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One day not long ago in a place not far away, Satan called his chief demons for a Global Consultation on Evil. One after another, the demons gave glowing reports.

“We have been extremely successful in creating chaos. People are killing each other in record numbers, the world economy is faltering, moral values are falling apart, AIDS is spreading rapidly, crime is at an all-time high and families are in shambles.”

Satan interrupted: “Yes, we have had much success, but a dangerous situation has crept up on us. When we create so much anarchy, earthlings begin to look for hope and good news. Our strategy may backfire. The missionaries of our Opponent have created a dangerous situation for us. Through the years, cross-cultural workers have had a powerful vision for the world and have sacrificed greatly for the Enemy. Churches have grown much too rapidly in lands we recently ruled with an evil fist. We have lost millions of souls for our infernal cause and must radically rethink our strategy for the world.”

“I have an idea,” hissed one demon. “Let’s kill more missionaries.”

“No,” replied Satan. “You know that creating martyrs has never worked for us.”

The demons went into a brainstorming session and came up with specific plans to demoralize prayer warriors, discourage financial supporters, stifle the missionary vision of churches, encumber new missionaries with materialism and get missionaries fighting among themselves.

“Before we do anything else, we must first squelch their vision,” wheezed a war-torn demon. “If we can stifle their vision, everything else will fall apart. Churches will have boring missionary conferences, giving will plummet, prayer will dry up and missionaries will be discouraged.”

The veteran demon took out a copy of the horrid Book and turned to Isaiah 6. “We need to look at Isaiah’s vision and call from our evil perspective,” he snarled. “It was only after catching a vision of God and after repenting of his own sinfulness that he volunteered to be a sent one. Based on Isaiah’s example, here are my three diabolical principles for killing the missionary enterprise.”

1. Make sure the Enemy’s followers don’t see the Lord, high and lifted up. Keep their eyes focused on the task. Let them argue over definitions of evangelism and people groups. They’ll get so tied up with defining the task that they will never get to it.

2. If they don’t have a fresh vision of God, they will continue to be arrogant and blinded to their own sin. We will be in serious trouble if the church begins to cry, “Woe is me.” May the powers of Hell help us if there is revival in those churches! There could be a fresh missionary vision like the world has never seen.

3. Encourage missionaries to be goal-oriented rather than vision-oriented. When Isaiah said, “Here am I, send me,” God didn’t promise him a successful ministry. This motivated Isaiah to keep his focus on God, not on the task. We must do just the opposite and promise success. Let them worship efficiency, souls-per-dollar and five-year-plans. Get church mission committees committed to objective, predictable, measurable goals and we will squelch the vision of the One who is high and lifted up. That way they’ll never support missionaries like Isaiah.

Satan adjourned the council with sinister glee. “We’ve made great progress here today, comrades. We can squelch the vision! We can kill the missionary enterprise! Go in turmoil.”

September 20, 2002