Pastors told they're engaged in spiritual warfare with souls on the line

SNELLVILLE, Ga. — Georgia Baptist pastors were reminded Monday that they’re engaged in spiritual warfare with souls on the line and that they must be unrelenting in preaching the gospel.

That was an overarching theme in the Georgia Baptist Preaching Conference held at the Church on Main in Snellville on Monday afternoon.

“The moment we stepped into faith, the Bible tells us we stepped into a spiritual battle,” said longtime Georgia pastor and state missionary Levi Skipper. “Behind the visible world, an invisible war is being fought.”

Skipper, evangelist Scott Newton Smith, and former Southern Baptist Convention President Jerry Vines exhorted pastors in back-to-back sermons to persevere amid cultural shifts that have made ministry more difficult in a modern America that has grown increasingly secular.

The Georgia Baptist Preaching Conference is held in conjunction with the Georgia Baptist Convention annual meeting each November. The president of this year’s conference, Tommy Fountain Sr., said the plan is to turn organizational duties for the conference over to the Georgia Baptist Mission Board beginning next year.

Skipper said Georgia Baptist pastors need make full use of the spiritual weapons listed in Ephesians 6 to be victorious in spiritual warfare.

“If you’re fighting against flesh and blood, you’re fighting the wrong battle,” Skipper said. “The Lord has strength available to you to be the exceptional person he has called you to be.”

Georgia evangelist Scott Newton Smith read from Acts 9 about the Apostle Paul escaping from a city by being lowered from a wall in a basket. Smith said he could imagine Paul yelling up to his helpers, “Don’t let go of the rope” while dangling in that basket.

Smith said all believers have someone counting on them in the same way. He pointed out that whoever was holding Paul’s rope had no way to know he would one day become the writer of much of the New Testament. In the same way, no Christian can know the potential of the person for whom they may be holding the rope.

Smith said Georgia Baptists also should hold onto the rope because they don’t know how far they are from the bottom nor do they know if they’re the only ones holding it.

“There’s somebody in your basket,” he said. “The admonition for you and for me is don’t let go of the rope.”

Vines referred to pastors as soldiers for Christ and admonished them to hold tight to sound doctrine, even though they’re ministering at a time when many people won’t listen to sound doctrine.

“We have an abundance of all kinds of teaching today,” he said, drawing his sermon from 2 Timothy 4:1-8. “Just about any itch that people want to have scratched, there is some preacher out there willing to scratch it. … We are living in the days, ladies and gentlemen, of the tickling-ear congregation.”

Vines challenged pastors to like a postman.

“You see, the job of a postman is not to edit the mail, is not to adjust the mail, is not to change the mail, but the job of the postman is to deliver the mail,” he said. “Bless your heart, it’s not our job to doctor the message. It’s not our job to delete the message. It’s not our job to do any of those kinds of things. It is our job to declare and to deliver the message.”