I’ve had this book for years and never read it because of the dodgy title. However, sometimes it’s wrong to judge a book by its cover.
This book starts with the premise that rejection has happened in some way to many or most people. And this rejection can have a major detrimental effect on the rest of their life. It’s interesting, practical, and very positive.
Tiny book, but great. Some really brilliant stuff in here. It’s a collection of some of Mr Finney’s sermons and shows the best (probably) of his profound, timeless and biblical wisdom. Refreshing.
This book contains a lot of biblical wisdom, the only beef I have with Peter Wagner is that he’s into church growth, which doesn’t seem bad until you consider that church growth is more about getting bums on seats (and coins in the collection plate) than it is about discipling and spiritual maturity. Still the book addresses points that are unavoidable for anyone serious about the power of prayer.
It’s only a short book, but I was a little disappointed. It doesn’t have anything more than the absolute basics in it, but what there is is good.
A good solid book giving the biblical position for faith. There are plenty of references, and the information is presented in a logical and well-considered manner. Highly readable.
The premise of this book is that if we all dedicated ourselves to spending an hour a day on God, then not only would we be different, but the world would be different too. Mr Eastman recommends a structure to time spent with God, and explains the rationale. Interesting and inspiring.
This is a sensible, biblical view on fasting. It’s inspiringly written by a holy man, who writes normal English for normal people. Thank goodness.
This is a classic, and if you’re studying the book of Daniel, it’s a book you won’t be able to avoid. It’s a really thorough book calculating the timespans given in Daniel. Other scholars have differed from Mr Anderson’s conclusions, however. What makes the book particularly interesting for us is that it was published in 1894 – that’s before Israel returned to being a nation again. And what is significant is that Anderson repeatedly says that none of these things can come to pass until Israel is back in the land again – and who knows when that will be?! If only he had known that in a little over 50 years from his publishing his work that Israel would once again be found on the map – who knows what he would have written…
I love the title of this book. And I enjoyed the book too, it’s inspiring and encouraging, but it’s the sort of book you need to read several times just to take it all in. A prayer staple.
This is an interesting book detailing the about-turn the established church has been made away from the reformation with its bend towards relationship and back to religion. It’s a bit worrying because this is now quite an old book, having been written in the 1980s, things have moved on considerably since this was written. The institutional church is in a mess, this shows a part of it.
Another lesson on ‘how not to do it’ by Lot. In fact, Warren Wiersbe goes further and shows that Lot can easily be contrasted with Abraham to see someone controlled by worldly desires and Abraham dedicated wholly to God. Whereas Abraham travelled light and waited on God for his instructions, Lot put down roots and settled in the worldliest of worldly places. He ended up in Sodom not because God directed him there, but because that’s where he settled, thinking he could build a life for himself there – and for a while he was right; although he was an outsider, he achieved a position of authority, spending his time at the town gate where the town’s political business was conducted. This shows how integrated Lot and his family were in Sodom.
Being ‘in the world’ but not ‘of the world’ springs to mind. Something that Lot doesn’t seem to have achieved. Whenever we see Lot, he appears to have his opinions and decisions dictated by worldly interests – possessions, wealth, and trying to live quietly and keep his nose clean.
What’s interesting is that Abraham met three heavenly persons – one of them a theophany – Jesus in his precarnate state. However, in Sodom there are only two angels. Why? Possibly because of the sinful and worldly nature of Lot made it so that Jesus couldn’t dwell with him as he could with Abraham (even though Abraham was imperfect, his faith made him righteous).
The contrasts can be taken further between Abraham and Lot. Whereas Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son to God, Lot was prepared to sacrifice both his daughters to the world, just for the sake of keeping the peace.
It’s very important to remember that just because something’s in the Bible, it’s not necessarily there because it’s a good thing. In this chapter we have Lot attempting to swap his male visitors for his daughters so that the residents of Sodom can rape his family members instead of his guests. Questionable morals there. This passage had confused me for a long time until I realised that there are examples of people not behaving as God intended as well as the reverse. I wrestled for ages with ‘why would God prefer Lot’s daughters to be raped than Lot’s angelic guests?’ The answer is he didn’t want anyone to get raped, that’s why the angels were sent in the first place because things were horribly wrong in Sodom.
Then there’s this bit at the end about incest, with Lot’s daughters getting him drunk and then sleeping with him. Some have considered that as this event occurred before the giving of the Law on Sinai, that incest was OK as perhaps the genepool hadn’t yet been so polluted by sin. However, from reading the passage itself it’s clear that a certain level of morality already existed – Lot’s daughters knew that in order to accomplish their goals, they would have to get their father drunk, otherwise it would never happen. This shows first of all how Lot did have some standards, but it also shows how Lot didn’t inspire a massive amount of respect from his family.
Obedience has its rewards and disobedience has its consequences. A consequence of Lot’s incest with his daughters was the birth of two peoples, the Moabites and the Ammonites who became sworn enemies of God’s chosen people the Jews.
It has been a trendy thing to say ‘I like Jesus, but I don’t like the God of the Old Testament’. The fact is they are the same. God is full of love and because of this he is just. God doesn’t want anyone to perish, and that’s why he sent his only son as a sacrifice (John 3:16-17). Sodom is actually a testament to God’s long-suffering nature – see how bad it had to get before God decided enough was enough! What is also evident in this passage is that Jesus was present throughout the Old Testament as well as before that and ever since. As Jesus himself said: ‘Before Abraham was born, I am,’ (John 8:58 NASB). Jesus was of course referring here to his eternal nature, but also the fact that he was divine – ‘I AM’ was the name of God first discovered in Exodus (3:14), so anyone saying that Jesus never claimed to be God has been misled. This was what Jesus meant, and this is what was understood at the time, explaining why the Jewish authorities hated him so much and ended up accusing him of blasphemy.
So God is long-suffering, but he is also just. We may think sometimes that he takes a long time to act, but he will act, and when he does he will be perfectly just. Love and justice are bound up together. If we claim God is a God of love, then we must also accept that he is a God of justice – after all, if he loves us, why would we expect that he will turn a blind eye to those who want to hurt us? He won’t and he doesn’t. Sometimes it appears that he is disregarding injustice, but actually he is waiting for the perfect timing. There were not many righteous people in Sodom – less than ten, and that’s why it had to be destroyed. But no one can ever say that his judgment is unexpected and unfair. Had the people of Sodom repented, the story would have been different, but as it was, God waited until they had completely rejected redemption before he judged them. He gave them every opportunity and they blew it.
Chuck Missler has suggested that one of the reasons for the destruction of Sodom was the existence of the Nephilim, those beings who were a product of the union between fallen angels and women. This is absolutely possible, and perhaps most likely, as there have been many cities since then that have been as sinful as Sodom, but have not been judged. Chuck’s view is that as the devil was attempting to pollute and distort the line from Adam to the Messiah, God had to remove these people from the earth so that the devil’s design wouldn’t become reality.
With thanks to my spiritual uncles: Uncle Warren Wiersbe, Uncle Chuck Missler, Uncle Matthew Henry, Uncle Jacob Prasch and Uncle Arnold Fruchtenbaum.
This is a response to The Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop. It’s good to read both of them. While Hislop’s book is all one way, Woodrow’s is all the other. If you read them both, then you have a nice balance. Hislop goes out of his way to find connecitons between the Babylonian religion and Roman Catholicism, Woodrow goes out of his way to disprove them. Actually you don’t need to read these books to see where RC is going wrong, you just need to read the Bible.
He’s good. This is a sensible, ordinary man writing about prayer. All his books are worth reading.
This is an interesting perspective on modern prophecy (different to biblical prophecy). Mrs Jacobs has an institutional church outlook which is clunky and a bit unhelpful at times, but essentially solid and biblical. Well-written and good use of examples.
This is one of the books that’s on any bibliography of intercession. It’s pretty good, the points are well-explained, but there does seem to be an over-emphasis on the need for ‘covering’ from church leaders. Which is not quite so bad if your church leader happens to be a Christian… Still, it’s a good book, unfortunately marred by those bits that seem written specifically to keep the paid leadershp going. Shame.
I like the way Mr Christensen writes. He keeps to the point; it’s almost like he’s saying: ‘I won’t keep you long, but let me just tell you this.’ And he’s so wise as well. This is a fantastic book.
This is a biblical, measured and methodical approach to Hebrew Christianity. There’s nothing extreme about it; it is what it is, and it’s really interesting.
This is the preachy one. Sometimes people who have suffered massively make the assumption that they know how other people are feeling, or what they need to do. And sometimes applying someone else’s advice is the last thing that’s going to work – as Mrs Larcombe herself realised in her second book. So here she seems to be surfing on a wave of success and popularity and forgets the lessons she learned while getting there. I’d skip this book and read the other two.
This book has more about what God taught Mrs Larcombe about life and faith through illness. She writes well with honesty and humour, and more importantly humility without preachiness.
This is an interesting book about Mrs Larcombe’s illness, her struggles, and her faith as she got closer to God, once she accepted that life was going to be different to what she expected or thought she was owed. Encouraging.
