Jesus responds to his skeptics - Luke 11:14-32

Alternative Explanations

It’s late on the afternoon of 24th March 2018 and Australia are having playing a fairly average game of Test Cricket against South Africa. Then something bizzare happens. One of the young, new players is being filmed by the TV cameras rubbing something yellow on the ball. This footage is not only played on the TV screens at home but at the ground too. He’s been busted ball tampering. Realising he’s been caught out he hides the offending yellow piece of sandpaper and when the umpires question him he pulls a rag out of his pocket and denies any wrong doing. Later that day at the end of day press conference, the young Bancroft and his captain Steve Smith front the cameras. This time it’s not a rag, it’s a yellow piece of sticky tape which they used to no effect. And it’s no big deal they tell us. Of course, no one believes them and eventually the truth comes out. It was sandpaper and it is a big deal, and for their troubles those involved were banned from playing cricekt for a while! One wonders what might have happened if they’d just been honest and avoided the alternate explantions.

Jesus drives out a demon

Well in our story today, Jesus drives out a demon and a man once mute now speaks. (Luke 11:14)

This action sparks a variety of responses.

Amazement (Lk 11:14). Many are seeking some sort of alternative explanation. (It’s just a rag! It’s yellow tape!)

He’s a demon (Lk 11:15).

Jesus clearly has power. This cannot be denied. What can be debated according to this group is where his power comes from, and in their mind it must come from a demonic source. They can see what Jesus has done, and they are basically rejecting Jesus by coming up with a way of dismissing him.

Skepticism (Lk 11:16)

As if healings and demon busting wasn’t enough, this next crowd want an umistakeable sign from heaven. We’ve all met this person. I’d believe in God if he just revealed himself in no uncertain terms, eg. voice from clouds.

Jesus responds to the two objections.

Answer One - He’s a demon (Lk 11:17-28)

Jesus turns to their first objection. that he is driving out demons by the power of demons.

This cannot be the case says Jesus. Why? He gives a couple of reasons:

1. Luke 11:17-18: A divided house cannot stand. It wouldn’t make sense for demons to drive out other demons. Not even Satan is that stupid.

2. Luke 11:19

Luke 11:19 NIV

19 Now if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your followers drive them out? So then, they will be your judges.

A better translation would be:

Luke 11:19

Luke 11:19 LEB

19 But if I expel demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons expel them? For this reason they will be your judges!

So who is Jesus talking about?

We don’t really know.

It could be Jewish exorcists. So Jesus is saying to the people questioning him if I drive out demons with the power of demons then how do your exorcists do it?

Or he could be refering to his own disciples. That is he’s saying it’s not just me who casts out demons. Your sons, your fellow Israelities who are following me are also doing this. I think this makes more sense.

Regardless of what Jesus means in v19, it is clear that Jesus is saying to these people who are rejecting him and attributing his work to Satan, this argument simply does not hold water.

And so he says, if it’s not by the power of Satan, but by the finger of God, then the kingdom has come.

Luke 11:20 NIV

20 But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

Jesus is saying that his miracles, in this particular case his casting out of demons, is evidence of the arrival of God’s promised, redemptive rule.

They are like a visual aid to help people understand God’s word.

Just as we like to use pictures to illustrate points. Or as the old saying goes, “a picture paints a thousand words”. Miracles illustrate the kingdom of God coming through Jesus.

Well, ultimately, for the man possessed by a demon, he was saved from evil. And Jesus goes on to talk about how the power of God is greater than that of Satan

Luke 11:21–22 NIV

21 “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe. 22 But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted and divides up his plunder.

Often when we are faced with our own evil. Our own sin. We try and be the strong man. Quite often we work hard and trying harder and doing better. But of course, we find ourselves often overpowered by our sin and our willpower fails us.

And then we can find ourselves in a worse situation, not unlike what Jesus describes:

Luke 11:24–26 NIV

24 “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ 25 When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. 26 Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.”

Defeated by our failure and without the hope of ever beating our sin. We may give in more and let things go wild.

As Jesus has been responding to this criticsm, a lady listening is moved to cry out:

Luke 11:27 NIV

27 As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.”

And Jesus responds:

Luke 11:28 NIV

28 He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”

And in fact it is here we see the key to overcoming evil.

Not by our own strength, but through the word of God and in the power of the Spirit.

You see, I think ultimately Luke has included this miracle not to teach us about demon poessions, but to teach us about salvation. And to recieve true salvation and true freedom we don’t simply need to clean house. We need something, or someone greater than that evil which we are fighting against.

We need the Spirit of God to fill us and empower us to live in freedom. And to protect us from the return of the evil one.

As Jesus goes about proclaiming the message of the kingdom of God, and demonstrating it’s arrival with powerful miracles . He demands a response from us. As we listen to Jesus we are invited to respond to this message with faith. To turn from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, so that we can recieve forgiveness of sins and salvation.

As Paul recounts his own story of salvation in Acts he quotes Jesus’ words to him, comissioning him to just this kind of ministry. Paul was sent by Jesus:

Acts 26:18 NIV

18 to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

To reject Jesus as these people had done by attributing his work to Beelzebul was to reject the gift of salvtion and forgivness Jesus offers to us all.

The second objection and answer:

Answer Two - Give us a sign (Lk 11:29-32)

Luke 11:16 NIV

16 Others tested him by asking for a sign from heaven.

How does Jesus respond?

Luke 11:29 NIV

29 As the crowds increased, Jesus said, “This is a wicked generation. It asks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.

What is this sign? Let me read to you from scholar Michael Wilcock:

The Message of Luke b. The Saviour (11:29–32)

The pattern of events in the book of Jonah corresponds to that in the story of the Son of man. Jonah is thrown into the sea and swallowed by the fish, returns three days later to the land of the living, and proclaims God’s message to the men of Nineveh; and the career of Jesus shows the same kind of sequence—death, burial, resurrection, proclamation.

The difference between Jonah’s sign to Nineveh and Jesus’s sign to his own generation is that in the latter there is ‘something greater than Jonah’ (11:32). Not someone greater, you notice: Jesus is not, strictly speaking, comparing himself with Jonah. It is the whole thing which is greater, deeper, more real. Jonah experienced a kind of death, a kind of burial, and a kind of resurrection, and he went to Nineveh with only an embryonic version of the good news—good, but limited. But in Jesus something greater is happening. The Holy Spirit has broken into the world in power, and by means of a real death, a real burial, and a real resurrection, he is able to offer to the world real salvation, at the deepest possible level. That which the story of Jonah illustrated and foreshadowed is made actual in the person of Jesus.

Trust the Evidence, reject the alternate explanations.

There’s plenty of evidence for Jesus. His life, death and ressurection. There are also plenty of alternate explanations like the people even in Jesus’ day had. Denying who Jesus has shown himself to be is nothing new. Trying to make up some excuse to ignore him and his call to follow him is nothing new. It was happening when Jesus walked the earth, and it’s happening today.

But both then and now the evidence pointed clearly in one direction. Jesus is the one who brings salvation. He is the saviour of the world. The bringer of the kingdom.

Recently I’ve been listening to a new Podcast by John Dickson called Undeceptions (published by Eternity Magazine).

It’s really a wonderful podcast as each week Dickson spends 30-40 mins showing why there is a really good solid historical case to believe in Jesus.

The evidence is out there. And you and I have a choice. Either we make up some half baked excuse, it’s a demon, it was yellow tape. Or we can demand a level of proof that will never satisfy just so we can avoid dealing with Jesus and the claims he makes.

But the truth is that the kingdom has come. That salvation has been won. That we need to submit our lives to Jesus in humble obedience. Have you done that? Will you do that today?