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The Book of Luke, God's Clear Evidence that Produced Various Verdicts, Part III - Lesson 144
We continue to study a passage in Luke 11 that resulted from the casting out of a devil from a man who was unable to speak because of this Satanic inhabitant.
We have looked at the reactions of certain religious members of the crowd, who in many cases tried to justify this miracle by pointing to Satan as its mastermind.
Others took the fence straddling position rather than give the glory to God and to recognize that Jesus Christ was the Messiah.
In this account it is easy to see that the reactions of the people resulted from the agenda that they had invested in and their conclusion was colored by that agenda.
This is such a common human occurrence and we see this in the daily lives of others but we also participate in judging events in the light of our own agenda and value system.
It is interesting to note that if you go to a medical specialist most likely he or she will find something wrong with you within the specialty in which they have invested their life.
A psychologist will find something wrong with you within his or her special study of psychology. A democrat will see an event as a democrat and a republican will see an event as a republican.
A person who has invested their life in race relations will see every event through the prism of race relations.
But it is clear in scripture that a child of God is to exercise righteous judgment and is not to turn to the right hand or to the left for that is leaning to your own understanding without acknowledging God.
When we choose to blindly support conservative or liberal causes our judgment will be clouded by either agenda.
So in this light Jesus Christ is teaching those who come to conclusions based upon their agenda that they ought to judge righteous judgment about him.
He has very reasonably discussed how foolish it is to think of Satan fighting against himself and he has also shown that if Satan’s forces are defeated it must have been done by someone stronger than Satan.
He then continues to preach that a position about him must be taken, for a neutral position is a position against him.
Neutral you cannot be.
Those who think they have not taken a position about Christ have indeed taken a position about Christ for if you are not for Him there is only one option left and that is the option of being against Him.
And to emphasize this point he tells the following story in:
Luke 11:24-26, 24When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. 25And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. 26Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.
In this story we see that a man was exorcised of a demon.
In other words he was like this “dumb of speech” man from whom Jesus cast out the devil. But the demon who was exorcised did not like his new environment.
He walked in dry places, but he did not feel comfortable and missed his former place.
He did not like the bed in the arid places.
The demon finally concluded that his former abode was far superior to the arid places he was now inhabiting.
So he returned to his former abode, but he convinced additional demons to come with him.
He probably found others who had no home in the arid places and sold them on his former place.
During the interim the man had not found any defense against the demon and was open to its return.
And because of this the final state of that man was worse than the first, Jesus said.
If Jesus is more powerful than Satan, which His last argument has shown, man is not more powerful for the devil is capable of overpowering man.
Man is not able, in and of himself, to resist Satan.
The man who is possessed by a demon can, Jesus said, be re‑possessed by that same demon.
The only power that can keep the demons out of a man is the power of the One who is able to deliver that man in the first place.
Jesus was warning those who would try to remain neutral.
He was warning those who would not come to receive Him as their Messiah and to obey His commandments.
He was warning those that neutrality toward Him is a welcome to the evil forces of Satan to reoccupy, for a man neutral to Christ has no power to resist the Devil.
It is no blessing for men to be rid of demon‑possession if men do not have the person of God dwelling within them. Just as man is unable to rid himself of a demon, neither is he able to keep an demon from returning.
(There is an old saying, “He turned over a new leaf” which means he turned over a new page in his life, he is turning things around and changing but he is changing on his own. Changing on your own is not a permanent condition for you cannot change your nature.) Jesus must not only be believed in as Messiah, He must also be received into your life, otherwise Satan will only return in greater force. Paul in the seventh chapter of Romans teaches that the Christian does not have the power to resist sin in the flesh. Only through the indwelling Spirit (“walking in the Spirit”) can sin’s power be resisted, so that man can do that which is pleasing to God and resist that which is not pleasing to God. Neutrality about the person of Jesus Christ is no virtue, it is a vice, and leads to a latter state that is worse than the former state.
So those who think they can remain neutral concerning Jesus Christ are against Jesus Christ (v. 23).
We now come to the second “And it came to pass” in this passage
A certain woman was itching to speak and could not let this opportunity pass without stepping up, interrupting the Lord, and praising certain body parts of Mary, the mother of Jesus.
She must have been, not only a feminist, but the first Catholic for in her mind Mary was to be elevated above Jesus Christ.
This woman too, came to a conclusion about Christ through the eyes of her agenda.
It was apparently an agenda wrapped up in feminine causes.
Luke 11:27‑28, And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked. 28But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it. I suppose that this woman thought what she said would please Jesus Christ for to say good things about one’s mother is not usually contradicted but welcomed. Who in their right mind would stop someone from saying nice things about their mother? But Jesus Christ does not conform to our ways of thought and the Lord quickly disagrees with her. Her words, on the surface, were those of praise, but they fell far short of what was pleasing to the Lord.
By saying what she did, she certainly recognized that there was something unique and great about Jesus, but her praise was not for Jesus, but for His mother.
She basically said, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you”.
Compared to the opposition of many in this crowd and the neutrality of others, her words come across as warm words.
They were words which would be welcomed by us compared to all the criticism , but Jesus’ response is to correct and to guide her into the right conclusion.
Jesus Christ does not allow the woman’s words to be said without correction therefore he immediately corrects her.
The woman’s focus was on the mother of Jesus, and her blessing in bearing and nursing Him.
There is no argument to this for this was true, for Mary was blessed to be the mother of Jesus (Luke 1:28, 42, 46‑49).
But this woman’s praise is more focused on Mary than on Jesus Christ, the Messiah and His word.
She sees a greater blessing in motherhood and nursing than in being a disciple and being obedient to Jesus Christ.
If Jesus is all that the evidence declares Him to be, then this woman should be focusing on obeying Christ’s words, not on the blessings of being Christ’s mother.
In the world of Christianity there is so much invested in peripheral or side issues rather then in the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The church is lifted up as the thing of worship but right here we see what the Father desires we focus upon.
28But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.
We have seen it over and over again in our study of Luke that hearing the word of Christ means obedience to Jesus Christ and that is paramount to being a disciple.
The Father in Heaven was very short spoken on the Mount of transfiguration as he gave instruction concerning His Son:
It was a very short concise statement which anyone should understand.
Luke 9:35, This is my beloved Son, hear him.
The Word of God is clear, however the crowd did not believe the Word of God.
John in his Gospel recorded this:
John 10:19‑21, There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings. 20And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye him? 21Others said, These are not the words of him that hath a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?
The real problem for those who rejected Jesus and who attributed His power to Satan was that of obeying Him. Why hear ye him?
The answer to this is that the evidence that Jesus Christ provides should bring anyone with a heart that desires the truth, to the conclusion that Jesus Christ should be heard because he is the Messiah, the Sent One of God.
This woman was wrong to focus on the mother of Jesus.
She did not interpret the evidence correctly.
She saw Jesus as great and His mother as blessed, but she did not see that Jesus was the One to receive and to be followed by obeying His commands.
She came to the table with her high elevation of womanhood and motherhood but it blinded her to the reality of the Messiah hood of Jesus Christ.
There are those today who focus their attention upon Mary or the church or gifts of healing or a word of knowledge who should be lifting up the Lord Jesus Christ for all to see, that glory may be given to him and him alone and not shared with another. |