Part 4 - The Peril Of The Minister

King Solomon levied 150,000 workers (2 Chr 2:17), enlisting 3,300 overseers (1 Kings 5:16) and 300 commanders over all (2 Chr 2:18) for the building of the temple. Such a monumental undertaking that required careful preparation and careful attention to detail in order to mobilize a large number of men. The task of the ministers of God should be to prepare the people to partake in the advancement of the greater kingdom that is Christ's as He did bid His followers: "Engage in business till I come" (Lk 19:13). The same business He mentioned when Joseph and Mary found Him amidst teachers in the temple (Lk 2:49): "to do the will of Him who sent Me" (Jn 4:34). What will? "To give His life a ransom for many" (Mat 20:28). To what end? "That they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent" (Jn 17:3). Knowing God opens the gates to gospel action - to its proclamation, just as YHWH was the motivation behind the action of the great work to build the temple. Simply knowing about God accomplishes nothing. Our desire is to share in the heart of our beloved Lord, for "other sheep He has, them also must He bring, and they shall hear His voice, and shall be one fold, under one Shepherd" (Jn 10:16). The gospel is God's ordained means to save. The church is God's voice on earth, to be brought up by the minister God has called to oversee the task of engage her in the kingdom's cause. If the minister falls, the congregation loses its voice and witness. The work is hampered, and God is put to shamed. 

Thus we continue:

You must remember, too, that we have need of very vigorous piety, because our danger is so much greater than that of others. Upon the whole, no place is so assailed with temptation as the ministry. Despite the popular idea that ours is a snug retreat from temptation, it is no less true that our dangers are more numerous and more insidious than those of ordinary Christians. There are more secret snares than these, from which we can less easily escape; and of these the worst is the temptation to ministerialism - 

the tendency to read our Bibles as ministers, to pray as ministers, to get into doing the whole of our religion as not ourselves personally, but only relatively, concerned in it. To lose the personality of repentance and faith is a loss indeed. 

"No man", says John Owen, "preaches his sermon well to others if he doth not first preach it to his own heart." Brethren, it is eminently hard to keep to this. Our office, instead of helping our piety, as some assert, is through the evil of our natures turned into one of its most serious hindrances; at least, I find it so. 

Beware, dear brethren, of this and all the other seductions of your calling; and if you have done so until now, continue still to watch till life's latest hour. We have noted but one of the perils, but indeed they are legion. The great enemy of souls takes care to leave no stone unturned for the preacher's ruin. "Take heed to yourselves," says Baxter, "because the tempter will make his first and sharpest onset upon you. If you will be the leaders against him, he will spare you no further than God restraineth him. He beareth you the greatest malice that are engaged to do him the greatest mischief. As he hateth Christ more than any of us, because he is the General of the field, and the 'Captain of our salvation', and doth more than all the world besides against the kingdom of darkness; so doth he note the leaders under him more than the common soldiers, on the like account, in their proportion, He knows what a rout he may make among the rest, if the leaders fall before their eyes. He hath long tried that way of fighting, 'neither with small nor great', comparatively, but these; and of 'smiting the shepherds, that he may scatter the flock'. And so great has been his success this way, that he will follow it on as far as he is able. 

Take heed, therefore, brethren, for the enemy hatha special eye upon you. You shall have his most subtle insinuations, and incessant solicitations, and violent assaults. As wise and learned as you are, take heed to yourselves lest he outwit you. 

The devil is a greater scholar than you, and a nimbler disputant; he can 'transform himself into an angel of light' to deceive, he will get within you and trip up your heels before you are aware; he will play the juggler with you undiscerned, and cheat you of your faith or innocency, and you shall not know that you have lost it: nay, he will make you believe it is multiplied or increased when it is lost. 

You shall see neither hook nor line, much less the subtle angler himself, while he is offering you his bait. And his baits shall be so fitted to your temper and disposition, that he will be sure to find advantages within you, and make your own principles and inclinations to betray you; and whenever he ruineth you, he will make you the instrument of your own ruin. 

Oh, what a conquest will he think he hath got, if he can make a minister lazy and unfaithful; if he can tempt a minister into covetousness or scandal! He will glory against the church, and say, "These are your holy preachers: you see what their preciseness is, and whither it will bring them." He will glory against Jesus Christ himself, and say, "These are thy champions! I can make thy chief servants to abuse thee; I can make the stewards of thy house unfaithful." If he did so insult against God upon a false surmise, and tell him he could make Job to curse him to his face (Job 1:2), what would he do if he should indeed prevail against us? And at last he will insult as much over you that ever he could draw you to be false to your great trust, and to blemish your holy profession, and to do him so much service that was your enemy. O do not so far gratify Satan; do not make him so much sport: suffer him not to use you as the Philistines did Samson - first to deprive you of your strength, and then to put out your eyes, and so to make you the matter of his triumph and derision.

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Spurgeon, C.H. (n.d.), Lectures To My Students: it Should Be One Of Our First Cares That We Ourselves Be Saved Men. The Banner of Truth Trust.

Baxter, R. (1810). The Reformed Pastor