"If Satan took over a city..."

Recently, I have been working through Michael Horton's latest book, Christless Chrisrianity. In the opening chapter, Horton raises a thought provoking question: "What would things look like if Satan really took control of a city?" He answered this question by quoting the late Donald Grey Barnhouse who raised the same question many years ago. Barnhouse speculated that "if Satan took over [a city], 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 is not preached."

When I first read this I thought this is exactly how subtle the devil works. Satan is not opposed to a Christless morality. He is not going to oppose churches where the sermon every Sunday is "be good and God will bless you" - "don't drink, don't smoke, love your family, and above all, know that God loves you!" The devil will applaud a message like this. Indeed, he will promote it so strongly that it will end up becoming a national best-selling book; and it will be heard all over the country on T.V. by a whimsical soft spoken speaker, who would be the kind of person you would like to have as your next door neighbor. The point of all this is simple: where Christ is not proclaimed in all the glory of His saving work the devil will not be present as an adversary.

Michael Horton made this observation:

"As provocative as Barnhouse's illustration remains, it is simply an elaboration of a point made throughout the history of redemption. Wherever Christ is truly and cleary being proclaimed, Satan is most actively present in opposition. The wars between the nations and enmity within families and neighborhoods is but the wake of the serpent's tail as he seeks to devour the church. Yet even in this pursuit, he is more subtle than we imagine. He lulls us to sleep as we trim our message to the banality of popular culture and invoke Christ's name for anything and everything but salvation from the coming judgment...while the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church, the assimilation of the church to the world silences the witness. "