Wilhelmus à Brakel

The devil often keeps you out of church, especially when he knows that the sermon to be preached could be a choice means to your conversion. During the sermon, he seeks to detract you by infusing other thoughts, holding such matters before you that he knows you delight in, thereby facilitating your meditation upon them. If you hear something that makes an impression upon you, he seeks in every possible way to rob you of this impression (Mat 13:19). The devil prevents you from comprehending the power of the gospel. “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2Co 4:3–4). Do not think that this renders you innocent, for you yourself are also blind and of an evil disposition, willingly rejecting the gospel.

The devil, however, often creates the occasion for this, stimulates you, and you then obey him. Carefully meditate upon all this and apply it to yourself. Consider that you are a slave of the devil, that he is your lord and master, that he controls you, engages you to be active in his cause, and will soon drag you as his prey to hell to be eternally tormented there.

What a dreadful condition to be subject to such an abominable tyrant—the archenemy of God, Christ, and yourself—who in bitter hatred murders your soul and eternally separates you from God and His blessed Christ! Therefore have mercy upon your own soul, wake up, hate the devil and his work, flee from him, bid his kingdom farewell, and surrender yourself to the sweet, easy, and lovely government of the Lord Jesus Christ—a government which will culminate in eternal salvation. Oh, that you would hear me! May the Lord save you.

Courtesy of Chapel Library