A House Divided Cannot Stand — Shane Idleman

Lord, we come here not as prideful, arrogant people who know everything, but humble people who need you to speak to us. Lord, we need you to speak into our situation, into our lives. Lord, we have family members that don't know you.

We pray that you would begin convicting and drawing them. Lord, I also pray for the churches in this valley, that they would be united instead of divided. Lord, I pray for Lancaster Baptist and Calvary Chapel and First Assembly and the Highlands and the Vineyard, Lord Valley Bible, all the churches, Lord, that believe in the essentials of the gospel, that we would be united.

Lord, you have to bring unity. That's where your power flows. Lord, bring unity in our homes, cause spouses to fall in love again with each other. As we put you first, as we look to you, from our relationship with you, everything else will fall in place.

Lord, I do pray that you guide my words tonight, give me precision and clarity, Lord, but let us leave here different than when we arrived. This is your service, have your way here tonight, and we pray this in Jesus' name, amen, amen.

You guys can be seated. There's a lot of announcements, but I'm gonna have you go ahead and just look in your bulletin after the service, not during, right? Not right now, after the service. And the printer accidentally sent us a few thousand of these instead of 500, so we have a lot of extra Christmas cards out in the foyer, and we're not gonna be upset if you grab a handful and give them out at work this week to friends, neighbors, better than going in the recycle bin, right?

Okay, so with that said, I've got a lot to say and not a lot of time to say it. It's my usual dilemma. So turn to Matthew chapter 12, verse 20, if you have your Bibles, I would encourage you to bring it.

A House Divided and the Necessity of Applying God's Word

I would encourage you to turn to the Word of God as much as possible, have it with you. It's okay to highlight in it, you should see mine. Matthew chapter 12, and if you haven't been here before, we've been going through the book of Matthew, probably for the last year, and we're probably gonna be here a little bit longer, and we're stopping, we're doing series throughout the study, but we find ourself tonight in Matthew chapter 12, and I wanna talk to you tonight on the subject of a house divided cannot stand.

A house divided cannot stand. And I threw this out to the first service, I'll throw it out to you as well. I wanna do something a little bit different tonight, not as far as the sermon preparation, but just maybe in our heart preparation, and tonight, let's all agree not to do a lot of this, but a lot of applying, applying the truth to our lives.

Many times we can say, oh yeah, that sounds great, yeah, I've gotta work on that, gotta do that, but then nothing happens. We leave here and nothing changes. This is a good reminder that the power of the word of God is in the application, not in the knowledge alone.

I can know what the word says, but the power comes when I apply it to my life. And on this topic, you're gonna be screaming every step of the way, because it's hard. Disunity is everywhere. It's hard to bring unity into a situation.

But a house divided cannot stand, and I don't know if you wanna take this into your workplace, or the context of this into your workplace, into your home, into the church, into the ministry, but I will tell you right now that the enemy will bring division every chance he gets.

Division will tear apart a church. Division will tear apart a family. Division will tear apart your relationship with the Lord. Division is something that God does not look upon lightly. And here's why I believe that the spirit of God, the spirit of unity is what God wants, and the spirit of division is what the enemy wants to bring in.

And any time God is doing something good, he wants to bring division, he wants to bring enmity, he wants to bring war, he wants to bring chaos, he wants to bring confusion. And that's one of the reasons why I prayed for the churches.

And I think with Christians too, the enemy gets us arguing over the non-essentials, and we're dividing over the non-essentials. Well this, and well that, and the rapture, and this, and eschatology, and pneumatology, and all the ologies, and the hermeneutics, and the homiletics, and I love all of that, but the essentials are, was Christ born of a virgin, did he raise the third day, is the scripture inerrant?

There are things that are crystal clear that are essentials. But we like to bicker over the non-essentials. And churches split over the non-essentials, and preference gets involved, and preference gets in the way, and we bring all this division.

And a lot of church splits that I've seen, actually it was part of one, it was very detrimental, they're still picking up the pieces I think nine years later, and I've seen a lot, I've heard a lot, churches closing, and nine times out of ten it's over non-essentials.

It's over things that are not essential. You don't have too many churches dividing over, well, you know, now this group believes in the inerrancy of scripture, and this group doesn't, you know, usually those people wouldn't be going to the church in the first place.

The enemy brings in subtleties, complaint, you know, you've heard of the worship wars before, right? We want the contemporary, we want the old hymns, we want it loud, we want it soft, we want it quiet, we want it noisier, we want the lights dim, we want the lights on, we want, it just, preference plays a role.

Should I wear a suit and tie? I don't know, I get lectured, I get an email every now and then that's saying that I'm not a true pastor because I'm not wearing a suit and tie, and preference comes in, hey, you better repent to your congregation, and it's like, where do they come up with this?

Disunity, disunity. The devil likes to stir disunity, and he brings it in, we have to be careful. And I think this, the context, a house divided cannot stand, a few chapters earlier, you remember where Jesus spoke about the man who builds his house on the rock, he says, those who hear my sayings and do them, here we go, back to the application, right?

The Wise and Foolish Builders: Hearing and Doing Christ's Words

Jesus says, he who hears my sayings and does them, I will liken him to a man who built his house upon the rock, and when the winds came and the floods came up and the rains descended, it did not fall because it was founded on the rock.

But the foolish man who heard my words and did not do them built his house upon the sand, and great was its fall when the storm came. See, it's going back to that application, doing the word of God, if you apply scripture to your life, you will not be disappointed.

I can look somebody straight in the eye and tell them the truth on this point every single time, if you obey the Bible, you will not go wrong. Will life go perfect? No. Will life be challenging? Yeah.

Will there be trials? Yes. But you will not go wrong by obeying the word of God. People say, I've tried it for a week, but they're not changing. The Bible doesn't say try it out for a week as if we try on a coat to see if it's going to fit.

It says, do this, and the benefits come in later. And just remember this, unity is essential to peace. Unity is essential to peace. I often say, happy wife, happy life, right? Well, some people aren't, that one didn't go well with everybody.

Happy husband, happy life, you know? Actually, that would be a good thing for a marriage series for a few weeks, because this issue of marriage, I've seen, I can't remember a time where the enemy's coming after family so strongly, and marriages and everything's just going haywire.

People are, you know, marriages are falling apart, and adultery is now epidemic in the church, and pornography now, 68 of men are addicted to pornography. Wow, where is this coming from? The enemy wants to bring division.

We need a wake-up call. Unity is essential to peace. Peace with God, peace at home, peace with others, peace on the job. Why? Because unity is the heart of God. Unity is the heart of God, disunity is the heart of Satan.

Might sound a little strong, but check it out, and I'm not talking about being unity for the sake of unity. In other words, there are some people I can't be united with because they're against God. In other words, I can't be part of the ecumenical movement where all churches come together and sing Kumbaya, right?

You can believe this about that God and that God, and let's just all come together. That's not unity. True unity is unity of truth, unity of spirit, unity of faith. When I'm united with God, even though I might not be united with others, I'm still in unity with Him.

So I'm not talking about that kind of unity tonight. I've talked about that many of other times. The unity I'm talking about tonight is the type we can foster, where a house divided cannot stand and a house united cannot fall.

Jesus' Healing, the Pharisees' Accusation, and the Divided Kingdom

So let's look at Matthew 12, verse 22. Then one was brought to him, who was to Jesus, who was demon-possessed, and we talked about this a few months back, really the Bible, when it talks about demon-possessed, if you look in the original language, the Bible says that a person has a demon.

There's a demon inflicting. It seems to be possessing them, taking over. This man was also blind and mute. I read that and I think I have problems. Wow. You're demon-possessed, you're blind, you're mute, and Jesus comes and He heals him.

So that the blind and mute man spoke and saw, and all the multitudes were amazed and said, Could this be the son of David? Now when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of demons.

And I didn't know to laugh or cry reading this. It's like, these guys are amazing. You just see a legitimate healing. Legitimate healing. This person's free. And they said, Oh, you did that by the power of Satan.

And I've noticed that people like to blame a genuine move of God on the devil if they feel uncomfortable. If they don't quite agree with it, they want to blame it on the devil. But Jesus says, A house divided cannot stand.

It will go on to read that the devil's not going to cast out the devil. He loves that. He's destroying that life. He would be divided against himself. But sometimes when we see a genuine move of God, Oh, that's of the devil.

Listen, if Christ is exalted, the person at least praising God, the truth is elevated. That's not of the devil. That's God. That's moving. You can see a genuine move of God results in a love for truth, a love for his word.

Everything I just mentioned, his truth is elevated, Christ is exalted, God is honored in that healing. How can you say that's of the devil? But people will throw that out there. Now, for more on demonic possession, I actually gave a message entitled, Releasing the Shackles of Oppression.

And there's the link to that. You can also go on our website. It'll be on the notes. You can just click. It'll take you right to that video. But we talked about that Christians cannot be possessed, but they can be pestered.

Did you know that? Oh, yeah, we can be pestered. We can't be controlled because we're controlled by the Holy Spirit, but we can be pestered by satanic influences. And I just want to throw that in there because we were talking about the demon-possessed man here.

But then Jesus knew their thoughts and he said to them, every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. And there's no gray area here.

Jesus saying, if a house is divided, if a kingdom is divided, it will not stand. And I found this in my own life. Maybe you've seen this too. It's not if disunity causes problems. It's when. It's just a matter of when.

But sometimes we go around like, well, it's just not going to say anything, right? Just let it go. Just let it kind of run its course. And as it's running its course, it's not going in a good direction.

Disunity seems to just flourish where we allow it. And Jesus saying, if a house is divided against itself, if a kingdom is divided against itself, it will not stand. So it begs the question, do you believe God's word?

And I was challenged about this today. How many of you, do we believe God's word? Well, most of us would say yes. Then believe this, disunity will lead to desolation. Disunity will lead to desolation.

Not a matter of if, right, but when. Jesus said, every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation. Well, we really don't know what that word means today. Back then they did. Today, what this word means is misery or loneliness, a state of complete emptiness or destruction.

Do you know that people feel that right now? Even some in this room? If my spiritual antennas are up correctly, right? There I can tell there's misery, there's loneliness, there's a state of complete emptiness or destruction.

And I don't want to just make an umbrella statement out there that covers everything because I know that there are peaks and there's valleys, there's highs and lows, there's a season for everything. And not everything can be blamed on this, but a lot of times, if a person remains divided against God, if there's division with God, in other words, they're fighting against God.

They know God's called them to do something, whether it's humble themselves, whether it's break this certain pattern, and they know and they're fighting against God, it will lead to desolation because there's no unity there.

You see, you're not going to win against God. We cannot win against God. When God calls us to, I prayed with a lady after the first service, said, I need to finally just fully surrender my life. I'm tired of putting everything and everybody first.

It's just resulting in anger and frustration. And we prayed she was set free. Because you can't be at war with God and have unity there. Some of the most miserable people on the planet are Christians who are at war with God.

And you don't have to be an unbeliever to be, I mean, unbelievers are already at war with God. The Bible says that they are at enmity with God. The carnal mind is at enmity. It's at war with God. But as believers, sometimes we know God wants to work in this area.

We know we've got to humble ourselves. We know we've got to change this. I know I need to go apologize. I know I need to stop being hard hearted. I know I need to do this to my spouse. I know, I know, I know, but I'm not going to.

I'm not going to. Or kids to their parents, right? Or parents to their kids. I mean, this is all different types of dynamics. I'm not going to do that. What's that lead to? Desolation. Misery. Loneliness.

A state of complete emptiness or destruction. But there's hope. That's the hope of this message is to call us back to that place of unity. And that's why I preach repentance as often as I can. Because repentance takes a divided heart with God and unites it once again.

That's the power of repentance. I repent. Lord, I confess. I'm sorry. I'm back united with him. And as weeks and months go by, what happens? Drift and drift and I quench and I grieve the spirit of God and now I'm divided again.

I'm fighting him in certain areas. And then I repent and I'm back united with him again. And the Christian walk is difficult. I mean, if anybody has mastered it and you just have tons of peace and joy flowing out of every single day, please see me afterwards.

I need to know the secret to that. Because it's peaks and valleys. It's ups and downs. But we keep our eye focused on him. I believe a believer, and I might get in trouble with this, some of you might not agree, but we should be in a constant state of repentance.

Even if it's not daily, I mean weekly. We should be in a constant state of repentance. Lord, I'm sorry in these areas. Help me in this area. Help me treat my spouse better. Help me treat this person. My anger, my attitude, my arrogance, Lord, help me get back in right alignment with you.

And we're in a constant state of repentance. Because I've noticed what the other side is. If you're not doing that, you're getting harder and more prideful and more arrogant. And there's nothing worse than a proud Christian.

I know. I am one. I've confessed before, I'm a prideful man working on humility on a daily basis. And you bring that to God. Pride is one of the last sins to leave, and it's one of the first to return.

I mean, the amount of pride that I see when I'm talking with people, counseling people, out on the streets, wherever it is, it's amazing. It actually helps keep me humble. Because you see that and go, Lord, if that's in me, please get it out.

Please get it out. Take it from me. And again, the enemy wants to bring division. Do you realize that a person united with God is powerful? They'll pray for the sick and they will be healed, according to God's Word, from time to time.

They'll walk into a place and people could sense the power of God there. They'll go into a job and they'll make a difference. They'll speak life. They'll speak wisdom. God will be working through them.

It's called a Spirit-filled believer. Filled with the Spirit of God. That's why the church, for the most part, is dead and callous and cold and nothing's happening. We resemble a graveyard, not an army.

The church in America resembles a graveyard. Lives are not being changed. The passion's gone. Why is that? We're not in unity with God. Because when we're in unity with God, I'm not talking about perfect harmony.

We're not going to get this on this side of heaven. But you can be in right relationship with God. Filled with the Spirit of God. When you renounce those things, He's calling us to renounce. And you turn from those things.

You'll experience times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. By returning to Him. So if you remain divided against God, you will be in misery and loneliness and a state of complete emptiness or destruction.

You know how I know this? Because I pray this with people all the time. It's not uncommon for people to say, God just seems distant. I'm miserable. I'm miserable. I'm empty. I'm lonely. And that's usually followed by, I know that God wants me to do whatever that is.

It's been as bad as confessing an affair to being too concerned with their looks. Women, you know, too concerned with their looks. And it's all about me, to affair. I mean, there's things all in the middle.

But when we're resisting God, we're not united with Him. And there's division there. And it's difficult to live that life. It's just ironic. Because we think God's going to, like we can negotiate with Him, like a salesman.

Come on. And we negotiate with our spouse. We negotiate with other people. It's like, He's going to give. I know He's going to give. He's going to say, uncle. No, He's not. He's not going to do any of that.

He'll draw. And He'll convict like a loving father. A loving father. You know, my kids want to bring stuff in the house. It's raining outside. They want to bring shovels and mud and dirt in the house.

I was like, nope. I'm not giving on this one. It's not going to happen. It's a loving father saying, no, that's not going to happen. Because I know what's best for you. And we don't. And we have to trust Him.

Reconciliation Among Believers and Unity in Marriage

Let me say this too. If you remain divided against fellow believers, your faith will falter. I try to work on this. You can ask my wife. I'm Facebook apologizing. Email apologizing. Calling people apologizing for the last 15 years.

Whenever I know, because I don't like that division. You know, I don't know how I'm better than them. Hey, if I've done anything wrong, I apologize. Let's not have this wedge in between us. Because that wedge creates disunity.

When believers are not united, Jesus said, Father, I pray that they be one like we are. Yeah, but you don't know what they did. And you don't know what they did. And you don't know what they did. And that person over there did that.

And there's no way, Shane. Well, you're just going to. How long are you going to remain disengaged from God? How long are you going to be. That unity is not going to be there. I mean, it's amazing when people ask for forgiveness.

They make that phone call. They send that email. The joy that comes after that. It's amazing. I'm so glad. Why didn't I do this a year ago? I don't know. I'll tell you why. It's a five-letter word. P-R-I-D-E.

They're not telling me I was wrong. They're going to call me. I'm not calling them. Well, the Bible doesn't say that. The Bible says if somebody's offended us. I mean, half the calls I make is not something I necessarily did.

It's probably the way I think this happens every day or every week. You know, it's like once in a while you upset people, right? Hey, I'm sorry. I did have to apologize last week. I posted a great article about Joel Stein.

And I just had a few comments that rubbed some people the wrong way. And so I called him, emailed, and said, OK, I'm sorry. I said, next time what you need to do is say, here's a great article about Joel Stein.

No negative comments, please. And then that would help it. So those kind of things. You want to keep that bridge. And they were fellow pastors, actually. The whole point was, I'm sure you're curious now, right?

That, you know, all the people who's leading to the Lord and these things. I said, OK. I said, he's more of a motivational speaker. He doesn't mention sin. He doesn't mention hell. He doesn't mention judgment.

I just heard that they asked him about abortion. He's like, I don't know. I can't really say. Let me get back to you. I mean, it's just nothing scriptural that's difficult. Nothing. That's not a pastor.

That's a motivational speaker. That's a people pleaser. He said, well, he's definitely a pastor. Who are you? You just go mad. You don't have a big audience. I'm like, oh, I've never had that big audience.

Because nobody's going to want to hear that. Millions of people are not going to want to hear what I'm saying. I got that now. So I finally, what I tell them, I said, don't even read the comments. I'm never doing that again.

I learned my lesson. You know? And it was a nice comment. It was like, what do you guys think of this article? Here's what I think. Why did you ask me what I think? Post on Facebook. So that was two days of damage control.

Yeah, pastors, yeah. There are a few younger pastors. So I just left it at that. If you remain divided against fellow believers. There are also pastors here locally that you would know if I said their names.

I've got dinner or lunch with them over the past few years. Because bad reputations kind of get out there. And I think they're the softy little, let the sinner go. And they think I'm this hard, mean guy.

And so we meet and have lunch. Oh, I thought this about you. I thought, oh, I'm glad we had. So you remove that friction. You remove that division. But you have to work on it. It doesn't happen on its own.

If there's friction between believers, we're called to go to them and work it out. And then, you know what I love about that? Then you're filled with the Spirit of God again. Then that joy returns. That peace returns.

Now there's a little step in my step because I'm excited. I'm passionate. Now the Word of God becomes active and living. And now I'm getting a lot out of the Word of God. Now worship is changing my heart.

Why? Because I got rid of that disunity. There's an end result that's good. God's Word always has a good result. I wish I had an hour to tell you about the benefits of fasting. Don't talk about that. Anytime God tells you to do something, the benefits are there as well.

If you remain divided, here's the one that's not going to be popular. If you remain divided in marriage, it will lead to misery, isolation, and complete emptiness. It will. If you remain divided. Well, Shane, what should I do?

Well, here's the key to unity. Now this is coming from a guy. He asked my wife. I haven't mastered this yet, but we try. Don't win the argument. Do I have to win every argument? If so, it's not going to be pretty.

Don't win the argument. Right? Don't get your way. Be willing to come in second place. Be willing to apologize and forgive. I got a funny example from this week. I told her to leave for a few hours and me and the girls wrapped a few presents.

Right? I wrapped a few presents. Put the wrapped presents in the stocking. Right? And I give a lecture. When she gets home, I say, you don't do that. Nothing goes in the stockings until the night of. Now the kids are like, oh, okay.

I didn't know that. I was raised the other way. You know? And then the real in tune people are going to be saying, do you know the spiritual roots of Christmas, pastor? You don't have stockings and a tree, do you?

I mean, that's pagan worship. I don't know, but I get a lot of joy out of just worshiping God on that morning. I mean, do whatever you call it, whatever you want. But if we're focused on Christ, a lot of these, there's freedom in this area.

But these little things like, do I have to win this argument? I mean, okay, well, you know, now I'm not talking about sweeping things under the rug and being a doormat. Oh, I'm second place, whatever you want.

There's a time you got to take a stand. And if somebody's being abusive and they're being this, and people have got to get involved and confront. You know I'm not talking about that, right? Right. Okay, good.

But to bring unity in the home, it's something very interesting. Everybody wants to win the argument. They want to get our way. Right? We want to get our way. And what we like to say is, you don't have to get the last word in.

Or do you have to, does that, are you willing to apologize and forgive? And that's how you bring unity back in the home. And it's interesting. You should watch kids when they see parents model this. It's amazing.

When the kids see, oh, dad's wrong sometimes. Yeah, I'm asking for forgiveness. I'm asking, you know, and the kids see that model. They see there's arguments and how it's worked out. Arguments and how it's worked out.

I think I was reading in one of Billy Graham's books that his kids actually regretted that they never saw his mom and dad argue. Or handle any of that. They would go out and do that later when the kids weren't around.

So then they get married and get into, oh, wow, this didn't happen in our house. Yeah, it did. They just went in the back room. So it's healthy for people to see us model these things. In a nutshell, if you are divided, you are not aligned with God's will.

Are you divided against God? Are you divided against fellow believers? Are you divided against your spouse tonight? I would encourage you to rethink that. And get in the right relationship with him. Nothing good comes from disunity.

On this note, I remember an online listener wrote the church a few, probably a few years ago now. She said, my marriage is lifeless and cold. Where did the passion go? We live in the same house, but we barely know each other.

I love him, but I don't like him. Divorce never crossed my mind, but now the thought is a daily struggle. And that's not uncommon. Somebody's got to take the initiative. Somebody's got to take the initiative and say, I want unity in this house.

Let's work towards it. Because the enemy is going to come in and bring disunity. And I truly believe that the man should initiate in this area. I got chewed out two weeks ago for saying this, but I'm going to say it again.

Well, you never beat up the wives. Oh yeah, it's coming. But the men need to lead in this area. Usually as the man goes, the family follows. As the family goes, the nation follows. So the next time you want to complain about the nation, look in the mirror.

Honestly. We want to blame everything from God to the government, but we don't want to take the initiative in our own homes. It's difficult. I mean, my wife, just this week, she goes, we got to get back into family devotionals again and pray with the kids.

Oh, where'd that go? Yeah, it just leaves. These things just leave. You don't have to do anything. They'll just leave. So you have to work towards unity in the home. Work towards putting God first again.

And now seeing our kids pray, I'm just, I'm excited. I'm anxious to do it tonight now. But unity, disunity is not, here sometimes people say, we talk about disunity. They're like, yeah, but that's not a big sin.

You know, I'm not caught in adultery. I'm not caught in this. It's not, I mean, okay, Shane, I know I need to do this, but it's not a big sin. And I was reminded of a quote from Frederick Shoffler. He said, who is that that knocks so loud?

And the answer came back, just a little sin. So I opened the door and all of hell came in. Isn't that true? Well, who's that? That's just a little sin. It's okay. Just a little sin. So I opened the door and all of hell came in.

Folks, that's how sin works. It's not a nice little cute little Easter bunny at Christmas time, right? Or those cute little elves that are on Facebook doing all kinds of mischief now in their homes. You know, it's not like cute.

Oh, look at that little cute little thing. Once you open the door, all of hell comes in. We open the door and allow things, and usually it progresses. When sin is allowed, it doesn't digress. It progresses.

I've often said that sin either grows or withers depending on whether you feed or starve it. So if you're feeding disunity, it's gonna keep growing. And then it turns into what we call, we had a blowout.

What's that? You're driving down the street? No, a blowout in the home. Yeah, well, I'm just gonna guess that it didn't just all start that day. Oh, no, this has been weeks and months adding up and adding up.

You gotta grab that because you open that door and all of hell comes in. And the enemy would love nothing more than to destroy the family and destroy a relationship with God. That's what he does, he brings disunity.

Satan's Divided Kingdom and Christ's Authority Over Demons

Verse 26, if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? So Jesus just, I did a long rabbit trail, so let's come back. Jesus just cast out this demon. This person is perfectly well.

And now he's saying, if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? So two schools of thoughts here on reading different commentaries.

One is that the Pharisees, some of the religious leaders, could cast out the demonic realm, could cast out demons, I guess you'd call it exorcism. And Jesus is saying, if they do that, and it's of God, then why can't I?

If I did it and they're doing it, by whom do your sons cast them out? Or, which I don't know where I'm leaning. I might lean towards more of a mocking where he's saying, and if I cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out?

Like they don't cast them out. He comes, Jesus comes and binds a strong man. He comes on the scene. Now the whole demonic system is disrupted. Now the devil, he used to be the prince of the world and still is, but he used to be in control.

Now Jesus comes on the scene and binds a strong man and takes control, and now he's above Lucifer. Remember, Jesus and Satan aren't co-equals. They're not co-equals. Satan is a defeated foe. They're not co-equals.

So however you want to interpret that, Jesus said, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore, they shall be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.

Or how can you enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds a strong man? And then he will plunder his house. And he who is not with me is against me. And he who does not gather with me scatters abroad.

So Jesus is saying, I've came, I've bound the strong man. I've conquered. These demonic influences have to submit to me. And earlier, remember where we read that Jesus said, until John the Baptist, until now, the kingdom suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.