A Sinister Plot

Satan got together all his cronies for a world wide conference. This was a global conference of all the princes, rulers and powers of darkness, evil spirits, demons and the entire fallen angelic hosts. The agenda of the conference was to evaluate and take stock of their major work of stopping the 'Name' being spread to the unheard, unreached and closed parts of the world. 

Satan was fuming, all worked up and in an irritable mood as he watched the flash presentation of how the Name of Jesus Christ is spreading rapidly and how the followers are taking this name and preaching about it, risking their lives and are joyfully willing to die for the Name. As the scenes of each follower of Jesus being martyred came up there was a round of loud cheering and clapping and that particular prince of that region or country who orchestrated the event stood up to acknowledge the ovation without a clue of the ramifications of shedding the blood of a saint which is the seed of the church.   

Then one by one the princes of each country stood up to report on the progress of their work. The prince of Arabia came up first and satan asked him, "so how is the spread of this name that I detest so much in your country". 

The prince was all beaming and happy, he said, "O my lord, we are very alert and active, no one is allowed to publicly share anything about His name, His words and the Book are confiscated and burned, many of His followers who tried to share with their friends and colleagues are beaten up and are now in prison or dead, we have influenced the government and the religious leaders there, they will make sure that no one will preach this name in my country, we have poisoned the minds of most of the people and they have become hardcore fanatics for their faith which they are sincerely deluded  to be the truth. But there is no let up, the followers are trying everything possible to bring His name in, presently the Internet and mobile phones have become a big headache for us, they are now using this very much to spread His name and we are not able to control the reach of this new technology, but we have tried to flood it up with pornography and distract their attention and the people seem to be lapping it up, My Lord we will stop the spread of His name somehow".

 "You have to stop it", satan thundered, "do or die, I don't care How, if we don't, I tell you  we are all doomed, these closed countries are some of our last bastions of hope, if these people also hear His name then He is going to come back and we are finished forever" 

The next one to share was the Prince of India, satan asked him, "so my dear how is your progress in this country, which holds the key in my strategy of stopping the spread of His name, with one billion people and almost 95% of them not knowing His name all our focus should be here, so what good news do you have for me?" 

The prince of India had a cheeky smile at the corner of his lips and he started sharing, "My lord, it was very difficult few years back, the followers of His name were coming out in great hoardes, churches were sending out their missionaries, they were on fire, thousands of young people fresh out of colleges were committing for His work even though we tried to entice them with good job prospects and wealth, many were willing to go through any hardships in far flung areas of India and remote tribal Jungles where no one has gone, we tried everything to stop them, persecution, raised up many fundamental parties and poisoned the minds of the majority people, killed many of the followers, especially some key leaders, fabricated false cases on many, destroyed many churches, passed anti conversion laws in many states but all this was not working, we were loosing many people, tribes and villages to His name. But at last this fellow here, he came up with this  brilliant Idea."

Satan was really excited now, He asked, "Wow, who is that Guy and come on tell me what is that idea?"  "Well", the prince continued with a beaming smile, " the guy's name is prince mammon, he  gave us the idea that let us make India rich and also the church rich like never before, let us infiltrate the followers of His name with  health, wealth and prosperity teaching, influence their leaders and pastors to preach on materialism and flaunt their flamboyant lifestyles in His name, give them prime properties and real estates, initially we were doubtful whether this will work, but to our utter surprise it worked, now the followers of His name are running after this, they are not anymore burning with that passion to make His name known, the number of youngsters committing  for His work has gone down drastically, a decade ago the words most loved was 'absolute surrender', 'lay it all down', 'sacrifice', 'forsake everything' etc but now we have managed to turn them around and they are asking about 'security', 'position', 'what is my benefit', 'how much will I get', 'what about my future', etc. Their churches have even stopped preaching about what they call as missions, we have made their leaders quarrel and compete among themselves for posts and power and they are so busy with settling issues and court cases that they have no time to even talk about His name, they are more concerned now about their own names and establishing their own personal kingdoms than His name and His Kingdom."

The prince continued gleefully, "we have also made sure that their mission agencies and churches have so much assets and institutions that they are now fully engrossed in running and managing their mammoth establishments and structures and spend all their energy on somehow propping it up and whenever possible swindle some to their own pockets that the last thing in their mind is proclaiming His name and the funniest thing is that the non- believers are watching all this and having a gala time picking holes in their preaching. But we also need to be aware that we cannot paint a rosy picture everywhere there are still some attempts made here and there to spread His name." 

The entire demonic host stood up and gave a standing ovation to the prince of India and prince mammon for almost two minutes. 

Satan was so glad, "he said, great idea, and great work, we need to take this idea to all places (Some say that prince mammon stole this idea from the prince of USA) and this will definitely delay His coming, because first His gospel needs to be preached every where only then will our end come,  and if the going is like this then we will have lots of time." 

A sinister plot, a dark agenda but thanks be to God this is not how the story ends in the Bible but just imagine if the story ends like this, it will be a disaster right, We don't want this to happen, we should never let this happen and let the forces of darkness dictate to the church, remember the battle is already won on the cross, let us forget about everything else, only one thing matters, "His Name, the name of Jesus being known" let us get up and finish the task. Friends there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which they can be saved and at this name one day every knee is going to bow and every tongue going to confess  that He is Lord. That is the sweet sweet name of Jesus, let us proclaim His name, let us talk about His name, let us spread His love and forgiveness around and hasten His coming. There are millions waiting to hear His name and How will they hear unless we go!