Fellowship Of The Burning Heart

A collection of sermons by A.W. Tozer … with biographical essays                                                                                                                                        and an excerpt from the award-winning biography In Pursuit of God                                                                                                                                           by James L. Snyder.

Publisher : Bridge-Logos (2006)

Reviewed by David Collins

Possibly last century's most profound prophetic voice … not in the sense of being a predictor of the future, but a man who revealed God, his holy presence, his matchless plan; a voice that warned the church of it’s compromise; a life that inspired men and women to pursue God with all their hearts. Leonard Ravenhill wrote of Tozer, “Dr Tozer had an intimacy with God beyond any other man I ever met. I advise every Bible student with whom I have contact by phone or by letter or in person: Buy all the books Dr A.W. Tozer has written and digest them. To know Dr Tozer was a great blessing. To pray with him was to be in the Holy Place!”

Fellowship of the Burning Heart is a compilation in two distinct parts by James L. Snyder. The first eight chapters are biographical pieces written by Snyder on the life and ministry of A.W. Tozer. Snyder authored the more comprehensive Tozer biography, “In Pursuit of God’. Then, after two pages of photos, ten chapters follow … these are transcripts that Snyder has made of recorded messages given by Dr Tozer, mostly touching on the subject of prayer and the presence of God.

As Snyder admits, this is not polished Tozer, such as you will find in ‘The Pursuit of God’, or ‘The Knowledge of the Holy’, or ‘The Pursuit of God’ (Tozer’s best loved books). In those works Tozer meticulously rewrote and polished his prose to perfection. These sermons are - “Platform Tozer”. There are flashes of humour, keen insight on the culture of his day, and, what he was known for, sharp criticism of the errors of the church as he saw them. I found myself both chuckling at his humour and the next moment stinging with conviction, and then experiencing that sense of awe and worship that keeps readers of Dr Tozer coming back for more.

I’ve become something of a Tozer ‘junkie’ ever since reading ‘The Pursuit of God’. This work by James Snyder with it’s biographical section has introduced me in a more personal way to this important figure. No one has to read ‘Fellowship of the Burning Heart’, but you have to read ‘The Pursuit of God’! And then after one or two other of Tozer’s (usually small and easy to read) works, you’ll pick up ‘Fellowship of the Burning Heart’, and be glad you did.

Tozer sermons transcribed in ‘Fellowship of the Burning Heart’:

1. How to Pray for Revival

2. In Everything by Prayer

3. Believing Prayer

4. Prepare by Prayer

5. He must Increase

6. Hearing is a Divine Art

7. Manifest Presence Something Else

8. Presence Everywhere

9. Three Faithful Wounds

10.The Way to Paradise

(Excerpt) “We must have that presence again. We must learn to live again in that presence, in that manifest presence, that conscious presence. The difference between revival and every other spiritual state that the church might know is the difference between the presence of God and the manifest presence of God. God is with the deadest church in the city. The poorest, the worst church in the world, wherever it might be, let’s hope it’s not this one; wherever it might be, God knows, I don’t know where it is. I only know wherever the worst church is, God’s presence is there. But the worse the church, the less it is manifest. The better the church, the more it is manifest.”

(Excerpt) “When John said: ’Jesus must increase, and I must decrease,’ he unwittingly condensed into one sentence the secret of his own greatness and all the great who have ever lived in the world. This became (and stands today) as the declaration of the secret of the greatness of the man, John, and the greatness of every great prophet that has ever lived, and the greatness of every thinker that has ever lived, and every revivalist and mystic and reformer and prayer warrior down the years. This is it. Jesus must increase, and I, His servant, must decrease.”