The Warfare

of the Spirit

A.W. Tozer

Compiled by Harry Verploegh

© 1990 by Zur Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tozer, A. W., 1897–1963

The Warfare of the Spirit / A. W. Tozer.

ISBN: 978-1-60066-059-7

Foreword

We children of Ada Pfautz Tozer and Aiden Wilson Tozer are grateful to God for each of them. They gave us a rich Christian heritage, sound teaching and constant self-sacrifice. While many continue to appreciate the writings and sermons of A.W. Tozer at a distance, we saw at home, up close, how sincerely they believed the truths he preached and how determined they both were to live the life of the Spirit.

Our mother’s counsel and self-sacrifice and her help and encouragement were essential to his work. He could not have lived as he lived or worked as he did had she not been patient and strong and willing to take the heavy end of the life of our boisterous home. Her sweet disposition and bright smile, her hospitality, and her love and friendliness to all around her made our home happy and our lives secure.

Our parents gave us a home centered on Christ and the Bible with the church a large part of our life. At dinner on Sundays after church, we were invited to comment on the sermon and, no matter how half-baked our comments, they were listened to and discussed as though they were important. Discussion of Scripture, of music, great literature, some other branch of learning or something so simple as the derivation of an English word usually followed. The conversation was serious but always filled with humor and light banter to keep everyone participating. Our parents worked the gathering as a team; she fluttering around making sure everyone was heard and none was hurt; he pouncing on flawed logic and poking fun at any “sophomoric” ideas of their over-educated children.

Their guidance was not by pressure or rigid rules but by respect and high expectation, open conversation, love and living example, always keeping before us the things that matter now and will matter in the world to come.

We are grateful to have been given this opportunity, on the occasion of the publication of this last in the series of collections of our father’s editorials, to acknowledge publicly the debt we owe to God for our parents.

Lowell, Forrest, Aiden Jr., Wendell,

Raleigh, Stanley, Rebecca

Chapter
1

The Warfare of the Spirit

There is a kind of dualism in our fallen world which has accounted for most of the persecutions endured by believers since the days of Cain and Abel.

There are two spirits in the earth, the Spirit of God and the spirit of Satan, and these are at eternal enmity. The ostensible cause of religious hatred may be almost anything; the true cause is nearly always the same: the ancient animosity which Satan, since the time of his inglorious fall, has ever felt toward God and His kingdom. Satan is aflame with desire for unlimited dominion over the human family; and whenever that evil ambition is challenged by the Spirit of God, he invariably ...