Those who would send out thousands of questionnaires asking the unconverted what they would desire most in a worship service should realize that ten thousand unanimous opinions of carnal men do not carry the authority of one jot or tittle of God's Word.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the supremacy of divine guidance over human opinions in matters of worship.
Paul Washer argues that the desires and opinions of people should not be the primary influence in designing worship services, as they are often shaped by worldly perspectives. Instead, the authority of Scripture, represented by even the smallest details, should guide worship practices, suggesting that divine truth holds more weight than popular human consensus.
In practice
In a church meeting discussing worship service planning, this quote can remind us to prioritize Scripture.
We deal five minutes with a person and their conversion and then we spend the next fifty years trying to disciple a goat into a sheep. I'm not saying this because I'm angry. I'm saying this because countless people are being deceived.
Pray for the field. If God calls, then prepare for the field. When it is time, go to the field. A life lost for Christ is a life well spent.
There is no such thing as a great man of God, only weak, pitiful, faithless men of a great and merciful God.
The evidence of conversion is not a decision card filled out, it's a life being lived out.
Repentance is simply giving up to stop fighting against God and to stop attempting to gain your own salvation through your own works; to literally give up and fall upon Christ. That is salvation.
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.
The end of the First World War had thrown Germany's youth into great turmoil. The reins of power had fallen from the hands of a deeply disillusioned older generation, and the younger ones drew together in larger and smaller groups to blaze new paths or, at least, to discover a new star to steer by.
The capacity to get free is nothing; the capacity to be free is the task.
We have so committed ourselves in different ways that we have hardly any time for self-reflection, to observe, to study.
Satan promises the best, but pays with the worst; he promises honor, and pays with disgrace; he promises pleasure, and pays with pain; he promises profit, and pays with loss, he promises life, and pays with death. But God pays as he promises; all his payments are made in pure gold.
How can you do the right thing when you can't figure out what that is? When all you have before you are choices in various shades of wrong?
For they, the philosophers, were considered teachers of right living, which is far more excellent, since to speak well belongs only to a few, but to live well belongs to all.
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