The Gospel's Power & Message Quotes

“God does not call men to make Jesus Lord (as though they had such power), but to live in absolute submission to the Lord He has made.”
― Paul Washer, The Gospel's Power & Message

“There is something worse than holding our silence while the lost of this world run headlong into hell: the crime of preaching to a different gospel than the one passed down to the saints. For this reason, we must shun the gospel of contemporary evangelicalism, for it is a watered-down, culturally carved, truncated gospel that allows men to hold to a form of godliness while denying its power, to profess to know God while denying Him with their deeds, and to call Jesus “Lord, Lord,” while not doing the Father’s will.15 Woe to us if we do not preach the gospel, but even greater woe is due us if we preach it incorrectly!16”
― Paul Washer, The Gospel's Power & Message

“We rob men of a greater vision of God because we will not give them a lower vision of themselves.”
― Paul Washer, The Gospel's Power & Message

“When will we realize that one of the greatest mission fields in the West is the pews of our churches every Sunday morning?”
― Paul Washer, The Gospel's Power & Message

“the proof or validation of genuine conversion is that the one who professes faith in Christ perseveres in that faith and grows in sanctification throughout the full course of his life. If a person professes faith in Christ and yet falls away or makes no progress in godliness, it does not mean that he has lost his salvation. It reveals that he was never truly converted.”
― Paul Washer, The Gospel's Power & Message

“If a person professes faith in Christ and yet falls away or makes no progress in godliness, it does not mean that he has lost his salvation. It reveals that he was never truly converted.”
― Paul Washer, The Gospel's Power & Message

“There are few things more blasphemous than a preacher who compliments the unbeliever on the wonderful life he has made for himself, extolling all that he has achieved, and then adding that he lacks one thing: he needs Jesus to make it all complete. This was not the attitude of the apostle Paul, who counted even the most splendid things in his previous life to be dung in comparison to Christ.11 We should never present Christ to the unbeliever as the cherry on top of an already wonderful life. The unbeliever must see that he has no life, and that all his personal achievements prior to Christ are monuments to his own vanity: made of sand and quickly passing.”
― Paul Washer, The Gospel's Power & Message

“when two things are contrary or diametrically opposed to one another, to receive the one is to reject the other. Since there is no affinity or friendship between the gospel and the world, to receive the gospel is to reject the world. This demonstrates just how radical the act of receiving the gospel can be. To receive and follow the gospel call is to reject all that can be seen with the eye and held in the hand in exchange for what cannot be seen.1 It is to reject personal autonomy and the right to self-government in order to enslave oneself to a Messiah who died two thousand years ago as an enemy of the state and a blasphemer. It is to reject the majority and its views in order to join oneself to a berated and seemingly insignificant minority called the church. It is to risk everything in this one and only life in the belief that this impaled prophet is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. To receive the gospel is not merely to pray a prayer asking Jesus to come into one’s heart, but it is to put away the world and embrace the fullness of the claims of Christ.”
― Paul Washer, The Gospel's Power & Message

“As a rich man sees no reason for rejoicing in a meager gift of bread until a turn of events leaves him impoverished, so the sinner finds no joy in salvation until the horrid nature of his sin is revealed and he sees himself as wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.”
― Paul Washer, The Gospel's Power & Message

“When we realize what we were before Christ and what we deserved in that state, it further magnifies the enormity of the gospel for us.”
― Paul Washer, The Gospel's Power & Message

“You cannot see the beauty of the stars in the midday sky because the light of the sun ecliples them. However, after the sun sets and the sky becomes black as pitch, you see the stars in the full force of their splender. So it is with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We can only see its true beauty against the backdrop of our sin. The darker man appears, the brighter the gospel shines.”
― Paul washer, The Gospel's Power & Message

“In the gospel of Jesus, God is love. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and He sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous alike.3 At the fullness of time, He gave His greatest demonstration of love by sending His beloved Son so that men might not perish but have eternal life through Him.4”
― Paul Washer, The Gospel's Power & Message

“One of the greatest crimes committed by this present Christian generation is its neglect of the gospel, and it is from this neglect that all our other maladies spring forth. The lost world is not so much gospel hardened as it is gospel ignorant because many of those who proclaim the gospel are also ignorant of its most basic truths. The essential themes that make up the very core of the gospel—the justice of God, the radical depravity of man, the blood atonement, the nature of true conversion, and the biblical basis of assurance—are absent from too many pulpits. Churches reduce the gospel message to a few creedal statements, teach that conversion is a mere human decision, and pronounce assurance of salvation over anyone who prays the sinner’s prayer.”
― Paul Washer, The Gospel's Power & Message

“Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, nor sworn deceitfully.”17 Any man who entertains even the remotest possibility that there is a personal and moral God must tremble at David’s question. Unless he is an imbecile or his conscience has been seared beyond use, he must recognize that he does not possess the necessary qualifications to stand approved before the Judge of all the earth.”
― Paul Washer, The Gospel's Power & Message

“Most would sooner attend a conference on self-esteem and self-realization than listen to one sermon on sanctification, without which no one will see the Lord.15 Many would cross land and sea to find their best life now, but they would not walk across the street to attend a series of meetings on the infinite worth of Christ or the sufferings of Calvary!”
― Paul Washer, The Gospel's Power & Message

“We must recognize that we have not been honest until we have explained to seekers that receiving Christ is the most sensible yet dangerous thing they could ever do. After all, like C. S. Lewis’s Aslan in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, He is not a tame lion, and He certainly is not safe. He has the right to ask anything of those who confess His lordship. The same Jesus who beckons the weary to Himself may also ask everything of them, even sending them forth to lose their lives for His sake in this dark and fallen world.”
― Paul David Washer, The Gospel's Power & Message

“that I preached them: to be free from their burden. Like Jeremiah, if I do not speak forth this message, “then…in my heart [it becomes] like a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I was weary of holding it back, and I could not.”6 As the apostle Paul exclaimed, “Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!”7”
― Paul Washer, The Gospel's Power & Message

“The psalms of David confront us with man’s greatest dilemma: “Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, nor sworn deceitfully.”17 Any man who entertains even the remotest possibility that there is a personal and moral God must tremble at David’s question. Unless he is an imbecile or his conscience has been seared beyond use, he must recognize that he does not possess the necessary qualifications to stand approved before the Judge of all the earth.”
― Paul Washer, The Gospel's Power & Message

“We live in a world that is hostile to the gospel of Jesus Christ and holds it in contempt. Furthermore, this world is under the power of the evil one, who opposes the gospel above all other doctrines and would eradicate it from the universe if he could.33 In fact, the devil would gladly lay a Bible in the hands of every man and promote obedience to every command if in exchange we would give him the gospel.”
― Paul David Washer, The Gospel's Power & Message

“Our society considers a man careless if he does not have a backup plan or an alternative escape route, if he has not diversified his investments, if he has put all his eggs in the same basket, or if he has burned bridges behind him. Yet this is the very thing that the man who receives Jesus Christ must do.”
― Paul David Washer, The Gospel's Power & Message

“As preachers and congregants, we would be wise to see the gospel anew through the eyes of this ancient apostle and to esteem it worthy of a lifetime of careful investigation. For though we may have already lived many years in the faith; though we may possess the intellect of Edwards and the insight of Spurgeon; though we may have memorized every biblical text concerning the gospel; and though we may have digested every publication from the early church fathers, the Reformers, the Puritans, and up through the scholars of this present age, we can be assured that we have not yet even reached the foothills of this Everest that we call the gospel.”
― Paul David Washer, The Gospel's Power & Message