It Satan were in control...

 “What would things look like if Satan really took control of a city? Over half a century ago, Presbyterian minister Donald Grey Barnhouse offered his own scenario in his weekly sermon that was also broadcast nationwide on CBS radio. Barnhouse speculated that if Satan took over Philadelphia (the city where Barnhouse pastored), all of the bars would be closed, pornography banished, and pristine streets would be filled with tidy pedestrians who smiled at each other. There would be no swearing. The children would say "Yes, sir" and "No, ma'am," and the churches would be full every Sunday...where Christ was not preached.”    

― Michael S. Horton, Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church

 

Good words.  We think that if Satan were in control, things would be bad.  We assume that the goal of Satan is our misery, is to corrupt us, is to torment us with our weakness, failing, and sin.  That is not true.  As Todd Wilken said, "Satan will make you miserable later."  For  now, the one and only item on his agenda is to remove Christ from us and all our lives.  The goal of Satan is to remove Christ from the Church, from its message, from its witness, from its preaching, and from its worship.  Satan is not happy or satisfied with our misery.  He will take care of that later.  His goal is simply a Christ-less Christianity, a religion without the cross, worship without the Gospel...

 

I have often said that, unlike the characterization we have learned from years of preaching and teaching, we would not have hated the Pharisees.  We would have loved them.  We still do love them.  They are good people, who do good works, are good neighbors, good citizens, tithers, and every time the door of the church is opened, they are there -- well scrubbed, earnest, and sincere.  At least that is what is on the outside.  Inside, is emptiness.  The death of self and of a self-righteousness which does the right but does not love it.

 

The same could  be said of Satan.  Despite the horrible images of the devil painted over history, the descriptive words of a myriad of authors, or imagined on the sets of movies, Satan's power is not his appearance.  It is his lies, rather the one big lie.  Christ is not raised, His death did not accomplish anything, His promises were not kept, and His value is to mentor a better morality and not to save sinners.  Satan does not come to scare us but to deceive us and the greatest of all lies are not the ones that make us fear, but the ones that make us comfortable with ourselves, with our lives, and with a religion and god of our own manufacture.  A reasonable religion and an amenable deity who conforms to us, who is a greater image of our own image.  Such a god cannot save us but he can make us feel better about ourselves, encourage us to be better, to strive for more and to take credit for our advances, successes, and progress.

 

Hell on earth does not look like the darkened streets of prostitution, drugs, broken men and women.  No, hell on earth looks just like the author said above.  It looks so good we do not need a real god and we do not believe in one.  Luther taught that we cannot by our own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ our Lord or come to him; Satan teaches us that we can and that simple change transforms Jesus so that He is not the incarnate Son of God come to redeem and save but merely a good man who encourages and inspires us to be good men and women. 

 

Save us, O Lord, from the Satan who has become our friend, our confidant, our neighbor, our inspiration... who looks so good on the outside, we do not see the death within... who teaches us to see the good on the outside, to be happy with it, and not to see the death inside us.  If Satan were in control the trains would run on time, the kids would go to school every day ready to do their best, the workers would give an honest day's labor for an honest day's wage, terrible crimes would be a memory, injustice would be wiped out, and we would all feel so good about the moment, we forget the death inside us or the impending eternal death to come... so content within ourselves and with the god of our own making, we do not need a Savior who is God in flesh to suffer for us, to die in our place, and to rise up to make us new...