Two Kingdoms
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What we are going to talk about today is two kingdoms. Up to this point in Matthew we have only read about one kingdom: “The Kingdom of God”. But in this passage today we are introduced to another kingdom who has a spiritual ruler, who is able to enslave men and women and has great influence in this world in which we live. Who am I talking about? SATAN and the kingdom of darkness.
And one thing we should recognize from Scripture is that Jesus took the devil very seriously and so should we. It is easy for us today to trivialize the power of Satan, the work of Satan, the temptation that Satan uses to lure us away from God, but they are very real and a great danger to us all! Satan can inflict diseases, can influence our minds, can blind us to truth, can lure us into dark places of sin that we would have never dreamed we would go.
Jesus called Satan “The ruler of this world” (John 12:31). Satan has a kingdom unleashed on this world right now. And what he wants to do is get as many people as he can to turn from Jesus, and follow him right into hell. He wants to suppress the people of God from sharing the truth of God so that people do not turn away from him and come to know the Savior.
There are two rulers of this world whom we cannot see
There are two rulers of this world whom we cannot see
Then a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute was brought to Jesus, and He healed him, so that the mute man spoke and saw. All the crowds were amazed, and were saying, “This man cannot be the Son of David, can he?” But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, “This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons.”
Explanation
THERE IS THE RULER OF GOD’S PEOPLE:
This is the Son of David: this is the coming ruler who was promised in the OT. God was sending a great King like David, but yet this King would be so much greater. He would bring freedom to God’s people, He would rule with a fist of iron, He would bring the life that people always wanted.
So the people see Jesus give this blind man sight and the ability to speak and immediately begin to think they are in the presence of the Messiah, of God’s coming Ruler.
Why?
Because the OT prophecies give a very specific description of what will happen when the Messiah comes.
Isaiah 35:3–6 (NASB95)
Encourage the exhausted, and strengthen the feeble. Say to those with anxious heart, “Take courage, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance; The recompense of God will come, But He will save you.” Then the eyes of the blind will be opened And the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer, And the tongue of the mute will shout for joy.
These people knew their Bibles! And they saw things that Scripture talked about would happen when the Messiah comes. So when they saw these things take place they immediately thought, “this is HIM!”
ILLUSTRATION
How many of you so your shopping online?
And how many of you know what time the fed ex truck comes? Or the mail carrier comes?
How many of you know exactly what kind of vehicle your mail carrier drives and when you see him you know he has what you’ve been waiting for?
The Messiah was bringing something to Israel that they had been waiting for and they were well aware what kind of vehicle He was driving!
Application
How many of us could recognize Jesus if he were here today simply by what He was doing? We don’t know what he looks like so it would have to be by His character, His teaching, His mission.
How many of us have studied the Scriptures intently enough to know what is going to happen when Jesus comes the second time?
How many of us have made the Word of God such a priority in our lives that we are continuing the work that Jesus began?
God’s people should be educated in the things of God. If we are not, we are going to miss Him when He comes, and we will not be able to recognize a lie when it is presented to us.
Do you know when Jesus comes again there will be spiritual deception? Do you know that Satan can transform himself into an angel of light and His tool of choice when the end of this age comes will be to deceive with signs and wonders?
How prepared are we?
THE RULER OF DEMONS
Beelzebul is just another way of referring to Satan.
And what we see here is the power of God delivering a man who has been enslaved by the power of Satan.
What does that tell us about Satan? He has come to bind people up, to enslave them to darkness, and destroy people’s lives.
And we should take this very seriously because the same activity we read about here, is the same thing that is going on in our world today.
Im not saying everyone is demon possessed. But I am saying that Satan has great spiritual power to enslave people and control them.
And if people could be demon possessed then, why should we think they could not be demon possessed now?
There are only two rulers whom we cannot see
There are two Kingdoms whom are led by these rulers
There are two Kingdoms whom are led by these rulers
And knowing their thoughts Jesus said to them, “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself will not stand. “If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand? “If I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? For this reason they will be your judges. “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. “Or how can anyone enter the strong man’s house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house.
Explanation
The Pharisees are accusing Jesus of getting His power from Satan to cast out demons. But Jesus makes a logical argument to show that their suggestion is impossible.
He says he cannot be exorcising demons by demonic power, because then Satan would be fighting against himself. And if Satan fights against himself, then his kingdom would not stand.
No king would throw his own soldiers out of battle and call it a victory; neither would Satan throw his soldiers out because his kingdom would then be divided against itself. Such a kingdom would be laid waste.
Satan is no fool! He has been at this game since the beginning in the garden with Adam and Eve and we should not trivialize the wisdom and power that he possesses.
He knows the Bible way better than we do, He knows the work, power, and character of God better than we do, and he is determined to get as many people as he can to go to hell with him!
So to throw his own soldiers out of their line of duty would be foolish. Makes sense right?
Bridge
(v 27) Then Jesus says:, “If I am not driving out demons by the power of Satan, then I must be doing it by the power of God. And if I am doin git by the power of God, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you”
The only logical explanation is: The Kingdom of God has come to earth.
The Pharisees acknowledge the Kingdom of darkness and now Jesus makes it clear that the kingdom of light is here as well.
This is not future event as if Jesus were merely pointing to something that would be true one day.
“Has come” is a present tense verb, pointing to a present reality. The kingdom has come, and the reason it has come is that Jesus has come.
If the kingdom has come because Jesus has come, then Jesus must truly be the king, the Messiah of the world.
Application
If the Kingdom of God has come, we must NOT live out our days as if it is non-existent! As if there is no kingdom of God. As if the coming of Jesus never happened. As if everything is going to be ok if we just ignore and live our lives as the rest of the world!
Every decision we make should be made as if it has eternal implications!
Every day that our minds and hearts are consumed with this world and not God should cause us to fear at the thought of our present reality!
Hebrews says we should FEAR not entering God’s rest!
Our greatest achievement in this life SHOULD NOT be this world or the things of this world, but living for the kingdom of God!
God is here amongst us! Judgement is coming! Sin is not something we should take lightly! The Kingdom of God is here! The presence of good and evil are at work and it is all coming to an end sooner than we think!
How many of us if Jesus were to come back today, would be clearly recognized as kingdom servants?
There are only two kinds of servants
There are only two kinds of servants
“He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters.
Explanation
It is as if Jesus turns to the whole world at this point and is looking at us from the pages of Scripture and says, “LISTEN TO ME!”.
There are only two kinds of servants. There are those who are with Me and there are those who are against Me!
There are those who gather with Me and there are those who scatter!
Every Kingdom has servants
To have a kingdom without servants is to not really have a kingdom at all.
We can look back over history and see that the world was divided by kingdoms! And what completed the kingdom was those serving within the kingdoms.
Hitler was an evil leader who led an evil army to carry out his evil deeds.
America was one of the the opposing forces in that war that helped bring an end to the evil that was being done.
Both nations had servants
So it is with the spiritual kingdoms of this world
There is no mother nature!
There is no reincarnation!
There is no Karma!
There is no purgatory!
There is no Buddha!
There is no Mormon God!
There are no Hindu God’s!
Listen to me very carefully: There is the kingdom of God and there is the kingdom of hell!
And every person will go to one or the other.
What does this mean to us?
There is no middle ground! No one can be neutral with Jesus! To not serve Him is to reject Him! To not whole heartedly follow Him is to reject Him!
This means we must make up our minds! We have got to come to a decision if we are really going to do this thing called Christianity then we need to GO ALL IN AND QUIT TRYING TO SAMPLE THE THINGS OF GOD AS IF WE STILL DO NOT KNOW.
To only sample Christ is to not be in Christ at all.
To think we can play with sin and yet still call ourselves kingdom people is n attempt to be neutral
To think we live for this world and still live for Christ is to be deceived by the ruler of this world.
Here is what God thinks about about being half in:
‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. ‘So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.
What does God think about us living in a life that does nothing for the Kingdom of God? It makes Him sick. The Word is literally “vomit”.
The failure to wholeheartedly serve Jesus is as dangerous as outrightly opposing Jesus.
The heart can only reject the plain evidence of God so long before repentance is impossible
The heart can only reject the plain evidence of God so long before repentance is impossible
“Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. “Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.
Explanation
What do these two verses have to do with these spiritual kingdoms and rulers?
The Pharisees witnessed the supernatural work of God. Jesus came to a man who was blind and mute and gave him sight and the ability to speak. No one who was standing there denied that something supernatural had taken place. A miracle that only God could do.
Now they tried to reason that the supernatural source behind Jesus was Satan. But Jesus clearly articulated that that is impossible. Satan would not cast himself out of a person. That is like the general of an army shooting his own soldiers and calling it success.
And so the evidence is perfectly clear: Jesus is the Son of David, God in the flesh, the Messiah, the One who can do what only God can do, who has brought the Kingdom of God to earth.
And in spite of this evidence, MEN MUST DECIDE WHOM THEY WILL SERVE.
And to reject the plain evidence of God placed before them, the source of Jesus’ power which is God, is to blaspheme the Holy Spirit.
Bridge
There are people who say this is not possible today because Jesus is not walking the earth doing miracles as He was then. And there are people who say we can blaspheme the Spirit today. I honestly do not know.
But what I do know is that Scripture teaches over and over again that there is a line that we can cross in which repentance is no longer an option.
When people harden their heart towards God so many times, God closes the door to them forever.
Application
Repentance is a gift from God. If you have the ability to recognize sin in your life, do not ignore it. Do not think you will always be able to turn from it! Do not think there will always be tomorrow! Do not think you will always get another chance!
I have seen so many people hear the Word of God, experience the power of God, and then turn away and get so deep into their sin that it seems like repentance for them is impossible!
When that line is crossed where forgiveness is no longer available, something happens down deep in the heart of man. The one who has seen the evidence of God and rejected Him, comes to place where there is no more hope.
Its not that these people want God and God won’t allow them to come. When they cross that line, they no longer want God, and so they spend the rest of their lives either in deception or so hardened that the opportunity is gone forever.
This is why the Scripture says, “If you hear His voice today, Do not harden your hearts”.
If you have a desire to come to Jesus, then COME! Come and turn from your sins and take hold of the opportunity God is placing before you because there may not be another one!
Our words give evidence of what ruler we serve
Our words give evidence of what ruler we serve
“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. “You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. “The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil. “But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. “For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
Explanation
A tree is known by its fruit
You know an apple tree by what kind of fruit it produces. You know a peach tree by what kind of fruit it produces. You know a tomato plant by what kind of fruit it produces.
Jesus says our words are a kind of fruit we produce. And so if our mouths speak evil things then that indicates what kind of tree we are. And if our mouths speaks good things then that indicates what kind of tree we are.
What is inside the heart flows out of the mouth
Our mouths are a direct channel into our hearts. If you want to know what kind of heart you have, all you need to do is listen to what you say.
Those words flow from a treasury that we each have within us. And that treasury is either good or evil. And what is in that treasury will determine what ruler we serve, what kingdom we belong, and what our destiny is.
Application
If someone drifts from the Lord, the mouth will tell on them. If the heart is a treasury of good, that good will overflow through the lips and do good to others. But if the treasury within the heart is evil, that evil will spill over through the lips and do harm to the person speaking and those listening.
If you were to be your own judge this morning, based on the words that you use, the way that you talk, what kind of tree would you say that you are?
And to not be completely honest with ourselves is only to be deceived. If you do not know ask someone who is close to you.
Jesus said by our words we will be justified, and by our words we will be condemned.
What needs to change in your life today? Are you far from God? Jesus is the Strong Man who can overthrow the enemy at work in your life. Jesus has the greater power, but unless we are willing to serve Him completely, we will never know it.
Everyone must decide today. There is no middle ground. Please come to Jesus. Please come to Him because it is His kingdom alone that will stand.
~PRAYER~