God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees, and clouds, and stars.

I am convinced that many men who preach the gospel and love the Lord are really misunderstood. People make a "profession," but because they haven't understood the message, they are not really saved. They feel a psychological need and they want psychological relief, but they don't understand that the Christian message is not talking only about psychological relief (though it includes that) but is talking about true moral guilt in the presence of a holy God who exists. The real need is salvation from true moral guilt, not just relief from guilt feelings. And I am certain many men who make a profession go away still unsaved, having not heard one word of the real gospel because they have filtered the message through their own thought forms and their own intellectual framework in which the word "guilt" equals "guilt feelings." Death in the City (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press: 1969) 93

Talk about the questions of the day; there is but one question, and that is the gospel. It can and will correct everything needing correction.

Eternal life is not a reward for effort; it is a gift to those who trust Christ.

I like to hear a man dwell much on the same essentials of Christianity. For we have but one God, and one Christ, and one faith to preach; and I will not preach another Gospel to please men with variety, as if our Saviour and our Gospel were grown stale.

Grace despised is grace forfeited, like Esau's birthright. They that will not have Christ when they may shall not have him when they would.

All men -- lost or saved -- are great in their significance. Having been made in the image of God, man is magnificent even in ruin. God made man to be responsible for his thoughts and his actions, and man fashions a significant history. This is true of both Christians and non-Christians, both men with the Bible and men without the Bible. Death in the City (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press: 1969) 93

The gospel belongs to the poor and sorrowful, and not to princes and courtiers who live in continual joy and delight, in security, void of all tribulation.

There is no real preaching of the Christian gospel except in the light of the fact that man is under the wrath of God -- the moral wrath of God. Death in the City (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press: 1969) 93

Gospel truth seeks no corners, because it fears no trials.

I get tired of being asked why I don't just preach the "simple gospel." You have to preach the simple gospel so that it is simple to the person to whom you are talking, or it is no longer simple.

I believe that much of our evangelistic and personal work today is not clear simply because we are too anxious to get to the answer without having a man realize the real cause of his sickness, which is true moral guilt (and not just psychological guilt feelings) in the presence of God. Death in the City (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press: 1969) 71

It is imperative that preachers of today learn how to declare the spiritual law of God; for, until we learn how to wound consciences, we shall have no wounds to bind with Gospel bandages.

'It is more a question with me whether we, who have the Gospel and fail to give it to those who have not, can be saved.

Did you ever notice that while the gospel sets before us a higher and more blessed heaven than any other religion, its hell is also deeper and darker than any other?

Gospellers have much to say about what Christ's death accomplished for those who believe in Him, but very little is said about what that Death accomplished Godwards. The fact is that the death of Christ glorified God if never a single sinner had been saved by virtue of it.

The Gospel was not good advice but good news.

Those that will not come up to the terms of the gospel need be no more miserable than to be left open to the law, and to let that have its course against them.

Theology sometimes makes us sick but the Gospel always makes us whole.

For the Christian gospel is not primarily a code of ethics or a metaphysical system; it is first and foremost good news, and as such it was proclaimed by its earliest preachers.

The nature of Christ's salvation is woefully misrepresented by the present-day evangelist. He announces a Savior from hell rather than a Savior from sin. And that is why so many are fatally deceived, for there are multitudes who wish to escape the Lake of Fire who have no desire to be delivered from their carnality and worldliness.