Craig T. Owens

I loved reading Oswald Chambers’ insights on the book of Ezekiel as I read that book of the Bible side-by-side. Seeing what Chambers saw is astounding! You can read by book review of Notes On Ezekiel by clicking here. Below are a few quotes I especially appreciated.

“If you imagine you are called on to be isolated and aloof…you will be as free from sanity as from the Spirit of God.”

“We have to beware lest our impatience makes us infidel; impatience means unbelief in God’s providence, and is due to lack of right relationship of the personal life to God.”

“What is called practical work is the greatest hindrance in God’s dealing with souls. We rush through life and call ourselves practical, we mistake bustle for busyness, activity for real life, and when the activities stop we go out like vapor, our work is not based on the fundamental energy of God.” 

“We are not here to serve God, but for God; the self-consciousness of being a saint never enters in.”

“There is no call of God to be prosperous, but there is a call to be a proclaimer of God’s truth to the gates of death. It is the winsome note that men want today—‘I don’t mind listening as long as you talk about the kindness of God, but don’t tell me God damns sin, don’t tell me He allows no quarter for lying or for lust.’ The Gospel awakens an intense craving and an equally intense resentment. The snare of the devil, through God’s own servants, comes when they say ‘Now remember the people.’ Never water-down God’s Word to suit men’s experience. … Be possessed with unflinching courage in preaching the truth of God, but when you deal with sinners, remember who you are.”

“God must make His prophets vitally one with His voice—holy man and holy message, one.”

“Fanaticism comes in when we say, ‘I won’t appropriate the words of God, I don’t want to be limited to what Jesus Christ says, I must get other messages.’”

“Ezekiel had to receive what he heard before he repeated it; this is imperative in all spiritual development. Reception of God’s Word implies personal devotion to the One who speaks it. … Ezekiel, in common with all the Old Testament prophets, had not to generate his message out of his own individuality, he had simply to obey God.”

“Whenever in the prophets or in the New Testament we come to statements of the justice of God at work it is always the same—inescapably terrible and full of doom. Viewed apart from the interpretation of the Spirit of God, God’s dealings with men and with nations are perplexing. … The terrible side of God’s character is only realized by us when the truth dawns on us individually that God is no respecter of persons. Beware of tying God up in His own laws and saying He can’t do what He says He is going to do. The greatest ingredient in the sovereignty of God is the measure of free will He has given man; but be careful you don’t make the sovereignty of God the binding of Almighty God by human logic.”