“Strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying, ‘We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.’” (Acts 14:22)

When Paul and Barnabas were on the return leg of the first missionary journey, they went back to all the places they had been and strengthened and encouraged them. They knew that these new Christians would need strengthening as they lived the Christian life daily. They knew that Satan would attack, that discouragement would set it, that false teachers would come to distract them and keep them from living as God would want them to.

How many Christians begin, just to fail? How many get started out on the life of faith, just to sit down on the road to rest and never get back up? It has been said that if we were to get all of the members of the church in our community to come back to the Lord and be faithful to Him, we would all have to build bigger buildings to hold all of them. As I think about those whom I have seen leave the faith, my heart breaks. Was there something more that I could have done to strengthen and encourage them? What tool did Satan use to get them back to him?

He could have used the tool of the world. Some fail to realize that when they become Christians they are being asked to give up this world in order to prepare for the one to come. When faced with that reality, they go back to the pigpen of sin and filth. They didn’t realize that it would cost them the world, yet Jesus says, “what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”

He may have used the tool of the flesh. The desires of the flesh are strong, and are the source of temptations in our lives daily (James 1:15-17). God has given us some desires, such as food, water, and clothing, but it is when we take these too far and expect them to satisfy and satiate us that we go wrong. Only God can truly satisfy! Looking in the wrong place has caused some to quit.

Satan also uses the tool of suffering. Suffering has many benefits. It reminds us that this world was never the place wherein God wanted us to get comfortable. It reminds us of sin and what it cost God and Jesus to buy us back. It reminds us of the cost that Jesus was willing to pay because He loved us, and, when we are conformed to His image (Romans 8:29), we will be willing to pay the same price for those who need to hear the gospel. But for some, suffering makes them turn on God and become bitter about life’s experiences. As a preacher I have visited so many people who look at suffering in the right way, and for each one of those I am glad. But I have met a few that blame God, the church and everyone and everything for their unfaithfulness.

Satan uses doctrine to cause some to quit. Doctrine has become a dirty word in the church today. Yet, it simply means “teaching.” There is a body of teaching found in the New Testament that we will be judged by when God comes again. We must follow the words of faith and sound doctrine (1 Timothy 4:6). Some don’t want to follow that doctrine, thinking it too narrow, too strict, too “intolerant.” So they leave, and search for more tolerant people and faiths. In the context of Acts 13, Paul and Barnabas encouraged them to “continue in the faith”—not a subjective faith, but in that body of belief they had preached to these various congregations.

Brethren, may I encourage you to continue in the faith.