A Deceptive Goal

Here is another worker, one with noted ability and keen tenacity in the fight. This one has taken the gospel from door to door, spoken in cottage and villa, at street corner and church, and souls have been saved and blessed. The devil is out to stop this, and he does. He stimulates an inordinate desire for visible results by giving visions of wonderful things that are going to take place. What is flashed across the imagination, and implicitly believed to be from God, does not come to pass, however, and slowly the soul is drawn into darkness and doubt. The power to resist is lost in an atmosphere of perplexity and confusion.

How easy at such a time to lose heart, to let everything go, to believe that all is a deception; and in consequence to become careless, prayerless, and almost as one that is godless, with the rudder of life at the mercy of the devil’s seas! Some at this stage begin to drift back into the world—anywhere to get relief. They soon find that the world is very shallow and its pleasures transitory. No true peace can be found within its borders.

God must deliver, and He will. He proves that His child can be rescued from an enemy who is so wicked that he seeks to imitate the Holy Spirit.

“You shall be delivered,” I said to such a soul. “The devil must let go. In the name of the Lord, and by His grace, you will be set free once again to witness to the power of Calvary.”

What a sigh of relief came with the reply: “Oh, thank God, someone thinks I can be restored, for I have feared that my brain would go with thinking about it!” Praise God, the restoration came, and an important center of Christian service was benefited thereby.

There is recovery and restoration, and the deep lessons learned in such tribulation will mean that he who once “chased a thousand” will now chase ten thousand.