Shall we pray once again? Lord, will you bless us. Will you bless us as we enter the first Lord's Day in the first sermon of this new year. Will you bless us, O God, that this may be the first of many happy days in your particular presence, that you, O God, would show us your smiling face, you'd help us and teach us and guide us. Lord, use what is spoken in this and all the coming days of resurrection this year to know more of the risen Christ, to know what it means to follow you, to be conscious of the temptations and the pressures that will be upon us in this world, and so to glorify your name. Help us in this, our Father, and help us this day. In Jesus' name. Amen. Satan hates you. You may not be a Christian, you may be a child of God. Whatever the case, Satan hates you. You may still be his spiritual slave under the power of the prince of the air. Whatever Satan promises, whatever Satan gives or says he can give, his heart is only malice toward you, and there never will be any lasting happiness in his service. If Christ has redeemed you, Satan hates you. He wants, by all possible means, to do you harm. He wants to undermine you. He wants to cripple you. He wants, if he could, to devour you. Everything that Satan does as the adversary, the foe, the enemy of your soul is intended either to prevent you from coming to Jesus Christ or to keep you from staying near to Jesus Christ. Because his hatred of God's creatures is really a reflection of his hatred of God as creator and as savior. Whatever else I do this year, I want to plead with you whenever I have the opportunity to understand that the reason why Satan hates you coming to Christ is because Christ is the one who will bless you, who will free you, who will help you, who will encourage your soul, who will lift you up and who will bless you in himself. He is the one who can forgive your sins. He is the one who can bring you out of darkness into light. Everything in Christ is glorious. He is most gracious. He is most kind. He is ready to save all those who call upon him. And that is why we proclaim him, and that is why Satan hates to have him proclaimed. His hatred of the gospel is a reflection of his hatred of the Christ of the gospel, and his hatred of those who hear the gospel. And in 2 Corinthians and chapter 2, Paul is very conscious of the way that Satan works against God's people. 2 Corinthians and chapter 2. Now you know how the adversary, the devil, is described in our Bibles. We're already using some of his particular names. He is described as the father of lies. He is described as a murderer. He is described as full of hatred, deceit. Twisting has been his MO, his modus operandi, his way of working from the beginning. Always taking what God says and undermining, casting it in a different light, casting aspersions upon God and his character and his work. And in 2 Corinthians, as Paul is wrestling with the church there about the way that they have been conducting himself, he's talking to them in chapter 2 about the way that they need to be forgiving a particular offender, probably the man that he identified in the first letter. And as he finishes that particular section, in verse 10 he says, Now, whom you forgive anything, I also forgive. For if indeed I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven that one for your sakes in the presence of Christ, lest Satan should take advantage of us. As the apostle of Christ caring for the church in Corinth, Paul says we're doing what we're doing and we're thinking how we're thinking and we're acting as we're acting because we do not want Satan to take advantage of us. He's looking for an opportunity. But we are not ignorant of his devices. We know how Satan goes about his business. we are aware of his wiles, his stratagems, his techniques for bringing down the church of Jesus Christ. Now, God helping me this morning, And perhaps for the next one or two Lord's Day mornings, I want you to hear Satan's voice. You might think, how's that going to work? God helping us to hear Satan's voice? I mean this. I want you to learn the kinds of things that Satan says and the way that he says them. I'm going to be much less subtle than him in the hopes that you will figure out what you are hearing and so learn to discern his particular tones. I'm going to teach you how to ruin your spiritual health. Now, I'm not doing this to be clever, but I hope that it will be striking, that it will be memorable, that it will be gripping, that it will be horrible, that as you hear the kinds of things that Satan might say to you, if you could hear him with your physical ear, it will bring us back from any tendency in that direction. Now one of the reasons why I feel safe preaching like this is because of the condition that we're in as a church. I think if we had been succumbing to some of these things it would be much harder to preach like this. I feel a measure of confidence in preaching this in the hope that it will stop us sliding from where God in his mercy has brought us while still addressing things in us that need to be addressed. as I think about the approach. I'm trying to draw on some of Paul's holy sarcasm, if you will, that he uses when he's preaching to the Corinthians. I think of a book like C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters. which for all Lewis's theological oddities still is a helpful book in almost drawing back the veil and helping us to think of the way that our enemy deals with us and the way that he tries to bring us down. It's even a maxim in military strategy that to know your enemy is one of the first steps to fighting him. So in a sense, what we're going to do for the next week, two or three, is what is sometimes called upside-down thinking. Has anybody ever heard of upside-down thinking? Okay, William has, because I've talked to him about upside-down thinking in the past. Upside-down thinking is a way of driving yourself from a bad way of doing things toward a better way of doing things. So in business, for example, upside-down thinking would say something like, how can I ruin a restaurant? I want to set up a business. How can I make it fail? Well, I'm going to put it in a dingy back street in the difficult part of town. I'm going to make sure I choose a location where there never is any footfall. I'm going to ensure that it's the kind of environment that nobody with any money to spend on fine dining would ever want to go after about, let's call it daylight. I'm going to make sure that the waiters are the rudest, surliest, most unkind people that I can hire. The food will be of the lowest possible quality. You understand what the thinking is. If that's what ruins my restaurant, what's the opposite? By doing this upside down thinking, by thinking what is failure? What is ruin? I'm showing myself, I'm exposing the things that I need to deal with in order that leaving those things behind and doing the very opposite. I want to put my restaurant in a nice bright part of town. I want to put it where there's plenty of people walking past. I want to make sure that the windows are bright and clean and that people can see clean cutlery and clean crockery and nice ironed tablecloths. The waiters need to be polite, they need to be calm, they need to be generous. The menus need to be readable, the food needs to be edible. Why am I doing that? Because the opposite is how to ruin something. Think of it, how do you ruin a tailor? Well, we'll estimate all the sizes rather than actually measure them. When we measure them, if we measure them, we'll measure them once. And when guests, when people come in, we'll only offer them half our materials. We'll make them the scratchiest and itchiest materials we can find. Well, don't do that then. Do the opposite of that if you wish to advance. and I want to do some spiritual upside down thinking with you as we begin 2024. I want to think what would Satan recommend for us if he could? How would he want you to think and feel and live as you go into this new year in order that your spiritual health may be ruined or compromised? What would be his hellish recipe for spiritual and church disaster? Now I'm making some of these suggestions to you. I'm not plucking theories out of the air. I've spoken to other ministers about these things and they have said, yes, these are the things that we often have to deal with. These are things that we have found in our experience as a church and these are things that you may find even in seed form in your heart and life. And my point in so speaking is that if you think you're going down the path of ruin and failure and you begin to see the things creeping up that would take you there, that you say, no, this is the path to disaster. This is the way that we must go. I also want to assure you that there are remedies for these things. There's a sweet, sweet book. It's like a spiritual medicine cabinet in its own right by a man called Thomas Brooks called Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices. I'm not drawing mine from his, but you will find that there is plenty there that will help you if you're asking, okay, what do we do about these things? I also want to assure you that if with any of these matters you are left saying, I'm finding this in my soul. I'm beginning to develop the habits that Satan would have me develop. I'm beginning to think the way Satan would like me to think. Please, please come and speak to me. This is not hopelessness. Remember, the Christ whom we serve has overcome the devil. He has overcome sin and death and hell. He has triumphed over our enemy in the cross. But this is the adversary's guerrilla warfare, if you like, a defeated foe doing all that he can to harm us. So what is Satan's recipe for disaster? I think I'll probably only get through the first three or four of these this morning, but three basic principles to remember if you're listening to the adversary whisper in your ear, that the things that I'm about to suggest should be done incrementally simultaneously and defensively if you want to ruin your spiritual life in 2024. Now what do I mean when I say first of all incrementally? Incrementally means by small steps. See Satan doesn't want you to do anything too stupid too quickly. doesn't tell you just go and jump off the cliff what he says is start running down the hill so satan wants you to bring in some of these weaknesses to start listening to some of these lies step by pigeon step because it makes it so much easier to justify and so much easier to persuade yourself that you're doing the right thing, so much harder for your pastor to notice, so much simpler for you and other people to overlook. So Satan would say, don't just go a whole hog in one mighty leap, just inch your way in the direction of these things day by day if you want to ruin your spiritual life. Do these things incrementally. Also, do them simultaneously. Put the whole package together. Why? Because it's easier when you're mutually reinforcing your weakness. If someone runs at you with a sword, you might see them coming. If someone runs at you with a little razor blade, you might think that's not so bad. but you could die the death of a thousand cuts if you just stand there and let that little blade slice away at you. And so it is that these things will flow into one another. They'll help to reinforce one another. If you do one by itself, you could probably, to some extent, maybe get away with it. But if you do lots of them together, it will really drag you down. And then do it defensively. If you're going to listen to Satan in 2024, then make excuses for yourself. This is vitally important, and particularly blame other people, because that's the best way to proceed in this way. Tell yourself consistently, that the opposite of what Satan wants you to do is far too hard. It's too difficult. It is too demanding. It's not reasonable. No ordinary person could possibly be expected to do the things that God calls us to do. In fact, one of the most helpful excuses, you'll need to use this word, says Satan, legalistic. Legalistic. Anytime somebody says, this is the expectation, this is the standard, this is what we're striving toward, tell them it's legalistic, that this is an unreasonable duty that is being imposed upon you in a harsh and formal way. And that's one of the wonderful ways that you'll be able to get out of almost anything. So in listening to Satan's counsels, in hearing Satan's wiles, in listening to his devices. Do these things incrementally, simultaneously, and very defensively if you want to ruin your life in 2024. The first of these councils, please, please remember as we go through this, this is upside down thinking. The first of the councils is this. Diminish your private devotion. If you want to ruin your spiritual life in 2024, diminish your private devotion, what some people call quiet time, your private and perhaps also your family worship. Reduce your investment in seeking the face of God. Don't abandon it altogether, remember that would be too obvious, but deprioritise it. Make it the thing that you do when you've got time for it. Don't make the time, don't take the time, but just wait until the time arises. spend less time reading or listening to your Bible. If you've missed a few days this year, miss more this coming year. If you're able to say, you know, get an average of four or five days every week in 2023, see if you can knock that down to no more than two or three in 2024. Squeeze that time with God out of your schedule. Load your mornings in particular with other things. And again, remember your excuses. Remember that the children are growing up. Remember you've got to get them out of the door. Remember there are other things that need to be done. Remember there are news headlines to check the moment you open your eyes. that there are emails that need to be sent, that there are messages that need to be responded to, that there's business that needs to be attended to, that there are things around your house that must be done before anything else can be done. Especially squeeze out prayer. If you're going to read, read, but don't think about what you read and don't pray as a result of what you read. Reduce the duration of your praying. Reduce the frequency of your praying. Reduce the intensity of your praying. That's an ideal way to distance yourself from God. If you can, in order to cover your tracks and stop yourself feeling too guilty, especially up front, then replace your scripture reading with light devotional material. Read less Bible, but read something else that's a bit Bible-ish or a bit spiritual as a replacement for it. Just make sure. that there's less of the Word of God than before. And by all means, avoid the hard parts, okay? Whatever you do, don't read the whole Bible. Don't read the Old Testament at all. And when you come to the New Testament, only read the obvious, the easy bits. Read the nice bits. Read the bits that you like and not any other parts. Late nights and frantic mornings will be your helps in diminishing your private devotion. Keep yourself so frantic, keep yourself so busy, that those minutes and hours that you would have set apart to seek the face of God and to walk in communion with him as the way that you deal with every day are brought to the scantest minimum. And if you find yourself going perhaps a few weeks or even a few months eventually without any real communion with God, don't sweat it. You'll be able to pick it up some other time, maybe next year. Just give up. It's clearly not working for you. So if you want to ruin your spiritual life in 2024, diminish private devotion. Satan's second piece of advice for you for 2024, his recipe for disaster, is keep at a distance from your pastor. Keep at a distance from your pastor. Make sure there's plenty of space, spiritually, socially, relationally, between you and me or any other elders that God may give to us. Avoid conversation with your under shepherds. especially anything that is meaningful. If you can, get out of the building without talking to me on the Lord's Day morning and the Lord's Day evening. Climb out of a window if you need to. There are other exits you can use if you want to avoid me, but try not to speak to me about anything. If you have to speak, let it just be nice word vicar and move on. Whatever we do, we cannot dive beneath the surface. That means you're going to have to put off pastoral visits. Okay, don't have me in your home. If I ask you, can I come and talk to you and see how things are going with your soul, you need to say, don't say no, that's a bit obvious, but find a reason why now's not quite such a good time. Keep me at arm's length. If you have any challenges, any spiritual difficulties, if you need any advice, whatever you do, don't come to me. Don't call me, don't phone me, don't ask for a chat after church, Sunday morning or evening. If you have to speak to me, please wait until it's an absolute crisis or until you're so angry that all you can do is shout. Okay, that's the best way to ruin that relationship and to prevent me having any good to do to you. At all costs, undermine and prevent healthy communication between yourself and those who are charged to care for your souls. Now, one of the easy ways to do this is to start making excuses that become accusations. Maybe you should start telling yourself, but you're so busy. And then you can tell yourself, well, you're too busy. And then you can say, you're too busy for me. And that's a lovely little sequence, because it goes from being fairly neutral and general to it being my fault, which gives you lots of extra reasons then not to have that conversation with me in the first place. Concentrate as much as you can on my weaknesses and idiosyncrasies. Cultivate a very vigorous sense of those things and make them reasons then why you don't want anything to do with me. Impute evil to me if you can. Under no circumstances should you entertain the idea that I love you and would lay down my life for your well-being. You cannot afford to imagine that I love you. You must tell yourself rather that I am hard, harsh, cold, distant, uncaring, and unavailable. That will drive a delightful wedge between you and those who are caring for your soul. My character and my motives must be always suspect in your eyes. Without a healthy sense of suspicion towards me, I might be able to do you some good. And that you cannot afford if you want to ruin your spiritual life in 2024. So make sure that you know that because I'm this kind of man or I like these kinds of things, perhaps especially when that means public worship, you need to be able to sit there and say things like, oh, he's off on that hobby horse again, or he would say things like that, wouldn't he? So that even if you don't dismiss everything that is preached, you are selective in what you take away. that you can say, well, that's irrelevant, that's just him, he would say those kinds of things, but we don't need to pay much attention. And with me, as with the whole congregation, if you can read evil into everything that everybody else says and does, if you can impute evil, if you can say, ah, now I know why you're thinking that. I know what's going on behind there. I know why you're talking like that. I've got insight that no one else has got. I can discern what your motives are, and they are not good. then that will poison absolutely everything that comes from me to you. And that's a wonderful recipe for disaster in 2024. So, Satan's advice so far, diminish your private devotion and distance yourself from your pastors. The third element would be withdraw from the means of grace. Withdraw from the means of grace. And here I'm thinking more in terms of the public channels that God has appointed by which good is brought to us. First of all, really helpful here, work based on your feelings. Whatever you do, don't act on conviction. Don't act because something is right. Base what you do on how you feel on any particular day. If you can, keep a list of the difficulties that will stop you from engaging in the life of God's church. And that, if nothing else, that will help you feel a little bit less guilty about not engaging in the means of grace. So do whatever you can to avoid, disrupt, and undermine your participation in the worship of God on the Lord's day. If you can, come late. That's really great because not only then do you stop yourself participating fully, but you can disturb other people as well before they've even really got going. And when we've finished, leave quickly. Don't engage with anybody else. Don't stir up the things that you have heard. Make sure you get plenty of distractions. Keep your phones flashing and buzzing all the way through. Look out of the windows. Ideally, at this time of year, you'll probably see plenty of squirrels running around. If the birds are flying, if somebody's making some noise, then just let your attention drift off onto those things. You can still be physically present, but you can be mentally and spiritually a million miles away. Keep your participation low. Don't bring a Bible, and certainly don't open one. I mean, if you want to look good, which isn't a bad thing, bring it, but don't actually use it. Don't follow along as we are reading, as the preaching takes place. It's hard, isn't it, to avoid really singing in a place where everybody has to stand up and there's not many of us, but if you can, mumble. Don't really give your heart to the singing of God's word, and if there are bits that you find difficult, just leave them out. Just refuse to participate if it's not really what you want at this point in time. Avoid eye contact. Now, some of you have an advantage. If you've got nice long hair, put it in front of your face. That usually works quite helpfully. But otherwise, just keep your eyes down and make sure you understand and communicate that you're not listening to me and that I am not speaking to you. When we pray, let your mind wander. What are you going to do on Monday? What do you need to buy for shopping? whether or not you remember to put the oven on. But don't participate in prayer. If you get to the end of it, I mean, just do the whole amen thing, but don't engage along the way. Don't say amen as we go because you actually agree with anything. And when we get to the end, just use that word just to finish things off. If it's loud, let it be thankfulness so that at last the prayer is over rather than real participation. Make sure you criticize the sermons. Okay, the best thing that you can have for dinner on a Sunday is roast pasta. Make a list of everything that's gone wrong, okay? If it's not clear, if it's a bit tricky, if the language is difficult, if it's been pressed close to your soul, make sure that you take offense during the preaching of God's gospel. There'll be always too much of some things and not enough of other things if you look hard enough. And if you can't do it in any one sermon, do it over a course of a week, a couple of weeks, or a couple of months, and you'll find plenty to make it obnoxious to you. And my friends, whatever you do, keep away from the prayer meetings of the church. Dangerous places, prayer meetings. warm, healthy, helpful environments where the souls of God's people are righteously exposed to one another and our prayers rise up toward God. If you want to ruin your spiritual health in 2024, then not only must you withdraw from the means of grace more generally, but I would particularly encourage you not to gather for prayer when the church does. And then the last one that we'll look at this morning, I would encourage you, if you want to ruin your spiritual life in 2024, to avoid fellowship with others of God's people. Avoid fellowship with other of God's people. Now, what do I mean by fellowship? Well, if we're going to just call fellowship being in the same place at the same time, that's fine. What you cannot afford is prolonged, transparent, meaningful contact with other Christians. Keep it shallow, otherwise you will be in danger. The only exception to that is people who are of the same mind as you are in wanting to ruin your spiritual life. So if there's somebody, and you'll pick it up if you're of this mind, just use that radar that says, oh, I think he's unhappy. I don't think she likes this at the moment. I wonder if, you know, what did you think of the sermon on Sunday? Oh, you too. Why don't we get together for a coffee this week? That's okay. That we don't mind. But meaningful, substantial, transparent, spiritual engagement with your brothers and sisters in Christ is dangerous. Don't go to their homes. Whatever you do, don't open your homes to them. If you want to show good, then accept invitations and then cancel them at the last minute. Find a good excuse. I pulled a muscle in my ear. I got a bone in my leg. Whatever it takes, you can show willing, but you really don't want to engage with other people. After all, these are the ones that are going to stir you up to love and good works. And if you want to ruin your spiritual life in 2024, this is not the route you want to take. When you get together, keep it light. Never read your Bible with other Christians. Never take time to pray together. If you're gonna do table fellowship, then make sure it's only about the eating and the drinking. Let any sense of devotion to God be minimal. Steer clear of spiritual conversation. Ask somebody at the end of a church service, how is your week? Not how is your soul? Don't engage too deeply with people. Don't ask what they're reading in their Bible. Don't ask them to talk to you about how their spiritual life is progressing. You might get into very dangerous waters there where either you'll be exposed or you might be stirred up. So don't have those spiritual conversations and also find reasons to avoid all the added extras in church life. I mean, you know the pastor says that the priorities of the church are the meetings on the Lord's Day and then the stated meetings for prayer. Well, you can do those, you can tick the box, and no one will be able to say that you're actually not doing something, but everything else, avoid it. Extra prayer meetings, don't do those. Ladies' meetings and men's meetings, keep away from those. Coffee mornings and other gatherings, Too much time, too much effort, too much stress. By every possible means, while still showing yourself to be a part of the general drift of things, minimize your connection with the other members of Christ's so-called body. Choke off the blood. Develop a little spiritual gangrene, if you can. And you will ruin your spiritual life in 2024. Remember, do these incrementally. Don't jump right off the cliff. edge towards it. Do these simultaneously. Let them build up and encourage and reinforce one another and do them defensively. If anybody should speak to you about your pattern of life, then you need to rear up on your hind legs. You need to be like a tiger with its claws and its teeth out. Don't let anybody challenge you about your drift away from the path of spiritual health. Can you hear Satan's voice? Have you seen this before? Do you feel any of this? This is the path the enemy of your soul wants you to take. This is the damage that he wants done to you and to anybody who comes into contact with you. The enemy of your soul wants by all possible means, and the fouler the better. Remember, he will kick you when you're down. He will lie to you out of both sides of his face simultaneously. He will deceive you. all with an aim to destroy you. The harder you find it, the more difficult He will make it. He is unrelieved and unrestrained malice toward you, and He will do all that He can to stop you coming to Jesus and to keep you as far from your Saviour as possible. And my friends, we cannot afford to be ignorant of His devices. Souls and churches are ruined and destroyed when we listen to the whispers of Satan in our ears. This is your enemy's recipe for disaster. And I plead with you as your pastor, get used to the tone of his voice in order to turn your back upon him. He will disguise himself as an angel of light. That's why he would say, incrementally, simultaneously, and defensively. As you do this, Satan would have you say all the way along, no, I'm seeking what is right. I'm standing up for what is pure. I want the good of the church. And you may be telling yourself that all the while Satan is standing in the background going, wonderful. Hook, line and sinker. They've swallowed the bait and the hook has caught them. My friends, we need to not be ignorant of the devil's devices. This is your upside down thinking to start 2024. You understand the principle. If this is the way you ruin your spiritual life, if this is a recipe for disaster, if this is what Satan would have you do, my plea is that something as strange as this will make you think in a way that perhaps you have not thought before, will make you listen to what's going into your ears in a way that you have not listened before. will teach you to discern the voice of the tempter. Why do we pray in accordance with the Lord's Prayer? Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Satan is not omnipotent. He does not have all power. that Satan is not impotent, he does have some power, and every fibre of his dark being is bent toward the harm of your soul and this and every other true congregation of Jesus Christ. I'm giving you a recipe for disaster. that you might abandon every item on it, that you might not mix any of these things together. Satan wants you to diminish your private devotion. Satan wants you to put a distance between yourself and your pastors. Satan wants you to draw back from the means of grace. Satan wants you to avoid fellowship with God's people. And if you want to ruin your spiritual life this year, listen to him. You might say, how can we stand? Because Jesus Christ has overcome the devil. My friends, we are not doomed to stand in a losing battle. Christ has delivered us from the power of the prince of the air. Christ has brought us out from the kingdom of darkness. These lies, these deceits, these wiles, these stratagems are the marks of an angry and defeated foe. And you and I, if we are to be soldiers of the cross, followers of the lamb, we need to hear the way that Satan whispers these foul lies in our ears. And we need to be crying out to the God of our salvation. Do not lead me into temptation or God deliver me from the evil one. And he is not only willing, but he is able to do so. If you cry out to Christ now, then not all the power of Satan will be able to stop you coming to him. If you have become subject to these things, if you see any of it in your own soul, then you may go to him who is more virtuous than Satan is vicious, who is more kind than Satan is cruel. who is more mighty than Satan is venomous, and you can ask him to root out all that is vile and to bring in all that is pleasing. So rip up the weeds of Satan, plant the flowers of Jesus Christ, and do not be ignorant of your enemy.