Our Moral Climate Does Not Encourage Faith

    By A. W. Tozer

    And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake:
    but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.
    Matthew 10:22

        There is a plain and evident fact in genuine Christianity
    that is often overlooked by eager evangelists bent on
    getting results: that to accept Christ it is necessary that
    we reject whatever is contrary to Him!

        Let us not be shocked by the suggestion that there are
    disadvantages to the life in Christ.  Everyone who has
    lived for Christ in a Christless world has suffered some
    losses and endured some pains that he could have avoided
    by the simple expedient of laying down his cross.

        The contemporary moral climate does not favor a
    faith as tough and fibrous as that taught by our Lord and
    His apostles.  The delicate, brittle saints being produced in
    our religious hothouses today are hardly to be compared
    with the committed, expendable believers who once gave
    their witness among men.  And the fault lies with our leaders.
    They are too timid to tell the people all the truth.  They are
    now asking men to give to God that which costs them nothing!

   When will Christians learn that to love righteousness,
    it is necessary to hate sin? -- that to accept Christ it is
    necessary to reject self? -- that to follow the good way we
    must flee from evil? -- that a friend of the world is an
    enemy of God? -- that God allows no twilight zone
    between two altogethers, where the fearful and the
    doubting may take refuge at once from hell to come
    and the rigors of present discipline?

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    Yours in Christ,
    Paul N. F.