Satan is Active in Your Ministry

Christian ministers and pastors must always keep in mind that the active power and subtlety of Satan is always working against their ministry. Something lost in the minds of America’s pastors is the realization that Satan is very active in the world and the culture in which they are striving to minister. He is active, many times, within the very walls of their church and ministry. The powers of darkness are working in every sphere of Christian ministry. Unceasingly Satan moves about like a subtle serpent in the grass in all manners of ministry and the work of Christ.

His influence in the church are very evident in many areas:

1. There is often a general inattention to the Word of God and the message being preached. You can look down from the pulpit and see an evident listlessness in the congregation giving no thought to the words being proclaimed.

2. There is a blindness of men to the glory of the Savior in their thoughts and concern about eternity. There is a general apathy in the church today concerning the things of eternity. Satan gradually sets our minds and hearts on the things of this world getting our minds to focus less on eternal matters.

Filed under: Hell, Satan, The Church

Hell – A Primitive Road

The subject of hell in pulpits across America has become a primitive road seldom traveled by pastors.  Our Lord often spoke about hell; He said many things about the abode of the wicked. Perhaps the most terrifying thing that Jesus ever said about hell was what He told the Jewish religious leaders in Matthew 23:33: “…how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” It seems strange for us to hear words like that coming from the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ, because we don’t associate Him with hell as often as we should. He talked more about hell than he did about love. He said more about hell than all the other preachers in the Bible combined. If we were to model our preaching after His, then hell would be a major theme for all of us.

Jonathan Edward reminds us in his famous sermon, Sinners in the Hand’s of an Angry God, of the danger of wicked men standing before the omnipotent God of the universe who is able, at any moment, to cast them into the horrors of hell.

There is no want of power in God to cast wicked men into hell at any moment. Men’s hands cannot be strong when God rises up: the strongest have no power to resist him, nor can any deliver out of his hands. He is not only able to cast wicked men into hell, but he can most easily do it. Sometimes an earthly prince meets with a great deal of difficulty to subdue a rebel, who has found means to fortify himself, and has made himself strong by the numbers of his followers. But it is not so with God. There is no fortress that is any defense from the power of God. Though hand join in hand, and vast multitudes of God’s enemies combine and associate themselves, they are easily broken in pieces. They are as great heaps of light chaff before the whirlwind; or large quantities of dry stubble before devouring fames. We find it easy to tread on and crush a worm that we see crawling on the earth; so it is easy for us to cut or singe a slender thread that nay things hangs by: thus east is it for God, when he pleases, to cast his enemies down to hell. What are we that we should think to stand before him, at whose rebuke the earth trembles, and before whom the rocks are thrown down?

We are to proclaim the same message that the disciples were to proclaim: The people of the world, apart from Christ, are destined for hell. Pastors – Preach on HELL – Souls depend upon it!

Filed under: Hell, Jonathan Edwards, Pastors, Preaching