citizen feels that he has any right to rest

till he has done all he can to save as many as he can.

While death stalks farmhouse and village no one dares

relax; this is the accepted code by which we live.

The critical emergency for some becomes an emergency

for all, from the highest government official to the local

Boy Scout troop. As long as the flood rages or the fire

roars on, no one talks of "normal times." No times are

normal while helpless people cower in the path of destruction.

In times of extraordinary crisis ordinary measures will

not suffice. The world lives in such a time of crisis.

Christians alone are in a position to rescue the perishing.

We dare not settle down to try to live as if things were

"normal." Nothing is normal while sin and lust and death

roam the world, pouncing upon one and another till

the whole population has been destroyed.

"I'm too often at ease and consumed with my self

interests, Lord. Open my eyes to see the tragedy

of friends and acquaintances on their way to a

Christless eternity. Do it for Jesus' sake, Amen."