If I were Satan
I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what we need to do next to use Memorial Park Christian Church in a way that would be of the maximum benefit to the kingdom. I pray for guidance, I visit with members of leadership as well as with members of the congregation trying to pick their brains as to what they believe God is calling us to do. Often times I sense God pulling us in one direction or another. At other times even after prayer and reflection I remain unclear as to God’s will for our congregation.
Often when I feel a need for guidance and don’t perceive that I am receiving as much as I would like I find it helpful to stop and make a list of things that I know would be counter productive to the church and see how much of that behavior I am contributing to in the church.
It’s really an easy list to compile, one only has to ask the question: If I were satan what would I do to defeat the Christian, what would I do to defeat this congregation? If I were satan what would I do without being to obvious to damage the kingdom.
I have read the lists of other men as they contemplated that very question. Paul Harvey wrote such a list and the concept of such a list was behind the book by C.S. Lewis called the “Screwtape Letters” in which he gives us a glimpse of conversation between two demons as they train to do battle with the church.
Almost every Sunday, as we should, we look at ways we as Christians are suppose to live so that others may see Jesus living in us and be drawn to Him. This morning however I want to turn the tables and look at methods satan uses to defeat the church in order that we may recognize such schemes instead of allowing ourselves to be a part of them.
This morning I want to look at ways satan can keep people from coming to the kingdom. I want to look at how satan can use us to damage other Christians, how he can use us to destroy this congregation and attack the Kingdom of God.
My intention is to allow us to recognize his lies so that we never allow ourselves to buy into his schemes. I believe there is a great advantage in knowing the plans of your enemy.
So if I were satan how would I keep people from coming to the knowledge of the saving grace of Jesus Christ? I think the most deceptive lie that I could tell to the masses of lost who are seeking God is this “God loves you and if you do your best to be good you’ll go to heaven.” If you talk to the unchurched it’s an idea that seems to have caught on. “I am not a bad person I don’t rob or murder I don’t get drunk, I don’t do drugs, I try to treat people with love and compassion so if God is truly a God of love he won’t send me to hell” after all hell is for bad people who need to be punished. It’s for those who molest children and steal from the elderly, who mistreat others and take advantage of people to their own gain. Sounds good doesn’t it. Good people go to heaven and hell is reserved for those who are just plain evil and after all they deserve it. It sounds wonderful, the only problem is it’s not true; it’s not the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For we all have to face the reality of our own sin, we are not good people; we are sinful people and we must be born again.
Being good is not a qualifier for salvation. Salvation is the by-product of a life surrendered to Jesus. Peter in the book of Acts chapter 4 verse 12 speaking of Jesus said:
Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."
If you could just convince people that their salvation was determined by their own works, by their own actions, you could rob many a soul from the kingdom of God. If you could just keep people from finding out that salvation is not about what they have done but is based solely on what Jesus has done for us then you could fill hell with people who were convinced that they were good people. I think that’s a very effective way of keeping the lost from Jesus: convince them that their salvation is determined by their own actions.
Now what about those who are already believers; those who have already surrendered their lives to Jesus? What would be the best way to attack this group?
If I were satan and I wanted to attack a Christian the first lie I would share with them is “Jesus plus,” I would play on their devotion to Jesus but I would insist that Jesus alone was not enough. Once you convince them that their salvation is dependent on Jesus plus anything else then they are not relying totally on Jesus for their salvation. You can use lots of variations to this lie. Jesus plus regular church attendance, Jesus plus weekly communion, Jesus plus a certain level of financial giving, Jesus plus any tradition that these people may already incorporate into their weekly service. I would just concentrate on any tradition that they already have bought into and I would apply that tradition as a part of the salvation experience; “Jesus plus.” It’s a lie that many are susceptible to because it includes Jesus, however, by reducing Jesus to merely a part of our salvation, a part of the “Jesus plus” formula, we have devalued his role and written another Gospel which, even if introduced by angels, is no gospel at all.
If I were satan all I would have to do is to hang some tradition onto the salvation experience and make it, whatever it might be, an integral part of salvation that’s how I would attack believers.
Next I would carry the attack to the individual congregation and there are many ways to attack the body. I think I would start with the minister. If I could get a few of the congregation, it wouldn’t take many, just one or two to get the ball rolling, to question his sincerity or his credibility or his spirituality that would go a long way in destroying the church. It wouldn’t take much scrutiny with most ministers to find fault with something they do or say after all they are only human and in many cases the congregation places them on some phony pedestal that’s just high enough to ensure that a fall is fatal.
With the preachers credibility damaged or destroyed I would then feel free to go after the rest of the leadership, a little gossip goes a long way when it comes to destroying a church.
With leadership in critical condition I would then be free to ravage the sheep. I would infect half of them with the idea that they were so important that they were indispensable and I would convince the other half, they were totally worthless. I would give half of them a passion for contemporary music and I would convince the other half anything not found in a 1945 Christian hymnal was the devil’s music. I would make half of them defenders of tradition and the other half agents of change and I would make them both function with no appreciation for compassion or compromise. I would teach them to take the scriptures out of context and use them for their own personal agendas. I would deaden their sensibilities when it came to their own faults and give them the eyes of eagles with which to find fault in others.
I would never allow the minister to preach on God’s wrath or the fires of Hell, or the blood of Jesus but instead would insist on a message of love without responsibility. Concentrating on the unconditional nature of God’s love I would extend that love from the sinner to his sin and put a stamp of approval on all manner of unrighteousness in the name of tolerance and love.
All of these things would be for the destruction of unity; because without unity there is no church. I would do my level best to get everyone to focus only on their own needs and then have each one of them try to use the church as a means to satisfy their own personal needs and wants at the expense of everyone else. If you can get the individual members to kneel at the alter of “I and me” then the church will not survive.
A lot of people think that satan doesn’t want them going to church but I don’t think that’s true. If he can build within you a feeling of piousness by having you fill a pew each Sunday I truly believe that is to his advantage. If he can make you believe by coming to church that you are fulfilling some religious obligation that merits reward by your mere attendance then he has you right where he wants you. If he can take the part of you that desires personal relationship with God and fill it with some superficial religious experience without you ever having a close personal relationship with Jesus Christ then he has won, it simply doesn’t matter that you attend regularly, it doesn’t matter if you lead the singing or deliver the message from the pulpit, if you don’t have a personal relationship with the risen Jesus then you are lost and bound for hell no matter how many little gold stars you have beside your name for perfect attendance. If satan can get people pumped up about just how religious they are, if he can bring them a sense of pride about their own righteousness, he can steal from them the humility that would allow them to carry a cross for the kingdom.
No if I were satan I would not be the least bit worried about your regular attendance at church. Of course there are things that would worry me, things that I would always have to be on the look-out for so as not to lose a soul.
I’ll tell you when I would start to get worried. When I saw a group of people that expressed a love for God by their service to each other then I would get concerned. When I saw a group of people who were more concerned about what their neighbor needed than they were about what they themselves desired that would worry me.
If I found a congregation that came together as a united body for prayer, to pray for each other, to pray for the sick and hurting, to pray for the lost, to pray for spiritual growth and maturity now that would worry me to death. I would do whatever I had to do to stop those prayers: Because satan knows that the prayers of a righteous man are both powerful and effective.
If I were satan I can tell you what would scare me more than anything else and that would be to find a church that had the love to reach out to the lost, the Christian maturity to emulate the life of Jesus Christ in both humility and sacrifice and the drive and passion to make disciples that could reproduce themselves even in the face of persecution. Such a church filled with both the knowledge of scripture and guidance of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit cannot be stopped. The gates of Hell itself cannot stand against it and the schemes of satan are powerless before it.
I pray everyday that God will continue to work in us and through us until we at Memorial Park Christian Church become that church. I pray that the Holy Spirit will indwell us in such a powerful way that we cannot be content to merely study and worship but are compelled to seek out the lost and share with them the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to not only share it with them but to then disciple them into Christian maturity so that they may also become compelled to reach the lost so that this entire community may be won to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. Amen!
Satan will never cease with his plans and schemes to keep the lost from the truth of salvation through Jesus, he will never tire in his relentless attacks on both individual Christians and the body of Christ as a whole.
We need not know his every scheme so long as our focus remains on the kingdom. He cannot defeat us by any means unless we allow him to do so by losing our way.
Peter walked on water until he took his eyes off Jesus. We must always seek the lost, not so we can add another notch to our handgun of evangelism but because we love them so much that we cannot bear to see them condemned. We must continue to study his word but not just for knowledge’s sake but so we can use that knowledge to help bring others to Christian maturity not so they might be indebted to us but rather so that they will be compelled to take the Gospel of Jesus to a whole new group of lost. We will never have to bear defeat if we keep our focus on bearing fruit.
Satan is full of lies, but if Jesus is for you there is no force in all creation that can stand against you.
I have said all that so that I may say this: If you don’t know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior its time this morning to get your focus in life changed, its time to come to the Kingdom. Its time to overcome your fear of satan and all his schemes and walk with the protection of salvation, of eternal life through Jesus Christ.
