A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand

Mark 3:13-35 and the Context of Jesus Calling the Twelve

All right, our text for today is going to be from Mark 3 13 through 35, so I'm going to read that text. Jesus went up the mountain and summoned those he wanted and they came to him. He appointed twelve whom he also named apostles to be with him to send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out Demons.

He appointed the twelve to Simon. He gave the name Peter and to Sorry and to James the son of Zebedee and to his brother John he gave the name Bo energies. That is sons of thunder Andrew Philip and Bartholomew Matthew and Thomas James the son of Alpheus and Thaddeus Simon the zealot and Judas Iscariot who also betrayed him.

Jesus entered a house and the crowd gathered again. So they were not even able to eat. When his family heard this they set out to restrain him because they said he's out of His mind. The scribes who had come down from Jerusalem said he is possessed by a Beelzebul and he drives out demons by the ruler of the demons.

So he summoned them and spoke to them in parables. How can Satan drive out Satan if a kingdom is divided against itself that kingdom cannot stand? If a house is divided itself that house cannot stand and if Satan opposes himself and is divided He cannot stand but is finished.

But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can plunder his house. Truly I tell you people will be forgiven for all sins and whatever blasphemies they utter.

But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin. Because they were saying he has an unclean spirit his mother and brothers came and standing outside they sent word to him and called him a Crowd was sitting around him and told him look your mother your brothers and your sisters are outside asking for you.

He replied to them who are my mother and my brothers looking at those sitting in a circle around him. He said here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.

Praying for Humility, Receptivity, and God’s Blessing

Let's pray Father we thank you for this time that we can come together and worship with fellow Saints Lord that we can Sing in joy to you Lord that we can hear the proclamation of your word or that later we can We can take the elements at the table together.

And so God in all these things I pray that we would have humility of heart that our ears would be open to hear your word that we would be receptive to your Holy Spirit that Affects to change us and to conform us into your image Lord.

I pray for Pastor Josh as he comes and proclaims the word that Lord the the words that he speaks. Have power Lord that they are Lord that they're righteous by by your blessing and so God I pray that this time would just be Pleasing to you that it would be a sweet aroma in your nostrils.

And so God we we ask that blessing upon our church and we submit it to you. It's in your name. We pray. Amen.

Jesus Calls the Twelve as a Pattern for Discipleship

Thanks, Jake. It's a I Want to put us in a place here so what we see in mark as we've been looking through in way of an introduction is I want to plant us in context because We come to a piece of scripture.

That I don't I don't know if you guys know this this piece of scripture has been twisted up into a pretzel. Especially in our time and there's there's several passages here where we either put too much weight on it Contextually or we just entirely miss the point.

So what I want to do that to avoid those kind of errors. We have to really place ourself in the context of where we're at in mark. And what we see over and over again is that Jesus has started this ministry by healing lepers by healing Paralytics and by casting out demons and this has created a stir.

It's created jealousy and envy among the religious elite. But it's also created a gigantic following and huge crowds and multitudes that are pressing around Jesus everywhere he goes and So what we would think and this is this is what we do in the American Church.

And we're going to talk a lot about in-house stuff today. This one is really focused I think on the people of God and what we have to do. That's why I've entitled it a house divide against itself cannot stand and for too long.

The house of the Christian Church in America has been strongly divided and therefore We've not been able to stand we've seen our influence on the culture wane. We've seen that that basically our power structures give no heed to the church whatsoever.

We basically don't have a voice in our country. And I think that there's a lot of reasons that you can look at as to why this has happened. But I think biblically speaking the biggest reason why this has happened is because we're a house divided against itself.

We are unable to unify. We're unable to get the picture and we see right off the bat that one of the things that we see where we're in stark Contrast with the Lord and his ministry when he came is that the crowds are not the end in and of themselves.

Because in the American Church, what we would do is we would see Oh Jesus. You're healing people and you're preaching the word and look at all these multitudes who are coming to you To hear this word preached.

You did it you arrived. That's it. Because what we try to do is all of our churches in America strive to be megachurches. That is the goal every megachurch wants to stay a megachurch and every small church wants to be a megachurch.

And we want to act like megachurches by trying to draw in the multitudes under the good Prescription of trying to get more people to hear the gospel. But we try to emulate that by creating all the programs and by not focusing on The ministry of Christ and how the church was built in the first place.

And that is that when the crowds pressed on Jesus over and over again I hope you see it in Mark is that Jesus withdraws himself To a quiet place in a desolate place and he goes to pray now. We don't get the prayer in this account in Mark 3, but in the parallel accounts, especially in Luke.

We know that in this section that what Jesus did is he went up to the mountain to pray. And then after he had prayed he summoned those who he himself wanted. Now there were disciples up on the hill up on the mountain.

We don't know exactly which mountain there's good guesses. But there were disciples on this mountain, but Jesus then picks 12. He picks 12 and there are good reasons for that. Because this is a foundational number in Scripture and you have to understand in the context of the New Testament.

That a new thing is happening that there were 12 tribes of Israel one of which was broken into two half tribes because Joseph was the ruler of Egypt and So he becomes not a tribe and his two sons become two half tribes in Israel, right?

There's a picture who could that be in the New Testament, right? We have one who betrayed. Joseph didn't betray but he was a king of Egypt or he was a ruler of Egypt a prince. Judas betrays the king and so his tribe gets split up and what I want to do here is show you that these are types and these are shadows that are coming into play and It's foundational.

So the church the church is a new thing. The ministry of Christ is a new thing that doesn't come completely out of nowhere. What we don't do is package up the Old Testament and say oh that was all fine and good.

But that's over now. We've got a new thing the New Testament takes those shadows and it brings them into vibrant color. And so just as Abraham was the father of the nations and in a manner of speaking Abraham was the father of the twelve tribes.

Abraham himself stood outside of the twelve tribes, right? We don't we don't call Abraham one of the twelve tribes would call him the father. Similarly as Jesus calls the twelve apostles who are going to be commissioners and heralds of his kingdom.

They are he is outside of the twelve. Jesus is the fountainhead or the father of the twelve in a spiritual sense. And so these twelve are going to be the first commissioners of Jesus and there's all kinds of stuff we miss and This is this is one of those editing exercises where I've got to get out of this point quicker than I usually do in the first point.

But there's there's a thing you have to understand here and that is that Jesus did not go up the mountain and pray to God so that he could get twelve bros and they could hang out and drink Coffee together every day and talk about all the Theo stuff and just have so much fun together and be the best of friends.

Ever know what you need to think of it is Jesus marshalling his generals for the war that's about to come. And if you don't believe me Just listen to the text that Jake read because immediately after the Apostles are called we are engaged in a spiritual war.

Against real enemies and those enemies have flesh and blood. People who are progressing the war of Satan and that is the scribes from Jerusalem in this text. So Jesus stands outside he is greater and he authorizes his his generals his Commissioners his heralds of the news of the king and this is a very dangerous job as we see.

Because all of these men are going to be martyred or exiled as the time goes on. And so Jesus what we often think we say the word discipleship now if we've done Discipleship at all in the American Church.

What we've done is we've waived a program at it we have discipleship in the form of men's ministry and women's ministry and small groups and youth ministry and children's ministry and singles ministry a young married couples ministry older married couples ministry widow ministry widower ministry.

And we said that's discipleship. Go to your ministry. Oh, you don't feel plugged into the church. Are you going to your ministry? This is not how it works because what Jesus employs here is a discipleship.

That is deep and it's rooted and it doesn't happen fast. It's not a thing that you can check off on a checklist an hour a week. It's a thing where you are heavily embedded in someone else life. So you don't just get theological facts from someone who's more mature in the faith than you you are seeing someone live their life.

That's more mature than you in the faith. And so we cannot package discipleship is having coffee once a week with somebody and talking about the Bible. That has some benefit, but that's not what's in view in this passage.

Jesus is calling these generals and they're gonna go through training with him for three years and they're gonna be put in danger and these young men have left their Professions and they are gonna go turn the world upside down when they are released when they see the power of the resurrected Christ.

Before that they are peons in training. They don't really know how to handle the heat and some of them like the sons of commotion the sons of thunder. They think themselves great when they are not great and some of them like Peter.

He lets his mouth get way ahead of him and Mark is gonna give us that in his gospel many many times. In fact, some people think that Mark didn't like Peter because of how he starts to write about him in this narrative.

But I think what's important is see that Peter was the chief of the Apostles, but Peter was a man. Right. Peter was a was a regular man. But he was called to this task and he's given the power of the Holy Spirit in church.

Church, if you hear nothing else today hear this. Hear this the entire Christian life and the faithfulness and the effectiveness of the Christian life is Entirely dependent on the Holy Spirit's power in your life.

There is no other way. It's not through doctrinal Learning it's not through practical wisdom. It's not through anything other than the Holy Spirit empowering righteousness in your life. If that doesn't happen we have no power and we might as well pack up our bags and go home because we're wasting our time and the Holy Spirit is the the pivotal Player in this text this morning because these men are called and when Jesus leaves who does he give them?

He gives them the comforter the Holy Spirit to teach them so that they can teach the masses. So in the church today, how do we model this and I don't want to. I don't want to bag on the church anymore.

I love the church. And what I want to do is I want to see the church's Reformation and repentance. So what do we do in this place? How do we model? Sending out ambassadors. How do we model discipleship?

And I think there's there's several ways to do this. Number one we take the pattern that we have to spend time to know one another's minds. We don't get this through podcasts. We don't get it through listening to sermons.

We don't get it from having coffee together. We get this through being in each other's lives over Years and seeing the way we adapt and seeing the way that works out. That's how the ongoing qualifications for an elder Continue on.

I have to have people in my house and they have to see the pattern of my life over time. And can't a man fall into unrighteous? Righteousness absolutely can and it requires people being involved because discipling is not microwavable.

It's not going to happen in a week. You're not going to be freed from this besetting sin usually in 10 days. Sometimes that battle can take 15 years and so we know at the end of it who delivered. It's not our willpower.

It's not our want to it's not our stick to itiveness and same it is with discipling. Remember what I said the most important thing for you. Remember, we will not disciple anyone if it's outside of the power of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit knits people together.

Understand this from Christ. Jesus did not have the limitations that we have Jesus God. Jesus is the Son of God and yet he chose us this pattern to pick 12 men. To invest heavily in their life and that there were three of them that he invested even more in Peter John and James and these were the inner circle because hierarchies are built into nature.

But also because Jesus is modeling that there's going to be concentric circles of influence in our lives. I can't disciple a thousand people. I Can disciple 12 and I can disciple 3 at a higher level than the 12 and we have to understand this.

So that's another thing that we have to stay on mission. We have to understand that disciples don't get punched out in one year.

Discipleship Takes Time, Intentionality, and the Holy Spirit

Okay.

Disciples take time they take process they take intentionality. It takes a lot of time together and there's inefficient. We have long conversations. We're at the end of the conversation. We don't understand each other.

I was listening to a debate on my way here this morning and The two guys just don't understand each other. You can tell they're trying to get to the root of the disagreement and they just can't quite get there and it's frustrating for the listener.

But it's also frustrating for them and that is discipleship. Do you think that all of the disciples understood what Jesus was teaching? No, we know half the time they had no idea what he was talking about.

And I I am sure that in this text this morning. They didn't know what he was talking about. Okay, but is he impatient? No, he continues to teach he continues to work with them. And then when they see the power of the resurrected God He teaches them all the things that the Old Testament had to say about him and how he was the fulfillment of all scripture.

And then they were ready to go and make disciples. It was a process. We can't do it a multitude of time we do it in small waves and Understand most of all it's not a checklist. Making disciples is intentional, but it's aggressive and we've lost this thing.

Christian life get this it's fun. It's fun. Did you know it's okay for Christians to have fun? Did you know that there's joy and having relationships with each other and that it's really fun to be able to have these things out?

And even to disagree. I've said it before disagreement is the spice of conversation. It's not fun to talk to somebody if they agree with everything you say that's ridiculous. We want to disagree with people.

We just want to do it inside of a box, okay? I love the people. I love to talk to the most or the people argue with me all the time I love to argue. That's why I married my wife. She told me one time that Narnia wasn't very good.

She was just playing a game. She was very smart and I was very angry for a time. Until I learned her game. So disciple we have to make disciples and and let's let's tie this back. What did Jesus do before he?

Had these disciples before he called them he prayed have you ever prayed? That you would have good discipling relationships with people and that you would know who to invest in. I Don't want to get mystical and ethereal on here on you here I don't think it is is that God gives us natural desires and God gives us natural Proclivities and natural inclinations toward people and so we should listen to that and we should invest in the people that God has put in our.

Path.

That it that it makes sense for us to invest in and that's how the kingdom grows. That's how it's always grown. It's not through drawing 15 ,000 people here that we don't know. It's through having these tight concentric circles that start to web together.

This was one of the first messages in this church when we had holes in the wall. I think it was cool in here at that point. We had an air conditioner. But there was all kind of there wasn't paint and all this stuff and I said our communities have to be like this.

Like webs of this because it can't be me with everyone. I don't have that capacity but every person if they have three people they're really close to and 12 people that they're kind of close to guess what happens all.

These connections and everybody feels firmly attached in the body and that's the way the church is supposed to be. How are we supposed to love one another if we don't have these kinds of connections and there I went.

I waxed along on Part one. I knew it. It is the ground game of the church and it's good that I did that because I really need to restrain myself for the last Section here, which is like right in the middle of my hobby horse kind of stuff.

I like to talk about. So let's talk about the scribes. So what Jesus has done is he's called these 12 and then immediately what happens? He can't even stand to be in his own house, right? They're pressing on him again.

The multitudes are all over him. Can you imagine it would be like having the paparazzi on you right now? We all want to be famous but nobody really wants to be famous because it would be terrible like you try to try to go get A coffee at McDonald's and all of a sudden the whole restaurants full of people trying to get your picture.

That would not be very fun. That is the life that Jesus is living as he is healing people and he's casting out demons but now in this backwater up in northern Israel the word has gotten out and the Pharisees and the scribes have sent word down south and Now the big guns are coming because now the scribes the highest level of the religious elite are coming to see what's going on from Jerusalem.

So these are the big boys and they come up here and they're ready and let's pick it up. It says in verse 22 the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying He is possessed by Beelzebul and he cast out demons by the ruler of the demons.

So what does Jesus do? He starts to talk in parables.

Satan Cannot Cast Out Satan

Why?

Because he's insanely brilliant. Okay, and also because he knows what we would do with kind of up playing discourse here and what he's doing is engaging the people who come to him and he's tying them in knots because Jesus is smarter than them and Because Jesus is going to put them in a position once again where they don't really know the way out.

And this is what he does. He exposes their accusation as being wild and nonsensical. And he's doing a lot here a lot of complicated stuff. Okay, so he says first in parables. How can Satan cast out Satan?

That's a good question. Is it. And then he says if a kingdom is divided against itself that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself That house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided He cannot stand.

But he is finished. In other words if I'm doing What you're saying that I'm doing the kingdom of Satan is finished.

Hallelujah.

Do you see what Jesus has done? He has put them in the rhetorical lockbox here if he's actually doing what they're saying he's doing. He is defeating Satan even as they speak. But if he's not doing what they say he's doing then he is God and he is casting out demons by the power of God.

So, what do you do with that? What the scribes do is they get mad, right? They get angry and they they are bitter and they double down in their hearts. So let's let's look here and and you'll notice I skip past first 21.

We're gonna come back to that later. I want to say here that the scribes have already made up their minds. Right, they were supposedly on a fact-finding mission from Jerusalem to see what's going on with this Jesus.

But when they come off the scene, the first thing they're doing is making wild accusations. Is this not the insanity of being darkened in our understanding of God. This man is healing people he's casting out demons and You're saying that he's Satan.

Well with with a Satan like that who even needs enemies of God, right? He's doing all these good things and he's offering forgiveness. So what is Satan's goal? So so here we go. If a house divided against itself cannot stand I think it's important for us to look at what is the goal of Satan and We know this because Jesus was already tempted in the desert and Satan through his temptations of Christ.

Give us a window into what Satan thinks is important and to what is valuable to him and what is valuable to Satan is food and kingdoms and Safety from death right falling down that sort of thing. So he wants to own the nations to enslave the people to destroy God's people and to establish his own everlasting throne.

So, how can any kingdom do that if they want to punish an outcast their own people for doing that work? In other words if America's goal if the Kingdom of America is about Liberty and What we do is we throw people in jail for exercising Liberty.

How can that kingdom stand. The answer is it can't because the division is not about people not understand here. There's a lot going on right remember who the last person that Jesus called to himself.

He wanted him Judas Iscariot, right? Jesus wants him and so in a manner of speaking what Jesus has done is he has brought division into his own inner circle. Except we have to understand that Jesus who knew everything knew that the purposes of God.

Which is the mission. The mission is always about the purpose, right? The mission is always about the telos. It's about the place that we're trying to arrive. The mission of God is that the Sun would be lifted up that he would be crucified and that he would ascend and Judas is integral to that mission.

And so Jesus doesn't bring division because there's somebody who goes against the other disciples. Jesus brings Completion because he knows all the thoughts of men and he brings you to sin. Satan is not omniscient and Satan is not going to be able to operate if he brings people in who are trying to overthrow his Own purposes.

His purposes are to build his own kingdom to own the nation's and to enslave people. And so if he is freeing people of the enslavement of demons, then Satan cannot stand. He's done. It's over his telos is to be gone.

His kingdom will be abolished and what Satan understands that the Scribes don't is that his kingdom is in grave danger even as they speak and So in a very real way the Scribes are actually doing the work of Satan all the while.

Accusing Jesus of being Satan. That's what's going on here. So, what do they want to do? What do they want to do? They want to cast disparagement on Jesus for doing the work of the kingdom. And I told you it's more provocative than you know when I said at the start of the sermon today in the introduction that we are not united as a church and we have not stood and Then we have to repent of that and start to stand because what we do today is that we cast Disparagement and discouragement upon others who preach the gospel.

That's insane and it's dangerous. That is behavior that not even Satan would engage in in his own ranks. We are in a very real way in a very real way doing the work of Satan when we cast Discouragement and disparagement on other people who are preaching the true gospel and we do this all the time.

We are see Satan. Satan's goal is being accomplished and he's happy to do this in the church. Satan enlists his agents just like the scribes to try to discourage and slander the good work that's being done in the kingdom.

So he's alive and well working in the church today. Because he is an accuser of the brothers and when we accuse the brothers we are acting exactly like him. Understand. That's what the scribes are doing.

They were accusing God of being Satan. Because they wanted to divide Jesus from the people who were following him. Who else would want to divide Jesus from the people who are following him?

Satan.

That's the only one who would really want to do that and Ephesians Paul gives us real clarity of this in Ephesians 2 when he says that we were all once Enslaved following the prince of the power of the air that means every person When they were born and when they grow up outside of being transferred into the kingdom of Christ.

We are against all of God's mission. Even if we're on a moralistic self-interest course We still try to separate people from their true faith in Christ. But when we're saved when we are redeemed we don't do that anymore.

So we have to stop church. We're gonna be tempted and especially in our reformed camp. We're gonna be more tempted than most because we're more Fundamentalist and we're more arrogant frankly than most and what we like to do is we like to think all of this boxed-in doctrine in the 1689 Until lesser it sent to Westminster.

But all of this this puts us in this box and if you don't believe all of these things Then you're out. You're probably not a real church and we don't trust you and Friends that is doing the work of Satan.

Full stop period period.

Because.

The gospel is that Jesus has come to save what was enslaved and what was lost. And there are many many other Baptists assemblies of God some Methodist. Frighteningly little in America now, but there's a lot in the world.

Okay, some Lutherans. There's there are a lot of denominations that still preach a true gospel in these individual churches, and they are our friends. They are clearly our friends. So what what operational benefit is there in us?

Dividing over our preferences and secondary interpretations and throwing other people out of the kingdom of God. Do you realize what God has done is his kind in his kindness as he has given us individual local churches.

To where we can we can kind of narrow down these doctrines, right? We really can like we do ascribe to the 1689 here and you're gonna hear that preached from the pulpit. You're not gonna hear things contrary to that confession preached from this pulpit.

But that doesn't mean that the Assembly God Church down the road. That doesn't ascribe to the 1689 in all of its particulars is out of the kingdom of God. But the enemy would love us to think that they are.

They would love he would love that because what that does is it puts a sharp division in between the people of God? Who are united under the banner of Jesus Christ? And it makes us fight against each other and guess what we're doing when we're fighting against each other we're not fighting the enemy and It's more fun to fight against our friends because I remember I fought with my brother all the time.

We were growing up and it was fun to fight. Because what I knew was that Jake was not gonna pull out a shotgun and cut me in half with it. Right, there were rules to fighting amongst friends. And so we like fighting amongst friends and brothers.

Because at the end of the day, we know they're not gonna burn our church down but fighting against the enemy draws all kinds of aggression and the church in America has been Divided so long that we have no voice and we're actually laughed at in the culture because there's no threat.

The culture doesn't care if we come in here and worship Jesus. What they care about is when we go out there and start messing with their stuff. They really care about that. And so we have to ask ourselves church.

Are we together? Are we a united front? Do you have that in your life because it works both ways if it's held individually. It's gonna flow out of us corporately and if it's held in us corporately. It's gonna infect every individual and that's part of my accountability as the elder of this church.

Is that if I hold that kind of stuff in my heart, it's gonna start leeching out of here. Right, and we're going to start looking at other churches with a side eye thinking that. They may do some cute stuff in there, but they're not really of God dangerous, it's very very dangerous.

And we don't have to worry about Satan when we're doing that. We're just going about his work gleefully every day and all the while thinking that we're holier than all the people we're throwing out. Who does that sound like?

It's the scribes. They think that they're much holier than the Son of God. That's a really really bad place to be. I hope you can see that. I hope it's self-apparent and then I think we get to the key text here today.

And that is verses 27 through 29. I'm gonna read them really quickly. It says but no one can enter the strongman's house and plunder his prosperity. Unless he first binds the strongman then he will plunder his house.

Truly I say to you all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men and whatever blasphemies they utter. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness. But is guilty of an eternal sin.

So there's two characters in the parable, right? This is very interesting two characters in the parable there is the strongman and there's the thief and this is the rhetorical genius of Jesus is that he cast himself in this parable as the thief and Satan is the strongman and here's the idea think of a picture of a house and you got a Strong man, who's very dangerous very very dangerous.

Everybody's afraid of him. Are you gonna walk in his house when he's fully alert and start taking his things? No, he will kill you. Okay, that's what he's gonna do. Everybody knows that. Everybody understands you have to either be sneaky and wait for him to be asleep.

Or you're gonna have to neutralize him and because Satan is not asleep because he's prowling around like a roaring lion. What's gonna have to happen is if the thief wants to take what's inside the strongman's house.

He's gonna have to neutralize the strongman who can tie up the strongman. Relatively speaking what does the thief have to be in order to tie up the strongman? You ever tried to tie up a grown man who was resisting you?

It's gonna be pretty tough, right? You're either gonna have to drug him or you're gonna have to knock him out. So what's gonna happen is Jesus binds the strongman? So what that means in context is that Jesus has come in and he is Neutralized Satan and now he's gonna steal all his stuff.

So what is this stuff? We know because Satan offered to Jesus the kingdoms of this world, right? That was a real offer. He offered him the kingdoms of this world. And so what Jesus is doing is Jesus comes in he ties up.

He binds the strongman and he's gonna plunder the kingdoms of this world. That is people and then Jesus gives us a very clear idea of what he's stealing, right? Who's he taking all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men.

So what's Jesus gonna do? He's gonna go inside Satan's house he's gonna tie up Satan because he's a stronger man and He's gonna take all the people from Satan's kingdom and he's gonna take them by forgiving them of all their blasphemies and all their sins.

What an amazing thing aside aside. As you're dangerous right for my for my post-millennial friends we have done violence to this text. Okay, you have to understand first. This is a parable, right? This is a parable.

We have to be careful what we do with parables parables are not one-to-one about every single thing in life. We don't mind them and draw every possible thing that they dig down. I've heard it said many many times see obviously Obviously Satan's bound forever because Jesus said he was gonna bind the strongman.

No, look, I do think that there's an essence of this. But if that is the weight of your argument, this is a tenuous place to make that argument what has happened here very clearly in context is that Jesus has bound up Satan and Stopped him from being able to keep Jesus from taking his kingdoms.

All of us agree all of us no matter your stripe all of us agree that when Jesus rose from the dead and Ascended to the throne that he owns all of the nations. We all agree with that. That is Orthodox Christianity that Jesus is the king of the nations.

Okay? When that plays out physically is where we start to disagree. Okay, so be careful when you look at parables Jesus is saying right here. I've neutralized Satan to take his kingdoms. Okay, and how did I take his kingdoms by forgiving men?