The Non-gospel Gospel message — Luke 11-12

0:12 Well, was asked to bring Bible and guitar. So, I did both this song is called Psalm 42, Loudest Praise by Shannon Shane. Some of you may know it but it comes right out of Psalm one forty two. I think the words will be up there.

0:38 As the deer pants for the water,

0:46 so my soul

0:50 pants for you. All my tears have been my father. Day and night, Day by day, you hold me fast. And though my soul, open Jesus, the to

4:09 the

4:20 break a scratch and bring me falling to my knees. It goes on and on and on. Where is my God? My salvation is in you. You alone to come out bow.

4:44 Oh, kneeling water.

6:07 It involves people talking about Jesus, his family, specifically his mother and in other places his brothers. And that is in Matthew, chapter 12 and Mark, chapter three. What we're going to look at today is in Luke, chapter 15. I am not saying that that is a parallel passage. Studied on this now and there's a lot of different views as to if it's a parallel passage or if it's not.

6:36 I'm not going to debate that much today other than to say, I think there's things we can draw from both both places. So that being said, I will reference Matthew 12. I'm not going to keep giving this disclaimer every time you guys. I'm kind of leaky on whether I am thinking that's parallel passage or not, but hopefully we don't break fellowship over that. So in Luke chapter 11 verses 14 to 28, I think we'll just start by reading it here.

7:05 And so this is from the Legacy Standard Bible, which is kind of like an updated New American Standard without some of the weird things that the 2020 version did in that update. But it says, and he was casting out a demon that it was mute. Now it happened that when the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke and the crowds marveled. But some of them said he casts out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons. And the others testing him were seeking from him a sign from heaven.

7:41 But he knew their thoughts and said to them, any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste and a house divided against itself falls. But if Satan's, if if Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? And 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? For this reason, 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.

8:14 When a strong man fully armed guards his house, 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. When the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest. And not finding any, it says, will return to my house from which I came.

8:47 And when it comes, it'll find it swept and put in order. Then it goes and takes along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in there and live. And the last state of the man becomes worse than the first. Now it happened that while Jesus was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, blessed is the womb that bore you and the breast at which you nursed. And he said, on the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.

9:17 Let's let's go to the Lord prayer. Father, we thank you for this time to meet here this morning as we we finished well, hope we didn't finish it for the week but we we started our week off with remembering your son and what he did for us on the cross. The great sacrifice it was and how we can receive salvation through it. We pray that you bless our time now in these next minutes. Speak through me that it would be clear, but that it would be your word spoken and none of my own.

9:45 It's in your name we pray. Amen. Not a big on having a title necessarily for for a message unless it's like a topical thing. But this... I I got a title though for you guys today.

10:05 It it it kind of just jumped out, I thought, of of the passage. And it's gonna sound really weird, but I'll just share with you and I'll explain it and hopefully, Lord willing, it'll make sense. The title I would give this is the non gospel gospel message. Okay. This passage does not specifically show the gospel message itself, but I think it will beckon for it as we work our way through this passage.

10:35 There... We're gonna find that there is no neutrality with Christ. You are either for him or you are against him. No middle ground. And when we see that we are either for him or we are against him, we are gonna see our need for the gospel message.

10:51 So if you're like, alright, well, we got the cliff notes. We can go to Applebee's now. You could do that, but you're going to miss the meet in the middle. So we hope that you won't, but we'll get started here back in verse 11. Verse 14, sorry.

11:43 I mean, didn't even take up a whole verse. It literally says, he was casting out a demon and like he spoke. It was out. That was it. Not even a whole verse for that, which leads me to believe that's probably not the main purpose of Luke sharing this in this text.

11:58 But we see that this demon was mute, which in turn made the man mute. He was unable to speak, which we could assume we don't know this, but that means he probably was deaf as well. Sometimes those things come hand in hand. Matthew's account, again, remember my disclaimer, but Matthew's account, if you think that's the same, lists him also as blind. And so, I mean, just a state of, for sure, even the deafness, not being able to hear or to speak, in this case mute, that would be very tough.

12:33 But once Jesus cast this demon out, the man could could then speak. And that brings us to what I'm going to lay out for you as three categories of people. Okay? There are really only two categories. You're gonna have to follow me with this.

12:49 There's really two categories, for him or against him. But I think that as humans, especially people outside the church, hopefully the folks inside the church of believers wouldn't look at it this way. They would know the scriptures and know that you're either for him or against him. But I believe that on the outside of the church looking at Christians or faith or religion in general, it appears that there's three groups and we're going to define them as we go through them. In this first group, we meet in chapter 14.

13:21 It says, when the demon had gone, the mute man spoke and the crowds marveled. They admired what happened. I don't know that I would place this group in the category of saying they're believers. I think it's the closest of the three that we're going to have, but they at least were not negative toward what they saw. They admired.

13:42 They they stood in awe and marveled at what had happened. And they didn't show any negativity. And then we get to verse 15. But some of them said he cast out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons, which brings our second group to be introduced, and that would be those who are hostile towards Christ. And they attributed him doing this exorcism, this casting of a demon out of this man as doing it by the power of Beelzebul or Beelzebub, depending on translation.

14:15 And so my question was, who is Beelzebul? Who is this guy? We... Then simplest way to say it is he would be Satan, the leader of of the demons. It does come from second Kings chapter one verse two.

14:32 You can look that up later, but his original name was Baal Zebul, which means prince or king of princes. God of the gods, if you will. He was the most kind of hated and looked down on person by the Jews to the point where they renamed him Beelzebub. So went from king of the princes to now Beelzebub, king of the flies. It's kind of their way of just saying, yeah, we want nothing to do with that.

15:02 That's ridiculous. Do you guys know where flies hang out? I know when no one wants to say this inside in a church building, around poop, a manure pile. And so another way to say this is King of the flies or Lord of the dunghill. So this god, and I'm saying god, you can't see it on my notes, but it's a lowercase g, again was considered to be the most hated of the false gods.

15:30 He was the worst and chief of the demons. And so for them to attribute this miracle, this exorcism as doing it by the power of Satan Beelzebul, that's a new low. If you read through the scriptures, I mean, the the Pharisees didn't like Jesus. You know, at first, they probably didn't know a whole lot of... And then their their disdain for him grew to the point now where they're...

15:52 They are saying the miracles he's doing are through the power of Satan. That is a new low. We will talk about that more in verse 20 when we get to that. So that's our first two groups. Our third group is gonna show up here in verse 16 and it says, the others tested him, they were seeking a sign from him from heaven.

16:17 These are the skeptics, the people who who are skeptical. They wanted to see a sign from heaven. The scholars that I looked into said this literally, they wanted to see some sort of celestial, I think I said that right, reorganization, some some sign in the skies. As if a demon possessed man that couldn't ever speak, now can speak the demon's gone. That wasn't good enough for them.

16:44 They wanted something more. And I would say that that we have this going on today. People want to see a sign. They want something more outside of scripture. And he does address this in verse 29, but if you'll notice, I'm going to verse 28.

17:03 So any good storyteller would say, you'll have to come back next week to find out. Assuming Mr. Torah goes there. So now we're at verses seventeen and eighteen. It says about Jesus, but he knew their thoughts and said to them, any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste and a house divided against itself falls.

18:05 And if you've ever gone into a like a not a confrontation because we don't go into those, but a situation where there may be a hard conversation to have. I don't think you guys and I are much different, but usually we we try and pre have that conversation before we get to that moment where we're like, alright, I'm gonna say this. And there might, they're going to say this maybe. And so if they say that, then I'll say this. But if they don't say that and they say this, I'm going to say that and we do this and it's like Jesus saw and knew the whole conversation, their defenses, their cover ups, their arguments, everything.

18:44 I mean, that's that's crazy. But he says that the kingdom or house divided itself cannot stand. Obviously, the text, we know he's referring to the kingdom of God or the kingdom of Satan. But at this very moment and ever since the time of Jeroboam, there was a splintered nation. Now they did towards the end of second Chronicles, came back together.

19:07 But you got to believe there were still some factions and things that that maybe weren't getting along or seen eye to eye. You obviously have the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They you know, they got along great, obviously. No, they didn't. They had issues.

19:21 They were divided. Of the early teachers of the Jewish law, Halil and Shammai who were teaching all about these things, taught from two different point of views. You got to go outside God's word and read early church history to see some of that. And then we know the Jews didn't know this at the time, but several decades later Jerusalem was going to fall to the Romans and the kingdom would fall with it. And so I'm not saying that's what Jesus meant when he said a kingdom divided will fall, but it is interesting to look at.

20:00 If Satan, though, back to the text, attacks his own, how will he stand? We would we call that friendly fire. You know, when you shoot your own guy in the back. And I was gonna say insert story here, but I don't have time for that today, but it involved a BB gun war and when I was younger. So fill in the blank.

20:21 If we can go from the section before mine to all of a sudden Jesus cast out a demon, I'm going to leave you at that. Okay. I'm going to give you no lead up. But to my knowledge, which is not very much, Satan cannot create. Like he can't create a being or create life.

20:41 If I'm wrong in that, tell me after. I would be curious about that. But he can't create. So, why would he go and take on his own and cast them out and cause damage to them maybe. When according to the text, when this demon was inside, it was his own possession.

21:01 They called it his house. We'll look at that in just a little bit. So, he wouldn't do that but Jesus gives them the benefit of the doubt. In fact, if it is and he says, if it is Beelzebub that I cast these demons out with by his power, who are these guys casting it out by? Who are your sons casting it out by?

21:25 He says that there in verse 18. It's kind of like the the mic drop question there. And so in verse 19, it says, and if I by Beelzebub cast out demons, by who do your sons cast them out? For this reason, they will be your judges. Sorry, I got the verses mixed up.

21:44 There's verse 19. So I am no scholar in early church history or exorcism in general. But from from what I know and you've seen in God's word even like in Luke chapter nine, which you guys are probably in a few weeks ago, this was going on. People were performing exorcisms. Other people were trying to perform exorcisms and were not successful.

22:13 You look to look into the future Acts 19, and this guy named Sceva had seven sons that tried to cast out demons and it didn't go well for them. Yeah. You can look at that after if you're not familiar with the story, but it was going on and eventually became like a trade you could go into. That's an odd thing to grow up and aspire to be, but you I guess could do that back then. And so that brings us to an interesting verse in verse 20.

23:12 If you'll turn back to Exodus, I pre marked my spot because I get nervous and my fingers don't work right, so I pre marked it. In Exodus chapter eight, I thought this was interesting because this morning in in... Jeremy read from Psalm one thirteen and we sang about it. Who is like our God? In Exodus chapter eight verse 10, Moses is talking.

23:38 God just talked to him and and then Moses responds and says, may it be according to your word that you may know that there is no one like our God. There's no one like our God. This is in the midst of the plagues happening to the Egyptians and let my people go that that time. The frogs from the previous plague, and I know I'm not giving a whole lot of context, you had to read up on it on your own if you're not familiar with But the frogs from the previous plague have subsided and Pharaoh hardened his heart again. And so we'll pick up in verse 16 to 19.

24:18 Then the Lord said to Moses, say to Aaron, stretch out your staff and strike the dust of the earth that it may become gnats through the land of Egypt. They did so and Aaron stretched out his hand with the staff struck the dust of the earth and there were gnats on man and beast and all the dust of the earth became gnats through all the land of Egypt. Then the magicians did the same. This would be Pharaoh's magicians. With their secret arts in order to bring forth gnats but they could not.

24:49 So there were gnats on man and beast. And the magicians said to Pharaoh, this is the finger of God. And so again, the Pharisees and the people specifically who had negativity towards the Lord in this passage in Luke, like they studied and memorized that very story we just read in Exodus. So it's unlikely that they were not familiar with the phrase the finger of God. This was something they just saw in this demon possession that honestly, it would be hard to explain to somebody if you didn't see it.

25:30 Like, I've never seen one. And I read this. I know it's true because it's God's word, but I still have a hard time picturing the whole scene. And they saw this, and there was no other way to explain it but in fact that it was done by the finger of God. There are people today though that make claims.

25:49 You've probably seen them on television or on YouTube. There's one guy, he can make your leg, because this is a big problem that goes on nowadays where two legs are a different length. And so he goes out and he will he will lengthen the other person's leg and work this miracle. All these things that are out there. And people make these great claims about the things that they are able to do because of God, but most of them are...

26:16 It's trickery. But this was in fact the finger of God. And when he says finger, it leads you to believe there's one or two things happening either because we'll say sometimes like, oh, I could do that with my little finger, you know, which means either whatever you're about to do is either that light that it's no problem for you at all to to do whatever this thing is Or that you are so strong and mighty that whatever this action or thing you're trying to do is, is no problem for you. And in this case, I would submit to you that it's both. I think that it is nothing to God.

26:57 But also, he is so powerful. So it's of no match to him. And so he does this by the finger of God. And it's worth noting that in Matthew 12, that the finger of God is actually referred to as the spirit of God, which again we mentioned in verse 15. This is a new low that they've reached to to give Satan the glory, if you will, for performing this exorcism is a new low.

27:24 But in Matthew's account, it refers to it as the spirit of God, which is then followed with this this phrase of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, the unpardonable sin, which Luke will address, but he won't do that till chapter 12, which I'm stopping at verse 28. You'll have to come back future to get taught about that and to learn about that. But this brings us to verses twenty one and twenty two. Before we read that, I'm gonna give you the keys to unlock verses twenty one and twenty two. The strong man is Satan.

28:20 So this demon had full possession of this mute man. It called him his house. Like this is mine. Like when I think of my home, I think of this is mine. Like this, you guys can do whatever you want out there, but not in this is my house.

28:37 And that's what the demon referred to this mute man as his house. Now Christ, the stronger man cast out every ounce of that evil spirit, stripping away the evil spirit of anything it had or any hold that it had on this man. And then we get to verse 23, which there are seemingly the three groups again from the outside. Those who... Maybe they're not believers, but they're at least positive toward Christ or towards the gospel message or towards God or religion.

29:08 We'll just lump all of that in. Then we have this group that is not indifferent, but they just want to see more. They're skeptical. Okay? They they like, you know, maybe they do believe that Jesus is God's son, but they're still not there yet.

29:22 They want to see more. They're not ready to go all in. Then we have the group that has the negativity towards towards the Lord and the things of God. And in verse 23, we're going to see that there are actually two groups. Okay?

29:39 Man might see it differently, but God only sees it as two groups. You are either a gatherer or you're a scatterer. And it says, he who is not with me is against me. He who does not gather with me scatters. Those who are opposed or wanted additional sides signs are both put into the same group of scatterer.

30:01 And this word scatter, I've really enjoyed over the last couple of years kind of doing word study and just looking at the different parts of the word in the original language and the verbiage and stuff. And this word is actually used two verses after John ten ten in verse 12 when referring to the wolf in the sheep pasture. And so you can read it on your own, but essentially the hired hand sees this wolf coming in this this story that Jesus is sharing about the group being the great shepherd. This hired hand sees the wolf coming and so he leaves. And it says in verse 12 of John 10, that the wolf snatches and scatters them.

30:46 Same word. And so if you're not with God and you're against him, you are a wolf. If you are skeptical of God and and just say like, I believe some of these things, but there's really not for me. You're in the same category. You are a wolf, one who scatters.

31:07 And this is still true today. We're reading a story from two thousand years ago, an account from two thousand years ago, but this is still true to us today. The word gather is a present active participle. Present in that it's it's ongoing. It's currently going.

31:24 It's active in that we take an active part in it. It's not like gathering isn't like a passive thing through us, we take an active part. And the fact that it's a participle means that it's a verb that is now acting as a noun. A gatherer describes what you're doing and the person in one. A scatterer also present active.

31:44 It's ongoing. It takes an active party. It's in the indicative mood which basically means you you're by default are a scatterer unless you're a gatherer. And those are the only two options. And again, if you're already maybe you're thinking back to the title, the non Gospel gospel message.

32:05 Well, how do I become a gatherer? It's kind of an obscure verse because it seems like Jesus is telling a story and asking them questions. And then he throws this verse in here, verse 23. But it really ties verse twenty one and twenty two into verses 24 to 26. In verse 21 again, the demon guards his house.

32:28 In verse 22, Christ overpowers the demon and cleans house. Now what? Now you're either going to be against him or you're going to be for him. And so the choice is is yours. It's ours.

32:45 So we can choose to be a gatherer or by default we're a scatterer. But what happens if we're like, I don't want to make a choice. Nobody wants to commit to anything anymore. You notice that? You ask somebody to do something and everybody's waiting to see, is there something better?

33:01 I'm not sure if I want to commit to this. You know, I don't want to say any names, but I know people in this room right now that have those issues. But if we choose to do nothing, here's what happens, verses 24 to 26. When the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest and not finding any. It says, will return to my house from which I came.

34:00 And it says that in in Luke 11 that this demon gets cast out and goes to this place seeking rest and it can't find any. And how horrible of a place must that be? Where a demon cannot find rest. Like you think like like if you've ever gone through like a haunted house, you know, like you go through and you're holding on and people jump out and try and scare you. And you might be scared and frightened, but you think surely the guy wearing the mask is not scared.

34:33 But in this case, the demon can find no rest. So he says to himself, I'm going to go back to my house. Again, there's that that that word, his own house to my house in verse 24. Says, I'm going to go back there. When he does, he finds out that the room's been picked up.

34:53 It's been cleaned up. He's been moved out. But things when he left, how he left them when he was cast out, they're the same as when he was cast out. He goes back and finds the same decorations on the wall. Everything is still the same with the exception that this demon didn't...

35:14 Does not live there and hasn't since Jesus cast him out. So in this story it says that he goes back and he takes seven of his friends who are even more evil than him, seven other demons, which will in turn indwell this man and leave him worse than he originally was. Sometimes we get caught up on like how many numbers like, how do they all fit in there? Like, we ask these questions. And I don't necessarily think that that's what he's trying to say.

35:38 The idea is that he is in a worse position than when far worse than when this demon left. So what does this mean? What does this all mean? Just because Jesus cast a demon out of a person doesn't mean that he will force his spirit then into this person. These verses are talking about a person who hears the truth, sees the light, maybe even experiences a miracle in their own life, and then they fail to invite the Holy Spirit into their life.

36:17 Now it's hard to imagine, like being some of the miracles and the things you see Jesus doing. Like how do you... Like you know that, you know, laying by the pool of Bethesda that you couldn't do anything your whole life. And then Jesus comes along. It's like, you want to walk?

36:35 Stand up and walk. Take your mat and he stands up and this guy is healed. And we don't read about that guy. Maybe a couple verses later, Jesus finds him and is like, hey, don't tell anybody about this. But we don't, like, read about that guy at the foot of the cross.

36:50 We don't read really, to my knowledge, besides the disciples and those who he specifically called, people that that Jesus did a miraculous healing, and we see those people listed at the foot of the cross. I'm not saying they weren't. I'm just saying we... There's a lot we don't know because the end of John tells us there's things that happen that we can't record them all. We don't have enough paper.

37:15 And so... But in this story though, this man clearly did not invite the Lord into his life. A miracle isn't what saves people. Sometimes, I think if you you look around at at the culture that the church culture of the day, the modern church culture, it's gotta be bigger. It's gotta be better.

37:38 It's gotta attract people. We need to do fun things. If we had something like a magician, you know, we get people in, could do a magic trick and draw all these people in. It doesn't matter how big and how great it is, that will not save them. There is one thing that saves a person and it's the gospel.

37:56 According to Romans chapter one, the gospel is the power of God for salvation. It's the only way a person could be saved, not by a miracle, a demon exorcism, not any of those things. Maybe that plays a part into it, but it is the gospel message that saves a person. And here, this this clean house is talking about someone who failed to fully surrender their life to Christ. John Phillips, the commentator says that this is the hopelessness of reformation without regeneration.

38:52 He says, true repentance also welcomes Christ into the heart. And this brings us to our last two verses. My vision isn't what it once was. You talked about having ailment, so I'm assuming that I've got more time. There is a little glare.

39:10 But I'm on the last two verses, the last page, so we're almost here. Verse twenty seven and twenty eight. Now it happened while Jesus was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, blessed is the womb that bore you in the breast at which you nursed. But he said, on the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it. Nowadays, we just say your parents must be so proud.

39:52 I could feel it getting red. But Jesus responds to this with a correction to her. Because to Jesus, more important relationship and blood tie that you may have Because physically is a spiritual relationship. And no claim to Christ is greater than that of an obedient son or daughter. One who hears the word of God and is obedient to it.

40:25 And if you want some proof text of that, can pretty much open the Bible and find that to be true. The whole book of first John basically talks about that. And so in closing, as we think about the non Gospel gospel message, there's a lot stuff that happens at the beginning of this this passage. But what it really boils down to is this. Are you with him or are you against him?

40:49 You know, and I got to believe that that here in this room this morning, the majority would identify probably almost all would even identify as with him. But the question is, are you really with him? Are you gathering or are you scattering? There is no neutrality. I think it was CT Stud said this.

41:14 I didn't... I just got the quote, but says this, only one life will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. Are you gathering for his kingdom or are you scattering? Let's close.

41:28 Father, we thank you again for this time to look at your word. We pray that we'd find it nourishing to our to our souls. And we know that it gives in it, find the power of life and death. Father, we pray that as we go out these doors, we wouldn't soon forget the things that you've taught us this morning, not just in this meeting, Lord, but in the earlier one as well, that we wouldn't walk away from the gospel too quick. Lord, that it would always be a main focus in our lives, that we'd share it with others, that we would be gatherers for you.

42:05 It's in your son's name we pray. Amen.