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The God of contemporary Christianity!
当代基督教的上帝！
(A.W. Tozer)
（A.W. 托泽）
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(You will find it helpful to listen to the audio above, as you read the text below.)
（在阅读以下文本时，您会发现听上面的音频会很有帮助。）
“These things you have done, and I kept silent.
“你做了这些事，我却默默无声。
You thought that I was altogether like you!
你以为我完全和你一样！
But I will rebuke you and accuse you to your face!” Psalm 50:21
但我必责备你，直言不讳的指控你！” 诗篇 50:21
The God of contemporary Christianity is only slightly superior to the pagan gods of ancient Greece and Rome,
当代基督教的上帝只是略微优于古希腊和古罗马的异教神；
if indeed He is not actually inferior to them-in that He is weak and helpless,
如果他不至于实际上比他们更低劣——因为他是软弱无助的，而他们至少有一些幻想中的力量。
while they at least had some imagined power.
而他们至少有一些想象中的力量。
Among the sins to which the human heart is prone, hardly any other is more hateful to God than idolatry;
在人的心中倾向的罪中，几乎没有比偶像崇拜更令人厌恶的罪；
for idolatry is at bottom a libel on His character.
因为偶像崇拜本质上是对他品格的诽谤。
The idolatrous heart assumes that God is other than He is, in itself a monstrous sin;
偶像崇拜的心假定上帝与他真正的样子不同，这本身就是一种可怕的罪；
and substitutes for the true God, one made after its own likeness.
并且用一个按照自己形象造的偶像替代了真正的上帝。
Always this god will conform to the image of the one who created it—
这个神总会符合创造它的那个形象——
and will be base or pure, cruel or kind,
会是卑鄙或纯洁，残酷或善良，
according to the moral state of the mind from which it emerges.
根据它所出现的心灵的道德状态。
The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him.
偶像崇拜的本质是怀有那些不配合上帝的思想。
Wrong ideas about God are not only the fountain from which the polluted waters of idolatry flow,
关于上帝的错误观念不仅是偶像崇拜肮脏水流出的源泉，
they are themselves idolatrous.
这些观念本身就是偶像崇拜的。
The idolater simply imagines things about God,
偶像崇拜者只是想象着关于上帝的事情，
and acts as if they were true.
并且表现得好像它们是真的。
If we insist upon trying to imagine Him—we end with an idol, made not with hands but with thoughts.
如果我们执意想象他——我们最终得到的是一个偶像，不是用手造的，而是用思想构造的。
And an idol of the mind, is as offensive to God as an idol of the hand!
心灵中的偶像对上帝的冒犯程度与手中偶像一样令人厌恶！
Before a Christian Church goes into a decline, there must first be a corrupting of her Scriptural thoughts of God.
在一所基督教教会走向衰退之前，首先必须有对她关于上帝的圣经思想的腐败。
She simply gives a wrong answer to the question, “What is God like?” and goes downhill from there.
她给出的问题“上帝是什么样的？”的错误答案，从此走下坡路。
Though she may continue to cling to a sound nominal creed, her practical working creed has become false.
尽管她可能仍然坚持一个良好的名义信条，但她实践中的信条已经变得不正确。
The masses of her adherents come to believe that God is different from what He actually is,
她的大多数信徒开始相信，上帝与他真实的样子不同，
and that is heresy of the most insidious and deadly kind!
这是一种最阴险和致命的异端！
The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God,
今天，基督教会所承载的最重的责任，就是净化和提升她对上帝的认知，
until it is once more worthy of Him, and of her!
直到它再次配得上他，也配得上她自己！