Let's pray, please. Father in heaven, it's our great privilege to have your holy word in its entirety in our possession. We pray that you would teach us from its wonderful words this morning, that we would receive their truth with faith and love, lay them up in our hearts and practice them in our lives. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. Please take your Bibles and turn to Luke chapter 11, verses 14 through 23. Luke 11, verses 14 through 23. This is our scripture reading and the sermon text for this morning. Luke 11, 14-23. There's a lot of introductory material I want to go over, but we are going to walk through this whole passage. Luke 11, verses 14-23. This is God's Word. And he was casting out a demon, and it was mute. When the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke, and the crowds were amazed. But some of them said, he casts out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons. Others, to test him, were demanding of him a sign from heaven. But he knew their thoughts, and said to them, any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a house divided against itself falls. If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul, and if I, by Beelzebul, cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? so they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are undisturbed. But when someone stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied and distributes his plunder. He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. May God bless the reading of his word. The history of faithfulness to the one true and living God has been a history marked by persecution. that has come in several different forms. And Jesus spelled them out in detail in the Beatitude from Matthew 5, 10 through 12. He said, blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, that's one form, and persecute you, that's more general, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad for your reward and heaven is great for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Jesus spells out for his followers in these three verses there in Matthew 5, 10 to 12, exactly what happened to him as well. And it's what happened to him in the passage here before us, to have evil spoken of him falsely. For the sake of righteousness, we will be persecuted too. And what does that mean? What does that mean? For the sake of righteousness. People will be offended by your righteousness. People are so dedicated to calling evil good and good evil that if you are good, if you are obedient to God, if you don't condone what our culture condones, you will be hated and persecuted. That persecution will come in many different forms. People will insult you, Jesus said. People, adult people, will call you nasty names and put you down. They will lie about you. People, adult people, will tell lies about you because you're godly, because you're Christ-like, because you're loving. Isaiah prophesied doom against God's people who called evil good and good evil. In Isaiah 520, woe to those who call evil good and good evil. Christ followers, insofar as they are faithful to the truth, they will be hated and persecuted in exactly the same way the Lord was persecuted. In the same way that He was spoken falsely about and hated and vilified. The sin committed against Christ in this particular passage is especially vile when you think about it. The hatred for Him is thick and it's heavy in this text. Everywhere our Lord went, He did nothing but good. He healed every kind of disease imaginable. He saved people's souls. He gave eternal promises of hope to those who were broken and repentant in their sin. He corrected error. He taught truth. He loved the lost by confronting them with their sin, by telling them parables to illustrate their sin and hard-heartedness. He loved those broken in sin by giving them true forgiveness and a new heart. And he even loved the religious hypocrites by spending lots of time with them, trying to correct their many errors and pleading with them to turn away from their hypocrisy. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were Pharisees who very well seemed to have been saved by the Lord in his ministry. But along the way of his doing good and speaking the truth, confronting sin, saving souls, healing people, he made many enemies. Many enemies. In the book of Psalms, you can't help but notice over and over again the way that the psalm writers constantly refer to my enemies, our enemies. They're constantly praying that God would subdue their enemies, destroy their enemies, save their enemies, give them peace because of the constant pursuit of their enemies and the constant hatred of their enemies, the constant scheming of their enemies. True disciples of Christ, if you are a true disciple of Christ, as the darkness gets thicker and thicker around you, you're going to have enemies. You're going to have people that will not like you. You're going to be persecuted. Paul guaranteed it to Timothy in the last letter he wrote to him. In 2 Timothy 3.12, indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. He told Timothy that. For Jesus, the opposition, however, was complete. They attributed the wonderful miracles. They attributed the most loving, righteous deeds ever done by a human being in the history of time to Satan. They said he does this by the power of the devil, by the power of the Lord of the dung, the Lord of the flies. That's what Beelzebul means. Isn't that interesting? Isn't it interesting when you read through the Gospels? None of Jesus' hearers ever thought to say about him, he's a really good man, a really good teacher, a really good instructor of morals. You see, the liberal Jesus didn't exist when Jesus was on the earth. The liberal Jesus was unknown when he was alive because people were always confronted with the real Jesus. The one who polarized people, divided people, upset families, set people against one another. He's called the Prince of Peace. And yet he said, don't make any mistake about this. I didn't come to bring peace on earth, but a sword. I came to polarize people and he's done it ever since. The liberal Jesus, the figment of many people's imaginations, would never have been crucified. Because like those that believe in him, he would have believed nothing and stood for nothing. Why would anyone hate a person who walked around telling everyone just to be nice all the time? And Jesus was hated because he was absolute. He was utterly uncompromising in his absolute. He said statements that offend people so much even to this day. John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but through me. The late Walter Martin, the founder of the Christian Research Institute, tells the story of street preaching in New York City. He'd go out there on Times Square and preach, and there'd be hundreds of people, and there was this chemistry professor. He'd be standing there with his elbow patches and his pipe, and he was widely read in philosophy and theology, and he would say, Dr. Martin, why? Why do you have to do all this? I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but through Jesus, and it's only Jesus. Why can't there be many ways? And hey, I got nothing against Jesus. Jesus is great. He's a great, wonderful, moral man. And Walter Martin finally said to this guy, you say Jesus is a good man. Yeah, definitely. You say that he did a lot of good in this world. Yes, he did. You say he taught people a lot of good morals. Yes, he did. You think he's a righteous man. Yes, he was righteous. Then why don't you believe him? The chemistry professor sat back, put his pipe in his mouth. That's a good question. Therefore, I said to you, you will die in your sins. Unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins. That's why people hated him. And in so far as you reflect that same truth to the world around you, they're not gonna like it either. You know, people will say that I have no problem with Jesus, he's great. He did a lot of good. You need to train yourself to say in response to people that say that, you don't know the Jesus I'm talking about then. You're either for or against the true Jesus. To be indifferent to Christ is to be against him. My father used to tell me that when I was young. He said, when it comes to Jesus, inaction is action. Inaction is action. Choosing to do nothing with him and his claims is to decide against him. What's incredible about this particular passage, and indeed about the teaching of the whole Bible, it divides the entirety of humanity, whether they've ever heard of Christ or not, into two groups. And people try their best to say, no, no, no, there's more, there's more options than just the two, but there aren't. If you are indifferent to Jesus, you are on the same team as the people who said he did his miracles by Satan. I remember D. James Kennedy in evangelism explosion training said that when he encountered people who were indifferent to the gospel, he would tell them, your spiritual condition is every bit as bad as the high priest of the first church of Satan in your neighborhood. You're in the same group with Satan worshipers. You see, the liberal church, the church that has abandoned the gospel, abandoned the Bible, abandoned even the concept of truth, that teaches the morals of Jesus, but refuses to teach the gospel of Jesus, crucified for sinners, buried for sinners, raised from the dead for sinners, is just as much on Satan's side as the great divide in humanity, as the radical atheist, the Wicca practitioner, or Moloch worshipers in ancient Canaan. Isn't that frightening? How many people mount pulpits wearing clerical collars and vestments or a suit who don't believe in the truth? And they are every bit on the side of these people who said Jesus is doing his works by Satan, as they are. What a terrible thing it is indeed to think of the multitudes of people who have sat in churches Sunday after Sunday, never heard the true gospel, never been called to repent of their sin, who have died confident that they're going to go to heaven, only to regain their consciousness after they close their eyes in death to awaken in hell. In our Lord's discourse here, he spells it out so clearly in the last verse of the passage, verse 23, you see it? He who is not with me is against me, he says. And he who does not gather with me scatters. If your life is not a conduit through which the love of God gathers people to the Lord, if you're not gathering with him because you're a Christian and all the occupations that you have, all the stations in life, in your house, your family, work, everywhere else, you are scattering people. You either gather with him or you scatter people. In difference to Jesus, you are a scatterer. Just remember the only reason people today talk about the good Jesus, Jesus was a good teacher. Jesus was a wonderful man. He taught people to love each other. The reason people think that way is because they don't know Jesus and apparently have never heard of him. All they've heard of is that word, Jesus. They've never met the real one. And the task of the church is to uphold and to example and to model to the world who the real Jesus is. So they're forced to a decision. And ministers especially have to be clear. The time for clarity is now. And the time to address the difficult issues of our time is now. At a professor in seminary, Dr. Derek Thomas said, the problem with pastors today is nobody wants to kill them. It used to be really dangerous to be a minister. You stood up in ancient Rome and said all the gods that you all worship, none of them exist. And in fact, if you believe that you're going to go to hell for eternity, that was dangerous stuff. Jesus won't allow for the patronizing nonsense that people say about Him today. He is either the Son of God and Savior of the world, or He was the closest thing to pure evil that a man could ever be. A liar and a deceiver. There is no third option. If we are not for Jesus, we are against Him. Now listen closely now. Can you hear me? If you are for a false Jesus, you're against the real one. How many people say nice things about Jesus? They're not talking about the real Jesus. And Paul already was dealing with that. 2 Corinthians 11, mark it in your Bible. It says people come preach another Jesus. You guys here in Corinth are so messed up, you might actually put up with it. There's all kinds of Jesuses running all over the place. The Jesus of Mormons, the Jesus of the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Jesus of the liberals, the Jesus of the Unitarians, and then there's the biblical Jesus, the one that offended people, the one that got himself crucified, and the one whose followers, if they are faithful to him as his disciples, will be hated just as he was. If you are for a false Jesus, you are against the real Jesus. What our Lord demonstrates so well here is the irrationality, the folly of any position other than the truth. Jesus is the son of God who cast out demons and healed by the finger of God. He brought salvation by the finger of God and practically abolished disease from that corner of the world during his public ministry. The healing power just gushed out of him. He was healing people all day, casting out demons all day. How irrational is it to attribute what he did and taught to the devil? But you see, what other alternative could these people take than that? The liberal option wasn't available. They were watching it happen. The miracles were undeniable. His wisdom undeniable. His love for people was so very real. His truth telling, it was profound. All they could do was either submit to him, believe on him, or engage in totally irrational foolishness by calling him the devil. What an amazing thing. Rather than submitting to the obvious truth right in front of them, they would rather call the son of God, Satan. There is no neutrality here when it comes to the real Jesus. The liberal Jesus will let you be neutral, the real one will not. There is no neutrality, there are no fence sitters. There was a young man at the church in Cincinnati who took a philosophy class at a local college and we met to talk about some of the things this professor was saying and the professor had a blog and I was scrolling down through his blog and he had an entry with this title, when it comes to religion, I am like Switzerland, completely neutral. FYI, that guy is completely 1,000% against Christ. thousand percent against Christ, an enemy of God, an enemy of the truth. The relativism, the studied ambiguity where nobody today wants to make any absolute truth claims about anything except that you can't make absolute truth claims, which is an absolute truth claim, just FYI. And the multitudes of people who follow this way of thinking are just as much against Christ as the people in this narrative before us. And people might read this and think, oh no, no, no, no, I would never say that Jesus was the devil. Yes, but you're on their same team though. If you don't submit to him as the son of God and believe in him, you're on that side of the aisle. When you hear politicians today talk about their religious beliefs and how their religious beliefs, that's not, I don't bring that into my politics. I don't bring that into my policymaking. They are as ignorant as a person could be or they're lying. Your religious beliefs, your worldview determines absolutely every ethical and moral decision that you make. Their religion, be it secular, atheism, Mormonism, Hinduism, or whatever, will be at the beating heart of everything they say, politically. Their priorities, their moral stances, and etc. There is no neutrality with these kinds of things. Everyone has a position. Everyone is either for or against Jesus, the Son of God. Truth incarnate, salvation incarnate. And to claim neutrality is to decide against Him. To claim you haven't made up your mind yet is to decide against Christ. The smug indifference to truth and its inherently exclusive character is the great folly of our time. People really do believe they have no commitments. That they are nothing but open-minded. We're just open-minded. And they will plug their ears and shut their eyes and scream as loudly as possible that they're open-minded all the while they are the most closed-minded, bigoted, intolerant human beings ever to walk the face of the earth. It's an excellent book. I wish everyone would buy it and read it. It's called The Closing of the American Mind. by Harold Bloom. He's not a Christian. It's an excellent book. It's called The Closing of the American Mind, subtitled How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students. Harold Bloom, listen to the opening paragraph of the book. Just the opening paragraph is worth reflection. Here is the opening salvo of the book. Quote, there is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of. Almost every student entering the university believes or says he believes that truth is relative. If this belief is put to the test, one can count on the student's reaction. They will be uncomprehending. That anyone should regard the proposition as not self-evident that truth is relative, it astonishes them, as though he were calling into question that 2 plus 2 equals 4. These are the things you don't think about. The students' backgrounds are as various as America can provide. Some are religious, some are atheists, some lean to the left, some lean to the right, some intend to be scientists, some humanists or professionals or businessmen, some are poor, some rich. They are unified only in their relativism and in their allegiance to equality. The danger they have been taught to fear from absolutism is not error, but intolerance. Relativism is necessary to openness. And this is the virtue, the only virtue, which all primary education for more than 50 years has dedicated itself to inculcating. Openness and the relativism that makes it the only plausible stance in the face of various claims to truth and various ways of life and kinds of human beings is the great insight of our times. Listen to the last sentence. The true believer is the real danger." The true believer, they're the dangerous one. And what they fail to recognize is that their own bigoted, closed-mindedness is perfect and complete. They are the most closed-minded people there are. You see the irony of the title of the book, The Closing of the American Mind? It's closed down on the concept of being open-minded. Isn't that ironic? Here again is another example of what a great opportunity that we have before us to reintroduce the historic Christian faith, even to the Bible Belt. If professors and universities all over this country can be absolutely certain that every student they encounter, whether they call themselves Christians or not, believe that truth is relative, The small pockets of gospel-believing and preaching churches can assume, can you hear me? They can assume that everyone you meet, churchgoers or atheists, have never heard the true gospel. You can almost make that assumption pretty much now. No matter who you're talking to, whether they go to church or not, they've never heard the true gospel. This passage here demonstrates the power and potency of the conflict between the two groups of humanity acknowledged by humanity's maker. Those who are for Christ, those who are against him. And people may wonder how someone could be against Christ if they've never heard of him. One does not need to know about Jesus to oppose him. People oppose Christ in all the various forms that false religion takes. When it's all said and done, there is only the truth and then there's all of truth's competitors. There's the Bible, there's God's word, and then there's man's word. There's a fundamental antithesis between the two things. The narrative here illustrates well the stubborn foolishness of unbelief as well as the necessity of decision when it comes to Jesus. He forced people to decide. His presence polarized people. And if the church is not a polarizing influence in culture, it's because it's not teaching what Jesus said. It's not teaching what the Bible says. One author insightfully wrote this, I'm trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Jesus. I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg, or else he would be the devil of hell. You must make a choice. Either this man was and is the son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool. You can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to." Christians are very much ignored today. We're ignored today. precisely because it's no longer clear what it is we believe. The last thing millennials want anyone to think about them is that they're intolerant. Millennials don't like the absolute truth claims of scripture. But the truth by nature is intolerant, isn't it? Two plus two is four. I minored in math when I was in college and my calculus professor was very intolerant of my mistakes and marked them all wrong. Jesus did not tolerate error and falsehood. And the world not only hated him, it lied about him. It lied about him, slandered him, accused him of being Satan himself, and then murdered him on the cross. False witnesses were bribed to testify against Jesus at the kangaroo court at the Sanhedrin, and they lied about him. As we walk through this brief narrative, remember what Jesus taught his disciples. If we really are his followers, he told his disciples in the upper room there in John 15, 18, if the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. And then listen to the next thing he tells them. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. So much of the church today seems to want nothing more than that. To be of the world, to be loved by the world, to be affirmed by the world. But Jesus is saying, but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this, the world hates you. Because you won't go along with the status quo. Because you stand firmly planted upon biblical truth and righteousness, they will hate you. Remember the word that I said to you, a slave is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also. And the gospel accounts, people faced with the real Jesus, not the Jesus of Oprah, not the Jesus of Ellen DeGeneres, not the Jesus of Joel Osteen, but the real one, the real one. Just remember, when you read the gospels, Jesus polarized everyone because they were always dealing with the real Jesus. It was always the real one. He was there talking to people. They got the real Jesus when they met him and talked to him and saw what he did. And therefore the polarizing effect was absolute. You see it here? They called him the devil. He's Satan. People either received and loved him or they wanted him dead and they slandered and lied about him. In fact, what is said by some of the people here, notice that this confrontation is not with Pharisees, it's not with scribes or Sadducees, it's with some of them who were there. So this is just the lay people, this is just normal people that were there. Some of the people, some of them, is probably what the religious leaders had conspired to teach them about Jesus. They heard from their leaders about Jesus doing what he did by the power of Satan. There's no doubt. There's a very clear conspiracy among the Jewish religious leaders and the establishment to lie about Jesus at this time. Has that changed at all? Does the world still lie about Christians today? If they really are Christians, if they stand for the truth? All the time, constantly. You see that all over scripture. When Jesus argued with the Jews at the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem there in John 8, they said to him, do we not say rightly that you're a Samaritan and have a demon? Where'd they hear that? The Pharisees and the scribes and the religious teachers taught them that. How utterly blasphemous. To call a Jew, which Jesus was, a Samaritan, was to call him what amounted to a racial slur at the time. The Samaritans were half-breeds. They were the leftovers from the Northern tribes that entered bread with the pagan Assyrians. They had a truncated Bible. Their worship was messed up. They were nobodies. That's bad. But to call the incarnation of God who came to die in the place of sinners, demon-possessed, is blasphemy on another level, isn't it? The religious leaders knew all about Jesus. They were jealous of Jesus. Jealousy is a horrifying and terrible sin. It makes people do vile and wicked things. Jealousy is one of the most potent and horrible vices we could ever have, envy. Remember Saul's jealousy of David? It led him to murderous rage, necromancy, and ultimately suicide. Even Pilate knew that Jesus had been handed over to him by the Jews because of envy. He could tell, he could tell, these guys are jealous of this guy. James 3.16, where envy and self-seeking exists, confusion and every evil thing are there. That's true in the church too. If there's envy and self-seeking in a church, there's confusion and every evil thing present. Proverbs 27.4, wrath is cruel and anger a torrent. Anger and wrath, man's anger and wrath are usually bad and don't bring about the kind of life that God desires, but that proverb continues. Proverbs 27.4, but who is able to stand before jealousy? Wrath and anger are bad, but jealousy, people can't even stand up in front of it. Jewish leaders have put a law in place because of jealousy. That if anyone said he was the Messiah, they would be excommunicated from the synagogue. In fact, there's even a Greek word for that, apasunagagas, out of the synagogue. And it's used three times in John's gospel. Remember the man born blind that Jesus healed? He spat on the ground and put clay on his eyes and he washed off in the pool of Siloam and comes back seeing? And that guy was kind of sassy, wasn't he? He told those religious leaders, well, this is pretty shocking. You guys have no idea who he is. He opened my eyes and I was born blind. And they even bring in his parents. Remember the parents? The parents were scared. They didn't want to talk. They didn't want to get in trouble. They didn't want to say anything nice about Jesus, despite the fact they had a baby boy that was born blind and was now an adult, still blind. And now he could see. They were unmoved by that for their son. And it says in John 9.22, his parents said, ask him, he is of age, because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had agreed already, if anyone confessed he was Christ, he'd be put out of the synagogue. Jesus' power and ministry, however, did have converts even among the rulers. You know that? Many of the rulers, many of the rulers of Israel believed in Jesus. Listen to it, John 12, 42. Nevertheless, even among the rulers, many believed in him, but because of the Pharisees, they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue. The people have been indoctrinated with lies. They've been indoctrinated with lies by the religious leaders. The religious people of the time conspired to lie about Jesus. They do it today as well, about Christians. They call goodness incarnate, pure evil. And they even use the most reprehensible title imaginable. Instead of Satan, instead of the devil, they use the word Beelzebul. Beelzebul means Lord of the flies. In other words, he's the Lord of dung, the Lord of excrement. And bear in mind that this was their answer to undeniable miracles done in their presence. They watched him do miracles and said, he's doing it by the power of the Lord of Dove. To attribute the power by which the Lord did these things to Satan is irrational beyond all reckoning. Listen to me, Satan did not heal people. Satan hurts people. He tortures people. He kills people. He is a murderer of people, a tempter, one who schemes constantly to destroy humanity. So dedicated to sin is humanity apart from regeneration that they could look into the face of a newly cleansed person who was no longer ruined by the presence of a demon and actually able to speak after being mute and say, he did that by the power of the devil. That's hard heartedness, isn't it? That's irrational and foolish and spiritually reckless. Such is the nature of all unbelief though, isn't it? There is no escape. Okay, you're all immortal. You all are gonna live for eternity. We all live for eternity. There's no escape, we'll all be judged. Let this passage stand as a clear warning and as a clear blessing. Everyone with no exceptions is either for or against Christ. So what are you? Don't give me the liberal Jesus stuff. That's not the real Jesus. If you like the liberal Jesus, you're against the real one. Look at verse 14. And he was casting out a demon and it was mute. When the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke and the crowds were amazed. This is very common in the Lord's ministry, casting out demons was an almost constant act of kindness he did for people. The apostles did the same thing. This particular man was unable to speak but immediately begins to speak and as always the crowds were amazed by this. Even Christ's enemies were amazed at what he did. But listen, being amazed is not conversion. Being amazed by the Lord is not the same thing as believing in him. Look at verse 15. But some of them said, again, I just want to emphasize, this is just the people. These aren't the Pharisees or the religious leaders. Some of them said, he cast out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons. They attributed the wonderful miracle working power which Jesus only ever used to help and liberate and free and heal people to the chief God of the Philistine city of Ekron, Lord of the flies, Lord of dung. What a perfectly terrible thing to say about this wonderful work of power and mercy and love shown to this mute man. But you need to hear me. That was the party line. That was what they were all supposed to say. Many of them were probably fearful of saying anything other than that. This is what their leaders indoctrinated them to say and believe. And there was fear attached to this as well. We already saw that even when people were faced with undeniable miracles, miracles so unbelievable that no one had ever heard of such things. Like the man who had been born blind, his parents were afraid to insinuate anything positive about Jesus. Think about that. If you have children, if one of them was born with a handicap, what would it do to you to see them as an adult suddenly completely healed from it? Apart from regeneration, you might be still hanging on to sin and not wanting to identify with Jesus. Later in the book of Acts, we see the Jews pursuing the apostles from city to city and doing everything in their power to disrupt, to stop the forward progress of the gospel. It's no wonder God annihilated and destroyed Israel in AD 70. And while there were some Jews and even a few Jewish leaders who believed in Christ, the majority could not contain their hatred of him. As a point of application, dear congregation, we need to be ready for the same kind of irrational hatred of the truth today. There are very, very few Christians left in our country who speak the truth. There are very few. Pardon me. In fact, I did a podcast this past week. Someone compiled the worst of the worst speeches from the General Assembly of 2019. And I listened to it before I walked through it in a podcast and it almost brought me to tears. It's horrendous stuff. To listen to men who are supposed to be the gatekeepers of the church, the holders of the keys of the kingdom, say such inane things is shocking. So many have compromised so that they're not singled out as pariahs. So they're not hated on. So many people in the name of evangelism have dumbed down the truth and wiped it away. So many are more influenced by TV talk show hosts than they are by the Bible, by Christ. But the rise of darkness, remember, once again, it gives light a chance to be seen that much brighter. When Jesus walked on the earth, the people who saw him had to deal with him as he really was. His enemies were seething in their hate and their temper tantrums of childishness. A mute, demon-possessed man is perfectly healed and cleansed, and they say it's by the power of Satan, by Beelzebul, that he did it. Can I look at verse 16? Others to test him were demanding of him a sign from heaven. Signs and wonders that ought to satisfy anyone had already been done by the Lord before these people. They were not honest truth seekers, but blasphemers and scoffers firmly committed to their sin. They did this merely to test him. Later in this chapter, Jesus tells them that they will be given the greatest sign imaginable. The whole generation will be given a sign and wonder which will stand as an irrefutable fact through all the rest of the ages of time. His bodily resurrection from the dead. And Luke 11, 29, Luke jumped down there just a little bit. And while the crowds were thickly gathered together, he began to say, this is an evil generation. It seeks a sign and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was in the belly of the great fish three days and three nights, so the son of man will be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights and will rise again. And here in verse 16, they're demanding from him a sign from heaven as if this would refute their charge that he was in league with the devil himself. The signs and wonders which our Lord accomplished were unique and the grandest sign for that evil generation would be unlike anything anyone would ever see or hear of again in history. Jesus rose from the dead. And remember, Elijah and Elisha, they raised people from the dead. Jesus raised people from the dead. But here we have something different. Jesus raises himself from the dead. Remember he told his hearers, I have power to lay my life down. I have power to take it up again. That's what he did. And to this day, the explanations of skeptics and critics and anti-supernaturalists that they've come up with to debunk the resurrection as a historical fact, every one of their explanations requires an even greater miracle than the resurrection itself. The resurrection of Christ is a fact, an irrefutable fact. It is a fact which any honest jury in any court of law, with any concern for truth, would uphold as having absolutely, positively, and without question happened. But Jesus explains the hardness of man's dead heart and soul and sin in his parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Remember that parable? Remember when the rich man is being tormented in the place of the damned in Hades and he begs Abraham, send Lazarus to warn my brothers about this awful place. And Abraham tells the rich man in hell, if they don't hear Moses and the prophets, they won't believe, they won't be persuaded if someone rises from the dead. The soldiers who guarded Jesus's tomb were paid to lie. They knew full well he was alive. They knew full well what had happened. They were eyewitnesses of it. They saw the angel roll away the stone. They became like dead men. They saw it all. Matthew 28, 12, when they had assembled the guards with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers saying, tell them his disciples came at night and stole him away while we slept. People demand signs and miracles. They do it today too. Not realizing that what they really need is supernatural life from on high. You ever notice the scoffer, the unbeliever, never says, I wish your God would just make me born again. It's always, I want to see a magic show. I want to see miracles. Miracles do testify of God's messengers. And Jesus even said to his doubters and enemies in John 10, 25, the works I do in my father's name, they bear witness of me. And later, Jesus even says to them in John 10, 38, though you don't believe me, believe the works that you may know and believe that the father is in me and I in him. There's no shortage of evidence that he gave people to believe in him. But the hardness and unbelief of Jesus' opponents, even in the face of an unending array of miracles, is a long illustration of the patience of the triune God, as well as the absolute need that every human being has for regeneration. For the new birth. God doesn't do that. He can snow miracles all day, every day, and it's not going to have any effect. The Holy Spirit's work is the sole moving force in the conversion of a dead sinner to Christ. It's not by baptism. It's not by physical birth. It's not objectively given through sacraments. It is entirely and only the subjective work of the Holy Spirit. And apart from that sovereign and almighty work, every single human being is decidedly and forever and for the rest of eternity will be against Jesus. You're either for me or against me. The verse 16, demand for a sign. Show us a sign. Isn't that amazing? The people always wanted signs right after he just did one. Isn't that bizarre? Show us a sign. Just once again, that's how dark the human heart is. When skeptics and scoffers today demand that God part some oceans, raise the dead, do some miracles in their presence, they show the hardness of their hearts too. But here, the some that are being spoken of here, some who said this, said he cast out demons successfully by the devil himself, are using a patently absurd argument. And look at verses 17 through 19. Look how Jesus exposes it. But he knew their thoughts and said to them, any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a house divided against itself falls. If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul. And if I, by Beelzebul, cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? So they will be your judges. See, there were all kinds of itinerant Jewish exorcists that went all over the place, exorcising demons. And there's even a narrative about that in the book of Acts where the seven sons of Sceva, they go to cast out a demon. Remember what the demon says? Paul I know, Jesus I know, who are you? And the man jumps on them and beats them all up and they all run out of the house naked and bleeding, it says. Those itinerant Jewish exorcists, they were hucksters. They were not the real article. And Jesus is like, look, I'm actually doing what they pretend to do. And if you're saying I do it by the devil, by whom are they doing it? See the argument from the greater to the lesser there? Satan's kingdom is not divided against itself. Demons don't cast one another out of people. They all hate people together. They all ruin people together, united in that purpose. And what they said didn't make any sense. Satan casting out Satan? Why would they think that? The answer is easy. They didn't want to believe in Jesus. We will believe what is irrational so that we don't have to bow the knee to Jesus. They said that. He cast out demons by Beelzebul for the very same reason that people today say evolution is a fact. I had a friend that did missions in China. He said he would talk to people about what they believed in and people would say, I believe in Darwin. I believe in Darwin. They don't want to believe that they're the special creation of God. It is shocking and astounding thing to consider how much people's desires will affect what they believe to be true. So strong are people's desires and affections that they can look at creation, what the infinite wisdom and power of God created in all of its immensity, glory, and unimaginable complexity, and actually say, that's just an accident. People can lock eyes with a newborn baby. And because of their affection for sin, they can bring themselves to say and actually believe, look what blind and purposeless chance plus time plus motion made by accident. Jesus identified love and hate as the source of all unbelief. Love and hate. Love for sin, hatred for light. He said in John 3, 19, this is the condemnation. Light is coming to the world. Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light. Loving darkness, hating light. That's why people said this. Yeah, that man, that mute guy can speak now and he's totally cleansed and back in his right mind and has his life given back to him. Satan must've done it. That's obviously false. But we'll believe whatever we have to, no matter how absurd, to keep from repenting of our sin. Jesus said, I am the light of the world. If sin is a person's first love, if darkness is what they love, then confrontation with the true Jesus, with the true light of God, will provoke a very hostile reaction. And this is why they attributed his wonderful, miraculous deeds of compassion to the devil. This is why they screamed to the world that Jesus was exactly the opposite of what he was and is. Jesus dismisses their argument as absurd. Not even Satan is divided against himself. He doesn't force demons out of people in order to help them. Now, we don't really know, do the demons get along with each other or not? We don't know. But they all seem to have one grand purpose, to ruin, kill, and deceive images of God. It is not by Satan that Jesus cast out demons, but notice what he says in verse 20. But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. So you can either believe something completely irrational and foolish, or here's the truth. The kingdom of God is here. That expression, the finger of God, it's actually taken, the Greek there is taken exactly identically from the Greek Old Testament. Remember the third plague in Egypt? The lice? Remember what Pharaoh's magician said to Pharaoh after they saw this one? Moses smacked that rod on the ground and the dust became lice and covered everything. They said, Pharaoh, this is the finger of God. This is the finger of God. We can't do... Water to blood. Yeah, we've got red dye. We can fake that one. Frogs. Yeah, magician Amhotep III keeps them in his pocket. We can fake that one too. Dust to lice everywhere. Pharaoh, this is the finger of God. This guy's God is the real God. Because Jesus' opponents claimed that he was casting out demons by Satan, it was irrational. The only real alternative is that it was the real power of the real God, by the finger of God. And if this is the finger of God doing this, then these people were face to face with the kingdom of God. Now look at the last verses there, 21, 22. When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are undisturbed. But when someone stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied and distributes his plunder. Okay, stop there. Satan and all of his hosts and all their lies and deception will not and cannot stop the Lord Jesus from plundering his possessions. Jesus, when he came into the world, he bound Satan and has thrown him into the pit for a thousand years so that he can deceive the nations no more. When the gospel is preached, the kingdom of the devil is destroyed. And Jesus continues to plunder his house and take his possessions. You want proof of that? Look to your right and to your left. There's a lot of Christian people here. We were taken from Satan's house by Jesus after he bound up the strong man. Hebrews 2.14, in as much then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared in the same, that through death he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is the devil. And therefore we have hope for all the lost people we know. Satan cannot keep his hold on them. Their love for darkness, their hatred for light, it can be turned by the Lord to a love for light. Their bondage to sin can be broken by His gracious, loving, and almighty power. Never stop praying for it. Be persistent. Every time Jesus forgives a sinner and reconciles them to God, another of Satan's possessions has been plundered. And look at the last verse again, finally, verse 23. He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. As we noted at the beginning, this wraps up all of humanity. Everyone is either for or against Christ. Jesus is either God in human flesh and the Savior of the world, or He's the greatest deceiver and blasphemer ever to walk the earth. Believing he was such a deceiver is irrational. It's as irrational as thinking that Satan and demons cast each other out of people. It's irrational, it's illogical, and it's foolish. But if he did what he did by the finger of God, which he did, then the kingdom of God has come upon us. Thanks be to God for his irresistible, regenerating work. Does this not show you what you would be without that? Watching Jesus do miracles is just a trick of Satan. We'd all be saying it. If God didn't change our hearts, we'd all be saying it. That great hymn, who is on the Lord's side? It ends with what rings in the hearts of all of God's children. That final line says, by thy call of mercy, by thy grace divine, we are on the Lord's side, Savior, we are thine. That's right, not by our will or our decision or our birth or baptism, but by thy call of mercy, by thy grace, I am on his side and not Satan's. Isn't it a wonderful joy to love Jesus instead of hating Him? Don't you love Him? If you feel a sense of mourning, I don't love Him the way I should. I do too. But there is some love there for Him. And there's certainly no hatred for Him. It's a wonderful thing to love Him and to be on His side. It's a wonderful joy to agree with Him and to agree with His word and what it says about sin and all the issues of our time. We are on the Lord's side. Let us always be on the Lord's side. and let us never fail to uphold and defend his honor in the face of all the lies that people continue to say about him. Let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you for giving us scripture and for giving us a heart to know and believe and embrace what it says. Not to scoff at it, not to chafe at it, not to push it away, but we welcome your word into our hearts and we want it to reside there and to transform us. We are on your side. Every miracle you did, including making us alive in Christ by your sovereign spirit, was done by the finger of God. We bless and praise your name for that work. We are on your side. We are on your side. And may your truth and your cause never suffer loss because of us. In Jesus' name, amen.