Paul W. Powell Legacy Library

Among all the disorders of the soul, none brings more distress than doubt. It can be a source of misery and discomfort, fill your life with anxieties and fears, and rob you of peace. There are two kinds of religious doubt. One is sincere doubt; the other is insincere doubt. Some doubt is a cover-up for sin. Many people look on doubt as a badge of learning, and so the...

Can we believe in miracles today? The answer is emphatically, “YES.” Christian author and apologist G. K. Chesterton proposed that if a person believes in miracles, he believes in them because there are records of miracles in the Bible and in history. And he believes in them because of the testimonies people give about their experiences. But if a man...

How do we serve God? Once when Jesus was talking about feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, visiting the sick, and helping those in trouble he said, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40). We serve God by helping other people. Feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, and visiting th...

One of the common denominators of all world religions except Christianity is that they do not correlate faith and works. In Christianity there is the closest correlation between them. In fact the Bible says, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also” (James 2:26). The Bible is clear: a workless faith is worthless fai...

Author R. Lee Sharpe (1872-1951) once told a great story about his dad. He wrote, “One spring day long ago Father called me to go with him to old man Trussell’s blacksmith shop. He had left a rake and a hoe to be repaired. And they were ready when we came, fixed like new. Father handed over a silver dollar, but Mr. Trussell refused to take it. ‘No,&r...

12 And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. Introduction This is a simple statement about the life and ministry of Jesus, so commonplace that you might be reading the gospel of Luke and pass right over that statement about Jesus in prayer. I was in the pastor’s home of the First Bap...

12 And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. 13 And he put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will: be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him. 14 And he charged him to tell no man: but go, and s...

There are storms in life that come in the form of trials and tragedy, suffering and sorrow. When these storms strike, the first question we want to ask is, "Why, Lord?" Some storms are the result of human evil or human error. Others are sent or allowed from God and are intended to teach us things we would never learn otherwise. Still others come from Satan and are des...

When we come to Christ, like our Lord, we need to set our faces steadfastly toward Jerusalem—our place of total commitment. This call, then, is a call to put our hand to the plow, our feet in the field, our eyes on the cross, and never look back. This book is intended for the pastor at the crossroads—our best hope for the renewal and revival we need in Ame...