Paul N. F. (19 Aug 2005)
"THE LOW LEVEL OF MORAL ENTHUSIASM"

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              THE LOW LEVEL OF MORAL ENTHUSIASM

                             By A. W. Tozer

 

         How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?. . .

                                                                            -  -  Hebrews 2:3

 

             In only one field of human interest do we Americans

         seem slow and apathetic: that is the field of personal

         religion.

 

             Church people habitually approach the matter of their

         personal relation to God in a dull, halfhearted way

         which is altogether out of keeping with their general

         temperament  and wholly inconsistent with  the

         importance of the subject.

 

             Dante, on his imaginary journey through hell, came

         upon a group of lost souls who sighed and moaned con-

         tinually as they whirled about aimlessly in the dusky air.

         Virgil,  his  guide,  explained  that  these  were  the

         "wretched people," the "nearly soulless," who while

         they lived on earth had not moral energy enough to be

         either good or evil.

 

             They had earned neither praise nor blame, and with

         them and sharing in their punishment were those angels

         who would take sides neither withGod nor Satan.

 

             The writer pictured the doom of all of the weak and

        irresolute crew to be suspended forever between a hell

         that despised them and a heaven that would not receive

         their defiled presence. Not even their names were to be

         mentioned again in heaven or earth or hell.

 

             Was Dante saying in his own way what our Lord had

         said long before to the church of Laodicea: "I know you

         well -- you are neither hot nor cold; I wish you were

         one or the other!  But since you are merely lukewarm,

         I will spit you out of my mouth!"

 

             The low level of moral enthusiasm among us may have

         a significance far deeper than we are willing to believe! 

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         Yours in Christ,

         Paul N. F.