Satan not Sleeping!

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"Be sober and vigilant" (1 Pet 5:8)

The devil is equally, if not more, active during seasons of aggressive evangelism. Being aware that he has very little time left, he goes all out to somehow spoil the harvest. His counter-activities may take various forms like reviving of anti-Christian forces, spreading false philosophies, performing signs and wonders in the opposite camp and so on. These things leave the enthusiastic enquirers and baby believers bewildered. Pray for the new believers to stand firm in faith and for a mighty manifestation of God's power to swallow the "serpents of the Egyptian magicians" (Ex 7:8-12).

God blessed Paul with the salvation of many souls honouring his three month labour in the city of Ephesus. Then weeds appeared. Some of those who did not believe got hardened in their hearts and they started speaking against the gospel message. This obviously shook up the new believers. In order to preserve the fruits of his labour of "three months," Paul had to spend "two years" in the city spending time with the disciples "daily!" (Acts 19:8-10).

The fields being so vast and the workers so few, several new congregations can be visited only once a month. This gives the enemy a thoroughfare with no one to protect the sheep continuously. The enemy sows tares when the labourers are asleep or away (Mt 13:24,25). The increase in the number of Christian workers is not proportionate to the population explosion. India turned 100 crores (1000 millions) in May 2000. It is all set to exceed China by 2035.

Invasion of insects just about the time of harvest can be most disheartening. But I believe that God does allow this disaster in order to deal with our pride of accomplishment and exaggeration in reporting the mission field news. He calls the crawling locusts, the consuming locusts and the chewing locusts as "MY great army which I sent among you!" (Joel 2:25).

God punishes impure motives. When reporting to the supporters becomes our priority in missionary work, Christ who shed His blood for the salvation of souls will now shed His tears. Organisational structures are simply a scaffolding for building the Kingdom of God. Promotion of an organisation must not top our agenda. Otherwise we will be building empires for ourselves. A simple reporting system to get Christians rejoice with the harvest news and pray for the needs and challenges of the field is alright. But God will judge exaggerations and cooking up which leave false impressions. Pray for honesty among the field workers and promotional staff of missionary agencies.

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