Tozer on the Chatter of the Busy Tribes of Men

My mother recently sent me a great and challenging quote from A. W. Tozer’s The Knowledge of the Holy.

“If some watcher or holy one who has spent his glad centuries by the sea of fire were to come to earth, how meaningless to him would be the ceaseless chatter of the busy tribes of men. How strange to him and how empty would sound the flat, stale and profitless words heard in the average pulpit from week to week. And were such a one to speak on earth would he not speak of God? Would he not charm and fascinate his hearers with rapturous descriptions of the Godhead? And after hearing him could we ever again consent to listen to anything less than theology, the doctrine of God? Would we not thereafter demand of those who would presume to teach us that they speak to us from the mount of divine vision or remain silent altogether?” (p. 71).

2 comments ↓

#1 derek on 01.25.10 at 6:09 pm

This reminds me of something C.S. Lewis said in “The Weight of Glory”:

“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

I too am dismayed and amazed that I find it so easy to get sucked into the mundane and the trivial.

#2 twilson on 01.27.10 at 10:09 am

Thanks for this, Derek. A great quote from Lewis!