Jesus, Our Conquerer

Introduction

Good morning everyone. Pastor Eric is out this week, but will be back next week. Let’s pray. “Father, I pray that as we open your Word that we would see it as living, that we would see your Son so clearly through it. Be with me as I seek to proclaim your Word, matching it with the vigor contained within it, and be with these saints as they receive its vitality.” Amen.

We are continuing our series in Luke. Last week, Pastor Eric taught us about prayer. In that sermon, he focused on what our prayers should be centered on, primarily that God’s will be done, that His work would continue. Today’s passage in many ways, and in many ways I had not expected when I first approached the passage, builds off of that idea. That whole passage ends with Jesus promising the Spirit to all those who ask for it.

Before we look at our passage today, I want to talk a minute about doubt and how we even sometimes criticize God for not acting in the ways we want or expect. I think it is easy to look around the world and to see the multitude of issues in the world and to simply stop and wonder what God is doing. It’s been 2,000 years since Christ came and I think many people feel like the world is getting worse. Whether or not it actually is is a different discussion and probably just depends on what your focus is, but I think that feeling feeds into this sense that God is somehow slacking. But really those doubts/criticisms ultimately reflect a misunderstanding of who God is. Fundamentally, how we understand God as God is going to shape how we interpret His actions. And I’m not talking in the sense of not having the complete picture and sort of getting it wrong in that way, although that is also true and also an issue. I’m more talking we see something that we recognize as something from God, yet we don’t agree with it because we still have misconceptions of who God is. Specifically, I think we wrestle with concepts like Hell and judgement. We see what God is doing, but we wonder why He is doing that, and doing it that way. Why does God judge the world in the first place? Today, I want to show you from our passage how the people in Jesus’ time misunderstood him, and try to point out what Jesus has declared he is doing.

What’s the Problem?

Let’s read the beginning of the passage again. (Luke 11:14-16):

“Now he was driving out a demon that was mute. When the demon came out, the man who had been mute spoke, and the crowds were amazed. But some of them said, “He drives out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.” And others, as a test, were demanding of him a sign from heaven.”

So, Jesus goes out and heals a mute man which at this point just sounds like regular Jesus-stuff. We notice 3 responses to this healing, and that’s what makes it a unique encounter I think. First, you have the expected amazement at what he had done. A man who could not talk now suddenly could! It was a miracle, and surely this man’s life was changed permanently as a result of Jesus’ work. The second response is sinister in nature. They accuse the Son of God of being a son of Satan. This was no miracle; this was evidence that Jesus was working with Satan. And the last response is a skeptical one. These people needed to know the authority that Jesus had, so they demanded a sign from him.

We’ll get to each of these responses, but each of them is in need of correction or a straight rebuke. You might think that the people who are amazed weren’t in the wrong, and maybe they generally weren’t, but we’ll see in a bit that at least one person misses the core point. More on that later. The focus of this passage is primarily on that second group, the ones who accuse Jesus of working with Beelzebul, which would be understood as Satan today. For those who care, it’s actually referring back to Baal in the Old Testament, and is a title for the one who rules over all the demons. So these people accuse Jesus of drawing upon satanic power, and doing the work of Satan. If you’ve ever felt misinterpreted or misunderstood, boy…this is a totally different level!

A Tale of Two Kingdoms

How does Jesus reply? He responds in such a way that he turns the whole statement on themselves, while lifting himself up above reproach! There are several parts to his response. Let’s read the first part of his response again:

“Knowing their thoughts, he told them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is headed for destruction, and a house divided against itself falls. If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say I drive out demons by Beelzebul.” 17-18

The first part to his response is simply that their argument makes no sense. “A house divided will fall”, so if Jesus is actually on Team Satan, why is he working against him? That’s as silly as thinking that a Bears player who scored a TD actually plays for the other team.

Jesus’ next response, however, turns the accusation around on them.

“And if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons drive them out? For this reason they will be your judges. If I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” 19-20

Essentially, Jesus is saying that they have their own people performing exorcisms, and they aren’t accusing them of working for Satan. Actually, they would say they are doing good things, working for God and in His name. Which is what Jesus is doing! So, if they are claiming that Jesus is working for Satan, they’re actually condemning their own exorcists. They aren’t condemning them though, and so Jesus says that in itself is a form of judgement on his accusers. They trust their own, but not Jesus. We’ll say more on that in just a second, but Jesus doesn’t end his response there. He then says that if it isn’t by the power of Satan that he drives out demons, and I’d say he has effectively proven his point, then actually what he is doing is the work of God. Specifically, his work is a sign that the Kingdom of God has come upon them. The “finger” of God language goes back to Moses and the Law he received. Essentially, it represents the Word of God.

So, here’s where the misconception of who Jesus was comes into play. Jesus is the messiah, the one who came to take away our sins. His work on earth was to teach people about the Kingdom of Heaven, about what it meant to be in relationship with God. He taught them of their brokenness and how their sins had kept them from God. But his ministry is to heal and restore humanity, sometimes physically, but primarily spiritually. This exorcism really highlights both of those realities. Jesus heals this mute man by casting out his demons. This was a physical ailment caused by something spiritual.

Jesus was at work in the world, meeting those physical and spiritual needs. This work is what he was getting at in vs. 21-23:

“When a strong man, fully armed, guards his estate, his possessions are secure. But when one stronger than he attacks and overpowers him, he takes from him all his weapons he trusted in, and divides up his plunder. Anyone who is not with me is against me, and anyone who does not gather with me scatters.”

This is the work of Christ, being done through his word. Jesus uses some imagery here to help paint a picture of that for us. Satan has grabbed ahold of the world and he has made it his home. He has overpowered humanity and taken everything for himself. He has spent years building up his defenses and building up his wealth by taking from those he conquered. He has dominated the world and has done so at the people’s expense. Many were (and are) completely blind to it, and just knew they had some unknown source of unfulfillment or dissatisfaction. To those beholding this kingdom Satan has built, with these impressive defenses, it was probably disheartening to know that there was nothing they could do. He was too powerful. But Christ is more powerful than even he, and Jesus alludes to his overpowering of Satan, replacing his demonic kingdom with his heavenly one.

There are examples of God rescuing His children in Scripture. The Old Testament is building up to the work of Christ and there are often mini-examples of what is to come in the history of Israel. There is the story of God rescuing the people from Egypt by delivering them out of there and into the Promised Land. Pharaoh was the big bad, the Hebrews powerless to overcome him on their own. We can look to the Book of Judges, where the Israelites were captive to their own sin and depravity, and how God continually delivered them out of their captor’s hands. There is of course, the story of Goliath. This oppressive giant intimidated the people of God. But once again, God raises up someone to ultimately bring him down. In the prophets, you have Babylon and Assyria both attacking the people of God. Once again, God ultimately defeats their enemies and brings them back to their homes.

This story theme is very common, but none of them are really dealing with the root issue. There was always another Pharaoh, another Goliath. These were just figureheads of something far more terrible. And of course, those are only the enemies from outside, speaking nothing of the darkness within the hearts of men and women. Satan held his oppressive regime, but it was our sin that kept us in bondage to him. It is this reality that Paul drives Paul to cry out in Romans 7, saying, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (vs. 24). As Christians, you’ve probably felt that battle before, the continued struggle with sin. And perhaps you’ve felt hopeless, perhaps you’ve cried out to God to defeat this sin in your life!

And God has answered. This is what Jesus is proclaiming here in our passage: That he is doing what was whispered in the Garden, all the way back to when Adam and Eve first grappled with the weight of their rebellion. As they sat with the now broken relationships with each other, with God, with themselves, and even the world, while they were naked and afraid, God offered a mysterious hope. God turns to their deceiver, and says, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” Some of you probably know, but “offspring” there is not in the plural in Hebrew, but in the singular. There is one who will crush the Serpent’s head.

Jesus says in our passage today that to overcome a strong man, it takes someone even stronger. He is that stronger man. Jesus can overcome the man that has a fortress! The missing thing from all those other biblical stories is found here: the cycles are broken. Satan is powerful, but even he is powerless to stand before Christ, our Conquerer. Satan is humiliated, even! His defenses are breached, his armor stripped, and his plunder passed around. Only Jesus has that kind of power, and he uses it to free us from the bondages of Satan, but also of sin.

The Work of the Kingdom in You

If you’ve encountered Jesus, you understand then that the Creator of all things, became the created thing! We take this for granted I think, just because it is so core to our faith that we overlook its significance, but Jesus became human. Why would the God of all creation do that? He did it for you. For all His children. And who are we? We were his enemies, we despised him. We hated the effects of sin, but we loved sin itself. And despite this, Christ became sin for us. He who knew no sin became sin, for sinners! We hated him, but he loved us. So he became human, and he lived for us, suffered for us, bled and died for us. 3 days later, he rose again, defeating the one even more terrible than Goliath. Satan and death have no hold over us any longer. Jesus ascended into Heaven, where he now sits reigning over Satan’s broken and scattered kingdom. Through his Church, he is gathering people to himself in preparation for the day he comes back to fully replace Satan’s kingdom with his own. Now this kingdom is so different from the one Satan had established. The Kingdom of Heaven is pure and unblemished righteousness. There is no flaw in it. In order for this kingdom to work however, God is going to eliminate all unrighteousness from the earth, so as not to taint His perfect kingdom.

The question is, do you meet those qualifications? Are you righteous? As we stand before God, as He filters out all the evil in the world, are you able to say “I’m perfect! I’m righteous! I belong in your Kingdom! Not just ‘mostly’ righteous, but perfectly righteous? If Satan’s kingdom is going to be eradicated, there can be no trace of imperfection. So, while it’s great that you tithe, you help out those in need, you show grace to your coworkers, are you absolutely perfect? Are you completely without blemish in your life? If the answer is “no”, if you’ve ever told a lie, or gossiped about someone, or ever lusted over someone or was envious of what the neighbors had, then by your own merit, you have no right to be in this new kingdom. We have no right, because if permitted to enter, our imperfections would tarnish the perfect kingdom. We love the idea that Jesus has conquered death, but friends, we are death. We love the idea of a world with no sin and brokenness, but friends, we are broken. That’s bad news, for you AND me as we stand before the Father as He evaluates what is worthy of His kingdom and what is not.

But the Gospel means “good news”, and there is indeed good news for us. Because despite all my own wretchedness, my own sinful nature, my unrighteousness, Jesus is perfectly righteous and he offers to unite me to himself. Scripture says Christ’s righteousness becomes our own. Paul writes this in Philippians:

“For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” (vs.8b-9)

So Paul is saying that our faith in Christ brings us in relationship with Christ, and that relationship is what allows us to know him and to experience his resurrection. He says even more directly in 1 Corinthians 1:30, “…because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

We are not worthy of this new kingdom, and yet Christ is worthy enough to make us worthy. We stand before the Father on the Day of Judgement, and He will ask us if we are righteous. For those of us who trust in Christ, we are trusting that Jesus is good enough to cover our unrighteousness. And so we are, Scripture declares. Not by our own righteous acts, but by Christ’s alone, who paid the penalty for our unrighteousness.

Receive the Word

Getting back to our passage, Jesus tells his listeners that he is overthrowing Satan. Anyone who is not with him (in this context meaning anyone criticizing Christ), is working to scatter the people instead of gathering them to Christ. Building on that, Jesus goes on in vs. 24-26 to say this:

“When an unclean spirit comes out of a person, it roams through waterless places looking for rest, and not finding rest, it then says, ‘I’ll go back to my house that I came from.’ Returning, it finds the house swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and settle down there. As a result, that person’s last condition is worse than the first.”

Now, that’s an odd passage and its meaning might be a little hard to grasp at first glance (or maybe even the second or third). But there is a point: this encounter started with Jesus exorcising a man. He was criticized for it, but Jesus then speaks of his work in defeating the powers and principalities in the world. For those criticizing Christ, they stand in a place where Jesus has essentially promised to exorcize the entire world. But what will they do with that? What will you do with it? So this is what Jesus is saying, he’s cast out demons in the world and your life is sort of put back together. But the demons are restless, and eventually they’ll wander back and check in on you. This one in the story notices a tidy home, but it’s empty. Jesus has talked about how he is the one who can overpower the strong man in Satan. But unless you’ve put Christ there to guard you, the demon will just come back and he’s gonna come back “fully armed” like the strong man in the previous section. “The last state of that person is worse than the first”, and so it is with these people criticizing Jesus, misunderstanding what it is he is doing. Do you want to be a part of the kingdom that is fading, or the one that is being built and has already been established?

No Excuse

The people hear this, and so we see in our next section,

“As he was saying these things, a woman from the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the one who nursed you!” He said, “Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.” (vs.27-28)

This woman is clearly amazed by Jesus, and so we see our second response to Jesus’ exorcism and teaching. Mary, the mother of Jesus, deserves praise, as the woman says, but for more than what she thinks. Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, exclaimed to Mary that she was blessed in her pregnancy with Jesus. And Mary herself understood this in the Magnifcat, in Luke 1:48, where she says the nations will call her blessed. So this woman in the crowd is right, but Jesus wants to expand her understanding of the situation, because Mary was truly blessed not for simply being pregnant with Jesus but for trusting the Word of the Lord and obeying it. Think for a minute on that. Mary was a young woman in a pretty terrifying situation, yet when told of what was going to happen, her response was simply, “Behold. I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your Word.” (Lk.1:38).

Okay, but why is this story here? It’s further judgement on the people doubting Jesus’ intentions, and also serves as a warning to those who were there in that moment. It ties in with the last section, what is your defense going to be against the demons looking to settle down? For those who hear the Word of the Lord, for those who keep it and trust in Christ, they are united to the stronger man. They’ve all seen and heard Jesus in this passage, and they have to reckon with that. Similarly, everyone here today must do the same if they haven’t already. Do you trust Jesus to be able to have the coming judgement pass over you?

There’s still that last group of people though, the ones seeking a sign from Jesus. He deals with them in our next section:

“As the crowds were increasing, he began saying, “This generation is an evil generation. It demands a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so also the Son of Man will be to this generation. The queen of the south will rise up at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and look—something greater than Solomon is here. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at Jonah’s preaching, and look—something greater than Jonah is here.” (vs.29-32)

This section is an exclamation point of sorts to the previous sections of our passage. Jesus brings up the fact that their generation was wicked, and again, judgement is coming. They want a sign (partly because of their wickedness), because even though they hear the Word of the Lord, it isn’t enough for them to accept it and obey. Jesus says that this in of itself bringing judgement on themselves. But why? Surely these are difficult things to accept, right? Jesus goes back into their history to show how much better off they are than the previous generations that they revere.

He uses two examples: Jonah, and the Queen of the South. Jonah was tasked with going to Nineveh, a place well-known for their wickedness. This was a people who had attacked Israel and caused great harm to them as a nation. Jonah goes and preaches a message of repentance and a warning of judgement. There was no miracle, no sign given. Just a preaching of the Word, and surprisingly, they respond positively! They repent, city-wide! They are spared judgement that they deserve because of the mercy of God. For the Queen of the South, this references back to 1 Kings 10. In that story, she comes up to Israel because of everything she had heard about Solomon and his great wisdom. She wanted to meet him and see for herself this great wisdom put on display. After talking with him, she is indeed impressed, and gives him many gifts as a result.

There is a common link between the two stories. Both of them offer truth to Gentiles, to those outside of the Jewish faith. God has set out to save people from every tongue, tribe, and nation. Jesus focuses on Jonah though for good reason. You see, Jonah if you remember, did not want to preach that message to Nineveh. And Jonah failed to see who God was and resisted Him. Now Jonah was spared judgement as well, but God deliberately holds up the Ninevites to Jonah as a means of exposing Jonah’s hard heart. They received God and His teachings, but Jonah had not fully, even though he was an Israelite and a prophet of the Lord.

Jesus exposes these people in our passage in the same way. These people have seen something greater than the very successful Solomon, greater than the very successful Jonah. They both preached truth with no special tricks, and the people believed what they heard from these flawed men. What is their excuse going to be, seeing a miracle and hearing the truth spoken by the very Son of God? They believed lesser men and an incomplete truth, but in Christ, these people have heard from God directly.

And not to scare you, but so have you. Not from me of course, but through His Word here today. We tend to look back and think faith would have been easier if only we could have seen Jesus in person, or any of the supernatural acts of God. The reality is that, yeah, they saw Jesus in person, but they did not have the complete Gospel account. Each one of us here can read Luke 12 and 13 and go on reading through Revelation. We are without excuse. How many physical Bibles are in this church you think? Hundreds at least. Hundreds of copies of every divinely-spoken Word of God. And in my pocket, I have another Bible with dozens of English translations. The Age of Covid has also highlighted just how much access we have to God’s Word being delivered online. How many hours of sermons are available to us each week? How about all the wonderful testimonies of people around the world, that we can hear in an instant? We live in the post-Guttenberg press era…how many books explaining Christ are just in the library and our offices here at church? Yeah, we didn’t see Jesus personally. But just as Jesus told these people in our passage, the prior generations stand up in judgement against us. We don’t have an excuse…we have heard the Word of the Lord, and blessed are we who obey it.

Jesus, our Shining Light

I say all that friends, not to make you feel guilty. That’s not at all the point. While there is certainly a firm warning being given by Jesus, it’s not his main point here. We close with an exhortation in our last section:

“No one lights a lamp and puts it in the cellar or under a basket, but on a lampstand, so that those who come in may see its light. Your eye is the lamp of the body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is also full of light. But when it is bad, your body is also full of darkness. Take care, then, that the light in you is not darkness. If, therefore, your whole body is full of light, with no part of it in darkness, it will be entirely illuminated, as when a lamp shines its light on you.” (vs.33-36)

The Word is a lamp unto my feet (Ps.119:105). God wants you to display His Word within yourself. The eye was a sort of image used to discuss the idea of the soul in the ancient world, and so Jesus is saying that you need to use His Word to shine brightly. I think we’ve all heard the song, “This Little Light of Mine”, and certainly there is a sense in which this light is meant to shine bright for others to see, so that they too might learn about Christ and put their faith in him. Jesus was just talking about Gentiles that came to faith, after all. But it is important to understand what the light is, which is the Word, but Jesus is the Word, as we see in John’s Gospel.

I’ll close with two challenges. The first is directed towards those who redeemed by Christ. For now, the light Jesus speaks of is what dispels the darkness in our hearts, and the world. For my brothers and sisters in Christ, we are in a spiritual battle. We see the symptoms of a war waged between Kingdoms, and we need to take up arms against those evil forces. Satan is trying to get you to scatter the people, and he is opposing God’s Kingdom by tempting you to commit acts that run contrary to its nature. When you lie, you betray the truthfulness of the Kingdom, and the fear that hides behind the lie runs contrary to the freedom and security we have in Christ. When you gossip or talk badly of another person, you betray the notion of a place where we are united, working together for the Kingdom, fully forgiven of our sins and past blemishes. When we are envious, we fail to show that Jesus is all-satisfying and has provided everything we need, and truly, everything we could ever want. Satan is working, but Christ is working through his Word and Satan cannot overcome it. So we need to make the Word a central part of our life as we fight in this spiritual battle. Read Scripture, cultivate your relationship with Christ, growing in your understanding of who he is, not just what he is doing. But remember, we also rest in Jesus, who has already overthrown Satan and has promised to be rid of him entirely. We need to fight, but the battle against the strong man does not rest on us, but in the stronger man. And he is infinitely more righteous than we are wicked. Praise God!

The second challenge is that this light is what is also going to be seen in the Final Judgement. Only those with bright lights will be allowed to take residence in this perfect kingdom. So if you have not put your faith in Christ and his ability to clothe your unrighteous body with his righteousness, then I welcome you to do so. Perhaps you are battle-scarred, and you think your past is way too messy to be redeemed in this way. Perhaps after hearing these words today, you understand yourself as one who scatters, as one in the employment of Satan and his army. Maybe you recognize that your life largely works against the life-giving nature of the Kingdom of God. I suppose you might be feeling that a God who can wipe away your sins is not taking them seriously, that it seems too easy. But I assure you, it was not easy. Christ lowered himself, lived among us in the warzone, bled and died for us. The love is radical, hard to fathom, yes, but it was not easy. Christ offers you his bloody, outstretched hand, to unite you to himself that you can share in his eternal life and perfect fellowship with the Father. The Spirit can create something new in you, and deliver you from this kingdom of darkness.

Take warning, but also hope in the Word of the Lord, as we read Isaiah 49:22-26:

This is what the Lord God says: Look, I will lift up my hand to the nations, and raise my banner to the peoples. They will bring your sons in their arms, and your daughters will be carried on their shoulders. Kings will be your guardians and their queens your nursing mothers. They will bow down to you with their faces to the ground and lick the dust at your feet. Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who put their hope in me will not be put to shame. Can the prey be taken from a mighty man, or the captives of a tyrant be delivered? For this is what the Lord says: “Even the captives of a mighty man will be taken, and the prey of a tyrant will be delivered; I will contend with the one who contends with you, and I will save your children. I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh, and they will be drunk with their own blood as with sweet wine. Then all humanity will know that I, the Lord, am your Savior, and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”