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Suppose that a loving father in some high room, throws down a bag of gold to his child, and it falls on the child's head causing injury. While the child is feeling the pain, he is impatient and troubled; while he looks only at the leather bag he is not thankful; but when he looks into the bag, and sees what a great deal of gold his father has given him, then he speaks well of his father, notwithstanding the injury to his head. Affliction is a bag of gold given to the people of God; though it seems from outside like a bad leather bag, yet there is gold within it. As long as we simply stare at the bag, or focus only on the suffering, we are not thankful, we do not praise the Lord, but are much discouraged; but if we would look into the bag, and count our gold, then we would have comfort, and not be discouraged. I tell you from the Lord, there is gold within; look in this bag, the bag of affliction; count over all the gold which the Lord has given you in this affliction, and then you ...

Preaching to the conscience means something concrete. It means explaining the listeners’  obligations to God, their failure to meet those obligations, their impotence to make up for that failure, the eternal consequences of that failure, and God’s astounding grace offered to all who will humble themselves, repent, and believe the good news.  In other words, preaching to the conscience is provocative. It seeks to disturb the comfortable and to comfort the disturbed…. The great obstacle to this kind of preaching is when  the conscience is awakened, people react. The humble repent, rejoice, and enter God’s kingdom. The proud become angry: “Who are you to tell me I am a sinner?” or “This is not the God I learned about in Sunday school.”  Men dominated by the fear of man will not preach to the conscience. If you’re seeking a reward from men as you preach the gospel, you may get it, but that’s all—you won’t get anything from God.  The world needs pastors who fear God,...