Mark chapter 3. Mark chapter
3. Looking at verses 22 through
30. And the scribes which came down
from Jerusalem said, he hath Beelzebub, and by the prince
of the devils casteth he out devils. And he called them unto
him and said unto them in parables, how can Satan cast out Satan? And if a kingdom be divided against
itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against
itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan rise up against
himself and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end. No man can enter into a strong
man's house and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the
strong man, and then he will spoil his house. Verily I say
unto you, all sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies
wherewithsoever they shall blaspheme. But he that shall blaspheme against
the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation,
because they said he hath an unclean spirit. There are three
subjects. in these verses that we've just
read that I want to speak to us about this morning. The first subject is, A House
Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand. Now last week, we saw
in the verses that precede these, that the Lord Jesus Christ healed
many. If you notice in verse 10, for
he had healed many. And also in verse 11, that many
with unclean spirits came and fell down before him. And unclean
spirits, when they saw him, they fell down before him and cried,
saying, thou art the son of God. In the parallel passage in the
Gospel of Matthew, we read, that at this time they brought
to him, the scripture says, then was brought unto him one possessed
with a devil, blind and dumb, and he healed him insomuch that
the blind and dumb both spoke and saw. So it was at this point,
if you notice where we began in verse 22, the scribes which
came down from Jerusalem, now, Jerusalem, of course, was the
head of the religious center of Judaism. That's where the
Sanhedrin, the religious leaders, that's where they met, most of
them lived. And so these scribes who came
down from Jerusalem probably were part of the Sanhedrin, the
70 men that were set aside to rule in spiritual matters concerning
the nation of Israel. And they said that he cast out
devils, that he did this work by the power of Beelzebub, by
the power of Beelzebub. And I want you to notice they
could not, they did not deny that he had wrought a miracle. Here's a man that was brought
to him whose eyes were blind and his tongue was was controlled
so that he was dumb, he couldn't speak. And the Lord Jesus Christ
opened the blind eyes and loosed the dumb tongue so that this
man could both see and speak immediately. What a miracle that
is, right? To open blind eyes and then to
heal someone who could not speak and immediately he could speak. He could speak in an articulate
way that he could be understood. It takes children a while to
learn to speak, doesn't it? And when people lose their hearing,
they many times lose their ability to speak well. And then this
man, the Lord, they could not deny the miracle. It was obvious. It was plain. Everyone could
see. that the Lord had wrought a great
miracle. He had healed a blind man and
unloosed his tongue so that he could speak. So what did they
do? They cannot deny the miracle,
but they attribute the power by which he had wrought the miracle
to Beelzebub. Now who is Beelzebub? Well, most people believe that
this was a title of the God that they considered to be the prince
of the demon world, the spirit world. Actually, Beelzebub was
a fly god. Let that sink in. Those who worshiped
Beelzebub, they worshiped an image of a fly. Can you imagine
that? Can you see what the apostle
Paul tells us in Romans chapter one? that because men suppress
the knowledge of God, that they're turned over to a reprobate mind,
that men begin to worship something as small and insignificant and
powerless as a fly. You say, have men done that? Yes, men have done that. not
only flies but frogs and reptiles and birds and all kinds of animals,
plus man himself. Rather than worship the only
true and living God because of man's fall, because of the sin
nature that we all inherit from our father Adam, that men are
reduced and brought down to such a level that we would worship
an insect, a fly. But they attributed the power
to perform this miracle to Beelzebub, who they thought was the prince
of the devils, Satan, as we would refer to him. And our Lord asked
this question, why would Satan cast out Satan? Notice his question
in verse 23. And he called them unto him and
said unto them in parables, and this is a question, how can Satan
cast out Satan? You accuse me of casting this
dumb and blind infirmity out of this man by the power of Satan. Now why would Satan cast out
Satan? And then He gives this proverb
that a kingdom, a house divided against itself, cannot stand. Now I want to take the opportunity
to bring this down to where you and I live today. A house divided against itself
cannot stand. We're going to think of this,
first of all, as a husband and wife. must be agreed, and this
agreement must involve several matters. But I would put at the
top of the list this truth, that a house divided against itself
cannot stand, that first of all, the man should be able to say,
and the wife supporting him, as for me and my house, we will
serve the Lord. If you are here this morning
and you are put as the head of your home, that's God's order.
Now, you cannot listen to the society's thoughts today because
society is influenced by sin. You've got to come to the Word
of God when we deal with these matters concerning a home, concerning
a house. It's not what society has come
up with, but it is with what God has revealed to us in the
Word of God. And for a man to be able to say,
as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, then first of
all, he must take his place as the head of that home. That's
God's order. That's God's order. And men would
love to change it, and many times they do. But what happens? You
have a house divided against itself, and it cannot God's order
is that the man be the head of the wife, and the wife be in
submission to her husband. Now, when people hear that, and
they're lost people, people out in the world, they make fun of
that, and you can see why they would. But we're talking about
things that are written to believers. To men who take their responsibility
from the word of God, I am to love my wife as Christ loved
the church and gave himself for it. And the woman who loves Christ,
she will submit under her loving husband. It's not an authoritative
rule, a dominion over over the wife, but it is in love, loving
her and her in love being submissive unto her husband. Now, a house
divided against itself cannot stand. That doesn't mean that
people won't stay married, sometimes for years, sometimes until they
die. But there will not be the peace
and the joy that that a man and woman may have if we will follow
the word of God. It's just not going to be there.
And the same thing comes to rearing children. A house divided against
itself will not stand if the man and the woman are not in
agreement, in agreement as to how we are to raise these children
the Lord has given us. And he's given us these children,
and it's a great responsibility that we have. And before God,
we want to do what's right. We want to raise them in such
a way as would be pleasing unto the Lord. Then the husband and
wife, they have to be on the same page, as we say today, right? And where would you go to find
out how to raise children, how to rear children? The word of
God. The Word of God. And every situation,
though it's not spelled out in exact terms, the principle for
every situation that you will encounter may be found in the
Word of God. The principle of how to deal
with this. So a house divided against itself
cannot stand. Our Lord said this. This is one reason we encourage
young people, and you young people here today, you need to take
this to heart, that when you think about marriage, you want
to think about someone that you could be in agreement with, would
be in agreement with, and in agreement in the most important
matter of all. The matter of salvation, the
matter of the scriptures, what the word of God teaches. And
there's another area that I would mention. There are several areas,
I know that. But finances, because I understand
from what I've read that most problems in a marriage are somehow
around finances. That's the majority. I know that's
not all. You need to be in agreement concerning
your finances, in agreement as to how you, I shouldn't say you,
how we, because I'm here too, how we are going to give as the
Lord teaches us to give. that the Lord loveth a cheerful
giver, how we're going to give to the work of God and support
the things of God, and then how we're going to spend the money
that we earn, that we bring into the home, how it's going to be
spent in such a way that we're not head over heels in debt. You know, that's been a problem
I've seen over the years, that one party in the marriage has
no concern and no idea about debt. You need to be in agreement,
right? A home, a house divided against
itself cannot stand. Well, I pray that God would give
all of us a Christian home, a home where Christ is first and his
word is supreme as to how we will conduct ourselves, how we
will live. in this world. Someone, in fact, two people
before the service a little while ago said, I hope you have a good
message for us today. I said, I do. I do. And what I've just said about
a house, what the Lord said about a house divided against itself
cannot stand. These are practical things that
I've brought out. but they are necessary things
that we know and we practice. Now, that's the first subject,
a house divided against itself cannot stand. The second subject
is this, a kingdom from which a man cannot liberate himself. A kingdom from which a man cannot
liberate himself. Now the scriptures teach us that
there are two, now listen to me, there are two spiritual kingdoms
in this world. There are a number of kingdoms.
We live in a kingdom, the United States of America. There's a
kingdom of Mexico, kingdom of Great Britain. All of these kingdoms
of this world, these are civil kingdoms, but there are two spiritual
kingdoms in this world. And one of these kingdoms, The
Word of God calls a kingdom of darkness, and the other kingdom
is called a kingdom of God's dear Son. The kingdom of darkness
is what our Lord refers to here when He speaks in these words
of a strong man's house. A strong man's house. The strong
man here is Satan. He is not all powerful. Don't
ever get that idea. He's not all-powerful. There's
only one who is all-powerful, and that is God. But our Lord
does call Him here a strong man. And He's certainly stronger than
men because, after all, He is a fallen angel. And men were
created lower than the angels. Angels are more powerful than
men or mankind is. So he's a strong man, and the
apostle Peter, he referred to him, Satan, as a roaring lion
of all the animals of the jungle. He's the king, isn't he? A roaring
lion, yes. So our Lord here refers to the
strong man as Satan, or Satan, rather, as the strong man. And
he's strong in this sense. He's strong in the sense that
no man, I don't care who he is, in and of himself has the power,
the ability to set himself free. He cannot liberate himself from
this kingdom of darkness because our Lord tells us he keeps his
house in peace. That is, a strong man keeps his
house in peace. He keeps his kingdom in peace.
Now, sin entered into the world and it brought the souls of all
men into his house, into his kingdom. You know that. Sin entered into this world. And it brought the souls, now
I want to emphasize, it brought the souls, the spirits of all
men into the kingdom of Satan. He, that is Satan, can only take
possession of a man's body by God's permission. Now hear that,
Satan. He can only take possession of
a man's body when God gives him permission. We know that from
the book of Job. He could not touch Job until
God gave him permission. But because of sin, he has possession
of the souls of all men. And this may explain something
that I've been asked about and you've probably thought about.
Why was there so much demon possession recorded in the Word of God?
Well, think about this. And I said that Satan could only
possess a man's body by God's permission. Think about this,
that every physical disease has a spiritual counterpart. And
by that I mean men blind physically has a spiritual counterpart. Men are blind spiritually. Men who are blind physically.
So men are blind spiritually. And the same thing is true about
the tongue not being able to speak and the ears not being
able to hear. Men are physically able to see
and to hear, but spiritually they are blind. And we see the
Lord opening eyes, unstopping ears, loosing tongues, doing
all these things for physical maladies, showing us that the
spiritual problem, He's able to heal. The spiritual problem,
man spiritually dead, he's able to raise, the man spiritually
blind, he's able to open the eyes, the man spiritually deaf.
Christ and Christ alone is able to save, to heal. And the same
thing is true about demon possession. He can only possess a body if
God gives him permission. And evidently God gave Satan
permission for him to possess many bodies when the Lord was
here in the flesh so as to teach us, so as to show us that yes,
Christ is able to deliver a person from the strong man's house.
He's the only one who is able to do it. Man cannot deliver
himself. He cannot liberate himself. How
is anyone to get free from the strong man's house? Well, Luke
tells us in his gospel, this same parallel passage, one stronger
than he, one stronger than the strong man must come upon him
and overcome him and take from him all his armor wherein he
trusted and divide his spoils. Now the one who is stronger is
the Lord Jesus Christ. In this parable here, or this
word here, the house is the kingdom of darkness. The strong man is
Satan. The one who is stronger, who
comes upon him and takes his armor away from him, is the Lord
Jesus Christ. Remember he said this, if the
sun therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. He's the only one who can make
a person, set a person free from the kingdom of darkness. First
of all, the devil had to be overcome. And this the Lord Jesus Christ
did by his work in this world. Now we think especially about
his death. And certainly when the Lord Jesus
Christ died, he took from Satan all of his armor in which he
trusted. And you see the wisdom of God. How did the Lord Jesus Christ,
how did he defeat Satan? How did he overcome Satan? By his death. by his death. Death that Satan had brought
into this world. He was a murderer from the beginning. He's the one who tempted our
parents and they fell and sinned and brought death into the world.
How did the Lord Jesus Christ conquer Satan? By his death. Now Satan, to show you he doesn't
have all wisdom, he thought by nailing Christ to the cross,
he would defeat the Lord Jesus Christ. He would overcome the
Lord Jesus Christ. But in his work in promoting
that, what he did, he promoted his own destruction. We have
a beautiful picture of this, I believe, in the Old Testament
with David. When David went to fight Goliath,
all he had, remember, was the five stones and the slingshot.
And he brought the giant down, but he didn't have a sword. He
didn't have a sword to take off his head. So what did he do? He used the giant's sword. The Lord Jesus Christ used Satan's
sword, death, to defeat Satan. The strong man was overcome by
he who is stronger, that is the Lord Jesus Christ. In 1 John chapter 3 and verse
8, we read, for this purpose the Son of God was manifested,
that he might destroy the works of the devil. He became a man
that he might destroy the works of the devil. How has Christ
destroyed or conquered the devil? He did so by his death, his death
upon the cross. He destroyed sin, the guilt of
sin, and he answered all the demands of the law. He, by his
death and resurrection, the apostle Paul tells us in Colossians,
spoiled spoiled, conquered, defeated principalities and powers, that
is, Satan and all of his demon hosts, and made a show of them
openly. Now Christ, by His Spirit, enters
into the heart He comes with his gospel, and by the power
of God the Holy Spirit, he enters into a sinner's heart, an elect
sinner's heart. And when he does, he casts the
devil out, and he takes possession, and he takes possession in such
a way that the devil can never again regain control. Why? Because that person is translated
from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear
Son. He put Satan out. And let me
tell you something, according to the words of the Lord Jesus
in the parallel passage in Luke. If the Lord Jesus Christ does
not put Satan out, and enter into the heart of man. If man
just turns over a new leaf, cleans up his life, starts going to
church, gets baptized, whatever. Satan, if Satan leaves on his
own, it won't be long he'll be back. And he'll be back, and
because the house is now cleaned and swept by his own works, he'll
go and he'll get seven worse demons and bring them with him
and repossess the house. Live in the house. And our Lord
said the state of that man then becomes worse than it was. Christ
is the only one, this is the point, he's the only one who
can depossess Satan of a sinner's heart. And when he does it, when
he puts the demon out and the person is translated from that
kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear son, that's
forever. He ain't coming back. He may
come back, And no doubt he will come back to attack, but he ain't
coming back to take possession. The Lord, he that is in you,
is greater than he that is in the world. He put Satan out so that he can
never return to possess the believer's soul. Apostle John said, you
are of God little children and have overcome them because greater
is he that is in you than he that is in the world. If the
devil leaves on his own terms, he'll come back. He can and he
will come back. But when Christ puts him out,
he's out for good. He's not coming back to take
possession. I want you to look at a verse
with me, Colossians chapter 1. And I want to emphasize here that
this work is the work of the triune God. Colossians chapter 1. What do
I mean by that? I mean salvation is the work
of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We emphasize
the work of Christ, and rightly so, but we do not deny the absolute
necessity that the Father had to choose and predestinate a
people, first of all. And the Son had to become flesh
and die for those people. And God, the Holy Spirit, he
must reveal Christ in the heart of these people. Colossians chapter
one and verse 12, The apostle said, give him thanks unto the
Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in light, who hath delivered us from the power of
darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear
Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood. even the forgiveness
of sins. So that's the second subject
in these verses, that there's a kingdom in this world, a kingdom
of darkness, and man is not able to liberate himself. Only the
Lord Jesus Christ and the power of God the Holy Spirit sets a
person free. The third and last subject is
this. There's a sin. There's a sin
for which there is no forgiveness. Notice these words again in our
text, Mark chapter three, verses 28 through 29. Verily I say unto you, all sin
shall be forgiven unto the sons of man, and blasphemies wherewithsoever
they shall blaspheme. But he that shall blaspheme against
the Holy Ghost hath never forgiven us. but is in danger of eternal
damnation. There is a sin for which there
is no forgiveness, and it is the sin of blasphemy against
the Holy Spirit. Before I just briefly say what
that sin is, I want to make these three points. All sin, all sin,
A-L-L, all sin is against God. The Holy Spirit is God. All sin is against God, God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. All sin is against
God the Holy Spirit. Number two, I'm convinced that
if a person is concerned that he or she is guilty of having
committed this sin, you can be sure you haven't committed it.
I don't know if I've ever known any believer who didn't at some
time think, I've committed that sin. I've committed that sin. In times of temptation, in times
of trial, in times of spiritual difficulty, in times when maybe
God hides his face, A believer will think, I must have committed
that sin. But I say unto all of us here
this morning that if a person is concerned that he has, he
hasn't. If you had, you wouldn't be concerned.
And the third thing is, Don't overlook this blessed truth,
and thinking about that one sin, don't overlook this blessed truth
when the Lord said in verse 21, all sins and blasphemies shall
be forgiven. Did you know the apostle Paul,
he confessed that he had been a blasphemer? That he had been
a blasphemer before he was converted? He was, he certainly was, and
he wasn't alone. But all sin and blasphemies shall
be forgiven unto men by the blood of Jesus Christ. There's one
cleansing power, and that power is the blood of Jesus Christ.
We walk in the light as he is in the light. We have fellowship
one with another, and the blood of his son cleanseth us from
all sin. If we confess our sins, He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness, only through the blood. Well then,
what is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? A sin that cannot
be forgiven. It is to receive, as these people
here in our text, they knew. They had to be convinced that
the power with which the Lord Jesus Christ worked the miracle
was the power of God. And yet they attribute it to
the power of Satan. It is to receive for you and
I, it would be to receive and to be convinced of the truth.
to receive this truth and be convinced of this truth that
Jesus Christ is the only way, that He is the Son of God and
He's the only way to the Father, the only way that we may be reconciled
unto God. Yet, having received this knowledge,
being convinced of this truth, we persist in denying the truth
of which we've been convinced. And therefore, never come to
repentance. Never come to repentance. Well, I pray the Lord would bless
this word, all of us here today. This is kind of like those shotgun
sermons. You know, you shoot a shotgun,
you got shells going all different directions, right? Three subjects,
and I pray the Lord will bless it to all of us. A house divided against itself
cannot stand. There is a kingdom in which a
man cannot free himself, but thank God the Lord Jesus Christ
can set a man free and does set a man free. And there is a sin
for which there is no forgiveness. I pray God will bless his word. Let's sing a hymn and we'll be
dismissed.