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Removing the Veil, part 9 of 10: Self at the very altar · The Pursuit of God Daily

• 0:00
  Host: Good morning. This is The Pursuit of God Daily for Wednesday, November fourth. We are in chapter three of The Pursuit of God, Removing the Veil, nearing its end, where Tozer names exactly what that veil is made of.
• 0:13
  Reader: Psalm nineteen, verses twelve and thirteen. Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.
• 0:32
  Reader: From A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, chapter three, Removing the Veil. It is woven of the fine threads of the self-life, the hyphenated sins of the human spirit. They are not something we do, they are something we are, and therein lies both their subtlety and their power.
• 0:51
  Reader: To be specific, the self-sins are these: self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love and a host of others like them. They dwell too deep within us and are too much a part of our natures to come to our attention till the light of God is focused upon them. The grosser manifestations of these sins, egotism, exhibitionism, self-promotion, are strangely tolerated in Christian leaders even in circles of impeccable orthodoxy. They are so much in evidence as actually, for many people, to become identified with the gospel.
• 1:31
  Reader: I trust it is not a cynical observation to say that they appear these days to be a requisite for popularity in some sections of the Church visible. Promoting self under the guise of promoting Christ is currently so common as to excite little notice.
• 1:48
  Reader: One should suppose that proper instruction in the doctrines of man’s depravity and the necessity for justification through the righteousness of Christ alone would deliver us from the power of the self-sins; but it does not work out that way. Self can live unrebuked at the very altar. It can watch the bleeding Victim die and not be in the least affected by what it sees. It can fight for the faith of the Reformers and preach eloquently the creed of salvation by grace, and gain strength by its efforts.
• 2:21
  Reader: To tell all the truth, it seems actually to feed upon orthodoxy and is more at home in a Bible Conference than in a tavern. Our very state of longing after God may afford it an excellent condition under which to thrive and grow.
• 2:37
  Reader: Self is the opaque veil that hides the Face of God from us. It can be removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction. As well try to instruct leprosy out of our system. There must be a work of God in destruction before we are free. We must invite the cross to do its deadly work within us. We must bring our self-sins to the cross for judgment. We must prepare ourselves for an ordeal of suffering in some measure like that through which our Saviour passed when He suffered under Pontius Pilate.
• 3:13
  Host: Tozer says something this morning that should give every one of us who loves sound doctrine a moment's pause. Self, he writes, can live unrebuked at the very altar. Tozer is saying that the most dangerous place for pride to hide is not out in the world, but right in the middle of our religion, where it can dress itself in the language of faith.
• 5:20
  Host: Father, You see what we cannot see in ourselves. Shine Your light into the hidden places of our hearts. Where self has made itself at home in our worship and our work, bring it to the cross. Let Christ increase, and let us decrease. Make us servants who are glad to go unnoticed, so that He alone is seen. In Jesus' name, amen.
• 5:39
  Host: Let the words of your mouth and the meditation of your heart be acceptable in His sight, Psalm nineteen, verse fourteen. Go with God.