Musings of a Snickerdoodle

Having trouble finding a present for a book lover in your family? Or are you a book lover yourself and trying to answer someone's question to you, "what would you like for Christmas?" For me, that is often a hard question to answer. Good, interesting books just seem to get harder and harder to find. Sometimes I'll come across an interesting quotation or excerpt from a book, and that will answer my question.  I've compiled a list of some of my favorite books, with summaries and a quotation from each one. Perhaps one of them will spark your interest and give you an idea of what you'd like to read next. History/Biography Free Grace and Dying Love:  The Life of Susannah Surgeon - By Charles Ray and Susannah Spurgeon This is a rather short biography of Mrs. Spurgeon, but still very interesting and inspiring. Susannah Spurgeon is another example of living for God in whatever circumstances and with whatever limitations He has given you, making the most...

"And some cannot advance any further with regard to  knowledge; they know the fundamentals, and feel as if they could master nothing more.  It is a great blessing that they know the gospel, and feel that it will save them; but the glorious mysteries of the everlasting covenant, of the sovereignty of God, of His eternal love and distinguishing grace, they cannot compass.....To hear of these things rather wearies them than instructs them:  They have not strength enough of mind for the deep things to God.  I would have every Christian wish to know all that he can know of revealed truth. Somebody whispers that the secret things belong not to us.  You may be sure you will never know them if they are secret; but all that is revealed you ought to know, for these things belong to you and your children.  Take care you know what the Holy Ghost teaches.  do not give way to a faint-hearted ignorance, lest you be great losers thereby.  That which is fit food f...

Faith must embrace doctrinal truth.  To the suggestion that the time would come when preaching the doctrines of grace would be passe, Spurgeon responded, "Out on ye, traitors, who tell us that we care to shape our gospel to suit this enlightened nineteenth century!  Out on ye, falsehearts, who would have us tone down the everlasting truth that shall outlive the sun, and moon, and stars, to suit your boasted culture, which is but varnished ignorance!"  No, still he would preach those truths that were mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, and he would maintain it to the death.....Without such knowledge and consent to specific truth, no faith is possible.  A strong evidence of grace is the "mind's perception of revealed truth and its obedience to it," Spurgeon argued.  Since God has lifted the veil through divine revelation, the true believer does not make or invent his own precepts, but he learns them from God. From the book: Living By ...

He argued with no one about "problems" in the biblical text or in the Christian faith.  Not good could come of it. Those who raised such problems had not yet felt the weight of their sin or of their need for a  Redeemer.  Mere intellectual jousting would solve no issue in their minds, for the Scripture is not given in order that the vain philosophical cavils of resistant intellects might be satisfied, but that wounded consciences might be shown a perfect Redeemer.   From the book: Living By Revealed Truth: The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon  by Thomas Nettles See more quotes on my quote collection blog:  https://snickerdoodlesquotes.blogspot.com/

"There will still be mysteries in the word of God that must be accepted as revelations rather than understood as the results of reasoning." Spurgeon was not afraid to exercise faith in "receiving the statements of the Scriptures."  No independent confirmation of scriptural assertion was needed, for its authority was independent of human reason and research; its evidence was in itself and its witness to the needs of the human soul, as interpreted through the entire fabric of redemptive truth, served as sufficient ground for receiving it as a revelation.   From the book: Living By Revealed Truth: The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon by Thomas Nettles See more quotes on my quote collection blog:  https://snickerdoodlesquotes.blogspot.com/

"Men who do their best, always do more, though haunted by a sense of failure.  Be good and true.  Be patient, be undaunted, leave your usefulness for God to estimate.  He will see to it that you do not live in vain."   George Morrison   See more quotes on my quote collection blog:  https://snickerdoodlesquotes.blogspot.com/

"If any man in the world needs the special presence of God with them and His blessing in order to succeed, certainly ministers do.  For what is the design and end of their ministry? Is it not to open the eyes of sinners to turn them from darkness to light?  And from the power of sin and Satan to God and Christ? And who is sufficient for these things? In a work of this nature, what can ministers, of themselves, do? Verily, they may preach even to paleness and faintness, until the bellows are burnt, until their lungs and vitals are consumed, and their hearers will never be the better; not one sinner will be converted until God is graciously pleased, by the efficacious working of His Spirit, to add His blessing to their labors and make his word, in the mouth of the preacher, sharper than any two-edged sword in the heart of the hearer.  All will be vain, to no saving purpose, until God is pleased to give the increase. And in order to do this, God looks for their prayers, to c...

I really wanted to like this book but it was quite disappointing.  It's sobering, definitely; maybe even motivating.  But…how do I put this? It's not very encouraging. Guinness does not come across as someone who believes that salvation is found in faith in Christ alone. He seems to believe that ethnic (or religious?) Jews will be saved whether or not they believe that Jesus is the Messiah, God in the flesh, Who takes away sin and gives us His righteousness.  At first I thought that maybe I was just reading too much into some of his statements, like this one " Both Jews and Christians owe their salvation entirely to God - Jews in terms of their national exodus from Egypt and Christians in terms of their personal exodus from lostness" .  But then it became clearer along the way and he made statements like,  "There are no more realistic faiths than Judaism and the Christian faith, but Jews and Christians live with an undimmed hope ev...