I want to, before I begin, I
want to spend a little bit of time sort of laying a foundation
for the passage that we'll be looking at this morning. There
are two remarkable passages in in both Matthew and Luke's Gospel
that talk about the true conversion of God's people and talk about
false conversion, and the reason I'm looking at those things is
to try and answer some questions out of Acts. Acts, which are
erased necessarily out of the Book of Acts in Chapter 15, because
in Chapter 15 we see the hand of Satan in counterfeit religion. Wherever God has the true, he
always has the counterfeit, and only by the Gospel is the counterfeit
revealed. As those people in Antioch, you
might recall, the people in Antioch went to church that day and they
looked for all the world like sincere, devoted people. And yet, and yet, the next chapter
on, we find that those people who started in rebellion against
God ended up being murderers in chapter 14. They took Paul
out and stoned him to death. But man's religion is extraordinarily
captivating of people, and Satan is a master deceiver of people. And the thing, the two questions
that we've been looking at last week and we'll look again at
in future is, where did these people rise from? Well the answer
is that they rise out of the natural man. You need nothing
more than the influences of Satan allowing for natural man to have
his religion and that religion to be a religion without the
Lord Jesus Christ. This man's religion has no blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ applied and it has no washing and regeneration. Nicodemus was told by the Lord
Jesus Christ that flesh gives birth to flesh. He was talking
about fleshly religion. Nicodemus looked for all the
world as clean as you could possibly have someone to be, as moral
as you could possibly have someone to be. But he was as lost as
a goose in a snowstorm. He was lost. There's no washing
of regeneration, there's no electing love of God the Father, there's
no delight and rest in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and there's no work sanctifying grace revealing work of the Holy
Spirit. So what begins in the flesh ends
in the flesh, and what begins in the world ends in the world.
And what begins with man's work finishes with man's work, and
it rises no higher than the ceiling. It never ever honours God. God will only accept that which
He provides, and all that He ever provides, He provides in
the Lord Jesus Christ. So these men, these men in Acts
chapter 15 were zealous, they were sincere, they were learned. And yet, the other question is,
why? Why, when there is so much evidence
laid out before them? These people were claiming to
be believers. They weren't claiming to be like
the Jews who rejected the Lord Jesus Christ. They were saying,
we'll have Jesus. We'll have your Jesus, and we'll
have fellowship with your church. And we'll rise to a place of
prominence in your church. We'll be teachers in your church.
And we just want to do one thing to you zealous Christians. We
want to show you how you live the Christian life now. And the
way you do it, the way you do it is you obey the law of Moses. You become circumcised, so you
become, look like a Jew, and circumcision is just entrance
in to the whole Mosaic law. There's a remarkable thing, and
it's a question I'm hoping the Lord might help us to answer
today, why, when in the previous chapters in Acts chapter 10,
Peter had been told by God the Holy Spirit that these men were
purified. He was told that these Gentiles
didn't need circumcision and didn't need the law of Moses
never once in all of what we read in the book of Acts is anyone
put back under the law of Moses ever. The Gentiles had their
hearts purified by faith and God told Peter as clearly as
he possibly could with those visions, he says, don't you dare
call anything unclean which I've called clean. And then Paul begins
his missionary journeys and the Gentiles are gathered in and
there's great rejoicing. So there's all this evidence
laid out before these false teachers in Antioch and these false teachers
in Galatia. And then the church is gathered.
Having all that evidence laid out before them, the churches
gathered in Jerusalem and the Jerusalem Council makes as clear
and as unanimous a declaration as you could ever wish to have
about the fact that God purifies the hearts of his people by faith. He purifies their hearts by faith. by simply looking to, relying
upon and trusting the Lord Jesus Christ, your hearts, God says
your hearts, are pure. And yet, despite all of this
evidence laid out before these false teachers, the rest of the
New Testament is dealing in one way or another with this counterfeit
religion, this counterfeit religion of man. and it has continued
to this day. Churches around the world and
throughout this nation are putting people back under a bondage of
activities. They're continually saying to
people, you will find your assurance, you'll find your peace with God
in the things that you do. And here are the things that
you do. In one way or another, they're
putting people back under the law of Moses. Any church that teaches progressive
sanctification, that says that you can get better, is denying
what God says about your hearts being purified by faith. That
you have to do something added to what the Lord Jesus Christ
has done. And that adding ultimately becomes the thing that you hold
on to. And you take your works, unless God intervenes, you take
your works to the Lord Jesus Christ on that last day. And he says to those who come
with anything of themselves, he says, depart from me, I never
knew you. So these people don't heed the
warnings of history, the evidence of history, they don't heed the
warnings of the apostles, they don't heed any of the warnings,
and they remain that way. So the question is, why? And
the question is, what's happening? And the question is, what's the
solution to it? So in Luke chapter 11 we have
both a description of true conversion and a description of false conversion. But we are going to see, and
then I'll come back and I'll talk about one of those. Thanks. um Come, O Thou Fount of every blessing,
fill my heart to sing Thy praise. Strains of mercy never cease
me, though all songs of valour stray. In this hour, O this moment,
somewhat waiting comes above. Praise the mount, I am fixed
upon it, mount of my redeeming love. Here I raise my head and kneel
to the King of God, I know that from Him, and I hope by Thy completion,
save me to earn the right that comes. He's a soldier and a stranger,
wandering on and on and on. He can rescue me from danger,
he's upholds his precious blood. Golden grace, how great a debtor,
daily I'm not to be. Let thy goodness, my health,
better, I'm not wondering how to be. From tomorrow, Lord, I'll
be here, From today, Lord, I come. It's my time to take and steal,
To make all thy works of love. So let's turn in our scriptures
to, and I want us to keep in mind the false teachers of Acts
chapter 15 because they are all around us throughout this world. And I want, if the Holy Spirit
would allow us, for us to be forewarned and forearmed and
ultimately to see in the power of deception that inhabits this
world that we might see the glory of saving grace, that we might
see that there is a strong man. The context in Luke 11 is that
verse 14, and he was casting out a devil, and it came to pass,
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 cast out devils through Beelzebub, the chief
of 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. But if I by Beelzebub cast out
devils, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore shall
they be your judges. But But if I with the finger
of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon
you. Just the finger of God is all
that's required, not the arm of his power, just the finger
of God. Every time we talk about Satan, I don't like talking about
him at all. Every time we talk about him, we must remember that
he is God's devil. God created him. He has a reality
of existence which is beyond our understanding. And as the
Lord Jesus goes on to say, he's a strong man. So let's read this
story of both true conversion and the story of false conversion.
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." Now that's one of
the most glorious descriptions of true salvation that you can
have in all of the scriptures, isn't it? To save a sinner is
nothing less than the overthrow of Satan's rule in that person's
life, and it's nothing less than the transfer of that person out
of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. And one
of the things that's laid out before us is that there is an
unseen spiritual world. It's unseen and it's unknown
to most people. And the only light that we have
on it is the light of the scriptures. And the only warning I can give
is to not dabble with it ever. Stay as far away from it as you
possibly can at all times. It is too big, and it is too
deceitful, and you are too weak, and you are too frail. This battle
is a battle that the Lord must win. For those who dabble looking
for demons, they manage to find them under every rock. And Satan
laughs. Satan laughs at their folly. But there is an unseen spiritual
world and the scriptures are our only light and our only hope
is that the Lord Jesus Christ would do as he did with Jehoshaphat. He would say, stand still, the
battle's mine. You stand still and you watch
and wait and see. my victory. But Satan is called
the god of this world, he's called the prince of this world, he's
called the prince of the power of the air. Ephesians 2 describes
him as the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience.
And all unbelievers ultimately are under his control. All unbelievers
are children of the devil. And he is much more powerful
if you turn to Ephesians chapter 6. He says at the end of that remarkable
letter, he says, finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord
and in the power of his might. He's taking his people back to
the beginning of Ephesians. You remember God's sovereign
electing love and purpose. You remember his redeeming achievements. And he says, put on the whole
armour of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles
of the devil, for we wrestle We wrestle not against flesh
and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers
of the darkness of this world, against the spiritual wickedness
in high places. Wherefore, take unto you the
whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the
evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand. Stand, therefore. I want you to note that all the
pronouns in that verse are plural. You're not meant to stand on
your own, ever. This is a letter to the churches.
We stand as a church together. You can't stand on your own. But anyway, let's go back to
Luke chapter 11. And this is a great description,
isn't it, of what happened in the garden when Satan deceived
our first parents, and therefore all of Adam's race are born into
deception. He has a palace, it says, where
the strong man armed keeps his palace. See, a palace is an impressive
home of a king. It has all sorts of, like all
palaces, it has multitudes of rooms and many wings, doesn't
it? And Satan has a palace and he's
happy to keep that palace and he guards that palace. He guards
it with religion, he'll guard it with superstition, he'll guard
it with morality, he'll guard it by giving people peace. His great activity in this world
is to say peace, peace to people when they have no peace. He has a palace. He's a strong
man, armed. He has an arsenal. He has an arsenal of weaponry. And it's remarkable to ponder,
isn't it, that he defeated Adam and Eve. In their innocency and
in their communion with God, he defeated them. and you wouldn't
have done any better, despite what you think about yourself.
He's a deceiver. He is a deceiver. He came to
Adam and Eve and he came lying to them. And his first words
to them, has God really said? Did God really tell you the truth?
God is withholding something from you. You can be as gods
is Satan's lie. You can make the decision by
your free will activity. You can decide between good and
evil. He's a deceiver. He is so deceptive that he can
cause people who are on the very precipice of hell to think that
they're at the gates of heaven. He speaks peace to people. He's
armed. He's armed. And look what it
says. He keeps his goods in peace. He keeps his goods and they are
in peace. His great activities in this
world are to cause the world to think that he doesn't exist,
to cause those who are under his control to think that they
are right because of something that they have done or something
that they might do. The peace that the devil brings
to people is a peace that is a fleshly peace. It's a peace
that man can understand and a peace that man can rationalise and
a peace that man can see. It's a peace without the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. So any peace that you have, any
peace that you have which is not founded in the blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ, in what he accomplished on Calvary's tree,
in that great cry of his, it is finished, is a false peace. See people, Satan is very happy
to keep his people in peace. A peace from what you do. From
a peace from how you act. A peace from your words or your
work or your worth. A peace from how you have changed. Every bloodless peace is a false
peace. Cain had a peace when he went
to that first worship service. The peace that Satan brings is
a peace without Christ. It's a peace of ignorance. Ignorance. He keeps his goods
in his palace in peace. People have no idea what lies
before them. They are kept in this world in
a state where they have no concept of what is happening before them. David speaks of it. He says in
Psalm 73, but as for me, my feet were almost gone, my steps well
nigh slipped. For I was envious of the foolish
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked, for there are no
bans in their death. One of the things I always used
to think was that people would contemplate death, contemplate
eternity, contemplate meeting God, and it would cause them
to be greatly concerned about their eternal state. God says
there are no bans in their death. The majority of people leave
this world in death without even a notion of what lies before
them. Satan has kept his goods in peace. There is no ban, there are no
bans in their death, but their strength is firm. They are not
in trouble as other men, neither are they plagued like other men. Their pride compasses them about
as a chain, violence covereth them as a garment. Their eyes
stand out with fatness, They have more than a heart could
wish. They are corrupt and speak wickedly
concerning oppression. They speak loftily. They set
their mouth against the heavens and their tongue walketh through
the earth. Therefore his people return hither and waters of a
full cup are wrung out to them. And they say, how does God know? Is their knowledge with the Most
High? Behold, these are the ungodly
who prosper in the world. They increase in riches. And
then David says, Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, washed
my hands in innocence. For all day long I have been
plagued and chastened every morning. The Lord chastens his people. He says in verse 16, when I thought
to know this, when I thought to understand all of what was
happening, it was too painful for me until, until, until I
went into the sanctuary of God and then understood I their end. It's only in the sanctuary of
God, it's only in the presence of God, are all these things
revealed with clarity. And then David says, surely thou
didst set them in slippery places, thou castest them down into destruction. They are brought into desolation
as in a moment. And there they're utterly consumed
with terrors. See, Satan gives a piece. It's a false piece. It's a false
peace. He takes his goods, it says. He has them in peace. He has them in peace. His goods are in peace. But here
in verse 22 is a great picture of salvation. This is the salvation
of the Lord, isn't it? Just read it with me. So the only one stronger than
Satan in this world is the Lord Jesus Christ. And Satan casts
out demons with the finger of God. Satan is bound by a chain. He is God's devil. and he only ever is able to do
as God allows him to do. For this purpose, this strong
man comes, for this purpose, says John, for this purpose was
the Lord Jesus Christ manifested. This is the purpose of him coming
into this world, to be manifested, to destroy the works of the devil. And he destroyed the works of
the devil by his death on Calvary's tree at that very time when Satan
thought that he had a victory over the Lord Jesus Christ. There
he was. He dwelt. He was in safe, in
Judas. He entered into Judas. And then
Judas gathered hands together with those men that the Lord
says were children of the devil. And they came as one band to
gather him. And Satan must have thought,
this is a remarkable victory. We've now got him. And when he
was hung on Calvary's tree, naked and bleeding and mocked by men,
Satan must have thought, that he had this great victory. But
what does it say? The Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's
tree, spoiled principalities, Colossians 2.15. Spoiled principalities
and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over
them in it. It was a triumph. It was a triumphant
victory as the Lord Jesus Christ crushed the head of Satan. And he has, as he did through
all history, and he does in history now, he has the power and the
right as the stronger one who's overcome Satan. He has the power
to say, I'll go and have him, thank you very much. In that
very city where Paul was stoned to death by these enemies of
the gospel was a young man called Timothy. in that very city where
those men in Antioch rose up to incite murder in Lystra of
Paul was a young man called Titus. God just says, they're mine. I'll have them. They were mine
from the foundation of the world. I own them by creation. They have sold themselves into
Satan's kingdom by their sin and their fall in their father
Adam. But before they fell, there was a Saviour. Before they fell,
there was a Redeemer. Before they fell, they were saved. And God says, in my time of love
I'll come to them and I'll have Titus, thank you very much, and
I'll have Timothy, and I'll have these brethren scattered throughout
the world. I'll have them down to this day
right now. You'll have them. He's undone
all the works of the devil. And he takes from him all the
armour wherein he trusteth. He takes from them all of what
you trusted in. He takes from them all their
armour. Imagine Paul. How much Paul must have thought
he was on the inside track with God as he marched down there
to Damascus riding high on his horse. full of all his pharisaical
zeal, absolutely determined that he was doing God's service in
putting these Christians to death. And there he was with all this
religious righteousness. Behold, he would say to people,
you go to the law of Moses and you look at me and you will see
a man who's kept it. I've kept it all, he says. Blameless
is what his description of himself is. Proud and self-righteous. When the strong man comes, he
takes that armour, doesn't he? Paul saw had a peace with God. And it was a false peace. And only a visitation from this
one who is stronger, the one who overcomes. He overcomes. He overcomes him and he take
us from him who is all spoiled and he divideth his spoils. He
divideth his spoils. It's a quotation from Isaiah
53. He will see the suffering of
his soul, this righteous servant. He will see the suffering of
his soul. I will therefore divide him a
portion with the great, he shall divide the spoiled with the strong.
Because he has poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered
with the transgressors, and he bared the sin of many, and made
intercession for the transgressors, all those sins have solved. were laid on the Lord Jesus Christ
on Calvary's tree. All the sins of his self-righteousness,
all the sins that he committed were laid on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And he comes to his own at the time of love and he says, I'll
have them to myself. and he strips away the refuges
of lies. See, there is a piece that Satan
gives, and it's a false piece. So many people, when you speak
to them, want to talk about their experience. They want to talk
about their salvation in terms of what they experienced, what
I had, what touched me, what moved me. Look how much I have
changed from what I was. Look how much I have learned.
I'm no longer like those ignorant Armenians. I'm now a Calvinist.
I'm reformed. Look what I've learned. I no
longer believe in free will. I believe in the will of God.
See, any hope that we have that we look back for is a false peace. The question is, who are you
looking to now? Who are you looking to now? Is it the Lord Jesus Christ or
some experience? is that the Lord Jesus Christ
or some knowledge that you have had, the Lord Jesus Christ or
something that you have done. See, the Lord Jesus Christ is
the only ground of our assurance. There are two false refuges that
Satan gives to people, gives to those goods who haven't been
stripped. by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's what
I have done or experienced, it's what's happened in the past to
me, or what will I do in the future. I can fix this, if you
give me enough time and enough money, I'll fix this. True conversion
is when the stronger comes, and he overcomes him, and he takes
from him all his armour. And when he's taken from him
all his armour, he leaves his people naked before him. I do love the picture in Genesis
3 of the salvation of Adam and Eve. There they were, under Satan's
influence. What were they doing? They were
hiding from God. They were busily making themselves
fig leaves to cover their shame. They had no love for God. They
had no desire for communion and companionship with Him. They
had no desire to go to Him and seek Him for mercy and seek Him
for help in what they had done. They were hiding from God and
God comes and He gets them. Just like David said to Mephibosheth,
go and fetch Him, said to those who were to go and get Him. You
go and fetch Him. Fetch His people to Himself.
God goes to them and He brings them to Himself. And he exposes Satan's religion
in them. Who did they blame? Who did they
blame? They blame exactly the same ones
that you blame for everything that's happened. We blame someone
else or we blame God. But there they are, exposed before
God in the shame of their rebellion against him and in the shame
of their self-righteousness. And the shame that they can make
a judgment about why this has happened. And he strips them
of all that. They are left there naked before
God. And there's a blood sacrifice
and they're covered with a garment. And that garment is the robe
of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what the strong man does.
He comes and he strips and he clothes again and he says, I'll
have them to themselves, to myself. He strips them of all they have. When you've been stripped of
all this world has, you are just left before Him. Then the Lord
Jesus Christ becomes all. He's all you need. He becomes
all you desire. He becomes all your righteousness,
all your peace, all your hope, all your future, all your past. He divides the spoils quite simply. We have one message, don't we,
that's salvation. Salvation is of the Lord. Our
God reigns. Salvation is of the Lord. God the Father determined the
salvation of his people before time. In electing love, in predestinating
grace, he determined all things and all events. And then the
Lord Jesus Christ came and put away your sin and he said it
was finished. It was finished, brothers and
sisters, completely and perfectly finished. And then the Holy Spirit
comes and takes the things of the Lord Jesus Christ. He comes
in omnipotent power and he takes away that refuge of lies. Isaiah 28 talks about that refuge
of lies, that people have a refuge of lies. They weave for themselves
a refuge of lies. And he says that he'll sweep
away the refuge of lies and the waters shall overflow the hiding
place. It'll happen two times in two
places in everyone's experience. It will happen here that he'll
sweep away the refuge of lies when he overcomes the strong
man and sets his people free, or he'll sweep away the refuge
of lies when you meet him in judgment. can sweep away all the refuge
of lies and we'll be left seeing what Jehoshaphat saw. You stand
still and you'll see the glory of God. You stand still and you'll
see the victory of the Lord. And it's His work. Salvation is of the Lord and
if you have any hand in it at all, it's always false. It's
a great and simple picture. The Lord says so much in such
simple pictures. Then he goes on to say something
incredibly important, that there is a division amongst humanity. There is a division in all of
humanity. All of Adam's children came to
that first worship service and there was Cain who brought the
works of his own hands and Abel brought the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ and Abel was declared righteous because he was looking
to a saviour. The two thieves on the cross
are representative of all humanity. One stayed on that cross with
his refuge of lies, blaming God and blaming other people. The
other man said a remarkable thing, what a remarkable sermon that
man preached that day. He simply said that this bleeding,
dying, cursed man beside you is the Lord. And he also said,
I'm getting what I deserve. And then he makes the simplest
and the best prayer in all of the scriptures. He says, Lord,
remember me. Lord, remember me. There ultimately
is, in this world, just two groups of people. There are those who
are the children of God, and there are those who are the children
of the devil. And the Lord Jesus Christ goes
on in Luke 11.23 to say that there is no neutral
ground and there is no fence to sit on. Quite simply he says,
he that is not with me is against me and he that gathereth not
with me scattereth. There's no place of non-affiliation
Quite simply, salvation is of the Lord and the Lord's people
delight in it. It's either grace or it's works. It's gospel or law. Either Christ
is all or Christ is nothing. There is a real conversion and
it's a mighty, omnipotent work of God in the hearts of his people
to turn us from the refuges of lies and let us have our eyes
fixed and delightfully so, causing us just to rest in the Lord Jesus
Christ, to rest in what he's done, to look away from everything
that we do and look to him. Let's take a break and we'll
look at the other half of this parable of the Lords. We're going
to sing again. Before the throne of God above,
I have a strong and perfect faith. How great Thy peace is in His
love, with everlasting peace of mind. ? Is raven on his head ? ? My pain
is written on his heart ? ? I know that while I bear this chance
? ? The dark can be this deep, but ? ? When Satan's hands take
to his face ? Lord, I look and see Him there,
with faith in Him all my sin. He was a sinless Savior, God,
my Savior. be satisfied to hold on him that
pardoned me. Ye holy memories of heaven and
earth The great unchangeable art and
the meaning of life. Loving myself, I cannot die.
My soul is purchased by His blood. My life is healed with Christ
on my, with Christ my Savior. on sexual nature, you know, I
just need to get a few pounds, a few pieces of energy. Take a break and have a drink for a second. That's it, that's fine. You'll get used to it. It's really hard. Was that from the HR? Was that from HR? Was that from
HR? Was that from HR? Mom's gonna cry. Don't get a cry. Hi guys, just had my wedding
party. Heavenly Father, we do. Come before you as mercenaries,
sinners, leaving nothing in ourselves, nothing in our hands, we pray.
Heavenly Father, simply look by faith, to leave faith in the
Son of God, who loved us and made himself right. Heavenly
Father, cause us to look away, always, from ourselves and to
Him. and has done all things well
in the path of this world. Thank you, Lord, for His strength
and might, for He is that strong man spoken of in the Word. Thank you that He has opened
up and destroyed the worst of them. and the great foe of whom we have no strength against.
And the teachers have been able to rest in His light, in His
accomplished work, and not to think highly of ourselves, make
us small in their own estimation, cause us to receive Him and lift
Him up. and cause us to consider ourselves
to be forsaken. Thank you, praise you for all
your promises, and thank you that that promise is an expected
end for your people, the life of the Lord Jesus, death and
glory, and His presence down your path. That's an expected
end. If you look with anticipation
for that end, which will not be necessary. Holy Father, we
thank you for our fellowship. We thank you for the times of
fellowship that we can enjoy together in this life. We pray
that you take the kids of this world, the kids of this life,
away from us, Holy Father. Knowing that we have had one
who does it for us, who has experienced one of these things, we gotta
marry, Holy Father. He has sympathised with everything
that we go through in this life. He always said to me, Father,
to trust in Him for everything. We pray that you will be a part
also of all Calvin and Christine as they come up to encourage
this church economy. We would ask and expect that
encouragement would be mutual. We would be encouraged by them
and they would be encouraged in turn by us. We thank you for
the fellowship of the saints in this regard. We invite them
in our hearts together and we pray they say to you and to us,
So we pray that you be with us continually in giving power to
preach the message of grace. Sometimes I feel very much the
weight of Satan's, or the number of Satan's arrows, I'm sure he
hates his kingdom being exposed and he hates the saviour being
exalted, but the next part of this This description in Luke
12 has been sort of heavy on my heart for months, and I had
a message prepared before I went to the US and was seeking opportunity,
and none was there. But it fits so well into what
we are looking at in Acts chapter 15 that I've delayed it till
now. As I said earlier, we're trying to understand where these
people came from, how this rose up, this counterfeit religion,
wherever the Lord Wherever the Lord reveals the truth, Satan
following brings in the counterfeit. It never goes the other way.
It's where the Lord reveals the truth that Satan brings in the
counterfeit. It's where the Lord raises up a church that Satan
has promised to come and so tears there. He can't pre-empt the
things of the Lord. But as I said earlier, these
people, these men in Acts 15 that the Jerusalem Council are
about, are typical of possibly 99% of the ministers of this
world today and throughout history. And I don't think there's any
exaggeration in that. In fact, I think I'm diminishing
it. I think we could add some other bits after the 99. Because
these men, these false teachers, these counterfeit teachers, are
completely blind and deaf. to any of the warnings. The warnings
in Acts 15 about them in verse 24, they're accused of being
liars, for a start. Imagine being accused of being
a liar by an apostle and saying, well I don't care about that
and I'm going to continue doing what I'm doing. They were accused
in verse 10 of tempting God. In verse 5, they're accused of
preaching the law and not Christ. In verse 10, they're accused
of putting yokes on the necks of the disciples, a yoke which
Peter declares neither we nor our fathers could ever bear,
and yet they're putting that same yoke on other people. Verse
24, they are troubling the disciples. They're troubling the saints
of God. Rather than comforting them, they're troubling them.
He says that they are subverting souls. They are subverting souls. This is the testimony at the
Jerusalem Council of these false teachers. Now I wonder Paul in
Galatians 3 says that they're bewitching God's people. They're casting a spell over
God's people. And they had, as I said earlier,
they had all that evidence laid out before them. They had the
unanimous decision of the Jerusalem Council and yet this religion
of these false teachers is the religion of Christianity today. It's the religion of Christianity
today. So let's read on in Luke chapter
11 and see if we can come to some understanding. I want to
try and paint a picture in our minds so that we at least have
some understanding of what's going on in this situation and
in the situation of many people that we meet with. throughout
our lives, as we see the power and the works of Satan in the
lives of people, I pray that our response will be that we
will be seeking the Lord and saying, Lord, heal me. Lord,
save me. Lord, protect me from this. Because
unless you do, I can't. Verse 24, he says, when the unclean
spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places
seeking rest and finding none. He saith, I will return unto
my house from whence I came out. And when he cometh, he findeth
it swept and garnished. Luke says, I mean Matthew's account
in Matthew 12 says that it was empty, swept and garnished. Garnished just means it's decorated.
Then he goes, then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other
spirits more wicked than himself. And they enter in. and dwell
there, and the last state of that man is worse than the first." The last state of that man is
worse than the first. I just want to answer some simple
questions. as briefly as I can in the time
that's left. So what is it for an unclean
spirit to go out of a man? What are the dry places where
he seeks rest and finds none? And when he returns and finds
his condition changed, what's that change? And what are meant
by those seven more wicked spirits? And why is the last state of
this man so dire? The unclean spirit, of course,
is the devil, or one of his minions. The devil was once the clean
and holy angel, he's now filthy and unclean. He's the author
of all that fountain of iniquity which floods this world. He pours
out through the lives of people kept captive by Him, just streams
of transgression and sin. And in one way or another, all
of the pain that we feel has its attribution to Him, and yet
I want you to hear me clearly, that no one in the Scriptures
is ever allowed to blame Satan for anything. Man's activities
are his responsibility, and even though the Lord reveals to us
this unseen world above and beyond the things that we see, don't
ever think that you can use Satan as an excuse for your own activities. It is not acceptable before God. It will not enter into his courts,
so don't let it enter into the courts of your thought now. But
he carries along in this flood, doesn't he, Satan? And he knows
his time is short, and he's enraged against the Church, and he's
enraged against the Gospel, and all his enmity is focused on
one thing, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified.
And he will seek to destroy that in the souls and the hearts of
the Lord's people. And he takes men captive, and
he keeps his goods in peace, as we saw earlier. The unclean spirit, it says in
our text, the Lord Jesus said, the unclean spirit goes out. He's gone out of a man. He's
gone out as an unclean spirit. He's gone out of a man. Earlier
you would see that the Lord Jesus Christ cast out this one. He
overcame him because he's a stronger man. But this unclean spirit,
is so much at home in the people of this world that he can go
out and he can come back. He can go out and call it my
house and he can come back and call it my house. The devils have a ready home
in the natural man, and they're very comfortably there calling
at their house, and they have a freedom, according to the Lord
Jesus, to go out. So an unclean spirit goes out.
It's talking about a moral reformation. So many people want to attribute
their salvation to the fact that they have changed, radically
changed. This unclean spirit's gone out
of this body of this man. So this man is no longer adulterous
and no longer openly wicked and no longer swearing and no longer
drunken and no longer doing all those things that you can openly
see. And now he's religious. He's gone out of this man. gone
out of this man, not out of his soul. The outside is cleansed,
but the inside is unchanged. See, the outward man, all we
can do with these eyes of flesh is we can look at men and look
at outward things and pronounce people to be clean and pronounce
them to be Christian. And so much of their religion
is based on moral reformation. It's based on man's will, wisdom,
worth, man's history. and they call themselves believers
and other people call them believers. In Acts, in John chapter 8, if
you get to read it when you go home, in John chapter 8, verse
31, there are people there that claim to be believers and you
think, isn't this a cause for rejoicing? When all of Jerusalem,
the Lord Jesus was rejected and rejected and rejected by the
Jews. And here in Jerusalem are these people who say they're
believers. And then he describes who he is and describes who they
are. And they declare themselves to
be Abraham's children. They hold on to the traditions
of men they claim to be religious. By the end of John chapter 8,
verse 45, these men that were believers in verse 31 are picking
up stones to stone him. What say ye of Christ? There is a reformation that religion
can bring to people. Reformation. But there's no new
heart, and there's no new creature. There's no Christ in you, the
hope of glory. There's none of that omnipotent
work of God in the lives of people. Nicodemus looked as clean as
you could ever wish to be. Judas was with the apostles,
cast out demons and preached sermons. Simon Magus looked as
if he was clean. Demas was with Paul, and yet And yet, they were lost men. These men that we are talking
about that have gone to Antioch and then continue their activities
in Galatia and wherever Paul goes, they were morally reformed
men. You cannot question their morality. You cannot question their knowledge
of the Bible. You cannot question their zeal. They had outward transformation. They looked like Paul. They looked like Paul and the
apostles, and they spoke like them. There is a religion of the natural
man, and it can be counterfeited in
those who have no spirit of God in them at all. This spirit goes
through dry places. He goes through the dry places.
He walks, seeking rest and finding none. The dry places, I'm sorry
to go back to these dry places. The Lord said to Satan, where
have you come from? In Job chapter one. He said, I've been walking through
this world. He said, I'd like to dwell in Job, but you'd put
a hedge around Job and I can't get to him. and he asked the Lord to take
that hedge away. And the hedge of all of Job's
external things was taken from him, but not his soul and his
heart. Peter describes the devil as
a roaring lion walking around. seeking whom he may devour. This spirit goes out of this
person and he walks through dry places. Dry places are clean
places. Dry places, I believe, are pictures
of the place where the Lord Jesus Christ has caused people to hunger
and thirst for righteousness. They are dry in the eyes of this
world. because the Lord has made them
dry, and Satan has no home there. They are made clean. Dry places
are clean, cleaned by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ,
cleaned, cleaned, and there is no place where he can find a
home there. He walks through the dry places
and he finds no rest there. The one that is in you is greater
than he that is in the world. The help of God's people comes
from above. This demon goes out and he finds
no rest. He finds no rest and he says,
he says, I will return to my house from whence I came out. He returns to a house, so he's
left as an unclean devil. And he returns to a house that
he claims to be his own. He says, it's my house. It was
his before he left, and it's his when he returns. And he finds it. We go to Matthew's
Gospel, says it's empty. He finds that house empty. This
person has had a religious transformation. You remember in the context of
this, the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew's Gospel is dealing with
the Pharisees and their hypocritical religion. the Pharisees who had
the Lord Jesus Christ explain and show them that He is the
Messiah of God and the result of His declaration of who He
is was that they sought to destroy Him. This house is empty. Empty of the Lord Jesus Christ. Empty of God the Holy Spirit. It's empty of all sorts of things,
isn't it? It's empty of the fear of God. It's empty of precious
faith. It's empty of godly sorrow for
sin. It's empty of care for eternity. It's empty of real love for the
Lord Jesus Christ and his truth. It's empty of real hope based
on the promises of God. It's empty of that anchor for
our souls. It's empty of any heeding of
warnings. It's empty of light from above. It's empty of the everlasting
blessings of the covenant. And he comes back and he finds
it empty and Luke says he finds it swept. You see, there is a
sweeping that Satan is happy to see in people. You can sweep
a life clean by natural convictions. You can sweep a life clean by
moral reformation. You've got to remember that sweeping
deals with the surface of things. It deals with the outside and
not the inside. We sweep our polished floors
at home and then you get the mop out after some weeks and
you start mopping that sweat floor and all of a sudden you
find a bucket that's full of dirt. Sweeping just moves the
dust from one place to another and it looks clean. It looks
clean. This activity of Satan is to
go out as a black devil, an unclean devil, and he comes back as a
white one. Satan's ministers masquerading
as angels of light, masquerading as ministers of righteousness,
of your righteousness and not the righteousness of Christ,
are far more dangerous. And he finds this house garnished. It's empty, swept, and he finds
it garnished. And this means decorated. It
means adorned. Adorned. It's adorned with all
the outward activities of religion. It's adorned with church going.
It's adorned with Bible reading. It's adorned with all of the religion of man. The Lord Jesus Christ spoke of
these people in Matthew 23. where he spoke as bluntly and
as plainly to these Pharisees. And here in Acts 15 we're ending
up dealing with them wearing the garb of Christians. He says, Woe to you, scribes
and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you make For you make clean the
outside of the cup and the platter, but within they are full of extortion
and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, first clean
that which is within the cup and the platter, and that the
outside of them may be clean also. Woe! unto you, scribes
and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like unto whited sepulchres,
whited tombs, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but within
are full of dead man's bones and all sorts of uncleanness.
Even so, you also outwardly appear righteous unto men." So these
are the people, this is this garnishing, you appear outwardly
righteous unto men. but within ye are full of hypocrisy
and iniquity." It's possible to be outwardly righteous unto
men, to be seen to be religious and for that religion to be esteemed. We've got to remember when the
Lord Jesus Christ said that what is highly esteemed among men
is abomination to God, he's talking about religion. He's talking
about religious, moral people. It's garnished. It's garnished
with all the outward appearances. And then the most chilling part
of this parable, this story, this reality, is that the Lord
Jesus Christ says, having found it swept, empty swept and garnished,
then he goes. and taketh to him seven other
spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there. And the last state of that man
is worse than the first. So here is a picture of a person
who's had some religion, who's had some reformation, who's had
some transformation, who has the outward appearance of religion,
and according to the Lord Jesus Christ, is now completely demon
possessed. It's very, very chilling, isn't
it? He takes seven other spirits. Seven is the number of completion
in the scriptures. It's a number of perfection. And because seven is a number
for completion, we mustn't think that seven is a limiting number.
It's a picture of the completeness of what's happened. There is,
in Satan bringing and giving peace to people, there are these spirits that
indwell people. I pray it's none of us, because
this is a horrible state to even contemplate, let alone know that
it's a reality. These are the words of the Lord
Jesus Christ. They're not my words. They're
his words. It's his description of this
religion. It gives us a clue to why these false teachers in
Antioch continued their evil behaviour despite all the warnings
of history and all the warnings and all the evidence that could
be laid out before them. Let's look at some of these spirits
as briefly as we can. He says, seven spirits. There is a spirit of ignorance,
isn't there? Satan keeps his goods in peace and they're ignorant
of the new birth. They're ignorant of the faith
of the Lord Jesus Christ and they're ignorant of faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ. They might talk about it, but
they're ignorant of the reality of it. They're ignorant of the
graces of the Holy Spirit. They're a spirit of ignorance. If Satan can lie to you, then
he can murder you. There's a spirit of pride. That
Pharisee went up to the temple and he said, I thank you God
that I'm not like other men. I am holier than thou. That spirit of pride that exalts
man. He becomes his own pastor. his own preacher, his own guide. He resents advice, he resents
any counsel, and he resents any questioning of his condition. It's the spirit of self-sufficiency,
Satan's spirit in the lives of those held captive by him. You
shall be as gods. You shall be as gods. You can
make the decision. And therefore, there's a spirit
of self-righteousness. Man, fallen man, can justify
anything he does. Anything he does. You can always
say, I have a reason. I have a justification for my
actions. I have no real need, except I
be exalted. Everyone is here to be my servant. There's a spirit of covetousness,
a covetousness in worldly goods, a covetousness to have the flesh
gratified, to be a taker and not to be a giver. There's a
spirit of intellectualism. They can tell you all of what
they know about the scriptures and they can read it and study
it and know it intellectually. There is amongst these seven
spirits a spirit of malice and enmity against the truth. and it's always expressed in
criticism of God's people. It's always wanting to tear them
down rather than build them up. These seven spirits are more
wicked. And it says, the Lord Jesus Christ
says that they dwell there. They now stay there. This person
stays proud, and cold, and critical, and intellectual, and stays justifying
themselves, and giving themselves peace. They may receive the applause
of men for their religious devotion. They may receive all sorts of
things, but there is no poverty of spirit. There is no poverty
of spirit. Like the Laodiceans, they say
that I am rich and I am in need of nothing. and there's plenty
of self-justification, and there's plenty of judgment of others.
But there's no true mercy, and there's no true love for other
people. There's a concern sometimes,
occasionally, about the consequences of sin, but there's no real mourning
over sin. And ultimately, there's no real
love for the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no real love for His
Word. There's a love for the praise
of men. And there's no true communion
with Christ. There's lots, sometimes, of study
of the Scriptures, but no real entrance of God into the heart. It's more wicked. It's more wicked
now. It went out in unclean spirit
and it comes back more wicked than ever. The open sin deceives
no one, but moral religion deceives almost everyone. As the apostle
said, people are deceived and being deceived. It's just an
ongoing process. So these people are gospel hardened. There is a hardening of people's
hearts. It's called a callusing of the
heart, where there is now in people an insensitivity. an insensitivity to the things
of God, an insensitivity to the warnings of God, an insensitivity
to the cares of God's people. It's a horrible state. And the
Lord Jesus Christ says that the last state of this person is
worse off than the first. You see, if you sin in this world,
as grievous as your sin might be, there is hope in the Gospel. You might sin as Manasseh sinned,
you might sin as Saul of Tarsus sinned, but there's hope in the
Gospel. But where there is Gospel hardening,
where do you go? Where do you go? See, these people
are better off. They're better off if they had
never heard the Gospel, and they would have been better off if
they'd never had any association with Christian things ever in
their lives. Turn to 2 Peter, chapter 2, with
me briefly. He's talking about people who
insinuate themselves into the church, people who allure other
people. Verse 19, it says, While they
promise them liberty, they themselves are servants of corruption. For
of whom a man is overcome, the same is he brought into bondage. For if they escaped the pollutions
of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ, that's the unclean spirit going out of a man, and are there
entangled therein and overcome, the latter end is worse with
them than the beginning. For it had been better for them
not to have known the way of righteousness." This is the way
of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. His righteous way
of saving His people by His righteous sin bearing death on Calvary's
tree and his righteous activities coming into the lives of his
people to show them that he is their righteousness and their
only righteousness. They're better off to have not
known the way of righteousness than after they have known it,
so they claim to know it, to turn from the holy commandment
delivered unto them. It would be better off for them
not to have known the way of righteousness than, after they
had known it, to turn from the holy commandment to deliver it
unto them. The holy commandment is, Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. Whomsoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. But it is happened unto them
according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own
vomit again, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in
the mire. See, the man in the gutter might
just hear the gospel. But the gospel-hardened person
says he knows it already. The man in the gutter might hear
a message by a messenger from God, but the gospel-hardened
person has already heard the messenger and says, I don't care,
and I don't need him. 2 Thessalonians speaks of God sending
a powerful delusion to those who refuse the love of the truth. They knew the truth, but they
had no love for the truth. And God sends them a powerful
delusion that they'll believe the lie and be damned. As I said earlier, brothers and
sisters, this is such a heavy, heavy topic, and it weighs so
heavily on my heart that it's a burden, and I'm glad the Lord
carries the burdens of His people, and I'm glad that we don't have
to make calls about people, we just have to say, this is what
God says, and this is His message, and our task is to deliver it
faithfully, and to speak comfort to the hearts of God's people,
because what does the child of God cry out in the midst of all
this? What does the child of God cry
out? I love what Jeremiah says. In Jeremiah 17, he'd been through
an awful lot, Jeremiah, by the time he gets to chapter 17, but
in Jeremiah 17, 14, he says, Lord, heal me, and I'll be healed. Lord, save me, and I'll be saved. Lord, this is going to happen
to people in this world. Please don't let it happen to
me. Make me to treasure the Gospel. Make me to treasure the fellowship
of God's people. Make me to treasure the things
that the people of this world scoff at and despise and treat
as nothing. Make me to treasure the gift
of the Gospel. Make me to seek Him, make me
cling to the Lord Jesus Christ. Make me understand that the enemies
that are standing against me are far more deceptive and far
more serious and far more numerous than I can possibly imagine.
Come and speak to me like you did to Jehoshaphat. You stand
still. You stand still in the Gospel
and you'll see the salvation of the Lord. Luke 11 gives the
response of the child of God to these things. If you still
have your Bible open in Luke 11, Luke 11.10, the Lord Jesus
Christ says, for everyone that asks, receives. Ask. Everyone that seeks, findeth. To him that knocketh, it shall
be opened. Keep asking, brothers and sisters. Keep looking. Keep seeking. Keep knocking. In the previous
story, the Lord Jesus Christ talks about one who is answered. It says, Because of his impotunity,
this person shamelessly and with impudence, shamelessly just kept
asking, kept asking. And the owner of the house rose
and gave to him because of his shamelessness. Bartimaeus was
told not to keep asking, was he? Don't be so embarrassing,
Bartimaeus. Lord, save me. Lord, help me. Lord, let me see
this world through the lens of your scriptures. and lead me
in the paths of righteousness for your name's sake. Lord, save me. Lord, don't let
me go down that path. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we thank you that our Lord Jesus Christ is the great Deliverer,
He came to set His people free. He came to take captivity, those
that were captive of Satan. He came to take captivity captive. O Heavenly Father, we do praise
You for the wonder of His finished work. We praise You for revealing
the truths of this world to us. Father, make us Make us to be,
as little children, humbled and needy and dependent, and strip
away from us, Heavenly Father, the fig leaves of our own righteousness
and our own morality and our own doing, and just leave us
naked and dependent upon your dear and precious Son. Heavenly
Father, these things are too big for us to understand. The devil is too big for us to
stand against. And we praise you, Heavenly Father,
that our lives are hidden with Christ in God. That on Calvary's
tree, our Saviour, by His precious blood and His broken body, defeated
our enemy. Heavenly Father, set us free.
Set us free in Him and grant us the peace. Grant us to see
Him and Him alone as our peace. And strip away, Heavenly Father,
all of the refuges of lies that are so naturally a part of our
lives and that we would cling to in a heartbeat, Heavenly Father. Lord, Be propitious to us sinners. Bless your word, Heavenly Father,
to the hearts of your people and cause us to be comforted
by the finished and perfect work and the ongoing work of your
dear and precious Son. Make us to remember Him now,
our Father, and be grateful. For we pray in His name. Amen.