Dear Reader, I recently came across this passage in Thomas Brooks' Works volume III, "The Unsearchable Riches of Christ," page 209. I hope this will encourage you to love Christ more and pray for us ministers without ceasing that we might be such preachers as Brooks here speaks of.
"It is their [ministers] great duty to preach Jesus Christ to the people, because the preaching up of Christ is the only way to preach down antichrist, or whatever makes against Christ.
Some would have antichrist down, yea, they would have down root and branch, but there is no such way for his total and final overthrow as the preaching of Christ; for the more the glory, fulness, perfection, and excellency of Christ is discovered, the more the horrid vileness and matchless wickedness of the man of sin will be discovered and abhorred, &c. : 2 Thes. 2:3, 4, 7-10, 'And then shall that wicked one be revealed.' The Greek word properly signifies a lawless, yokeless, masterless monster; one that holdeth himself subject to no law.
Pope Nicholas the First said 'that he was above law,' because Constantine styled the pope God; and of the same opinion were most of the popes.
'Whom he shall consume.' The Greek word signifies to consume by little and little till a thing come to nothing.
'With the spirit of his mouth.' That is, with the evidence and glory of his word in the mouths of his messengers. The ministers of the word are as a mouth whereby the Lord breatheth out that glorious, mighty, and everlasting gospel which shall by degrees bruise antichrist and all his adherents, and break them asunder like a rod of iron, &c.
When Christ was born, all the idols that were set up in the world, as historians write, fell down. When Christ Jesus comes to be lifted up in a nation, in a city, in a town, in a family, yea, in any heart, then all idols without and within will fall before the power, presence, and glory of Jesus. Since Luther began to lift up Christ in the gospel, what a deal of ground has antichrist lost! and he does and will lose more and more, as Christ comes to be more and more manifested and lifted up in the chariot of his word. Many in these days that speak much against antichrist, have much of antichrist within them. And certainly there is no such way to cast him out of men's hearts, and out of the world, as the preaching and making known of Christ, as the exalting and lifting up of Christ in the gospel of grace."
