The Strong Man and the Stronger
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
The whole scope of this study is centered in the strength of the Stronger Man, superabounding over the strength of the strong man. That is, Satan is strong, but Christ is stronger. By way of introduction we suggest two things:
1. The might and power of Satan, the strong man. Michael was one of God's chief angels, and yet, when contending with the devil about the body of Moses, he "durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee." Among men we often hear Satan belittled. He is called the "old-scratch," and the "bad-man," and "old nick." Little children are taught that they must look out or the "bad-man" will get them, as though they, themselves, in their own strength, could conquer him providing they were good. We know very well that if Michael needed to call upon God to meet Satan's power, that it is folly for us to belittle him.
2. The supremacy of the might and power of Christ, the Stronger Man. If Satan were stronger than Christ, what hope have we? But, since Christ is stronger than Satan, we have no cause for fear. Our Lord has promised to lead us in the train of His triumph. We are made more than conquerors in Him. All through the ages Satan has sought in every way to overcome God and His Christ. He has not done this, excepting in the wilderness temptation, or perhaps on the Cross, by personal combat. He has wrought, rather, by strategy, against God's creatures. He entered the Garden in order to deceive and to ensnare the first parents. He enticed Cain away from God and his need of atonement.
It is not difficult to trace the mark of the serpent through the ages. Sometimes it seems as though he was almost victor. He certainly has strewn the world with wreckage, but in spite of it all, there is a Stronger Man than he.
Christ met the devil in the wilderness and vanquished him, casting him back into the lair of his defeat. Christ met Satan throughout a three-year ministry and was always supreme. He cast out evil spirits; He laid low the power and prowess of the devil. Christ met Satan on the Cross and utterly spoiled him, triumphing over him. Christ met Satan, in His ascension, but passed up through principalities, and powers, and the world rulers of this present darkness, taking His seat at the right hand of God, far above them. Christ will Come Again and Satan will be bound. Finally, at the end of the thousand years, the Lord Jesus will cast Satan into the lake of fire for evermore.
I. THE SUPREMACY OF CHRIST OVER DEMONS (Luke 11:14)
The opening verse of our study reads: "And He was casting out a devil." We do not know to what extent demons may possess men today. We do know that when Christ was on earth there were many who were demon-possessed, and there were many from whom He cast out demons. We have this thought that if Christ were moving around in the midst of the masses today, there are many people who would be found to be demon-possessed. We remember how, on one occasion, a certain man tried to cast out demons. The evil spirit, however, said, "Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?" Accordingly, it seems to us that the reason demons are not discerned in their ravages against the race is because there are but few saints who cause them fear.
This was a dumb man. No one, perhaps, would have dreamed that he was demon-possessed, and yet, when the demon was gone out, the dumb spake and the people wondered.
II. A CORRUPTING CHARGE (Luke 11:15-20)
When Jesus cast out the demon that was dumb, some said, "He casteth out devils through Beelzebub the chief of devils." Jesus knew their thoughts and He said, "Every Kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divideth against a house falleth." If Christ had been working under the authority and power of Satan, Satan would have been working against himself. This was a strange charge, therefore, which was made against the Son of God. Satan is too wise to spoil his own goods.
Jesus Christ also told these questioners that if He with the finger of God was casting out demons, no doubt the Kingdom of God was to come upon them. Think of it, the One who was able to deliver, was with them but they knew it not. They utterly failed to grasp the meaning of His miracles, and the mercy of His ministrations. He was there as the One who was able to deliver, but they charged Him as being Satan-sent and Satan-endued. In this they were coming grievously near that sin against the Holy Ghost for which there is no forgiveness. Let men beware lest they say that the work of the Spirit of God is the work of the devil. God forbid. This may be bordering on the unpardonable sin.
III. THE STRONG MAN ARMED (Luke 11:21)
We immediately recognize Satan as the strong man. We wonder if we can as readily recognize the armor wherewith he was armed, and the palace which he keeps?
If we would know the armor of the strong man, we should discover the methods by which he seeks to withstand the Lord, on the one hand, and with which he aggressively fights against the Lord, on the other hand.
We know the armor of the believer: his head bears the helmet of salvation; he wears the breastplate of righteousness; his loins are girded with truth; his feet are shod with peace; he holds aloft the shield of faith, and sways the Sword of the Spirit.
Satan's armor may be akin to these, but quite the opposite: his head wears the breastplate of the negation of salvation; doubts, skepticism, denials of Christ, compose his helmet.
Satan's breastplate may be a display of righteousness because he transforms himself into an angel of light, and his angels are ministers of unrighteousness. His righteousness is a standing rejection of the righteousness which is by faith, and of the need of the Blood.
Satan's girdle is lies. He knows nothing of the proclamation of truth. He was a liar from the beginning. He is the father of lies. His chief asset is to deceive the whole world with a lie.
Satan's feet are shod with the gospel of self-accomplishment. He knows nothing of the Gospel of peace in Christ. If Satan keeps his goods in peace, it is a false peace. He says peace, when there is no peace. The peace which Satan proclaims is a peace of death: it is the peace of one who is insensible to danger; the peace of an opiate.
Satan's shield is a shield of unbelief. Against it he thinks that every dart of truth must fall. He denies that God is; he denies that Christ is the Son of God. Satan rejects the Virgin Birth; the Substitutionary Work of Calvary; Satan ridicules the literal, bodily Resurrection of Christ. He mocks the personal corporal and visible Return of Christ. Satan's sword is the sword of the defamation of the Word of God. He wields the sword of Satanic wisdom; the sword of human scholarship moulded after the manner of his own genius. With error and negations of the truth of the inspired Word, he thinks to defame and destroy the authority of God. He indulges in false religions, based on the power of man, and glorying in the accomplishments of the flesh. He fights the faith under false statements put forth under the name of philosophy and science. This is the armor wherein he trusted.
IV. THE STRONG MAN'S PALACE AND GOODS (Luke 11:21)
Where is it that Satan is enshrined? What is his palace? So far as this study is concerned, the hearts of men are the palace where Satan dwells, and the endowments of men, their mind, their will, their affections, etc., are the goods which he keeps in peace.
We need not be amazed that Christ gives this conception of Satan's palace. We who are saved, are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. We know how Christ said, "We will make Our abode with [you]." He and the Father both sup with us.
No marvel then if Satan may dwell within us. Of old he entered the serpent. The Bible distinctly says that Satan entered into Judas. Thus, in a sense, that is very real, the human life and heart is the palace that Satan keeps, and human lives with their endowments, are the goods which are his.
One other thing is worthy of note: Satan's goods are kept in peace. We may have wondered why the unsaved, following diverse lusts, and held in Satan's snares, are at peace, and yet, so it is. They think themselves secure; they know no fear; they are believing a lie; they are asleep under strong delusions; they are unconscious of their danger, because they are blinded to their real estate.
V. THE STRONGER THAN THE STRONG MAN (Luke 11:22)
1. The Strong man overcome. Jesus Christ said once, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me * * to preach deliverance to the captives, * * to set at liberty them that are bruised."
Thank God we are not saved to be left dupes and slaves to Satan's sway! Satan can no longer subdue and hold captive the one who has met the Stronger than the strong man. The man of Gadara who was driven of the devil; the woman who was bound of the devil and bent double, alike, were delivered.
2. The strong man's armor taken away. When Christ comes in, Satan is robbed of his armor. The Christian finds himself truly set free. The darts of unbelief make no dent against his shield of faith. The slurs against the Blood make no inroads against his helmet of salvation. The devil, at every turn, finds the armor wherein he had trusted, useless, against a soul that is saved and satisfied in Christ.
Error fades away before the truth as shadows flee before the sun. Denials of Christ and His Deity, His Virgin Birth, His Vicarious Death, His Literal Resurrection, and Second Coming, succumb under the blessed indwelling realization of the Christ Himself.
3. The Stronger than the strong man dividing the spoils. Colossians reads: "Having spoiled principalities and powers, * * triumphing over them in it." Our text reads that He "divideth his spoils." The same blessed dividing of the spoils is set forth in Isaiah 53:12 "Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong."
Christ seems to be saying to us, "My victory is yours." All that My Cross accomplished is yours. My victory of death and hell is yours, for I hold in My hand the keys of death and hell. My ascension is yours "because I live, ye shall live also." Ye, too, shall ascend up through the clouds and be for ever with the Lord.
VI. A GREAT WARNING (Luke 11:23-25)
The Lord Jesus gives a very striking illustration of the one who. seeks deliverance from the strong man without seeking His presence and power.
1. He described the unclean spirit going out of the man. We do not have the reason for his going out, given. Perhaps the man himself had, in remorse for his evil ways, made the "palace" (the heart and life) too uncomfortable for the unclean spirit. The man may have "resolved," or "signed the pledge." He may even have sought the Master's aid, and the spirit seeing Christ near had become affrighted and had gone away. Perhaps the man had sought the Lord's aid, and the Lord had driven him out.
2. He described the unclean spirit going about and seeking rest. Demons evidently desire to be housed in human lives. They do not want to be disembodied. Leaving one life, they seek another.
3. He described the unclean spirit as returning and finding the house, where he had formerly dwelt, both swept and garnished. The man had been delivered from the demon, and, as a result, he had cleaned up his life. The man, however, had made one great and fatal mistake. He had, perhaps, been delivered by the Lord Jesus, but he had not kept tryst with Christ. That is, he had not gathered with Christ. He had gotten the unclean spirit out, but he had not taken the Stronger One in. He was, indeed, reformed, but not regenerated; he had done many things, but had omitted the supreme thing.
VII. THE LAST ESTATE WORSE THAN THE FIRST (Luke 11:26)
When the unclean spirit found his former house swept and garnished, but empty, he went and found seven other spirits worse than himself. Thus enforced, he pressed his barricade against the life of a man once demonized and then delivered. The eight demons forced their way into the life and he found himself altogether undone worse than he had been formerly.
We do not have the picture here of a man who is saved and then goes back into sin and loses his salvation. We have just what Christ said, a life once indwelt by an unclean spirit and then delivered and reformed, but finally more terribly demonized.
Let us not press the lesson beyond the plain teaching. The teaching is this: It is fatal for a life to expect complete and full deliverance from demoniac possession apart from the presence of Christ. There is none other who can cope with the power of Satan, but Christ. None other than the Stronger than the strong man, is able to cast out the strong man in a final and effective deliverance.
AN ILLUSTRATION
Our only hope of victory over the strong man is in Christ.
He who met the tempter and vanquished him will surely care for us when we are tempted.
Can we not see the Lord in the upper room as He prayed for His own?
Dr. Len. G. Broughton says:
"I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil." "I do not understand that this is so much a prayer for the keeping of their souls from final destruction. It seems to me that Jesus had already delivered Himself on that point. Back yonder in Solomon's Porch, Jesus, in speaking of His mission, said: "I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand." I would not be dogmatic about this truth, and yet it does seem to me that this teaching lies at the very root of the deeper spiritual life. A soul once born from above is for ever passed beyond the destructive power of Satan. The life may be made a wreck, as is often the case, but I cannot believe that a soul once born, actually born again, is ever unborn. Such a thought so minifies God that I am not surprised that many people feel at liberty to trifle with Him. Jesus' prayer here is that they may be kept from the evil. What a comforting thought this should be to poor tempted humanity! Beloved in Christ, there is no need that we should yield to temptation, pleading the weakness of the flesh. The prayer of Christ is a guarantee of a way of escape. Ours is to appropriate what He by His prayer has provided. Ours is to surrender, to look up, to receive the benefits of this prayer. By faith we overcome temptation. Oh, tempest-tossed soul, art thou tired, and what is thy weakness? Is it appetite? He is thy drink. Is it greed? He is thy wealth. Is it passion? He is the "chiefest among ten thousand," the One "altogether lovely." Whatever the temptation, let us not forget that Jesus Christ desires that we shall be kept from the evil. And not only does this desire have to do with us when we are tempted, but has to do with us before the tempter comes. It is ours to appropriate the prayer of Jesus to be delivered from the tempter. Rowland Hill, the grand old preacher, used to pray every morning, "Don't let the devil tempt me to get mad today." This was only appropriating the prayer that Jesus Himself is making.