The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers
The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers features
- Invigorating, incisive teaching
- Never-before-published notes on Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Jeremiah
- A general index of people, places, and terms
- Introductions for each book by biographer David McCasland
Reviews (200)
A truly great mind and great soul revealed.
There is more authentic wisdom contained in this one oversized book than the great majority of us will ever be able to assimilate in a lifetime. Even a lifetime in which an hour a day is spent for decades in its company. Which isn't to say you shouldn't step into the ocean it offers. However much time you spend and whatever parts you read will, I am confident, be a blessing on you and all those you love.. Oswald Chambers was abundantly blessed both with great intellect and great and humble commitment to being God's man. There is perhaps three to four volumes worth of text here; and every sentence of it seems enlightening. That's not an exaggeration. Most of the time I can only make it through a few sentences before I have to pause for several minutes to ruminate on what he's just shared. And while I've spent a lifetime pondering, studying and praying on things of eternal import, I never read Chambers without getting "Wow" moments. Moments in which something is revealed that's profound, potentially life changing, challenging and filled with wisdom... that I've never considered before. The world was multiply blessed that Chambers was married to a stenographer; one who was so aware of his genius and wisdom that she took dictation of every speech, sermon and lecture he ever gave. This book is the outcome of that. But you wouldn't ever believe that any of this was ever given simply to a group of 20 seminary students or whatever. NONE of it is incomplete in thought or contains thinking errors or personal agendas or bias. I simply cannot recommend this book too highly. It is a gift to the world - to all those who wish to go on the lifetime adventure for which it serves as a map. I've given perhaps five copies as gifts (including one to my pastor this Christmas); and every time the person has been incredibly grateful.
This is a big book!
A friend in my Bible study group recommended reading If You Will Ask. I had read some of My Utmost for His Highest, but never finished. I got on my Kindle and started to buy the single book If You Will Ask. As I looked down the list of titles I saw a few others, Studies Sermon on the Mount, Conformed to His Image, If You Ask and since I never owned My Utmost (I had borrowed it from the library) I said I wonder if they have a complete works. I struggled with the price for a few days, then gave in. This is a big work-book. Its over 1,500 pages, its hard cover, heavy, and packed. I can't carry it to work with me so I have to study it at home only. I wish the text was bigger, but I will get a magnifying glass. So far I'm enjoying If You Will Ask.
After my bible, my most valuable resource!
This book is so amazing! Oswald Chambers was a marvelous man of God so very long ago, but his words are completely relevant today. As with God's love, His Word and His commandments, the Godly Wisdom of Mr. Chambers has not changed. Soldiers and students as well as congregations hung on his every word then as many of us do now. Not enough is said about Mrs. Chambers, (Biddy.) She was as Godly and self-sacrificing as her husband, following him every where he went - even to Egypt during WWI. Along with her many other duties, she took shorthand notes of every sermon and class that he taught. She made it her life's work to see every thing he preached and taught put into print and distributed. The result of her allegiance to God and her husband are in the pages of this book. God used these two selfless people to do a great work that has touched and changed many lives over the years. My prayer is that these words live on and continue the work God started with Oswald and Biddy. Thank you, also, to their precious daughter, Kathleen. She was the light of her dad's eye and has helped to see that his work continues. You will not be disappointed with this purchase!
Incredibly pleased that I bought this! Great investment
I don't have much to add, since everyone has done a wonderful job describing the book (size, composition, etc.) and recommending it. However, I want to let anyone considering this book know that this compilation, of Chambers' works, is one of the best purchases I've ever made. Second only to the Bible itself, the words of this man are nothing short of life-changing. Not a fluffy devotional, these 'lectures' (originally to his students) is intended to bring the reader ever closer to the heart of Christ. This book, if cared for properly, could be passed down for years. Buy it. You will find you've made an excellent investment. Update 12/21/15: I wanted to add that I bought a second copy of this (which is textbook size, BTW, in case you hadn't seen that detail) because I found that I read it almost daily and wanted one copy to keep with no marks or highlights, and one for using how I use every other book I own. So glad I did. I purchased some dry highlighters (for thin Bible pages) and they work beautifully here as well. You may be able to use soft reg highlighters (pastels perhaps) but might see bleed through now and again with them, and of course, traditional ink. Still, worth owning two copies of.
Made with extremely CHEAP paper
This book is printed on cheap paper. So cheap that you can read the next page on the side you are reading. They probably did this to enable them to get all the books into one big book. The book is still readable but you have the shadow of the words from the next page on the page you are reading . I would have bought the book anyway because of the content but I would have gladly paid more for better paper or even two volumes on better paper.
The Essence of Christian Living
The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers Discovery House Publishers © 2000 by Oswald Chambers Publications Association, Limited Preface to Review. Sifting through the sands of time, the lives of men and of times and of places and of things are easily lost or forgotten. My own life, that of my family, of my ancestry, are not noticeable or distinct, when contrasted with the span of civilization, and perhaps that is as it should be. From a Christian perspective, if we are content to let the hand of God mold us and the events and circumstances which confront us, it matters not whether we make a noticeable mark in world history. But if during our lives we can have a glimpse of the nature of the eternal, of God, His character, and our relation to him, and make that known to others - then we should take note of the source of this inspiration. Thus, if for no other reason than to learn of God, we ought to read and study The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers. Review. The book is a collection of his sermons and teachings and lectures; as you read these materials, you quickly learn and observe that Chambers was gifted in revealing the nature of God, in a manner unique to his times (post Victorian era, WWI), but eternal in its message. But how were these messages, which Chambers preached, reduced to writing, since the messages were given during a six year span, from 1911 - 1917? At that time, there were no tape recorders or digital voice devices. The answer: a pencil, note pad and Biddy Chambers' shorthand notes. When he taught and preached, Biddy Chambers (Mrs. Oswald Chambers) took shorthand notes of what he said, then later transcribed his lectures and sermons, most of which were transcribed and published after he died. Though he had the message, she had a gift, perhaps a streak of genius, as she compiled the shorter daily devotional, My Utmost for His Highest circa 1928, which was completed about ten years after he died in 1917, through the use of her shorthand notes. Though I had read this daily devotional several times, it was not until I taught a Sunday School class on My Utmost for His Highest that I sought biographical material on Oswald Chambers. After locating and reading the very good biography Abandoned to God, a friend mentioned that Chambers' works had been reduced to a single book, which even included a searchable CD; the computer program (on the CD) uses a book reader, which is a very handy tool, whenever I want to share bits and pieces of his teachings with friends. But let me return to the point I was making: after I read the biography, I learned how the sermons and lectures were transcribed. The Complete Works is a monster-sized book, about 1500 pages. It took me over 3 years to read it. As I worked my way though each large page, I was surprised to learn that Oswald Chambers was not only bright and well read (in fields other than Christianity), he was a master psychologist. His insights into human behavior are profound, and this gift of making our actions transparent is somewhat alarming when contrasted with contemporary ethics, philosophy and psychology of Christianity. In these teachings and sermons, his theology does not repeat itself, for each sermon casts different nuances on Christian living that no one else has reduced to writing (to my knowledge). But permit me to give a sampling of his works, which are rich in his knowledge of God and his theology: Chambers' Basic Beliefs (materials in quotations taken from his message, Disciples Indeed) "The essence of Christianity is a personal relationship to Jesus Christ with any amount of room for its outworking. The appeal of the Gospel is not that it should be preached in order that men might be saved and put right for heaven, but that they might enter into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ here and now. "Discipleship and salvation are two different things: a disciple is one who, realizing the meaning of the Atonement, deliberately gives himself up to Jesus Christ in unspeakable gratitude. The one mark of discipleship is the mastership of Jesus ¬¬-- His right to me from the crown of my head to the sole of my foot. "The one essential element in all our Lord's teaching about discipleship is abandon, no calculation, no trace of self-interest. A disciple is one who not only proclaims God's truth, but one who manifests that he is no longer his own, he has been "bought with a price." "The mark of the saint is the good right things he has the privilege of not doing. There are a hundred and one right and good things which, if you are a disciple of Jesus, you must avoid as you would the devil although there is no devil in them. If our Lord's words in Matthew 5:29-30 were read more often we would have a healthier young manhood and womanhood. "Beware of the people who tell you life is simple. Life is such a mass of complications that no man is safe apart from God. Coming to Jesus does not simplify life, it simplifies my relationship to God. When Jesus Christ is bringing a son to glory , He ignores the work he has done; the work has been allowed as a discipline to perfect his relationship to the Father. The work we do for God is made by Him a means till He has got us to the place where we are willing to be purified and made of worth to Himself. "Overmuch organization in Christian work is always in danger of killing God-born originality; it keeps us conservative, makes our hands feeble. A false artificial flow of progress swamps true devotion to Jesus. Whenever a spiritual movement has been true to Jesus Christ it has brought forth fruit in a hundred and one ways the originator of the movement never dreamed of." Though Oswald Chambers did not mention the phrase "Let God engineer" in the above quotation, this message is a constant theme in his teachings. He believed God was actively at work in our lives, and in some instances, with or without our cooperating faith or help. To me, that is very important. I want God to be at work in our lives. As he stated in The Lord Omnipotent Reigneth, "unless God can alter me, He dare not forgive me." Our job: surrender, then listen and obey. His job: take control of me, my circumstances, my habits which might need adjustment, etc. On Prayer (materials in quotations taken from message "What's the Good of Prayer") One of the surprising comments Chambers made concerns the nature of prayer: he said our perception of prayer is that it is preparation for the work God has given us to do, which is wrong. To him, prayer is the work. He did not regard prayer as easy or normal; but let him say it, not me: "It is not part of the natural life of a man to pray. By "natural" I mean the ordinary, sensible, healthy, worldly-minded life. We hear it said that a man will suffer in his life if he does not pray; I question it. Prayer is an interruption to personal ambition, and no man who is busy has time to pray. What will suffer is the life of God in him, which is nourished not by food but by prayer. If we look on prayer as a means of developing ourselves, there is nothing in it at all, nor do we find that idea of prayer in the Bible. Prayer is other than meditation; it is that which develops the life of God in us. Prayer is the way the life of God is nourished. Our Lord nourished the life of God in Him by prayer; He was continually in contact with His Father. We generally look upon prayer as a means of getting things for ourselves, whereas the Bible idea of prayer is that God's holiness and God's purpose and God's wise order may be brought about, irrespective of who comes or who goes. Our ordinary views of prayer are not found in the New Testament. Prayer is not a question of altering things externally, but of working wonders in a man's disposition. When you pray, things remain the same, but you begin to be different. The same thing when a man falls in love, his circumstances and conditions are the same, but he has a sovereign preference in his heart for another person which transfigures everything. If we have been born from above (rv mg) and Christ is formed in us, instantly we begin to see things differently-- "If any man is in Christ, there is a new creation" (rv mg)." Too often we slip into believing that God is three million miles away from us, that He put the earth in orbit a long time ago, then sat in his Lazy-boy recliner, turned on the television, and started playing video games or began channel surfing. Chambers knew that is simply not the case. It may be difficult to understand that God is at work and that we can communicate with Him, and that He will communicate with us. However, in order to hear from Him, and to begin to learn the nature of God, our job is to pray. The Incarnation (materials in quotations taken from his message, In Thought) There are so many things wrong in the world - wars, famines, disease, broken families, harmful addictions, corruption in government - one might throw in the towel, and simply work out a life style commensurate with his or her personality and circumstances, and blithely finish our life cycle. But that still doesn't resolve the question, what is wrong with the world, and is there anything I might do to fix it? Chambers understood these questions and concerns, and responded as follows: "A fanatic sees God's point of view but not man's. He says God ought not to allow the devil, or war, or sin. We are in the whirlwind of things that are, what is the use of wasting time and saying things ought not to be? They are! In the midst of the problems, what is the way out? The line of solution is not to apply the plaster of a philosophical statement or the principles of teetotalism, or of vegetarianism, but something more fundamental than these, viz., a personal relationship to God and Man as one--Jesus Christ. "Don't make principles your aim, but get rightly related to Me," Jesus Christ says. "The revelation of Christianity is that God, in order to be of use in human affairs, had to become a typical Man. That is the great revelation of Christianity, that God Himself became human; became incarnate in the weakest side of His own creation. The doctrine of the Incarnation is that God did become actual, and that He manifested Himself on the plane of human flesh. He had to take upon Himself "the likeness of sinful flesh." There must be the right alloy. You cannot use pure gold as coin, it is too soft to be serviceable, and the pure gold of the Divine is no good in human affairs; there must be the alloy mixed with it, and the alloy is not sin. Sin, according to the Bible, is something that has no right in human nature at all, it is abnormal and wrong. Human nature is earthly, it is sordid, but it is not bad. The thing in human nature that is bad is the result of a wrong relationship set up between the man God created and the being God created who became the devil, and the wrong relationship whereby a man becomes absolute "boss" over himself is called sin. Sin is a wrong element, an element that has to be dealt with by God in Redemption through man's conscience. "The fanatical person is certain that human beings can live a pure Divine life on earth. But we are not so constituted, we are constituted to live the human life presenced with Divinity on earth, on the ground of Redemption. We are to have the right alloy--God and humanity one, as in our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the miracle of the Redemption when it works actually in human flesh. The way out is to remember that the alloy must be discovered in you and me, viz., the pure Divine working on the basis of my pure human. I may have the most beautiful sentiments in prayer and visions in preaching, but unless I have learned how God can mix the human and the Divine and make them a flesh and blood epistle of His grace, I have missed the point of Jesus Christ's revelation. As you can see, God was a real, vital component in the persona of Oswald Chambers. If you read his biography (which comes with The Complete Works, on the CD), you will learn that Chambers sought the guiding presence of God for several years before he received the infilling of the Holy Spirit (for my Baptist readers who might be alarmed at the thought of being filled by the Holy Spirit, because they might speak in tongues -- be advised that Chambers had no fondness for the gift of tongues). To put his life in order, he first had to submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ (and this happened after he was saved); thereafter, the events of his life changed in a way noticeable to Chambers. Throughout the remainder of his life, he observed the similar transformations in the lives of those who surrender and submitted. He saw that God really did engineer our lives and the attendant events and circumstances. Conclusion. I could quote other comments he made, which are as profound as the ones cited, but that would serve little purpose. You must read this book, then re-read it, to grasp how God is working in your own life. As I conclude this lengthy review, please don't overlook the work of his spouse: it is obvious that Biddy Chambers (Mrs. Oswald Chambers) composed a masterpiece in stitching together 366 topics, from the mass of materials in The Complete Works, as she compiled My Utmost for His Highest (she had no computer, no database, no concordance; just her notes written in shorthand). Though this little devotional is wonderful, it almost pales in comparison with The Complete Works. As I continue to re-read The Complete Works, the focus of my life is sharpened a bit more by the teachings and admonitions of Oswald Chambers. Next to scripture itself, I can recommend no better resource in Christian living, doctrine, psychology, and philosophy, than The Complete Works.
A Treasure House for the Serious Believer
I've been immeasurably blessed by the works and writings of Oswald Chambers for many years. His level of spiritual maturity, insight and understanding of the Word of God and the ability to communicate that as timeless, yet relevant application that fosters godly growth and maturity is sorely absent in our current day of generally sloppy Bible teaching and God manipulating (as if it were possible) preaching. Having all his writings in one volume makes for a great "at your fingertips" resource for the serious student of the Bible both as personal study and devotional material.
The BEST Book I've Every Purchased
I would recommend this to any Pastor, Evangelist, Bible Student, and Christian. I am a 4th year Christian Ministries Student. I purchased this book primarily for "The Utmost" and "If Ye Shall Ask" so I would have some great material to read regarding personal devotional time and prayer. Most compilations I've found have excerpts of books. For instance, I've looked for Tozer compilations and everyone I've found has only excerpts. I wanted the entire book for each selection. I was skeptical when I made this purchase of "the Complete Works of Oswald Chambers." I thought perhaps it would be excerpts only, that it was impossible to have everything there. I was wrong. All of Oswald's work is there, with forewords, introductions, and original publication for each work. It has unprinted material as the description suggested. Plus it comes with a CD with everything in a searchable database. This is the best purchase I've made, and I have a book shelf filled with some of the most well-known books. I have it sitting on my desk and I read it daily. Plus, I have actually purchased a 2nd copy to present to my Pastor for his birthday because this book is a gem that I couldn't keep only for myself. Buy this book-- you won't be disappointed. Yes it is the size of a textbook, but it's because it seriously is complete.
One complaint is that the pages are thin like a bible
Quite extensive and dense. One complaint is that the pages are thin like a bible. Would've preferred a thicker page. But I do enjoy it! You can still use no bleed or bible pens in it.
Legendary Works of a Heart Devoted to Christ Himself!
When I first read "My Utmost for His Highest" (also available online on [...] Oswald Chambers' popular and serious devotional, I was mesmerised by the integrity of his words. All his books were based on all his sermons and only exist thanks to his faithful wife Gertrude Hobbs (Biddy, as Oswald calls her), who transcribed all his sermons. Since then, I was looking for more of his work that were published. I stopped looking when I came across "The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers"! A dream come true - all his works in one single volume. This volume comes with a CD-ROM containing an electronic version of the volume plus other additions such as the King James Version Bible and helpful cross-references. Oswald Chambers was born in Scotland in 1874 and was educated at London's Royal College of Art and the University of Edinburgh. Perhaps it was the fact that he was gifted in the arts, that his decision to move into a preaching ministry that spanned Britain, America and Japan, turned out to be such a legacy for people of today like you and I. When World War I broke out, he left London to become Chaplain to the Allied troops in Egypt in October 1915. His wife Biddy and their 2½ year old daughter, Kathleen, followed in December 1915. "My Utmost for His Highest" was written primarily in that time of war. Oswald died of complications following an operation to remove his appendix in 1917. The telegram which his wife sent simply read: "Oswald, in His presence." As J. I. Packer wrote in ChristianityToday.com, Oswald Chambers, like C. S. Lewis "had a brilliant mind, a stout faith, an uncannily empathetic and perceptive imagination, and a masterful way with words. Each was a teacher by instinct and gift. Each was spiritually honest and down-to-earth to an almost frightening degree. Each was well versed in the Western theological heritage, and in Western philosophy, literature, and history. Each adored the Lord Jesus Christ unstintingly as his Savior and Master. And each had a similar approach to the nitty-gritty of living through a war." Oswald Chambers' works are truly inspirational and soul-piercing. I suggest buying "The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers" not only because of that. Some of his work will NEVER be reprinted ever again! It has been decided that some of the lesser-known individual titles will go out of print including: - Approved Unto God - Bringing Sons to Glory - Daily Thoughts for Disciples - God's Workmanship - He Shall Glorify Me - Highest Good - Making All Things New - Not Knowing Where* - Our Portrait in Genesis* - Place of Help - Shade of His Hand - Shadow of an Agony (*Published in the UK as "Gems from Genesis") That makes this volume about the MOST complete works of Oswald Chambers ever, now and for the future! So buy it. NOW.
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