We serve a God who is both terrible and wonderful, good and severe, patient and vengeful. This God is too big for our minds to contain and too marvelous for our words to describe. He is, “The Lord our God, the Lord is One.”
Completely deserving of all praise and yet we withhold.
Absolutely present in all situations and yet we disregard.
Perfect in His will and yet we seek to maintain control.
These perpetual sins, or, as A.W. Tozer puts it, ‘a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us,’ can be traced back to one place. We do not know God, nor see Him rightly, and thus we have too low a view of God.
The subject of this letter then is of grave importance - the re-establishment of a high and lofty view of God among the people of God.
In 1961, A.W. Tozer published a book titled, ‘The Knowledge of the Holy.’ The preface contained these words:
“The low view of God entertained almost universally among Christians is the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us.
With our loss of the sense of majesty has come the further loss of religious awe and consciousness of the divine Presence. We have lost our spirit of worship and our ability to withdraw inwardly to meet God in adoring silence.
The words, ‘Be still, and know that I am God,’ mean next to nothing to the self-confident, bustling worshiper in this middle period of the twentieth century.
The decline of the knowledge of the holy has brought on our troubles. A rediscovery of the majesty of God will go a long way toward curing them.”
In other words, our perspective of God has become quite small. We have lost a proper view of the majesty of God and thus have turned to any number of lesser evils to entertain us. As Romans 3 would describe it, “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Tozer expands upon this woe in a short sermon clip calling for, '“The restoration of the vision of the most high God!”
We have too low a view of God now…The church rises or falls altogether depending upon her view of God. If she takes a high view of God her people are inclined to be reverent and worshipful and solemn and grave. If she takes a low view of God they become funny and flippant and foolish and live worldly lives and give up to the flesh.
If she takes a high view of God, she simplifies her church services immediately.
If she takes a low view of God, she has to drag in every kind of theatrical act to keep her people coming.
What we need in the United States is a revelation of the tremendous mystery of Jehovah, high and lifted up, His train filling the temple…They’ve never seen God and they’ve never seen very many people that have. And so you poor kids are victims of an elder generation who never saw God.
My brethren, we need to see God again.” A.W. Tozer A High View of God
God does not change, yet how we perceive Him can change and it is for this change of perception that we must pray.
Brothers and sisters, let us pray for a revelation of a higher view of God. Let us cry out to see, as Habakkuk did, a vision of the One before whom the nations bow.
As Habbakuk begins his book, he prays a prayer that will sound familiar to many of us. It is one that, in many ways, reveals our view of God, “Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?”
God answers him, “Look at the nations and observe - be utterly astounded!”
And in this answer from the Lord, Habakkuk is given a revelation of a God before whom nations bow:
“Lord, I have heard the report about You; I stand in awe of Your deeds…
His splendor covers the heavens.
The earth is full of His praise
His brilliance is like light
Rays are flashing from His hand
Plague goes before Him
Pestilence follows in his steps
He stood, and measured the earth: He beheld, and drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: His ways are everlasting.” Habbakuk 3:2-6
Habakkuk’s view of God is revived and elevated, and in this process of transformation comes the famous line, “But the righteous one will live by his faith.” (Hab. 2:4)
A high and lofty view of God comes from a place of faith and it produces a lifestyle of faith. Habakkuk describes it this way:
“The sound of this sets our heart shaking, we listen with lips a-quiver, our very bones are breaking, and as we stand we shiver; yet calmly we await the day of doom.” Habakkuk 3:16 Moffat
We shake and shiver…yet calmly we await.
Our lips quiver…yet calmly we await.
Our bones break…yet calmly we await.
How is this contrast possible? To shiver, quiver and break, yet calmly await? If we were to go below the surface, to dig into the concept of faith, to see what was happening a few layers down, we would find this statement: Without seeing…I will sing.
Without seeing…
“Though the fig tree may not blossom, though no fruit is on the vine, though the olive crop has failed, though the fields give us no food, though the folds have lost their flocks, and in the stalls no cattle lie…” Habakkuk 3:17
I will sing.
“Yet in the Eternal we will find our joy, we will rejoice in the God who saves us.” 3:18
Musician John Van Deusen beautifully puts this concept into lyrics,
“In spite of the pain, You are good, You are good Lord. Amidst the questions, You are worth everything, Lord. And though there’s blood in the fields, I will be thankful my Lord. And though the trees have no blossoms, I will rejoice in You, Lord.
May You sit holy and enthroned in my heart.
This is faith, to declare that without seeing, still, I will sing.
“Though it delays, wait for it, since it will certainly come and not be late.” Habakkuk 2:3
“The Lord is in His holy temple; let the whole earth be silent in His presence.” 2:20
“The Lord, the Eternal, is our strength, he makes our feet sure as the feet of hinds, helps us to keep our footing on the heights.” 3:19
This is faith - to be, “fully persuaded.”
Fully persuaded of what? “Fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.” Romans 4:21
It is impossible to have this kind of faith without a high and lofty view of God, for a high and lofty view of God comes from faith as it produces a lifestyle of faith.
Isaiah 57:15 paints this picture for us, “For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.’”
Who is this God who dwells in the highest of places, far above all things, causing nations to bow and kings to fall - yet also in the lowest of places, reviving the broken, the trembling, the shaken, and the quivering?
“Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.” Romans 11:22
Lord, we pray, give us a high and lifted up vision of You, with eyes to see Your holiness, and a heart which shakes in the presence of You, the eternal God who causes nations to bow.
Give us as well calm confidence that You are in the low places, with those who are of a broken, humble, and repentant spirit.
In love,
Derek
“God does not change, yet how we perceive Him can change and it is for this change of perception that we must pray.”