Seek and
Save V
A
Demoniac Healed
Matt
12:22-37
A
tremendous blessing would be ours if we were to look at what the Scriptures say
about demons and Christians. Let it suffice for me to say one or two things
thing. You and I should be encouraged at the reality of the Lord Jesus Christ’s
triumph over the powers of darkness and the benefits that are there for
believers alone including us. Col 2:15, reads,
“Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them,
triumphing over them in it.” Proves this point. The Principalities and Powers
are words used to describe part of the satanic hierarchy in the hidden
world.
Peter writes, “Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the
world.” If we are truly Christ’s people by faith, the devil and his minions
can’t touch us.
The
passage where Jesus heals this demoniac is found in Matthew 12:22-37.
A
word of introduction is needed: This narrative in the life of the Lord is not
about demons, really, it is about the manifest perpetual unbelief of and
challenge to the Lord Jesus brought by those who should have known better, the
Pharisees and Scribes.
These
events in the Life of the Lord start a time of intense activity in his
ministry. He has about one and a half years to go before the Cross. His
ministry kicks into overdrive. He deals with the multitudes, the leaders of the
Jews and his disciples nearly simultaneously.
Let’s
read the entire text of this narrative:
1. The Demon-Possessed Man’s
Condition
22
¶ Then one was brought to Him who was demon-possessed, blind and mute;
2. The Son of Man’s Provision
and He healed him, so that the blind and mute
man both spoke and saw.
3. The Crowd Amazed Yet Again
23
And all the multitudes were amazed and said,
“Could this be the Son of David?”
4. The Pharisee’s Contrary
Reaction
24
Now when the Pharisees heard it they said,
“This fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of
the demons.”
5. The Knower of Hearts Speaks
Again
25
But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them:
Point
A. “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every
city or house divided against itself will not stand.
Point
B. 26 “If Satan casts out Satan, he is
divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand?
Point
C. 27 “And if I cast out demons by
Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your
judges.
Point
D. 28 “But if I cast out demons by the
Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.
Point
E. 29 “Or how can one enter a strong
man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? And
then he will plunder his house.
Point
F. 30 “He who is not with Me is against
Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad.
6. Jesus goes on to a related
topic addressed to the Pharisees
31
“ ¶ Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but
the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men.
7. The Unforgivable Sin Defined
for the Pharisees
Matt.
12:32 “Anyone who speaks a word against
the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy
Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.
8. A Few Related Applications
Spoken to the Pharisees
Matt.
12:33 “ ¶ Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree
bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit.
9. The True Character of the
Pharisees Stated
Matt.
12:34 “Brood of vipers! How can you,
being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth
speaks. 35 “A good man out of the good
treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil
treasure brings forth evil things.
10. A Indictment of the Pharisees
in General
36 “But I say to you that for every idle word
men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment.
11. An Indictment of the
Pharisees in Particular
37 “For by your words you will be justified, and
by your words you will be condemned.”
Let’s
look at the text up to about verse 30:
1. The Demon-Possessed Man’s
Condition
It
was during a time of this intense demonic activity directed at the Lord Jesus
and his kingdom come to earth in which we find our text for today:
22
¶ Then one was brought to Him who was demon-possessed, blind and mute;
An
unnamed man who could not see, nor speak, and who was demon-possessed. In many languages, including Greek,
demon-possession is portrayed as a demon riding on a person as a man would ride
a donkey. The rider has great ability to control and direct the animal and to
evoke from it certain responses. That is part of the reason when demons are
sometimes exorcised, the word ekballo,
or to cast down is used. It is as if one has a load removed from them to have
it cast down to the earth--it can have the idea of judgment.
Here
is a man who is called demon-possessed who is not acting crazily. In this state
he needs to have others bring him to the Lord. He was unable to see and unable
to speak. It may have due to the effects of the control of the demon. I say
‘may have” because the structure of the language would allow the
demon-possession, blindness and muteness to be three things about the one man.
It is inconclusive. We can’t say that the demon was causing him to be blind and
speechless, but we cannot rule it out either. We are simply told of his
troubles because of......
2. The Son of Man’s Provision
and He healed him, so that the blind and mute
man both spoke and saw.
Simpler
terms could not be used. The man was brought to Jesus, Jesus healed him
completely. He could speak and see. In
this phrase his demon-possession is not mentioned. He is “that blind and mute
man” as if that was the greater two of the three problems.
This
miracle as a sign was done among the multitudes. In the Parallel passage in
Mark 3:20, this is what is recorded: Mark 3:20 “Then the multitude came
together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread.” Again, the masses
were pressing in upon the Lord Jesus Christ. The crowds were maneuvering
closely to the Lord Jesus Christ. It was in this lack of open space that this
blind and mute demon-possessed man was brought. It was before their eyes in an
immediate manner, that Jesus healed this man. They became like the man was,
unable to perform basic functions. They could not eat out of wonder and
amazement.
Their
reaction is recorded with more words than the man was introduced with or were
used to describe the healing.
3. The Crowd Amazed Yet Again
23
And all the multitudes were amazed and said,
“Could this be the Son of David?”
The
sign seems to have functioned as it ought. The form of the question in the
original requires it to be rendered, “Is this the Son of David?” And as
questions put in this form, in Greek, suppose doubt or a negation, and expect a
negative answer. A rhetorical question
using a pointer-word, ouk, requires a negative response—such was their
expectation. Therefore the meaning of
this question is, “Can it possibly be the Son of David?" — the people may
have been carefully indicating their secret impression that this must not be
the son of David. Perhaps their question
was addressed to the Pharisees among the crushing throng. Pharisees who were up
front and watching all that Jesus said and did that they might accuse him.
They
are the ones who answer, after all. If that is so, the crowds played the
Pharisees as brilliantly as did Jesus.
At all cost, the Pharisees had to stop this line of inquiry before it
turned positive. In other words, they had to do the work of the devil, It was
not the devil doing it himself, but it was men doing the work of the
devil. This is ......
4. The Pharisee’s Contrary
Reaction
24
Now when the Pharisees heard it they said,
“This fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of
the demons.”
The
Pharisees heard what was becoming the popular explanation among the masses,
they were there to hear the comments and question, so they offer their own
powerful insight. They use a debate tactic we call, “Poisoning the well. ” They
assume the action of Jesus to have occurred, but instead of attacking the
miracle, they attack him on the means and authority by which he did the
miracle. They say Jesus could not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, who they
thought was the chief or most demonic of of the demons.
This
is a bold and powerful statement. It’s flamboyance is lost on us, but it would
have been understood by those present.
Beelzebub
as a name of a demonic god of foreign origin, by that I mean non-Jewish, it
would have been understood as using a god of the nations--it is a derivative
form of a Baal, a false god of Caanan, Philistia and the surrounding lands to
the Northeast probably of Assyrian origin.
These
Baals were the idolatrous gods taken by the children of Israel in their times
of apostasy. Each Baal was a god of some particular thing much like the Roman
and Greek gods: a god of the heavens, a god of the earth, a god of the
underworld, a god of the waters, a god of the mountains, etc. Everything had a
god and his actions defined how things were to be understood. Making them
different from the Roman and Greek gods, it was believed that each Baal had a
wife who was thought to be the colorless reflection of Baal. Who was Beelzebub
or Baal-zebool in particular?
Beelzebub:
(Gr. form Beel’zebul), is the name given to Satan, and found only in the
Gospels (Matt. 10:25; 12:24, 27; Mark 3:22). It is very likely the same as
Baal--zebul, who is the god of Ekron, meaning “the lord of flies,” or, as
others think, the place where the flies would be found in abundance--the dung
heap making Beelzebub to be “the lord of dung or god of refuse,” or “the
dung-god. Pr the utmost unclean one.” It was a clever accusation, really. They
must have been proud of themselves.
Not
only are the Pharisees accusing Jesus of casting out demons by the power of the
“chief” of demons, they are accusing him of using a foreign god who is utterly
unclean. It is the perfect accusation
for the Pharisees to make. They were the separated ones, remember? By their
230+ prescriptions they viewed themselves as the only truly clean ones in
Israel.
They
are trying to associate Jesus with the god of feces. That’s not a pleasant
image, is it? But note, they never deny
the miracle occurred! And by their comments about the chief of demons, they
show that they also believed the evil world to be organized as a system with a
specific leadership. The Sadducees did not.
Jesus
goes into action. Let’s take a look at how he replies.
5. The Knower of Hearts Speaks
Again
25
But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them:
Again,
this theme of knowing their thoughts is brought out. He knows more than what
the Pharisees say to the masses, he knows what has motivated them to say these
words. In Mark 3:23 we have some introductory remarks by the Lord Jesus that
are not recorded in Matthew. Apparently Jesus starts by saying, 23 So He
called them to Himself and said to them in parables: “How can Satan cast out Satan?
Note:
these comments are to be understood as parables to give an answer to this
absurd question. By what power does Satan have the ability to cast out
Satan?
Jesus
says the following parable points. He
throws these alongside of the question to confound the Pharisees and to
discredit them among the multitudes who are still right there pressing in all
around to the point that nobody had room to relax to eat.
Parable
A. “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every
city or house divided against itself will not stand.
What
is the inference? If he is casting out demons by the power of demons, if Satan
is casting out Satan, he is ruining the work the demons and Satan were doing.
He would be dividing them. This exorcism was a good thing. The man was healed.
He was no longer under bondage.
Parable
B. 26 “If Satan casts out Satan, he is
divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand?
From
another perspective, Jesus goes from the demons to the real prince of demons,
Satan. It is absurd to contemplate Satan throwing out himself. His realm would
be taken away from himself by himself. The perspective of the Pharisees is
utter folly.
If
I were a king, I could resign my kingdom giving it to another, I could abdicate
the throne. I could not abdicate my power to rule and rule at the same time. If
Satan has a kingdom and he has not abdicated his own power, he can’t cast
himself down and still have a kingdom. It would be a full abdication or
conquered by another. He could not divide his kingdom and retain full
possession of it.
Parable
C. 27 “And if I cast out demons by
Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your
judges.
Apparently,
demons were exorcised by some Jews. We see the phenomena in Acts 19:11-20 where
the ‘traveling Jewish Exorcists tried to use Jesus’s name misapprehended. Demon
possession and exorcism is not a phenomenon that is distinctively
Christian. We find it practiced in
animism and Spiritism in many places in the earth to this day. The possession of non-Christians and the
casting out of their demons without the name and presence of Christ is a real
possibility. It is reported to happen with great frequency. In this instance
the language is suggestive of the disciples of the Pharisees. Their students
knew of and likely practiced some form of exorcism. The language is taken from
the sons of the prophet’s imagery in the Old Testament.
Jesus
makes his point and throws it back to them to have their own disciples discern
by whose power he must be casting down demons. The man was blind and dumb--now
he speaks and sees. They want to attribute this good work to the prince of
demons-- What frustration must have been part of the life of our Lord. Then Jesus starts to make his all-important
point.
Parable
D. 28 “But if I cast out demons by the
Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.
Jesus
states explicitly what we knew implicitly--that his work was done by the Spirit
of God. This possibility was outside of the realm of plausibility or
possibility with the Scribes and Pharisees.
It
is an “If-then” proposition. It doesn’t make sense to see his work as the work
of the devil when he is working at cross purposes to him.
But,
if it is by the Spirit of the one true and living God, the God of the Jews,
that he does these signs and wonders that bring amazement to the multitudes,
then it follows logically that the rule of God has broken in among them. The
subjugation or casting down of demons is a work that demonstrates the presence
of the Kingdom of God in their midst.
Not a future kingdom, but a present reality. Something about the rule of
God among men was being claimed in the proposition, if it were by the Spirit of
God that Jesus did this work. To illustrate:
Parable
E. 29 “Or how can one enter a strong
man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? And
then he will plunder his house.
Who
is the strong man? Satan. What must have
occurred for someone to enter and plunder his goods? Satan must first be
bound. He is the one the Pharisees claim
as the authority behind what Jesus did. Jesus’ work shows Satan to be bound and
the kingdom will cause his house to be plundered. To plunder something in the
future is to seize it, to take possession of another’s property or to take over
their domain. Satan did not abdicate, he
is being thrown out of his kingdom, as another is coming in its place. This is
what Jesus did as he triumphed over the powers of darkness for you and me,
those who would believe in him according to his Word.
The
Parallel passage in Luke is more explicit: Luke 11:21 “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his
own palace, his goods are in peace.
That
is Satan in his own domain, at peace.
22 “But when a stronger than he comes upon him
and overcomes him, he takes from him all his armor in which he trusted, and
divides his spoils.
Implicitly
Jesus is the stronger one. Listen to how he describes his work with regard to
Satan:
1.
He is a stronger than he. Jesus and Satan are not equal in power fighting over
this world waiting for Christians to pray to make it possible for God to win
the battles, a la Frank Peretti Novels and some recent Children’s books. It may
make intriguing literature, but it is not theologically true.
2.
He takes from him all his armor in which he trusted, Satan has nothing to keep
him protected from the Stronger-than-he. He is vulnerable outside of his
formerly peaceful domain. No wonder he is aggravated and attacking the work of
Christ. The Kingdom of God is supplanting his domain right before his eyes. He is
at war with God incarnate.
3.
And divides his spoils. With whom does the Lord Jesus Christ divide the spoils
of the spiritual battles he has won.
The
Word of God says:
2
Cor. 2:14 Now thanks be to God who always leads
us in triumph in Christ,
If
you are truly trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, the battle is already won.
Satan has been defeated and with him his demons. In Christ we have continual triumph. For this
we should give unending thanks. Nothing can happen to us without his knowledge,
care and love being a part of it. He has conquered the devil. He has crushed
his head through his work on the Cross.
But
also....The Word of God says about the work of Christ. At some point in
time.....
Col.
2:15 Having disarmed principalities and
powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.
That
public spectacle was for his people. His people who need not fear the demons,
nor the devil, only God himself in faith knowing what we deserve, but what he
graciously gives in its place. No wonder
Jesus goes on to say.
Parable
F. 30 “He who is not with Me is against
Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad.
It
is about allegiance. Either you are with
the Lord Jesus Christ giving to him your affection and attention, or you are
against him, serving the powers of darkness, SATAN AND HIS DEMONS. Many think
they are for The Lord, when in fact they live opposed to him. They wonder why
they have no power to live godly, no strength to overcome their flesh, no
desire for holiness. They don't like the answer--they may be against
Christ--just like the Pharisees in the first century. The demons can just sit
back and leave you alone in ignorant bliss. Apathetic people live in the castle
of Satan without a care for their souls. They think they are alright because
they do not overtly fight against the kingdom of the Lord Jesus. But, to not
follow his ways is a sign of no allegiance to him as Lord, a sign of no faith
and no life of faith. It is not about
what we do not do passively; it is about what we do actively. A good tree will
grow good fruit; a bad tree will bear bad fruit or no fruit. We look at our
lack of fruit and think ourselves to be just immature, but okay. Jesus looks at
the lack of fruit as allegiance to another kingdom. He who is not actively for
him is against him.
The
absence of positive attachment to Christ in ever-growing degree entails
hostility to him and the coming of his kingdom. People can not be indifferent.
You
have to serve somebody. If it is Jesus, in his way, according to his word, you
will be blessed, in his kingdom, where his rule and dominion is known. His
Kingdom is one of faith, seen only by a work of the Spirit. It is not of this
world’s system, but contrary to it. I would encourage you to ask God for mercy
that Jesus would be your savior and Lord—the one who rules over your heart and
mind. AMEN!
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