There is no doubt that Evangelism today is in a state of perplexity and unsettlement…Without realizing it we have during the past century bartered the gospel (the biblical gospel) for a substitute product which, though it looks similar enough in points of detail, is as a whole a decidedly different thing.  Hence our troubles; for the substitute product does not answer the ends for which the authentic gospel has in past days proved itself so mighty.  The new gospel conspicuously fails to produce deep reverence, deep repentance, deep humility, a spirit of worship, a concern for the church.  Why?  We would suggest that the reason lies in its own character in content.  It fails to make men God-centered in their thoughts and God fearing in their hearts because this is not primarily what it is trying to do.  One way of stating the difference between it an the old gospel is to say that it is too exclusively concerned to be “helpful” to man—to bring peace, comfort, happiness, satisfaction—and too little concerned to glorify God.  The old gospel is “helpful” too—more so, indeed, than is the new—but (so to speak) incidentally, for its first concern was always to give glory to God.  It was always, and essentially a proclamation of divine sovereignty in mercy and judgment, a summons to bow down and worship the mighty Lord on whom man depends for all good, both in nature and in grace.  Its center of reference was unambiguously God.  But in the new gospel the center of reference is man.  This is just to say that the old gospel was religious in a way that the new is not.  Whereas the chief aim of the old was to teach men to worship God, the concern of the new seems limited to making them feel better.  The subject of the old gospel was God and His ways with men; the subject of the new is man and the help God gives him.  There is a world of difference.  The whole perspective and emphasis of gospel preaching has changed.

            From this change of interest has sprung a change of content, for the new gospel has in effect reformulated the biblical message in supposed interest of “helpfulness.”  Accordingly, the thesis of man’s natural inability to believe, of God’s free election being the ultimate cause of salvation, and of Christ’s dying specifically for His sheep are not preached.  These doctrines, it would be said, are not “helpful”; they would drive sinners to despair by suggesting to them that it is not in their power to be saved through Christ…. The result of these omissions is that part of the biblical gospel is now preached as if it were the whole of the gospel, and a half-truth masquerading as the whole becomes a complete untruth.  Thus, we appeal to men as if they all had the ability to receive Christ at any time; we speak of His redeeming work as if He had done no more by dying than making it possible for us to save ourselves by believing; we speak of God’s love as if it were no more than the general willingness to receive any who will turn and trust; and we depict the Father and the Son, not as sovereignly acting and drawing sinners to themselves, but as waiting in quiet impotence “at the door of our hearts” for us to let them in.  It is undeniable that this is how we preach; perhaps this is what we really believe.  But it needs to be said that this set of twisted half-truths is something other than the biblical gospel.  The Bible is against us when we preach in this way; and the fact that such preaching has become almost standard practice among us only shows how urgent it is that we should review this matter.  To recover the old, authentic, biblical gospel, and to bring our preaching and practice back into line with it, is perhaps our most pressing need.   --J.I. Packer on evangelical preaching 

We vividly remember one of those five little speeches. It was Alexander Mackay's.... "There is one thing ... which my brethren have not said, and which I want to say. I want to remind the Committee that within six months they will probably hear that one of us is dead." The words were startling, and there was a silence that might be felt. Then he went on,—"Yes; is it at all likely that eight Englishmen should start for Central Africa and all be alive six months after? One of us at least—it may be I—will surely fall before that. But," he added, "what I want to say is this: when that news comes, do not be cast down, but send some one else immediately to take the vacant place." (A. M. Mackay, by his sister, p. 32)

  "While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal."                  2 Corinthians 4:18

"All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears
While we all sup sorrow with the poor.
There's a song that will linger forever in our ears,
'Tis the song, the sigh of the weary.
Many days you have lingered all around my cabin door.
While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay.
There are frail forms fainting at the door.
Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say.
Oh, hard times, come again no more.
'there's a pale drooping maiden who toils her life away
With a worn out heart, whose better days are o'er.
Though her voice it would be merry, 'tis sighing all the day,
Oh, hard times, come again no more.  ~  Bob Dylan

If all the sand that lies upon all the shores in the world, were shovelled up into one heap, and cast into one scale, and my sorrows into the other, my grief would weigh it all up. - Job 6.

How heavy are the hearts of the afflicted!  What unsupportable sorrows do they feel and groan under, especially when God smites them in the dearest and nearest concers they have in the world.  Afflictions are called the wine of astonishment, from their effects upon the mind: for under a great and sudden stroke of God, it is like a watch wound up above its due height, so that for a time it stands still, neither grace nor reason move at all: and when it begins to move again, O how confused and irregular are its motions!  It is full of murmurs, disputes, and quarelles: these which only often aggravate both our sin and misery.

But we know saith the apostle that all things work together for good to them that love God.  It cannot be by a flourish of rhetoric or the tounges of angles which will overthrow the false reasonings of flesh and sense which rise up in us and seem contrary to the apostles words, but that which shall persuade us are the allowed rules of scripture, and sure principles of religion.  It is a truth that seems a very great paradox to most men, namely that the afflictions of the saints can do them no hurt, and that the wisdom of men and angels cannot lay one circumstance of their condition (how uneasy soever it seems to be) better, or more to their advantage than God hath laid it. The covenant is the applied balm to the afflicted saints, as it was with David. (2Samuel 23:4-5).  Afflictions once put into the covenant, must promote the good of the saints, they are beneficial as well as harmless things, and do no hurt to the child of God who is placed in the covenant.  The affliction may affright, but cannot hurt them: we may meet them with fear, but shall part from them with joy, and herafter we shall see and with cheer acknowledge them to be the happy instruments of our salvation.  Like Aaron's rod which was placed into the ark, so are all the rods of affliction put into the covenant.  An unsanctified rod never did any man good, and a sanctified rod never did any man hurt: God may afflict our bodies with sickness, deny or cut off our comfort in children, impoverish our estates, let loose persecutors upon us; but in all this he doeth us no hurt.  Our Gracious God by this covenant doth alter the nature and property of the saints afflictions and secures us a safe passage through the deep waters of tribulation.  The covenant always keeps our eyes on he who is the provider, that we might say with david, "For this is all my salvation, and all my desire".  Happy is he who in distress looks to the covenant God has made with him. ~ John Flavel