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Removing the Veil, part 2 of 10: The road home is already open · The Pursuit of God Daily

• 0:00
  Host: Good morning. This is The Pursuit of God Daily for Tuesday, October twenty-seventh. We continue in chapter three of The Pursuit of God, Removing the Veil, the second of ten readings, where Tozer turns from man's flight away from God to God's great work of bringing us home.
• 0:17
  Reader: Psalm one hundred thirty-nine, verses seven and eight. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
• 0:32
  Reader: From A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, chapter three, Removing the Veil. Yet who can flee from His Presence when the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him? when as the wisdom of Solomon testifies, “the Spirit of the Lord filleth the world?” The omnipresence of the Lord is one thing, and is a solemn fact necessary to His perfection; the manifest Presence is another thing altogether, and from that Presence we have fled, like Adam, to hide among the trees of the garden, or like Peter to shrink away crying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”
• 1:08
  Reader: So the life of man upon the earth is a life away from the Presence, wrenched loose from that “blissful center” which is our right and proper dwelling place, our first estate which we kept not, the loss of which is the cause of our unceasing restlessness.
• 1:24
  Reader: The whole work of God in redemption is to undo the tragic effects of that foul revolt, and to bring us back again into right and eternal relationship with Himself. This required that our sins be disposed of satisfactorily, that a full reconciliation be effected and the way opened for us to return again into conscious communion with God and to live again in the Presence as before. Then by His prevenient working within us He moves us to return.
• 1:54
  Reader: This first comes to our notice when our restless hearts feel a yearning for the Presence of God and we say within ourselves, “I will arise and go to my Father.” That is the first step, and as the Chinese sage Lao-tze has said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a first step.”
• 2:13
  Reader: The interior journey of the soul from the wilds of sin into the enjoyed Presence of God is beautifully illustrated in the Old Testament tabernacle. The returning sinner first entered the outer court where he offered a blood sacrifice on the brazen altar and washed himself in the laver that stood near it. Then through a veil he passed into the holy place where no natural light could come, but the golden candlestick which spoke of Jesus the Light of the World threw its soft glow over all.
• 2:45
  Reader: There also was the showbread to tell of Jesus, the Bread of Life, and the altar of incense, a figure of unceasing prayer.
• 2:55
  Host: Tozer draws a careful line this morning. God is everywhere; David knew there was no place to flee from His presence. But Tozer is saying that being surrounded by God is not the same as enjoying God. The omnipresence is a fact; the manifest Presence is a fellowship, and that fellowship is what sin broke. So how does a man get back? Tozer's answer is that the whole work of redemption is God's work. Second Corinthians five, verses eighteen and nineteen: And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ. And verse nineteen: To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. Notice the order. Before we ever felt a stir of longing, the sins were dealt with at the cross and the way home was opened. Our return does not build the road; it walks on a road already paved with the blood of Christ.
• 3:48
  Host: Tozer borrows the words of the prodigal: I will arise and go to my father. Read the rest of that story in Luke fifteen. The young man rehearsed a speech about becoming a hired servant, but verse twenty says, when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. The son took a first step; the father ran the rest of the distance. That is the shape of grace. Even the yearning that turned the son homeward, Tozer says, is God's prevenient working within us. And the tabernacle Tozer describes points us to where that road ends. Hebrews ten, verses nineteen through twenty-two, tells us we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh. Then comes the invitation: Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Here is something to carry into today. Somewhere this morning you may feel that quiet tug toward God, in a pause between tasks, or in a moment of conviction. Do not treat it as a mood to wait out. Treat it as the Father's hand. Stop, and take the first step. Speak to Him plainly, and remember that He is already running to meet you.
• 5:00
  Host: Father, thank You that You did not wait for us to find our own way back, but in Christ reconciled us to Yourself and opened a new and living way through the veil. When You stir our hearts toward You today, make us quick to arise and come. Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
• 5:21
  Host: Let us draw near with a true heart, Hebrews ten, verse twenty-two. Go with God.