A. W. Tozer - The Attributes of God Volume 2: Deeper into the Fathers Heart

The Attributes of God Volume 2 with Study Guide
ISBN: 978-1-60066-791-6
LOC Catalog Card Number: 2006936042
The Attributes of God Volume 2
2001 by Moody Bible Institute of Chicago
The Attributes of God Volume 2 Study Guide
2003 by David E. Fessenden

Previously published by Christian Publications, Inc.
First Christian Publications edition 2003
First WingSpread Publishers edition 2007
The Attributes of God Volume 2 was first published by Christian Publications in 2001.
The Study Guide was added in 2003.
First Moody Publishers edition in 2015

Cover design by
Erik M. Peteson and
Design Source Creative Services, Inc.

All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America

3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Scripture taken from
The Holy Bible: King James Version.

Contents

Friend,

Thank you for choosing to read this Moody Publishers title. It is our hope and prayer that this book will help you to know Jesus Christ more personally and love Him more deeply.

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Gods Character

And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee. (Psalm 9:10)

In the messages that follow we will consider that which is behind all things. There could be no more central or important theme. If you trace effect back to cause and that cause back to another cause and so on, back through the long dim corridors of the past until you come to the primordial atom out of which all things were made, you will find the One who made themyoull find God.

Behind all previous matter, all life, all law, all space and all time, there is God. God gives to human life its only significance; there isnt any other apart from Him. If you take the concept of God out of the human mind there is no other reason for being among the living. We are, as Tennyson said, like sheep or goats/ That nourish a blind life within the brain. And we might as well die as sheep unless we have God in our thoughts.

God is the source of all law and morality and goodness, the One that you must believe in before you can deny Him, the One who is the Word and the One that enables us to speak. Im sure you will see immediately that in attempting a series of messages about the attributes of God we run into that which is difficult above all things.

The famous preacher Sam Jones (who was a Billy Sunday before Billy Sundays time) said that when the average preacher takes a text it reminds him of an insect trying to carry a bale of cotton. And when I take my text and try to talk about God I feel like that insect; only God can help me.

John Milton started to write a book on the fall of man and his restoration through Jesus Christ our Lord. He was to call his book Paradise Lost. But before he dared to write it, he prayed a prayer that I want to pray as well. He prayed to the Spirit and he said, And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer/ Before all Temples th upright heart and pure,/ Instruct me.

Id like to say, with no attempt at morbid humility, that without a pure heart and a surrendered mind, no man can preach worthily about God and no man can hear worthily. No man can hear these things unless God touches him and illuminates him. And so Milton said, Instruct me, for Thou knowst; What in me is dark/ Illumine, what is low raise and support;/ That to the highth of this great Argument/ I may assert th Eternal Providence,/ And justifie the wayes of God to men.

Who can speak about the attributes of GodHis self-existence, His omniscience, His omnipotence, His transcendence and so onwho can do that and do it worthily? Who is capable of anything like that? Im not. So I only have this one hope: As the poor little donkey rebuked the madness of the prophet and as the rooster crowed one night to arouse the apostle and bring him to repentance, so God may take me and use me. As Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of the little donkey, so I pray that He may be willing to ride out before the people on such an unworthy instrument as I.

It is utterly necessary that we know this God, this One that John wrote about, this One that the poet speaks about, this One that theology talks about and this One that were sent to preach and teach about. It is absolutely, utterly and critically necessary that we know this One, for you see, man fell when he lost his right concept of God.

As long as man trusted God everything was all right; human beings were healthy and holy (or at least innocent), and pure and good. But then the devil came along and threw a question mark into the mind of the woman: And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said ? (Genesis 3:1). This was equivalent to sneaking around behind Gods back and casting doubt on the goodness of God. And then began the progressive degeneration downward.

When the knowledge of God began to go out of the minds of men, we got into the fix that were in now:

Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient. (Romans 1:21-28)

That first chapter of Romans ends with a terrible charge of unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness and all the long, black list of crimes and sins that man has been guilty of. All that came about because man lost his confidence in God. He didnt know Gods character. He didnt know what kind of God God was. He got all mixed up about what God was like. Now the only way back is to have restored confidence in God. And the only way to have restored confidence in God is to have restored knowledge of God.

I began with the text, And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee (Psalm 9:10). The word name means character, plus reputation. And they that know