Once there was a man hunting a bear because he wanted a fur coat. Finally, he saw his bear. He took aim and was about to squeeze the trigger when the bear said, “Wait a minute, don’t shoot me. Let’s go out here in the middle of the road and sit down and talk this thing over. Let’s be reasonable, after all, all you want is a ur coat, and all I want is a good meal.” They had a talk, and when it was over, the bear had a good meal and the man had a fur coat.
Do you know one of the dangers of any successful work? When a work for God becomes successful in the eyes of the world, then the world tries to join it. At first the world tries to stamp the work out. And if it cannot do this, then it will try to neutralize the work by entangling alliances. The world will try to distract us from the main work God has called us to do.
And we must all be ready. 2 Timothy 4:2-5 exhorts us, “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.”
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