Paul W. Powell Legacy Library

Joseph Parker tells the story of the little watch that was not content to serve in the pocket of his master. It kept watching Big Ben on the tower there in London and thinking, “Boy, how I would like to be the place of prominence. How I would like to be upon that tower. If I were up there, then I could serve all of London. I wouldn’t have to stay here in t...

You know it is tragic to see a person [grow, excel] in one area and not grow in another. Some of you remember reading about Babe Didrikson Zaharias, perhaps the greatest woman athlete ever to live in America. In 1932 she won gold medals in the Olympics in the hurdles and in the javelin throw. She was not only a great track star, but she was an All-American twice as a...

I was in Mineola visiting with Marc about a book we are working on together. And he was showing me his computer. And he was putting something on the screen and he made a mistake and he pushed a button and it erased all of it. And he said to me, “That’s the undo button.” And I looked over and sure enough right there on the button was “undo.&rdqu...

Jack Taylor, in his best-selling book The Key to Triumphant Living tells that even as a minister, he came to a point of almost complete exhaustion trying to live the Christian life in his own strength. Jack wrote that after he became a Christian, no one told him about the Holy Spirit. So he thought he had to live the Christian life on his own. His father was a farmer&...

Many people are living defeated Christian lives simply because they do not know about the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit within them. In Pecos County in West Texas, there is a famous oilfield known as Yates Pool. It was called Yates Pool because the oilfield was discovered on a sheep ranch that was owned by Mr. Ira Yates. During the Depression years Mr. Yat...

The carnal Christian is a Christian who is seeking to live the Christian life in his own strength and no longer surrenders his life on a day-to-day basis to God. The carnal Christian is the most miserable kind of person there is. He is like the third of the three boys who were going swimming one hot summer day. As they neared the swimming hole, one of them broke into...

Nothing quenches the work of the Spirit like unbelief. And nothing releases the Spirit like faith. Did you know that you can do almost anything by faith? I mean anything! President Dwight D. Eisenhower once told about the Allied invasion of Europe during World War II, codenamed Operation Overlord. He said, “From the beginning we knew that we were going to win. W...

Some time ago I read a story by Robert Lee Sharpe. He told that early in his life, he and his father took a broken hoe and a broken rake down to the blacksmith shop one day to be fixed. A few days later they went back to old Mr. Trussell’s blacksmith shop and the hoe and the rake were fixed as good as new. The father asked old Mr. Trussell, “How much do I...

Several years ago I stood here in this pulpit and told you about the need to start a work in Mexico. I said we needed to start by getting a preacher and covering his salary at $100 a month for one year. That night we had a deacon’s meeting. And when we started the meeting, one of our deacons stood up and he said, “Pastor, I can give that $1,200. Let me tel...