Mankind in Sin: Paul Washer Sermon (Transcript)

This is what I want you to see. We have a world to win. Do not think that I’m standing up here this evening saying that all is dark and gloomy and we should circle the wagons and just wait for the second coming. No, we have a world to win. We have nations to save. We have dragons to fight. And it can be done, but it cannot be done in the power of a man. But it can be done in the power of God.

And this is why this conference is so very important. I hope that it holds up for you the fact that men are created in the macho dei, the image of God. And that you should see the worth in every man. But I hope this conference also achieves something else to show you the fallenness and the darkness of man and the impossibility of men being saved apart from a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit.

I believe that in the regeneration of a soul there is manifested more of the power of God than in the very creation of the universe because He created the universe ex nihilo, out of nothing. But when He saves a man, He recreates a mass of fallen, corrupt humanity into something glorious, a child of God. It can be done. The kingdom can and will be extended, but not by your power and not by mine. His.

Oh, give me. Give me weak men. And the world can be changed.

So now, in order to understand the impossibility of this, we must look for a moment at man. And not only man, but our culture. And I want you to think now about WHAT IS MAN.

The Scriptures say, the Scriptures testify, that man is spiritually dead. Now what does that mean?

What does it mean? Well, I want us to leave our text for just a moment and go to one of the best explanations in all of Scripture, and that is Ephesians 2. Now, we’re not going to tarry long in this text because we have much to say this evening, but I want you to see things in a different light.

In Ephesians 2, verse 1, it says, “…and you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lust of the flesh, indulging in the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”

Now, what does it mean? What does it truly mean to be spiritually dead?

Well, I have a definition here. It means to be unresponsive to God. Utterly, totally, completely unresponsive to God, but responsive to every sinful stimulus, both human and demonic. Now, even that doesn’t shock you.

But you see, if you understood this text correctly, if you understood what I was saying, you would be shocked. You might even be appalled. And see, that’s the job of the preacher. You look at this text and you yawn. You look at this text and you put it in the category of Reformed doctrine when you should look at this text and weep. What is it saying about man?

Well, imagine this. Well, before we get there, let’s look at what it’s not saying. It’s not saying that man is treading water in a storm and crying out for God’s help. It’s not saying that man is floating unconscious in the water and needs to be revived a bit so that he might extend his hand and the Savior might take hold of it.

What is it saying? Imagine with me for a moment a rotting, putrid corpse at the bottom of a cesspool. A cesspool that was created by the moral filth and pollution excreted from that body, from that man.

You see, you hear he was dead. Then you hear ‘in his trespasses and sins,’ in the sphere of trespasses and sins. Yes, Adam is involved, but not just Adam. His own trespasses and sins. So if you want to get a good picture of what we’re dealing with when we’re preaching the gospel to men, it’s a dead corpse lying at the bottom of a cesspool that was created from the contamination, the moral filth that was excreted from his own body.

And not just that, although he is dead to God, laying down there dead to God, there is someone who’s put a ladle in the pond and is stirring it. He may be dead to God, but he’s animated and responsive to sin and the demonic.

So come to me with your silly preaching and tell me how you’re going to help sinners. You know, for this sinner to be helped, it requires a magnificent demonstration of the power of God that comes only through the preaching of the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit.

But now let’s not just stop there. We’re not talking about one individual. Remember, I said we would talk about man. We would talk about man’s realm, man’s culture.

So now imagine you have this pond with a man in it. And then you see another and another and another and another. One corrupt pool after another all flowing into the same stream, all going as fast as it can away from God in rebellion and impurity hell-bent on its own destruction. That’s culture. That’s our society. That’s our world.

Now, I want to read a passage from Jude. Now, he’s talking here about false prophets, but the application is for the general public. This is the way he would describe it: ‘men without fear, caring for themselves.’ This is our generation. These are our people.

Without fear, caring for themselves. Clouds without water, carried along by winds. Autumn trees without fruit. Doubly dead. Uprooted, wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam. Wandering stars for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever. This is humanity.

Now, what tool are you going to pull out of your pocket to heal this?

Now, when we talk about spiritual death, we immediately come to what some would say a theological, philosophical, ethical problem. And mainly this problem has evolved because men do not correctly understand the doctrine of spiritual death.

Here’s the idea. To say a man is spiritually dead means that he cannot come to God, that he cannot obey God, and that he cannot please God in any way.

That being the case, HOW CAN THAT MAN BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR HIS DEEDS?

The answer. Man’s inability, his impotence, its moral. Man cannot because he will not. And he will not, because he hates God. And he hates God because God is good. And he hates a good God because he has fallen, this man, corrupt, a hater of light and a lover of darkness.

You see, that’s why when I — and this is no dream for me, when I’m standing in a pulpit preaching to the lost, or I’m standing in the middle of a plaza preaching to the lost, I am Ezekiel. And I am in a valley of dry bones. And there is nothing, nothing that can be done for these people but God. But God.

Now, let me say it this way. Spiritual inability — man’s spiritual inability is the result of his willing hostility. Now, I want to give you an illustration. If God were to give a book — His book — to a blind man, and then condemn that blind man because he cannot read the book, that would be unjust.

But that’s not the case. God gives His book to a man who can read it, but either refuses to do so out of hatred for the author, or begins to read it, and the more he reads it, the more he hates the author until he throws it down cursing God.

And this creature — this man — is fully responsible because it is moral. It is not that he cannot see. It’s that he can and will not.

I want to give you a few passages of Scripture to back up what I’m saying.

The first one is found in Romans 1:18: ‘For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness…’

How much can man know about God, the person of God? How much can man know about the will of God? Man can know enough about the person of God to hate Him and can know enough about the will of God to despise it, reject it, and turn from it. Therefore, man is guilty.

There’s a principle that I want to share with you. It’s found in Genesis 37:4. Just listen. This has to do with Joseph and his brothers.

It says: ‘His brothers (Joseph’s brothers) saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers; and so they hated him and could not speak to him on friendly terms.’ They could not speak a kind word to him.

Now, I want you to think about this. They spoke the same language. They lived in the same proximity, but the Hebrew is quite clear. They could not. It was impossible for them to speak a kind word to Joseph. Why? Because they hated him.

Most of us who have been in the ministry for any length of time have come across married couples that are on the verge of divorce and you tell one of them, you must forgive, you must forgive, you must forgive, and either the man or woman clenches their fist and say, ‘I cannot forgive him!’ Why? Because I hate him. Because I hate him.

Let’s look at John 3. One of the most important passages in the Scriptures. John 3:19: Jesus said, oh, what a Master. He is the Interpreter who will make it plain. What a Master.

John 3:19, He says ‘This is the judgment, that Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.’

I had a friend many, many years ago in college and he was a strange bird. I mean, he would preach to anything. And we would go street preaching together. And one day he goes, he got that crazy look in his eye. And he said, you know what? He goes, watch this. So we’re standing in this crowded place and he screams out, Buddha! As loud as he can remember, no one basically paid any attention to him. And he said, Muhammad! And then he goes, watch this. Jesus!

And the reaction, even back then, nearly 40 years ago, was stunning. I mean, if you look at the life of Christ. You know, one time I was in an interview in Detroit and a man said, ‘I want to start the interview by asking you this question. How do you deal with the fact that so many people hate you?’

And I said, ‘Well, I really didn’t know that until now. Thank you.’ And then I said this, I said, ‘When people say bad things about me, I always remember that they persecuted Christ.’ He nodded his head, but then I said, ‘But there’s a huge difference. No one ever had a reason to persecute Christ.’

My boldness has sometimes been brashness. My words have been far too cutting. But no one could ever point to Jesus. Even today, the enemies of Christ cannot point to any wrongdoing. So why is He hated? And I would submit to you the most hated man on this planet. Why? Because He was light. Because He was righteous.

And sometimes when I’m in a university and I say ‘He was light.’ And they go, ‘Oh yeah, you know, now you’re going to talk about your prehistoric morality.’

Or I say ‘He was righteous.’

‘Yes, now you’re going to continue with this prehistoric idea that you have of what is right and wrong.’

But then I throw this at them: ‘They not only hate Him because He is righteous. They not only hate Him because He’s good. They hate Him because He was love.’

You say, what do you mean? Love today, if you’ve been watching, has evolved. Love used to be defined as it is in Scripture, I believe, in this: self-giving. The giving of self. But today, love is love of self.

And so when someone like Christ appears or our gospel appears, it inflames them. Do you see what kind of battle we’re in?

You see, sometimes, and I’ve known even some good theologians who’ve gone wrong in this area. I mean, when you think… I’m going to switch for a minute. When you think about hell, it is terrible to think about. I mean, if you really think about it, and so many theologians have tried to dance around it and explain it away, that it doesn’t exist or that man is just annihilated and that’s done with.

And I think one of the reasons why men have such a trouble with hell is because they have a version of hell that’s suited more for Dante’s Inferno than it is for the Scriptures. Or for media. Or for even evangelical preaching.

We have this idea that there’s all these people in hell and they’re all sorry for what they did. And they all want to run away from their sin. And if they just had one more chance to bow before the feet of Christ, they would do it. That is not the case.

And I learned that from Romans 1. They have been totally and completely turned over to their own lust and their own evil. And if God were to condescend and stand in hell and throw open the doors of hell and tell everyone in there, ‘Come out. Acknowledge Me as God and come out.’ Oh, they’d run to the door. They would run to the door and they would slam it shut and they would say, ‘We would rather rot in hell than stand in the presence of Your righteousness.’

When we’re preaching the gospel, we have to understand there is no power in the eloquence of a man. There’s no intellect that is sufficient. A supernatural work of God has to occur and it occurs when a man lashes himself to the gospel and preaches the gospel.

Now, so far, I have described man. Let me use a biblical term. I have described man when the tree is green. This is the normal depiction of man.

Now here’s what I want to tell you. We’re not living in normal.

What do I mean? We are working in a culture. We are living in a culture that now I believe and I will say it, the western world — Europe, United States, Canada — this is not normalcy. We are living in a culture that is under divine wrath, that has been turned over to reprobation. And so what we’re dealing with now is far greater than even what I described beforehand. Do you see this?

There was a time when I could go on a university and I could reason with people. There was a time when the law of non-contradiction actually had an impact on the secular man. That’s no longer the case. And this is not just because a bunch of teachers got together and taught against the idea of absolute truth. Our nation has been turned over.

So if there ever was a time not to circle the wagons, but to trust in the power of the Gospel it is now, nothing else is going to help you. There was a time in this culture back in the 90s when all you had to do was preach a conservative message about American traditional values and you could fill up churches and they did. That’s why a lot of preachers will stand before God and they will have to know what they did. That they built their enterprises on the bones of unconverted church members. But you can no longer build a church that way.

No one wants Jesus unless the Spirit of God changes their nature.

I want to read just quickly. Time is going by us.

‘For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.’

Are they victims? No.

Romans 1:19:23: ‘because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and of four-footed animals and crawling creatures.’ And it goes on and on, further and further into moral decadence.

But here’s what I want you to see. When you see all the sins that are in Romans 1, do not do what most people do. They see these sins and go, because of these sins, God’s judgment is going to come on America. No! If you see these sins, God’s judgment has already come on America. That’s what you have to understand. Because the sin here, and this is what makes me so angry, the great sin here is not what you think. It is not what men do to themselves or what men do to men. The great sin here is although they knew God, they did not want Him.

You need to understand something. There is nothing, no one, more precious to God than His Son. Everything God has ever done, He has done it for His Son. Your salvation was done for His Son. He’s gathering a people for His Son. In the mind of God, everything has to do with His Son.

So the great sin of America, the great sin of Europe, centuries of Gospel preaching, rejection after rejection after rejection after rejection of the One who is most precious in the eyes of God: His Son. And that is why any attempt to make this country conservative again or great again or anything else will fail because God is concerned about one thing and it’s not a thing. It’s a person. It’s His Son. To be right with God, whether you’re an individual or a nation, it has to do with loving His Son.

Now I want to show you something else. Let’s go to Isaiah and talk more about God’s judgment upon the West. If this is not evident to you, I don’t know how to make it evident to you. It stands on its own even without exposition.

Because of the sin of the nation of Israel…

Isaiah 3:1: ‘For behold, the Lord God of hosts is going to remove from Jerusalem and Judah both supply and support, the whole supply of bread and the whole supply of water.’

You think that’s frightening? Just wait.

Verse 2: He’s going to remove the mighty man and the warrior, the judge and the prophet, the diviner and the elder, the captain of fifty and the honorable man, the counselor and the expert artisan, and the skillful enchanter.

He’s going to remove, even though there’s a mixture here, the idea is He is going to remove the noble men, the worthy leaders. He’s going to remove them from a people.

Look at verse 4: ‘For I will make mere lads their princes, and capricious children will rule over them.’ Is that not our nation? Is that not the West? People with no dignity, with no sense, no rationale, no reason, no ability to use reason, ruled by emotion.

Verse 5: ‘And the people will be oppressed, each one by another, and each one by his neighbor; the youth will storm against the elder and the inferior against the honorable. When a man lays hold of his brother in his father’s house saying, “You have a cloak, you shall be our ruler, and these ruins will be under your charge.”

Look down at verse 12: ‘O My people! Their oppressors are children, and women rule over them. O My people! Those who guide you lead you astray and confuse the direction of your paths.’

But don’t think for a moment that the people are victims of the rulers. No, the rulers are God’s judgment on the evil of the people.

And then you can make for me a long list of all these individual crimes that you hate so much that are flagrant in our society and I will erase them all and tell you there’s one particular thing that stands out exponentially above everything else and it’s the way we’ve treated His Son. That’s what brings reprobation. It’s the rejection of God through the rejection of His Son.

Now, here’s the question. Preachers, what are you going to do to remedy this? You know, problems need to be defined. They do. Intricately, by men of great intellect, they need to be understood, but it’s not just enough to identify problems and talk about them. It’s not enough to just accurately explain all this. The question is what will we do?

And there is no place in the Old or New Testament that tells me that as ministers of Christ we’re to circle the wagons and hide. But we are to go forth. We have a King who goes forth conquering and to conquer. And those that ride behind Him are under His sovereign control. And those who will not deal rightly with Him will have to deal with them. There was never such a time as this to stand. But with one banner, Christ.

What will you do, preacher? How are you going to cut through this thicket? What are you going to do? Personality? Is that going to do it? How many churches in the last 30 years have been built on personality?

Eloquence? Apostle Paul says it just gets in the way. Entertainment? Marketing? Or let’s hit closer to home. The intellect? Well, make no mistake, the intellect is extremely important. We are to grow in the knowledge of Christ and that is the foundation for all other growing. But intellect alone?

One time I believe I was speaking with old Richard Owen Roberts, the old revivalist. I think he either said it or quoted someone else. He said, “The difference between the men of God of yesteryear and the men of God today is that the men of God of yesteryear knew something of the power of God and the men of God today are just really, really intelligent.”

Now, we could all do for a dose of intelligence. That’s not enough.

Also, are you going to win the day with cultural sensitivity?

I think history, I think the last two years, proves me right that one day I’ll be sitting in prison with a Pentecostal who would not deny that Jesus Christ is Lord while a bunch of fancy tattoo-wearing Reformed boys have already denied Christ and gone on to something else.

What are we going to do? Make a truce with culture? Work ourselves to death to try to prove to them we’re not as dumb as they think we are? Are we going to be like reeds shaken in the wind? People like that belong in palaces and with politicians. What we need today are prophets. We need men who stand behind a pulpit and not just in a pulpit, on the street and in the jungle who cry out, ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ not because they’ve received a vision, but because they have the text and they know God.

You know, I want to tell you, you know, all those verses in Scripture about preaching with power? Never forget, preacher. They were written by a man who wasn’t preaching in a beautiful pulpit with everyone saying amen and marveling at his eloquence. Written by a man who was beaten half to death almost every time he preached.

Power is not needed for protected men. Power is not needed for safe men. Power is needed when you go out there and throw yourself in the middle of the enemy. When like Eleazar you grab that sword and you swing until your hand is cramped to it.

Sometimes I go on the Internet and I watch these boys going out on the street preaching. Some of them, they do not have the biblical knowledge God gave a goose, but they’re preaching. Give me a bunch of those men. That’s how you change the world.

Let’s go back to Ezekiel. What was this prophet like?

It says in verse 1, ‘The hand of the Lord was upon me and He brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord.’

Now this is used often in Ezekiel, but is this a concern of yours? I’m old enough to have been privy to great discussions with what we would have called the old school men. Not just the old school Calvinists, but Ravenhill. Abundance of reading of Tozer and others we could do for a dash of that.

Are you God’s man? Not that you’re big, not that you’re doing conferences, not that your name is everywhere, but He knows you in private and your name is known in heaven. He hears you. You pass the night watch with Him. You are God’s man. His hand is upon you. You may be pastoring 25 people, but you are God’s man. Do you have that assurance?

He said the hand of the Lord was on me… in the Spirit of the Lord. Oh, what a wonderful, terrible thing it is to be led by the Spirit, to be empowered by the Spirit, and that after doing what you’ve done, He leads you and you’re just so tired. I will not let a multitude of heretics teaching a multitude of false doctrines on the Holy Spirit steal my inheritance from me. We need men who do what? Who are constantly crying out for greater and greater manifestations of the life and power of the Holy Spirit in their own lives and in the church.

What was He like? He was called of God. He was led of the Spirit. What was His attitude towards the bones? You know, it doesn’t say to us here, but I have an idea what it was like because He was a man of God. So all I need is to find another man of God who saw similar bones and ask myself how did it affect him?

I just want to read the passage before I tell you what it is. I have said very hard, harsh things against my fellow man. But what should be our attitude? I am telling you the truth in Christ. I am not lying. My conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were accursed and separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.

How do you look at what in your category would seem the most vile sinner? Sorrow. Sometimes the preacher finds it hard to even walk down a sidewalk or in a mall. Lostness. Lost people. Broken people. Their eyes have different colors. They have different names. They bleed when they’re cut. When you look at culture, we have a desire at times. We see the news and we want to rail down curses from on high. We want fire to fall from heaven. But the only reason you’re sitting here and not cursing God is the sovereign grace of God. That’s got to mean something to you.

Listen to what Paul… That was Paul, of course, in Romans 9, but look what he says over here. If you just bear with me for a second. He says, ‘Show every consideration for all men, for we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another, but when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us.’

Sometimes they say to the preacher, ‘You’re so sad.’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s going to kill you, you know, early.’

‘Yeah, I suppose it will.’

‘And I’ll join Brainerd and McShane.’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, preacher, never regret what you’ve given Him. Regret what you’ve kept from Him.’

We are stewards of the gospel of Jesus Christ. With a title like that, you need no reputation. You can wash the feet of anyone, even your enemy. Let’s go, you know, over the last 20 years, we’ve heard this over and over, and it’s so true. It’s all about the glory of God.

It’s all about the glory of God.

That is so true. It cannot be emphasized enough, but remember, there’s a second commandment that is like it.

Love your neighbor. Love the people. Love the worst of them. I suppose it is a terrible thing to be a great sinner before you’re converted, but I can speak from experience that it does hold a bitter blessing. You remember what you were. Love is not a thing in the Christian life. It is the thing. Pouring out, self-giving. Don’t just watch those people on the news and hate them. Go preach the gospel to them.

I think he looked at those bones and he said, ‘That’s my people.’ He wasn’t detached. That’s my people.

What was the prophet’s attitude when he saw the bones? Sorrow.

But then, let’s go back to Ezekiel.

Verse 3, God said to him, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ He said, ‘I answered, O Lord God, you know.’ I love this. He did not presume upon the grace of God, yet at the same time, he did not doubt the grace of God or its power. God, if You want them to live, they will live.

There’s a wonderful thing when everything has to do with God and only God can do it. There’s an assurance in that. Is there anywhere in the Scripture that says that we can’t take the gospel to the nations? Is it anywhere? No.

Is there anywhere in the Scriptures where it says that it can’t be a revival? That nations cannot be turned? No, it doesn’t say that. Don’t say it does. It doesn’t.

This is not a time for tiny men with small hearts and tight spirits. This is not a time to watch the news and Instagram and become depressed. Why? If He wants them to live, they’ll live, he’ll live. And He tells me that He wants a very large people for His Son. And it’s our job, our task, to go get them. To go get them.

Man, most people have no reason to live. We have a reason to live and to die. Why? What was the prophet’s attitude? Hope in God. Sorrow when he looked at the bones. But when he heard God’s voice, hope and go on.

What did the prophet do?

Verse 4, he prophesied. He prophesied.

Verse 7, So I prophesied as I was commanded. I prophesied.

There’s power in that word. He spoke forth the word of God. If you’re a preacher here, what a privilege has been given to you. To prophesy. To preach. Not from vision. Not from feeling. But from an inspired inerrant, infallible Word.

But now I want to say something for a moment about preaching. I want to go over to Paul’s instruction to Timothy. A passage you’re all familiar with, but just listen.

‘All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.’

‘I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season;’ — to provide them as much information as their brain can take. That’s not what it says. There is a place for New Testament survey and there is a place for Sunday school lessons, but those things aren’t preaching.

Are you happy with your sermon? Because you got all the words right? Because your exegetical work was so careful? Because all these great expositors would have applauded you for not being like Paul Washer? Are you content with what you did? If you’re content with those things, then step out of the pulpit and don’t ever go back in there again.

You’re looking for people to be converted. You’re looking for saints to be edified. You’re not content with your performance. You want to see God move and you will not be satisfied. You will not be happy. You’ll take hold of the horns of the altar and say, give me this thing. Give me souls or I die. You preach as a dying man to dying men and you preach as though you will never preach again. Amen.

The fineness of some of our preaching has sapped it of strength. Now, don’t get me wrong. If Steve Lawson comes by here with one of his expository preaching classes, take it. I’m thinking about taking a few myself. But that’s not the end of it. And if Steve was here right now, he would be shouting hallelujah.

All preaching. Preaching. It’s a dangerous thing. It’s dangerous for the man if he preaches wrong. Because he’ll stand before God one day and give an answer for every word. But it’s dangerous for the congregation if he preaches right. Because they will stand before God and have to give an answer for every word.

Preaching is dangerous. We need dangerous men. He preached. He preached. I’m not going to be able to get to the last part of this, but I want to turn to it quickly.

He didn’t just preach. Notice in verse 7 he said, ‘So I prophesied as I was commanded, and as I prophesied there was a noise, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked and behold, sinew were on them and flesh grew, and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.’

Conversion and a rattling are two completely different things. A moral makeover is not conversion. Church attendance is not conversion. And I’m afraid that many preachers, they touch the ark of God in confirming some or placing some affirmation on a person who has yet converted. The preacher must sow, plow, and sow, and water, and weed, and yes, conversion can come in a moment or it can tarry for months in which the faithful pastor goes back and back and back again.

There’s a story I love to share. I’ve told it a million times when I was up near just in British Columbia, almost near Alaska, and I’m preaching and this old man comes in right when I get up in the pulpit, a monster of a man. He was the saddest human being I think I ever met. And after I got through preaching, I immediately started preaching the Gospel. There were just a few people in the building actually, maybe 20.

And when I got done, I walked straight to him and I said, ‘Sir, what’s wrong with you?’

And he said, ‘The doctor just told me I’m going to die.’

I said, ‘When?’

He said, ‘I got about two months,’ he says.

And I said, ‘Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll cancel my flight tomorrow and I will sit here with you and I will preach this Gospel to you until one of two things happens. You’re converted or you die and go to hell.’

And we sat down that night and what do you do? I said, ‘Do you understand the message I preached?’

He said, ‘Of course, a child would have understood that. What would most preachers have done?’

‘All right, would you like to pray this prayer?’

But he said, ‘Is that it? I just understand it.’

I said, no. So we go through from Old Testament to New Testament for over an hour on repentance and faith, just reading Scripture, because faith cometh by hearing. Reading Scripture, explaining Scripture. This is repentance. This is faith. This is repentance. This is faith. This is why He died. At the end of it, I said, ‘Do you understand?’

He said, ‘I understand. But is that it?’

And I said, ‘Well, let’s pray.’

And after prayer, I said, well, let’s start again. I said, let’s just go to John 3:16.

He said, we’ve already read it.

And I said, well… And I remember his big hands. The Bible was on his lap. He was a mountain of a man. And I said, read it.

And he goes, ‘Okay. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whosoever…’ And his hands started going… He goes, I’m saved.

I said, what?

I said, ‘I’m saved. I have eternal life. I’m going to heaven.’

I said, ‘How do you know?’

He said, ‘Haven’t you ever read this text?’

What happened? It was the Spirit of God illuminated his mind and regenerated his heart. And I didn’t have to convince him that he was going to heaven.

Oh, there’s so much power in the Gospel if you lay aside all these trinkets and tools and just preach it raw.

One last thing.

‘Then He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath.”

Oh brethren, there’s hours of preaching here. ‘Son of man, and say to the breath, thus saith the Lord God, come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain that they come to life. So I prophesied as He commanded me.’

What is that? Well, there’s debate. But I’ve settled it in my own heart. He was crying out, crying out for the Spirit of God to do what man cannot do. Man can create a rattling. Man can create noise. Man can build an entire church of 10,000 people, but he can’t convert one soul.

Oh brethren, every battle is won in prayer. It’s not fighting with sinners or a sinful world that ages you. It’s fighting with God. It’s the night watch. It’s knowing you have nothing. But oh, when He comes — when He comes, say, where did you get all this? From Scripture? But also, just so you know, our Baptist fathers, men of the Word, men of prayer, men of prayer, who believe in a supernatural God, who does supernatural work in the heart of a man and makes him into something he was not before: a child of God.

Let’s pray.

Father, thank You for Your Word, and thank You for Your Spirit. Oh God, thank You for every person here that is Yours. Just one of them, Lord, is a greater miracle than the creation of the universe. Oh, and praise Your Son. Oh, Your Son and His gospel, mighty to save, mighty to save. Oh, what a Son. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

For Further Reading:

What A Man Is Not – Biblical Manhood (Part 1): Paul Washer (Transcript)

The Heart of the Gospel: Paul Washer (Full Transcript)

Four Pillars of Walking With God: Paul Washer (Full Transcript)

Paul Washer – Shocking Message (Full Transcript)

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