Musings of a Snickerdoodle

"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 come up to

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 even in the darkest hou