Stronger Than the Strong Man
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Date: 3rd Sunday in Lent
Text: Luke 11:14–28
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- Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern
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- Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.
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- And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke, the 11th chapter.
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- Now Jesus was casting out a demon that was mute. When the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke and the people marveled.
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- But some of them said, ah, he casts out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of demons. While others, to test him, kept seeking from him a sign from heaven.
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- But he, knowing their thoughts, said to them, every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste and a divided household falls.
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- And if Satan is also divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul.
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- And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges.
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- But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are safe.
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- But when one stronger than he attacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his spoil.
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- Whoever is not with me is against me. Whoever does not gather with me scatters. And when the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places, seeking rest and finding none.
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- It says, I will return to my house from which I came. And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order.
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- Then it does, it goes and brings seven other spirits, more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there.
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- And the last day to that person is worse than the first. As he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, blessed is the womb that bore you and the breast at which you nursed.
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- But he said, blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it. This is the gospel of the
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- Lord, in the name of Jesus. Hear the words of our Lord again from our gospel text, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.
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- You'll know our gospel text here starts off with something that's a wee bit controversial today because after all, we live in the 21st century.
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- We are smart people. We just landed something on the moon. Did it fall over or not?
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- It fell over. Well, still, what an accomplishment. Good on us, right? And we're going to be putting human beings back on the moon in the next couple of years.
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- So I mean, aren't we smart people and we've figured out how everything works. Don't you think in the 21st century we can get rid of this idea about demons?
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- Come on, really, demons? Let me remind you what Christ said. Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.
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- Keep here does not mean to just like kind of raw obedience. It's actually more like to guard, to preserve, to hold sacred, things like that.
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- And so I would note, you know, I'm just a parish pastor of a small church in the middle of the sugar beet fields of Oslo, Minnesota.
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- I mean, I'm not even high ranking as far as pastors go in the AALC. So I think it's a little bit above my pay grade to somehow go and say, let's edit the
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- Bible and take a few things out that we're just not comfortable with anymore. So we need to talk to management regarding that.
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- And I would note that even the presiding pastor of the AALC, I don't think he has the credentials to do this either.
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- And so maybe we should just trust the Trinity. I mean, after all, I mean, he created the world and the universe and he says his word is true and it never returns to him void and things like that.
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- So maybe we should just go with it. Demons, are they real? Well, my opinion, you bet your bippy they're real, okay?
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- Had a few run -ins with them myself over the years and they're not a lot of fun is the best way
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- I could put it. So it would be stupid of us to deny that we have a great horde of demons out there whose whole intent seems to be to destroy
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- Christ's church. Have you seen the state of the church lately? I mean,
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- I get a front row seat oftentimes watching and listening to sermons from different churches around the globe and just sit there and marvel at how little
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- God's word makes any appearances and how many times people just teach outright weird things.
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- In fact, the scriptures prophesied that in the last days that people would be teaching doctrines of demons.
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- I think we're there. And so the demons are real and we learn in Revelation 12 and 13 that Satan is in a tizzy, he's in a rage, and he's waging war against the saints, that's us.
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- So I think it'd be a good idea for us to take a text like this and just go, yep, that's what's really going on here, there are really demons, and yes,
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- Jesus is really stronger than them. That's kind of the point of where this text is going.
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- So it says this, Jesus was casting out a demon that was mute, and when the demon had gone out of the mute man, the mute man spoke, and the people marveled.
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- But some of them said, oh, he casts out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of demons.
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- Hmm, there's an eighth commandment violation occurring here. You would think that they would know the ten commandments, and the ten commandments, the eighth one says, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
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- And so here, you'll note that Jesus' opponents, they can't deny that Jesus is performing miracles.
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- Sick people are brought to him, they leave healed. Paralytics are brought to him, they are walking and leaping.
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- Mute people possessed by demons that make them mute have the demons cast out of them, and now they're speaking and glorifying
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- God, and so they can't deny the miracles are taking place. So what do you do in a situation like that if you don't believe in Jesus?
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- You just create a false narrative, right? Ah, yeah, we know what's really going on here,
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- I mean, after all, we're the rabbis in the synagogue, and we're the scribes and the Pharisees, and we know better than you common folk what's really going on here, because,
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- I mean, after all, when you look at Jesus and the things he's teaching, it doesn't square with the Talmud, Talmud's not biblical, by the way, it doesn't square with the
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- Mishnah and our oral tradition and stuff like that. Maybe it squares with the written Torah, but we know that the written
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- Torah is not enough, right? So we know that Jesus isn't really from God, therefore, all of this is just theater.
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- Jesus is just engaging in theater, he's really working for Satan himself, and so when a demon comes up to him and says, you get out of him, the demon goes, okay,
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- I'll leave, right? What a horrible
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- Eighth Commandment violation this is. In fact, I would note in the cross -reference, when you read
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- Matthew chapter 12, this is the passage that also covers this in Matthew's account, this is where Jesus talks about blaspheming the
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- Holy Spirit, the unforgivable sin. It was undeniable that God was among them and that God was working powerfully in their midst, and yet they attribute it to the demonic.
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- How many people today do the same thing when it comes to Christianity and the real Jesus? Oh, people say, oh,
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- I believe in Jesus, he's the most wonderful thing ever, and then you ask them about the Jesus they believe in, and it sounds a lot like precious moments
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- Jesus, I mean, the Jesus who's into butterflies and rainbows and unicorns and strange things like this, but who would never, ever, ever, even for the slightest moment, ever consider rebuking somebody for doing something wrong or telling them they've made bad life choices.
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- Because I mean, we know that in our day and age, the worst thing that you could do is offend somebody and tell them that they've made a bad life choice.
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- I mean, you know what would happen if you do that, you get canceled, right? That's how this works, but you'll note, let me come back to our epistle text.
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- Remember what it said, that sexual immorality, impurity, covetousness must not even be named among you as is proper among the saints.
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- And I can hear a bunch of people going, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but don't you think that it's the 21st century, and we've got to get past this idea that there's only two genders?
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- Don't we need to just embrace the times and the new developments that have occurred within the psyche and the zeitgeist of humanity?
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- Don't you think we need to put away this idea that there's sexual sins and things that are wrong and stuff like this?
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- No, remember what Jesus said? Again, let me remind you, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.
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- And so even if the entire world in large portions of the visible church have decided that they're going to embrace the new morality, whatever that is, the new morality, by the way, is just nothing but the old morality, the immorality with a new veneer on it.
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- It's like, I saw this YouTube channel that I thought was absolutely fascinating.
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- The guy's entire schtick on YouTube is he takes junk food, like legitimate junk food, and he rebrands it as something healthy.
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- And it is the most amazing channel ever, where at the end of it, you're thinking, you know, maybe
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- Twinkies are good for me, okay? That's what's happening today, is that people are taking the old immorality, rebranding it and saying, no, sexual immorality is good for you.
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- I mean, don't you think that you deserve whatever you want to do and have and think?
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- It's just nonsense, right? But again, Christ says, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.
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- So here they've committed an eighth commandment violation, come up with a false narrative about Jesus, and then
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- Jesus decides that he's going to, knowing their thoughts, explain a few things to them about how things operate, because they clearly don't understand how this warfare works.
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- So Jesus said, every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste.
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- A divided house falls. All the rumblings of civil war in the United States here, we've seen that happen before.
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- Boy, you think the United States would be at its greatest if civil war broke out, or again at its weakest?
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- Think about it. You know, if we ever go to war with ourselves, expect other countries to engage in all kinds of weird things while we're fighting amongst ourselves.
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- You'll know that a house is not strong when it's divided against itself. And so Christ goes on.
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- He says, if Satan is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand?
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- So Christ is basically pointing out, listen, Satan doesn't let go of his victims.
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- He will not willingly do so. If Satan has got you in his grips, you are incapable of freeing yourself from the situation.
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- You need one stronger than Satan to come in and free you. That's kind of the point. You'll note that nobody casts demons out of themselves, which by the way, a little bit of a side note, one of those
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- YouTube hucksters that I cover who claims that he's a demon slayer, kid you not, he has a video on how to cast demons out of yourself.
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- And it's just an absolute joke. It's like, really, seriously, what are you even thinking, right?
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- So Jesus then says this, you say I cast out demons by Beelzebul. Well, if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out?
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- Therefore, they will be your judges. But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
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- And here Jesus is invoking those words from our Old Testament text. Now, you'll know something about me if you've ever listened to any of my sermons or you've watched me on YouTube, and that is that context is a big thing for me, right?
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- Context, context, context. And I got to admit, on a first reading of the
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- Old Testament text for this Sunday, every fiber of my being went context, right?
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- Because you'll note our Old Testament text begins with the third of ten plagues.
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- Why start there? It's so annoying. It just drives me nuts. But I think I knew what they were doing.
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- They were trying to key in on something very important. But let me provide a little bit of the context because it's going to be helpful in unpacking what
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- Christ says. It says here in Exodus 8 that the Lord said to Moses, say to Aaron, stretch out your staff and strike the dust of the earth so that it may become gnats in all the land of Egypt.
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- This is the third plague. First plague was when Moses and Aaron showed up at the Nile. There was Pharaoh getting ready to get into a boat.
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- I don't know what he was going to do. And they struck the Nile with the staff and the whole Nile and all the water in Egypt turned to blood.
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- Plague number one. Plague number two was, I think, one of the most interesting ones. And that was that they caused frogs, frogs to come up on the land of Egypt.
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- Frogs everywhere. In fact, if you were to ask the question, how many frogs were there?
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- There were so many, they were knee -deep in them. So, yeah, thank you.
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- Even the Canadians are chuckling. Okay, good to know. That's right. There were that many frogs.
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- They were knee -deep in them. That being the case, that was the second plague. And here's the interesting thing. When you read the account in the earlier chapters in Exodus, the two magicians of Pharaoh, now in Exodus it doesn't say that there were two.
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- We learn that there are two from the New Testament. The New Testament tells us there were two magicians and they happen to have names and their names are
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- Janus and Jambres. Those are the names of the magicians of Pharaoh. So Janus and Jambres, at the first plague, they were able to reproduce the miracle.
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- I think probably through sleight of hand and magic. And the second plague they were able to also reproduce, which then made it so that Pharaoh was not very impressed with what was going on when it came to these plagues.
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- Third plague rolls around and when Janus and Jambres try it, they couldn't accomplish it.
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- Which you have to sit there and go, what on earth were they thinking here? Work with me here.
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- The text says, so Aaron struck the staff and striked the dust of the earth so they might become gnats.
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- They did so. Aaron stretched out his hand with the staff and struck the dust of the earth and there were gnats on man and beast.
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- All the dust of the earth became gnats and all the land. And the magicians tried by their secret arts to produce gnats, but they could not.
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- What kind of morons do this? Wouldn't it be a greater miracle to figure out how to get rid of the gnats?
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- Why would you want to add gnats to gnats? I mean, that's just stupid. But they couldn't pull it off.
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- They grabbed some dust, couldn't make gnats out of it. And then they said this. The magician said to Pharaoh, this is the finger of God.
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- God's hand is here doing this. And they're basically saying to Pharaoh, listen dude, you need to just, this is where you got to cut it off, man.
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- You got to like, let those people go. They're going to ruin us. You're fighting against God himself and we can't do what they're doing and you need to heed our advice.
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- Did Pharaoh listen? No, he did not listen. Not at all. And so Christ invokes those same words from Exodus, our text in Exodus 8.
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- And he says, regarding his ability to cast demons out, he says, if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
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- And that's the point that he's making. That is that Jesus isn't operating by the power of Beelzebul, just like God was operating in the 10 plagues.
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- And it was clear that it was God operating and it was the finger of God himself that was acting.
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- Jesus, by casting out the demons, is saying here, I am doing so by the finger of God, the same finger of God that brought the 10 plagues.
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- And then he uses this analogy. When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are safe.
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- Here in verse 21, the initial strong man is Satan or a demon. And you'll note they are described as strong.
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- But when one stronger than he attacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his spoil.
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- So Christ is describing himself then as the stronger of the strong men who comes and kicks
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- Satan out of his palace, takes his armor, tosses him ingloriously out the window, leaves him outside of the place, and now the strong man can't come back in because the stronger man has taken over.
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- That's the point. Christ is the stronger of the strong men. Remember, a few weeks ago when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, he was at his weakest and he defeated
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- Satan in three rounds using only the book of Deuteronomy, which is impressive.
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- All of that being said here, you're going to note that Christ is the one who legitimately conquers
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- Satan, stronger than him, mightier than him. And this then leads to kind of a little bit of a side note.
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- And that is this. I can hear somebody saying, well, Pastor Rosebrew, why aren't you being consistent then?
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- If casting out Satan is the act of God and it's done by the finger of God, shouldn't you be acknowledging all those demon slayers out there who are casting demons out of Christians?
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- Did you catch the last part, by the way? All right. Let's talk about them, shall we? Okay. So we live in a day where about a year ago there was a movie that came out called
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- Come Out in Jesus' Name. And all the charismatics think this is the bee's knees.
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- What's the movie about? It's about casting out demons out of Christians. And their big call is that if your pastor is not casting demons out of the members of your congregation, then he's doing you wrong.
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- He is denying the power of Satan and his work among you, and you need to do something about that.
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- Maybe get rid of that turkey of a pastor who's so backwards he's even denying the work of Satan among you.
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- And so I have been putting out basic challenges and critiques of this theology and doing so biblically based upon this text and another.
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- And let me explain. Is a Christian the same as an unbeliever?
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- No. Not even close. So when you are a Christian, do you have the
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- Holy Spirit or not? And this is where we have to make a distinction.
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- Because for instance, in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 13,
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- Paul writing to the church in Ephesus says, in Christ you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and you believed in him, you were sealed with the promised
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- Holy Spirit. When you were baptized, you received the
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- Holy Spirit. You get the idea here. Peter says, repent and be baptized, every one of you, for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the
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- Holy Spirit. So do Christians, when it comes to being a Christian, is your house empty or is your house occupied?
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- Every time I use that word, I cannot help but think about what I see on the lavatory doors on the airplane. Occupied. It says occupied.
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- You can't go into the lavatory when the occupied sign is on because otherwise you'll be arrested.
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- You get the idea. Bad things will happen. It's always in two languages, occupied, occupado, you get the idea here.
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- All that being said, are you occupied? The scripture says that we
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- Christians, collectively, we are the temple of the living God. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit.
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- Scripture also describes you individually as temples of the Holy Spirit. So if you, before you were a
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- Christian and you were demonized, and now that you are a
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- If Satan comes back, is Satan able to occupy you again? No, not at all.
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- To say so would be to say that the Holy Spirit is weaker than Satan.
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- And now I understand that the Holy Spirit that a lot of people believe in is actually really weak, but that's not the real
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- Holy Spirit. Can you imagine the Holy Spirit inside of you going, oh hi, there's a demon at the door.
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- Nobody told me I was going to be getting a roommate. This is a little uncomfortable. This is nonsense.
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- The third person of the Holy Trinity is not weaker than demons. And so Christ is our exorcist.
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- He is the one who has exorcised Satan out of each and every one of us. And as a result of it, we have been united with Christ in his death and his resurrection.
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- And we are children of God, and God, the Holy Spirit, is the deposit guaranteeing our inheritance in the world to come.
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- There is no such thing as a Christian that isn't filled with the Holy Spirit.
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- Full stop. Well, does that mean we all speak in tongues? No. Read 1
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- Corinthians 12, right? You get the point. That being the case then, Christ here is making a very strong case against the idea that people can be possessed by demons as Christians.
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- When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, that's Satan, his goods are safe. But when one stronger than he attacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted, and he divides the spoil.
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- That being the case, Christ is the stronger of the strong men. And then consider the cross -reference then here in Matthew chapter 12, starting at verse 43.
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- Jesus uses similar words then when he describes what happens to a demon when it goes out of a person.
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- In verse 43 of Matthew 12, it says, When an unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places, seeking rest but finds none.
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- Then it says, I will return to my house from which I came. And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order.
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- But note the word used there. It finds the house empty. No Christian is empty.
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- All believers in Jesus Christ, all penitent believers who've trust in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins, having been regenerated through the preaching of the gospel, through the waters of baptism, filled with the
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- Holy Spirit, each and every one of them is not empty but full. And if Satan is going to come back and bring more demons with him, he first has to find the house empty.
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- So if you're listening to any of these yahoos who call themselves demon slayers and sit in, that's what they call themselves, don't listen to them.
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- Because they're the ones who are literally engaging in demonic theatrics.
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- In fact, I hate to say this, but I've documented this already on my channel, that several of them have been caught using the same actors.
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- So how are they casting out demons? Because you know, you go on YouTube and you follow these people, they go, well, we were at the park and the apostle
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- Catherine Crick, there was a lady there who was demonized and she had a demon cast out of her. Well, she had a demon cast out of her that week, and then if you look at the video the next week, it was the same lady.
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- And if you look the next week, it was the same lady. And then that lady also appeared on Bob Larson's channel having a demon cast out of her.
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- Are you starting to catch the point here? So no, we need to hear Christ's words, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it, who guard it.
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- Christ has made it clear that Satan is not stronger than God or Christ, and Satan is the one who gets his palace and his kingdom basically plundered by Christ, and that's what he does.
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- He's the stronger one. He has attacked Satan. He has overcome him. How has he done that?
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- By coming to earth, born of the Virgin Mary, going to the cross, bleeding and dying on Pontius Pilate for your sins and mine, rising victorious from the grave, and then ascending into heaven where he now sits as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
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- Jesus is way stronger than any demonic force, and the kingdom of Satan has no chance of winning.
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- In fact, it's already defeated. So all of that being said, the demons are real.
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- We have to be aware of them, and we have to be aware of the schemes of Satan, but we don't need to cower.
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- We don't need to focus on it. We don't need to even have any anxiety about it. When the evil day shows up and it feels like you're under a demonic attack, say that you're under a demonic attack.
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- What do you do then? Pray. If you read Ephesians 6 regarding the armor of God, it tells us to stand, stand, and stand, to persevere, and to pray.
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- Pray like there's no tomorrow. That's kind of the point. So when we are under attack, we need not worry about commanding demons to do this or casting them out to do that.
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- We need to get on our knees and petition our God and pray that he would get rid of the demons.
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- Christ is our exorcist. He is the stronger of the strong men, and we can trust him, and so we do.
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- And then as a final note here, as a final note, you'll note that when we get to the point where Christ says, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it, a friend of mine, a pastor friend of mine, pointed out that this woman who shouted out to Jesus, blessed is the womb that bore you and the breast which nursed you, that he legitimately thinks that this is the first Roman Catholic.
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- And what happens here is that Jesus rebuked the first Roman Catholic by saying, no, blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it.
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- So what are we to do here? Well, it's lit. It's time for us to repent.
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- And so we need to repent of all the different ways in which we wander from God's word, where we undermine it, or worse, we believe things that are just weird, creepy, and not true.
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- And we're following people who are engaging in smoke and mirrors, light shows, or worse, putting on pious airs and leading us astray from the wholesome words of God's word.
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- Whether it be Roman Catholics who teach us to venerate the Virgin Mary in ways that exalt her to practically being a deity herself, which we cannot do, to those who are claiming that Christians can be possessed by demons, to those who teach us to wander away by appealing to our greed and tell us that if we sow a thousand dollar seed offering into their ministry that God will give us a
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- Mercedes -Benz. All of these things are not true. Instead, let us hold fast to the true promises of Christ.
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- And how do we do so? By hearing God's word and keeping it.
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- Stop listening to the competing voices, the false teachers, the false prophets. Stop listening to that voice inside of you that says, feed me, that being your sinful nature, right?
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- Stop listening to that voice as well. Stop listening to the voice of the devil and to the world. Stop listening to those who would tell you, you can't trust the word of God.
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- We live in the 21st century. It's time for us to rethink what we're believing and stop hanging on to that dusty old
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- Bible. No, we must hang on to God's word because it's more relevant now than ever.
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- And we need to repent of all the ways in which we've undermined it, ignored it, read it with apathy or distracted, and reapply ourselves to hearing
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- God's word and rightly understanding it and keeping it and guarding it because it truly, as the
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- Apostle Peter says in 2 Peter, is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.
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- It is the thing that is leading us through the darkness of this world, leading us to the glorious kingdom of Christ and the light.
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- So we dare not turn away from it and we need to heed our Savior's admonition.
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- And it's in that case then that we consider then that the word of God, it condemns us all and admonishes us all to do better than what we're doing.
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- Again, hear the words of the Apostle Paul, be imitators of God as beloved children.
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- This is what the word of God says and how many of us are good at imitating God. So many of us are really good at imitating the world, imitating people who are rank sinners.
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- Walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice. And here again, the gospel is held up for us not only to comfort us and assure us that our sins are forgiven, and indeed it does.
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- Christ has laid down his life and here his life is described as a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God.
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- That invokes the Mosaic Covenant where in the Mosaic Covenant, did you know that the first copyrighted, like legitimately copyrighted perfume is in the
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- Old Testament? And here's the thing. This was before there were copyright offices and laws and ways to register copyrights.
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- God basically said, all right, here's the incense that goes along with the sacrifices in the temple.
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- Here's how it's made. These are the ingredients and if you make this for your own home use, you die.
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- It was enforced with the death penalty. It was only to be used there in the temple.
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- And here Christ's sacrifice for our sins is described in terms of as a fragrant offering, a sacrifice to God so that you and I can be forgiven.
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- It's a beautiful picture if you think about it. You know, we don't oftentimes think of sacrifices in terms of our olfactory senses and yet God intends the sacrifice to also include our noses and so it references then that wonderful fragrance from the incense that was being offered there and that can only be made for the temple use.
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- This is one of the reasons why from time to time we'll use incense here at Kongsvinger during our midweek services just to kind of invoke that idea.
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- Plus the scriptures also say, let our prayers rise before you as incense, lifting up of our hands as the evening sacrifice.
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- So note then, Christ has given himself up, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice to God so that you and I can be redeemed and pardoned, set free from slavery to sin, death, and the devil and therefore we are to live then as children of the light, not of the darkness.
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- This is why Paul says, sexual immorality, all impurity, and covetousness must not even be named among you as is proper among the saints.
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- Let there be no filthiness or foolish talk or crude joking. These are out of place. Instead, let there be thanksgiving.
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- You may be sure of this and this is kind of an interesting thing. We'll have to point this out. Everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
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- Now a little bit of a note here. You sit there and go, wait, wait, are you saying that anybody who's committed these sins, it will never actually be in the kingdom of God?
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- No, that's not what this is saying. This is actually making a much deeper connection because you'll note that each and every one of us have committed sins in this list and each and every one of us are guilty of doing these things.
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- But that's not the point that it's making. It's talking about more than that. It's who you are down at your core.
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- Let no one deceive you with empty words, Paul says, because of these things the wrath of God comes on the sons of disobedience.
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- So listen to what he says. Therefore, do not associate with them.
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- Wait, what? You don't want us to associate with the sons of disobedience? No, and that's not the same as having to work with them.
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- For you at one time, listen to what he says, at one time you were darkness.
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- He didn't say at one time you were walking in the darkness. Paul says at one time you were darkness.
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- And so that's the point, is that although Christians still sin daily, still sin much, still have to pray,
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- Lord forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Although we wrestle with our sinful nature and its desires and are tempted and give in to sin regularly, you'll note that Paul is making a distinction here.
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- He says that we at one time were darkness, but now you are light in the
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- Lord. So we are called then and admonished to walk as children of the light, for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good, all that is right, and all that is true.
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- And I would note that describes the scripture. The scripture is good. The scripture is right.
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- The scripture is true. We are to walk in the light of Christ's words and believe what he says, even if our sinful nature disagrees, even if our reason disagrees, because Christ said, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.
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- In the name of Jesus, Amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th
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- Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744 And again that address is
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- Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th
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- Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744 We thank you for your support.
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- All of our teaching messages may be freely distributed as long as you do not edit or change the content of the message.