Luke chapter 11 and verse 14. And we're speaking about the
Lord Jesus. There we are. We're speaking about the Lord
Jesus. And it says, And he was casting out a devil, and it was
dumb. And it came to pass, when the
devil was gone out, the dumb spake, and the people wondered. But some of them said, he casteth
out devils through Beelzebub, the chief of the devils, and
others, tempting him, sought of him a sign from heaven. But
he, knowing their thoughts, said unto them, every kingdom divided
against itself is brought to desolation, and a house divided
against a house falleth. If Satan also be divided against
himself, how shall his kingdom stand? Because ye say that I
cast out devils through Beelzebub. And if I by Beelzebub cast out
devils, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore shall
they be your judges. But if I with the finger of God
cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you. When a strong man armed keepeth
his palace, his goods are in peace. But when a stronger than
he shall come upon him and overcome him, he taketh from him all his
armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils. He that
is not with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with
me scattereth. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. Lord Jesus. miraculously delivered
a man afflicted by an evil spirit in these verses that we are reading
today. And it was another wonderful
event, another wonderful miracle that the Lord performed here
in this individual. And although it's just a single
reference and much flows from it, I think it is good for us
just to remember what a transformation it must have been in that individual's
life. What a blessing that the Lord
should pause, take time, and rid him of that oppressive spirit
which had so rendered his life so difficult by the inability
to speak. So this was a dumb man. Now,
let me say also, there are several passages in the Gospels very
similar to this account, and especially one is Matthew chapter
12. And it seems to reference the
same incident because several accusations are made against
the Lord in those other accounts, those other narratives, and similar
answers are given. The difference in those other
occasions is that, well, in Matthew 12, for example, the man is both
blind and dumb, where here he is only said to be dumb. Now, it is, of course, no contradiction
for one writer to mention one affliction and another writer
to mention two or more afflictions. So, I think we're dealing with
the same miracle here, although there are slight differences
in the affliction that the healed man had. But we ought to notice,
I think, the kindness of the Lord Jesus. Whenever these poor
souls were brought to him, it was his delight to heal as many
as came seeking help. and it's a quality of Christ's
character that hasn't changed. These were pictures of his approachability,
his magnanimity, his generosity. And he says, he that cometh to
me, I will in no wise cast out. We can come to Christ for all
our needs. These occasions, these incidents,
examples, episodes in the life of the Lord Jesus, They have
much spiritual wisdom to impart to us, but at their very basic
level, they show the goodness of our Lord Jesus Christ and
his approachability. And we should take advantage
of that. We should come to him with our needs. We should be
ready, as we learned last week, to pray to him and bring before
him those problems, those concerns, those anxieties. that lie upon
our spirit, that shadow our mind and cause us anxiety. And we can come as his people
to the Lord and bring our needs to him. And we can encourage
others to come. Let me just mention this. I thought
about it as I was doing a little bit of preparation here. I admire
so much the invitation given by Moses to Hobab, or perhaps
it was Jethro, to Hobab, travelling at the time out of Egypt with
the children of Israel into the wilderness. And the words of
Moses to that man were these. Moses. Moses. Did I say Abraham? I'm
sorry. Right, Moses. The words of Moses
to that man were these. And that's a lovely sentiment. That was Moses' desire
for this man. He wasn't a Jew, he wasn't of
any of the tribes of Israel, but Moses said to him, we are
journeying unto a place of which the Lord said, I will give it
you. Come thou with us and we will
do thee good. for the Lord hath spoken good
concerning Israel. And we too, as God's spiritual
Israel, are journeying to the promised land. And we long, do
we not, that others would join us. And we know that we could
do their souls good with gospel truth, with spiritual fellowship,
Chobab was likely Moses' father-in-law and oh how our own families,
our own relatives, our own relations, our own friends, our associates
that we encounter, perhaps at work, perhaps in the community,
Oh that our own friends and family would heed that call and come
to Christ for the forgiveness and healing that he alone can
give. We are very blessed to have these
examples of the Lord's miraculous healings in this Gospel account. But note, While some who saw
the miracle were amazed and even convinced that Jesus was the
Messiah, others were opposed. The religious leaders went so
far as accusing the Lord of serving Satan and casting out devils
by Belzebub. Belzebub's just another name
for Satan. If you're curious about how it
comes about and what it means, we can talk about that again. It has a reference to Lord of
the Flies, or the Lord that is a fly. It's an interesting word.
But it was used by the Jews as a description of the head of
the evil spirits or the focus of idolatry and it may have a
reference actually to the Baal or Balaam that we are talking
about in Israel with Elijah at the moment. but Beelzebub was
seen as the prince or the chief of the devils. And these religious
men accused the Lord Jesus Christ of doing what he did, casting
out this devil from this dumb man, doing these people good. They accused him of doing that
by the authority of Satan. And that was utter blasphemy. They called Jesus Christ, the
Lord of Glory, the servant of Satan. And that just shows the opposition
and the extent and the nature of the language and the thinking
and the opposition that these men had towards the Lord. Let
me give you another strand of that. In verse 16, it says there,
And others, tempting him, sought of him a sign from heaven. Now, before you think you know
what that means when it says, others tempting him sought from
him a sign from heaven, I'll tell you what they were saying
there. They were saying, right, now you have put that devil out
of this dumb man. That was a sign from hell. Now we would like you to show
us a sign from heaven. They were accusing the Lord in
ridding this man of that demon of having enacted a sign from
hell. And they said, well, you're very
well capable of performing a sign from hell. I wonder if you could
show us a sign from heaven. The impudence and the gall of
these men was astonishing. But don't forget, the very same
men spent their days reading the scriptures, reciting their
verses, and praying to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
or at least they thought they did. The mark of a believer is
not their profession or even their prayers, it is what Think
ye of Christ. It is how they regard the Lord
Jesus Christ. And we said it on Sunday, and
it will be repeated again, no doubt. There are many who claim
to follow Christ, but the Christ that they profess is not the
Christ of Scripture. Nevertheless, the foundation
of God standeth sure, having this seal. The Lord knoweth them
that are his. And here we learn one way by
which the Lord knows them that are his. He knew their thoughts. Here we can tell that the Lord
was able to look in to the minds of these men, understand their
motivation, understand where their thoughts originated. He
knew the thoughts of their heart. Samuel said, the Lord seeth not
as man seeth, for man looketh on the outward appearance, but
the Lord looketh on the heart. The Saviour knew these men's
hearts and their thoughts as God the Lord. How humbling is
it for us to realise that our Saviour knows our hearts and
our very thoughts and he loves us still. The Pharisees accused
Jesus of casting out devils by Satan's power and yet they themselves
claimed to do the same by the power of God. This is the contradiction
of sinners that Jesus had to endure at the hands and from
the lips of these religious hypocrites. Do not be surprised, therefore,
if when we speak the truth of the gospel, we are similarly
contradicted by the religious bigots and hypocrites of our
own day. We are of God, they said. You
are of the devil. That was the accusation that
they hurled at our Saviour. And if they have persecuted me,
says the Lord Jesus, they will persecute you also. If they have kept my saying,
they will keep yours also. Another lesson we learn from
this passage is that Satan has a kingdom. The Lord gives a few
proverbial statements here concerning a kingdom and a house divided
against itself soon falling, which is, of course, a proven
reality the world over. Civil war, internal conflict
in a country, amongst a people, in a city, even in a house, in
an individual house, is almost always the most costly of conflicts
and the most destructive of disputes. And how quickly, for example,
did Judah and Israel succumb to their more powerful enemies,
when they divided following the days of David and Solomon. No sooner had that mighty kingdom
broken apart than it was being subsumed by the Egyptians to
the south and the Babylonians and Assyrians to the north. The
Jews couldn't deny the Saviour's logic here. If Christ deposed
devils by Satan's power, then how could Satan's kingdom stand
and how could it flourish? It was palpably stupid for them
to argue like this. And let this also be an argument
for us as we consider our own fellowship and our own engagement
with other believers. Let us prize, let us prize one
another if the Lord has given us a fellowship in which to feel
at home. That's a real blessing in this
world. There are so few of us that we
should with great reluctance, give up fellowship with one brother
or one sister. Let this be an argument for striving
to maintain fellowship amongst the Lord's people and an argument
for brothers and sisters not to be falling out and causing
division. It is very easy for fellowship
amongst the Lord's people to be broken and it is a lot harder
for it to be restored and recovered. And yet we also learn from this
that the Lord Jesus acknowledges the reality of Satan's kingdom. Satan has a kingdom in this world. Indeed, we could say that as
the prince of the power of the air, this kingdom is, this world
is his kingdom. He and his angel followers have
set themselves up against the authority and the kingdom of
God. From the time, well, from the
time of their expulsion from heaven, They have established
their rule on earth and amongst men from the fall of Adam. Indeed,
the whole reason for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ into
this world was to overthrow the kingdom of Satan and to recover
his people from the servitude into which Satan had placed them
through sin. John says, the Apostle John in
one of his epistles says, for this purpose the Son of God was
manifested. For this purpose, for this reason,
the Son of God was revealed to the world that he might destroy
the works of the devil. That was the reason why the Lord
Jesus Christ came into the world, that he might destroy the works
of the devil, that he might destroy the kingdom that the devil had
built and was continuing to build. The destruction of Satan's kingdom
is certain, but it is not completed in a day. Our Saviour lived a
sinless life. He was not ensnared by Satan's
wiles. Satan had no power over him.
Our Lord resisted Satan in the wilderness when the devil came
to tempt him and failed to entice him to sin on three occasions. Our Lord contended with Satan
at the cross when he defeated him and Satan's power through
death. Satan sought to hold Christ but
the Saviour was too strong for him and burst the gates of death
when he rose from the dead. He continues, to show that power. He continues to destroy the kingdom
of Satan. Each time he delivers a sinner
from Satan's kingdom. We speak about a brand plucked
from the burning. It's a graphic phrase. It simply
is used to describe this idea of a sinner being saved from
hell. And that is what the Lord Jesus
Christ does every time he delivers one of his own from Satan's grasp
through the preaching of the Gospel. Each time an elect sinner
is sprung from Satan's captivity, A blow is struck against the
strong man by one who is stronger than he is. Satan is this strong
man that is spoken of here, who keeps his palace and lives in
peace with all that he has gathered to himself. But then one who
is stronger comes. One who is stronger than he.
And so the Lord Jesus Christ reveals his power. He calls it
here the finger of God and the finger of God in the person of
Jesus Christ, the power of God in the person of Jesus Christ
is manifested so that the kingdom of Satan is blow by blow weakened
and condemned. being prepared for the final
destruction that is coming. Soon when the Lord Jesus Christ
returns, he will complete the task that he began on the cross
and he will cast Satan in chains together with his kingdom into
the captivity of the bottomless pit and the lake of fire forever. The finger of God was demonstrated
in Christ's power manifested in his own day. And we see that
continuing by the deliverance of every elect child of God ever
since. Sometimes we think about the
hand of God as a manifestation of that power. It's a metaphor
for God's dealings with his people in this world. And this is what
Christ exhibited in coming into the world. The house of the strong
man and the binding of him and the taking from him the souls
of men and dividing his house. That's what Christ did. In conclusion,
let me just mention this. What the Lord Jesus also proved
here was the necessity of a powerful spiritual work of divine origin
to deliver a fallen sinner out of the grasp of Satan. It takes
a miracle of grace to save a sinner. Those who imagine that they can
cajole or convince or coerce a sinner into heaven with attractions
or bribery or reason, have no real appreciation of the sinfulness
of sin and the strength of the strong man that holds the sinner
fast. We often speak about a sinner
being dead in sin, and that's true. But we might also add,
not only is he dead, but he's buried deep in an iron coffin
behind bars and sunken concrete. It takes one who is stronger
than the strong man armed to come and subdue the prison keeper,
enter his fortress, unlock the bars, burst open the grave and
then breathe life into the corpse. Salvation is a miracle of spiritual
life by which the blind see, the deaf hear and the dumb speak
in a way that was otherwise impossible but for the power of the triune
God. We all need that spiritual deadness
to be cast out and the life of Christ breathed in. May the Saviour
bear his arm in this our day as the strong man that he is
and may he deliver many from the darkness of Satan's kingdom
into the light of his own blessed kingdom. Amen.