We Have Surrendered the Human Spirit to This Present World

Of all the calamities that have been visited upon the world, the surrender of the human spirit to this present world and its ways is the worst, without any doubt.


That we who were made to communicate with angels and archangels and seraphim and with the God who made them all, that we should settle down here as a wild eagle of the air come down to scratch in the barnyard with the common hens - this I say is, the worst of anything that has ever come to the world.


The tyranny of things, of material things, temporal things, things which are and then cease to be - this has become a tyranny.


No monarch ever ruled his cowering subjects with any more cruel tyranny than things, visible things, audible things, tangible, rule mankind.


Think again of what a calamity this is. The soul of a man, made in the image of God, coming from another world as a kind of guest to dwell a while and then go away - that this royal visitor from another world should accept this temporal, passing world as its final home, and gear itself down to it, judge itself by it, adopt its ways, collaborate with its inhabitants, and give itself up to the enjoyment of this world - I repeat, that there never has been any woe ever visited any world as bad as this.


It seems incredible that we who were made for many worlds should accept this one world as our ultimate home.


The reality of the other world - this invisible world that is near to our world - comes to us sometimes even in the midst of our twentieth century noise and confusion. The reality comes to us sometimes in the night season when we are alone.


Man was made in the image of God and is a fallen star, a fallen being, that has left its place in the celestial world and has plummeted down like a falling star. Now, in this world, he has all but forgotten the place from which he came.


That's why the devil sees to it that we seldom get alone with time to think and meditate on the reality of the other world.


For when a man really gets alone, he senses often that this life in this world isn't it - this is not the end. He says to himself: "Now, I like it here. It has its points and there are many arguments in favor of it, but there is something in me that tells me that this isn't it. There is something else - and something better!"


At such a time, too many people break it off abruptly, and refuse to think about it at all.


A Christian is one who dedicates himself to God to inhabit another world, and that's why we get called many of the names that we do!


~A. W. Tozer~ "Tozer Speaks, Volume One"