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Review Summary: Judgemental and complacent |
Date: 2008-11-17 |
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Details: The last sentence of the introduction reads : "If it's reality you're searching for, welcome to my kind of world and God's way of working". You can guess from this that Chuck Swindoll KNOWS, and anyone who might believe differently from him is just "day-dreaming". He also writes (on the second page of the Intro.) : "In my world of inescapable, face-to-face, gut-level reality, there's not a lot of room left for day-dreaming, certainly not if you hope to help real people get on with real life. And that's exactly what I desire to do." And who are the day-dreamers ? People who like novels, for a start (I'm serious, he writes it !). In the first chapter we learn that the Protestant Reformation and the Independence of the United States were the victory of "the courageous" who did it "God's way" over the "ungodly" (the author's words). It will certainly interest some Christians (but not me, but then I like novels) that "our hearts are desperately wicked" and to read of "a lie from the evil one himself". To the complacent humour, you can add the complacent comments such as : "'I'd like to deliver a beautiful message to you, my friend" or "Now it may bring you a bit of comfort to know that..." Oh, and I particularly liked : "You don't raise nineteen kids without a rod... If you have no consistent plan for discipline, you run a circus, not a family".
I gave up by chapter three. I prefer to stay with Frederick Buechner, who clearly "does not know". I prefer to stay with the questions rather than to think I have all the answers - rather than to read somebody who has God in their pocket. |
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Review Summary: Moses, Great Lives from God's Word |
Date: 2008-08-09 |
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Details: Excellent book that every Christian should read. Dr. Swindoll does an excellent job of sharing the life of Moses and comparing it to what happens in our lives; our impatience and how it affects us verses waiting for God's timing. |
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Review Summary: Moses: A True Hall of Famer |
Date: 2008-02-08 |
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Details: Chuck Swindoll beautifully brings Moses to life. One has a common picture of Moses in the "10 Commandments" by Cecil Demille in their minds. Through this book, one will truly begin to see why Moses is listed in Hebrews in the "Hall of Faith Hereos." |
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Review Summary: A Pencil in the Hand of God: Moses |
Date: 2007-03-17 |
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Details: Mother Theresa of Calcutta used that phrase to describe her work. Moses was a reflection of that statement.
You cannot outwit God. Herod tried to kill all the toddlers but Moses was saved by a warning in a dream. The Court of Egypt banished him into the desert but he returned to set the Israelites free. Pharoah's magicians tried to avert the 10 plagues but God's will won.
Moses was a pencil in the writing of Exodus. Christianity and Islam both acknowledge him for the great mission he played.
I agree with another reviewer, Michael Taylor, on whom God uses and why. God will use anyone and anything in his Divine plan. |
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Review Summary: God Teaches Through Hard Times |
Date: 2007-02-24 |
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Details: I have both this book and his study guide on Moses. I found these books to be instructional to me because God uses hard times of the school of experience to teach us things.
"Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?" (Heb. 12:7, NIV)
Further Paul says:
"No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest in righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." (Heb. 12:11, NIV)
Moses was miraculously delivered from a genocide against the male Hebrew babies living in Egypt when they were slaves. Moses exprienced the best of Egyptian life as he was adopted by Pharaoh's daughter.
But when Moses had felt sympathy for a fellow Hebrew who was being beaten by the cruel Egyptain slavedriver, he killed the man: and in so doing this the act backfired on him. He must have thought he was causing a revolution against the Egyptians, but instead found himself running for his life out of the country.
He was reduced to working as a shepherd in Midian. He married the priest's daughter and worked as a shepherd for him for 40 years!@
"Can you believe it? A man with advanced knowledge in hieroglyphics, science, literature, and military tactics was now eking out his existence on the backside of the desert, living with his father-in-law, raising a couple of boys and watching over little flocks of sheep."
There were groupings of 40 year periods of time in Moses'life-40 years in the Pharahoah's household, 40 years "living on the lam" in Midian and his 40 years leading the Hebrews throuth the desert to the land of Canann in the Exodus.
God wished to humble Moses, a former murderer and fugitive so as to make him into a suitable vessel or conduit of God's miraculous power which he would used in his confrontations with the Pharaoh and during the Exodus.
God appeared to Moses in the burning bush and sent him to his people and to the Pharaoh with the ultimatum LET MY PEOPLE GO! God worked mighty miracles through Moses and his brother Aaron to make the Pharaoh obey God. What I did notice was how at first the Pharaoh was conviced to obey God's command. Yet God himself with harden the Pharaoh's heart (make it hostile towards God and Moses again_ so that God had more moral justification to inflict more damage on Egypt. God had "stacked the deck" with Pharaoh, so to speak. Finally, it took the Destroying Angel killing all the firstborn of Egypt to make Pharaoh let his people go.
The last thing I found of interest in Chuck's study of the life of Moses was that when the Hebrews rebelled against God that God simply wanted to wipe them out and make Moses the new father of Israel. Then at Midian when Moses stuck the rock to make water gush from it instead of speaking to it, Moses disobeyed God and lost his right to enter Canaan. I think if I were in Moses' shoes I think I would have just let God wipe the whole ungrateful nation out!
Moses was the greatest prophet of the Bible, short of Jesus Christ, of couse.
What I like about some Chuck Swindol books is that you realize that the heroes of the Bible are some rough men who are at odds with society at times. Some have been to prison for their beliefs, too. Some have been executed for what they stood for. Some of the churches and teachings I have heard from some, make me think that the church in the suburbs is like some postive-thinking suburban girl's finishing school! That is sooo-unbiblical! |
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out of 12 Reviews
