Host: Good morning. This is The Pursuit Podcast for Saturday, October tenth. Today we begin A. W. Tozer's The Pursuit of God, opening with the first half of his Preface, where he names a hunger he sees among God's people.

Reader: Psalm forty-two, verses one and two. As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?

Reader: From A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, the Preface. In this hour of all-but-universal darkness one cheering gleam appears: within the fold of conservative Christianity there are to be found increasing numbers of persons whose religious lives are marked by a growing hunger after God Himself. They are eager for spiritual realities and will not be put off with words, nor will they be content with correct “interpretations” of truth. They are athirst for God, and they will not be satisfied till they have drunk deep at the Fountain of Living Water.

Reader: This is the only real harbinger of revival which I have been able to detect anywhere on the religious horizon. It may be the cloud the size of a man’s hand for which a few saints here and there have been looking. It can result in a resurrection of life for many souls and a recapture of that radiant wonder which should accompany faith in Christ, that wonder which has all but fled the Church of God in our day.

Reader: But this hunger must be recognized by our religious leaders. Current evangelicalism has (to change the figure) laid the altar and divided the sacrifice into parts, but now seems satisfied to count the stones and rearrange the pieces with never a care that there is not a sign of fire upon the top of lofty Carmel.

Reader: But God be thanked that there are a few who care. They are those who, while they love the altar and delight in the sacrifice, are yet unable to reconcile themselves to the continued absence of fire. They desire God above all. They are athirst to taste for themselves the “piercing sweetness” of the love of Christ about Whom all the holy prophets did write and the psalmists did sing.

Reader: There is today no lack of Bible teachers to set forth correctly the principles of the doctrines of Christ, but too many of these seem satisfied to teach the fundamentals of the faith year after year, strangely unaware that there is in their ministry no manifest Presence, nor anything unusual in their personal lives. They minister constantly to believers who feel within their breasts a longing which their teaching simply does not satisfy.

Host: Tozer opens his book not with a doctrine but with a hunger. He is saying that the hopeful sign in the church is not better arguments or tidier interpretations, but people who want God Himself, and will not be put off with words about Him.

Scripture honors that hunger. The psalmist does not say, my soul thirsteth for answers. He says, my soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. And the Lord Jesus meets exactly that thirst. On the last great day of the feast He stood and cried, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. The thirst Tozer describes is not a problem to be managed. It is an invitation to be answered, and the answer is a Person.

The second truth is sharper. Tozer pictures Mount Carmel, with the altar built and the sacrifice laid in order, but no fire. In First Kings chapter eighteen, Elijah did everything God commanded, and then he prayed. And the Scripture says, Then the fire of the LORD fell. The fire was never Elijah's to produce. The altar was his obedience; the fire was God's answer. Tozer is saying we can keep the stones in order, teach the fundamentals correctly year after year, and still be content without the fire. Right doctrine is the altar. It matters. But it was built for God to come down upon it.

Jeremiah names the danger. The Lord says, my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. We rarely forsake God by denying Him. More often we settle for our cisterns: routine, activity, even good religious habits that hold no water. A broken cistern can look full for a while, but only the fountain keeps flowing. That is why Tozer rejoices to see people who are no longer satisfied with anything less than God.

So here is something to carry into this Saturday. Before the day fills up, find one quiet minute and bring God your thirst, not your list. Tell Him plainly that you want Him, not only things from Him. Then go about your work with the altar laid, trusting Him for the fire.

Host: Father, You are the fountain of living waters. Forgive us for being content with broken cisterns and with altars that have no fire. Stir in us a thirst for You Yourself, and satisfy it in Jesus Christ, who invites the thirsty to come and drink. Send Your Spirit to make Your presence real in our homes, our work, and our church today. In Jesus' name, amen.

Host: If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. John chapter seven, verse thirty-seven. Go with God.