Wednesday, July 28, 2021 PM

Let's go ahead and start with a word of prayer. Father, I thank you for gathering us together today. We thank you for the joy of fellowship.

We thank you for the joy of eating together and encouraging one another, praying together, hearing from your word together.

These are precious things, precious graces that you have afforded to us through your son

Jesus Christ. We thank you for the love that you have poured out in our lives through your

Holy Spirit. Who was in us and who was from you? We ask now that you would bless our time as we read your word together, as we study it.

I pray that you would help us to make right application to our lives, and that you would bless our prayer time as we intercede for those who are in need.

I pray these things for Christ's sake. Amen. Luke chapter 11, and I'll begin reading in verse 14 through verse 23.

And he was casting out a demon, and it was Mute. So it was when the demon had gone out that the

Mute spoke, and the multitudes marveled. But some of them said, he casts out demons by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons, others, testing him, sought from him a sign from heaven.

But he, knowing their thoughts, said to them, every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and a house divided against a house falls.

If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand?

Because you say I cast out demons by Beelzebub, and if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out?

Therefore they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.

When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace.

But when a stronger than he comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes from him all his armor, in which he trusted, and divides his spoils.

He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.

So when you read this passage, are there any curiosities that immediately come to mind?

Anything odd in the text? Hard to understand.

All right, what about this name Beelzebub? Or Beelzebul, depends on how they say it.

So who is this? Well, the ruler of the demons, it's safe to say, is

Satan. That's not hard to figure out. Why is his name

Beelzebub? Why this name?

Does anybody know what it means? It's the name of a famous book,

Lord of the Flies, which is a little bit of a loose translation.

It means the lord of the dung. And of course, the flies are around. The name is first encountered, this is kind of a transliteration of a

Greek transliteration of a Hebrew word, back in 2

Kings chapter 1. There was a king who was hurt, sick, dying, and he sent inquiry to Beelzebub.

Beel means lord. Beelzebub, lord of the flies, or lord of the dung.

Philistine god, to inquire whether or not he would recover.

Now, most scholars think that that was not the actual Philistine name for the god, that was the derogatory name used by faithful Israelites to mock the

Philistine god. But that name stuck around, and here it is, and it is a mocking name for Satan.

It is a name used to make fun of him. It is a name used to deride Satan. It is a name used to incite him to be derogatory towards him.

And they say, well, Jesus cast out a demon. It was afflicting a man, so he could not speak.

When the demon was gone out, the mute spoke, and the multitudes marveled. Now, in the marveling, we see that people are critical, or criticizing, or skeptical, and they begin to propose all kinds of things that, or to try to indicate their unbelief, and so they claim that that somehow

Jesus was using the power of the lord of the demons to cast out demons.

And then others, testing him, sought from him a sign from heaven. Now, does that strike you as strange at all?

He just cast a demon out of a man who was mute, healed him, and their follow -up is, well, show us a sign from heaven.

It seems a little dim of them. He had just done this miracle right in front of them, and they're like, oh, well, give us another sign.

You notice that the Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes, who were the critics of Christ, when they asked their questions, they weren't wanting answers.

They weren't asking questions because they were wanting answers. They were asking questions because they were trying to delegitimize the authority of Christ.

They didn't want him to be powerful. They didn't want him to be authoritative.

And so they were trying to delegitimize him. That's why they asked their questions, and tested him, and tried to trip him up.

And here, they're trying to explain away, his casting out of demons, and the powerful things that he's doing.

So, Jesus does not give them another sign, but he tells them, he shows them, demonstrates to them, right thinking.

You don't need another sign to understand what is going on here. You don't need another sign in order to believe.

You need to be a proper steward of what has already been provided for you. What has already been given to you.

And he tells them how to think. Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation.

It is an old mantra, divide and conquer. The way that, for instance,

Marxism conquers is through first division. Splitting everybody up into opposing groups, making people at war, and then proceeding with whatever you want to call it, revolution or the great reset.

That's how one conquers. Jesus acknowledges this timeless principle.

Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and a house divided against a house falls.

So he said, this makes no sense at all. Why would Satan be against his own house?

You know, you're not thinking clearly. You're just throwing crazy accusations.

And he says, if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out?

What is he saying? He's saying this accusation can go both ways. So be careful, be careful how you apply your accusations.

Jesus would say elsewhere, by the standard with which you judge, you shall be judged. So if you're trying to apply some sort of accusation here, be careful because it cuts both ways.

But if I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. So on the one hand, it could be, you're saying, it could be that Beelzebub, by the power of Satan, these demons are being cast out.

Or the alternative is that God is at work and he's the one who is pushing forward the victory here and the deliverance of people from darkness.

Now, which one seems more likely? And if it is the case that God is at work here delivering people from darkness, what does that mean?

If I cast out demons with the finger of God, then what? What's the conclusion?

What does he say? The kingdom of God has come upon you.

And he begins to try, he begins to explain to them what that, what that means. And he has a little story, a little illustration.

Now, let's see if we can identify the people involved here in this illustration.

He says, when a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace.

But when a stronger than he comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes from him all his armor, in which he trusted, and divides his spoils.

So can we identify who the, who the strong man is and who the stronger man is in this illustration, right?

Well, who's the strong man who is, who is considering, you know, he's safe in his palace with his armor and he has his spoils with him?

Who's that? And then who's the one who's stronger and comes in and has victory and takes what was his?

All right, so the original strong man is Satan. But then Jesus comes in and he defeats the strong man.

Now, what was for, what was the weapon that Satan had to enslave people?

What does Hebrews tell us? Hebrew, Satan has a weapon.

And it was one that Jesus came and overcome and took from him. The fear of death.

That's right. Verse 14 of Hebrews 2 says,

And as much then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared in the same, that through death he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetimes subject to bondage.

So it says that Satan has had them enslaved, in bondage to the fear of death.

There's a lot of people today who are enslaved to the fear of death. But what does

Jesus do? Through death, he releases them. Do you remember the story of one of the mighty men of David?

Who, I guess he was bored one snowy day. He went down to a pit just to kill the lion that was down there.

But he also went down to a great Egyptian, a mighty champion of Egypt. Who wielded a spear.

And this mighty man of David went down and disarmed the great warrior of his own weapon and used it to slay him.

This is a good analogy of what happens here. Because now Jesus who holds now the keys of death and Hades.

He was dead once but behold he's alive forevermore. He has victory over death. He defeats that strong man.

And he does what to the spoils that were in Satan's control.

What does he do? Well he delivers them. In the book of Colossians, we read that God has delivered us from the power of darkness.

Remember Jesus talked about the kingdom of Satan. He has delivered us from the power of darkness.

And delivered us from the power and conveyed us into the kingdom of the son of his love.

How does he do that? He does that through Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection. So Jesus is telling a little illustration here.

He's like look, you're saying that what I'm doing is according to the power of Beelzebub.

You couldn't be farther from the truth. I'm the one who comes to destroy him. I'm the one who comes to defeat him.

And this is made manifest by how many times Jesus faced off with the enemy in his ministry and cast out demon after demon after demon after legion of demon.

So it was clear who he was. And so he says it makes no sense at all that Satan would be divided against himself.

But you know there is a division. There is a conflict. There is some opposition and he makes note of that in verse 23.

He who is not with me is against me and he who does not gather with me scatters.

So there is a division. Because there's no neutrality about Jesus. You're either with him or against him.

There's no neutral gear. And that's how

Jesus puts it. He lays down that ultimatum. So as we think about this passage we see first of all that the kingdom, the power and the work of Jesus Christ is defamed and diminished by religious unbelievers.

So Jesus Christ is doing the work of God and unbelievers see it.

They may be religious. All men are religious to some degree at some level.

And they defame it. They call it wickedness or they say it wasn't good enough.

You have to improve upon it. But Jesus refutes their complaint, their logic, their unbelief.

And he demonstrates the present reality and powerful advance of his kingdom by delivering sinners from darkness.

You want to see the advance of Christ's kingdom in the world today. The best place to look is seeing how people are delivered from their sins.

How people are delivered from darkness and brought into the light. How they move from being enemies of God to reconciled with God.

From at war with God to be at peace with God through the person and work of Jesus Christ.

When we see our fellow believers and within ourselves.

We see a growth in Christ where we become more like Christ through the preaching and teaching and belief and application of the word of God.

We are ever more delivered away from the ensnarements of sin, entanglements of sin.

There also we see the proof of the kingdom of God. Very simple to see those things.

What do we think about when we look at this passage and we see Jesus? What are the things that are said about our

Savior and our King Jesus Christ in this passage? What can we say for sure that this says about Jesus?

That's right. He's stronger than Satan, stronger than Beelzebub. Plunders his house. He knows what's going on in the heart.

Remember that old observation that man looks only on the outward appearance. God looks upon the heart.

And Jesus Christ being fully man and fully God looked upon the heart. He knew it was in the heart of man.

What else do we see? He could drive out demons.

He has all the power of God. At the very finger of God he casts out the demons. That's right.

I wonder what he said. Yes, this is what

God did for me. Like Nebuchadnezzar. Like Zacharias when he finally got to speak after all those months of not being able to talk.

That's right. And you think about that. I mean people today say, you know, I would believe that only I had, you know, some supernatural sign or proof.

You know, if God really wanted us to believe in him, then he would provide to us some supernatural, very clear sign that everybody could see.

The only problem with that notion is that when you read what happened with Jesus, he did powerful sign after powerful sign after powerful sign right in front of everybody.

And there were still those who totally rejected him and did not believe. That's why it's all of grace.

It's not based on someone's quality of perception. Yeah, dead in sin, unable to respond without the grace of God.

So we see in this passage, I think, Christ's advance of his kingdom by God's power.

And it exposes the opposition. Every time God's kingdom advances in the name of Christ, it exposes the opposition.

There's going to be opposition. There's going to be protest. There is going to be a scorner and cynic.

And there's going to be a lot of howling and opposition. That's not a sign that we're doing something wrong.

You know, if you're trying to repair your car and you think you've got it, and you go try to start the engine and the thing starts rattling and screaming, you've done something wrong.

As followers of Christ, if we're trying to do the will of God according to the word of God, and we're trying to make some progress, and there's a bunch of howling and screaming, that doesn't mean that we're doing something wrong.

There's going to be opposition to the kingdom. That's the way it has always been shown to us in the scripture.

Too many tribulations, we enter into the kingdom of God, Paul says. So we have a need for rightly discerning spiritual power in this world.

And we're given the word of God so that we may. We should recognize God's kingdom as present and powerful.

Surely the kingdom of God has come upon us. And we must recognize that all pretensions to neutrality have to cease.

There is no neutral ground. How do we pray? Well, we should pray for Christ's kingdom to advance, that it would be deliverance of people out of darkness.

There's a lot of darkness in our world today. It becomes more obvious. The more obvious the darkness is, the better aim we can have.

So that's helpful. When we should pray for discernment and courage in the face of opposition, it should not surprise us that doing the will of God will be derided as the work of the devil.

That when we live in a culture where people call good evil and evil good, that would be a consistent response.

And we must impress upon others that neutrality is a myth. And that there is a need to submit to the authority and the worthiness of Jesus Christ.

All right. Well, let's turn our attention now to the needs of folks we can pray for.