This or That?
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
In 626 BC, Nabopolassar, son of the great Ashurbanipal took over as the King of Babylon. It was Nabopolassar that actually moved the capital of Babylonia to Babylon. He was the one who really began to bring the empire to greatness. His son was the greatest general under his command, and when he died, his son Nebuchadnezzar II became king. Already Judah had been defeated and some of the elite—like Daniel, Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael had been moved to the capital city. Nebuchadnezzar II was the one who truly brought Babylon in all its glory. Land after land was conquered and Babylon had grown to be the largest empire that had ever been recorded.
When he died, his son Nabonidus took over. He wasn’t as cunning or intelligent or skilled as his father. He wanted the empire to expand, but he just couldn’t get it done the way Nebuchadnezzar had done. At one point, Nabonidus was Arabia for a decade, leaving his son Belshazzar in charge of the rest of the kingdom. Nabonidus was busy working on building a temple to his god. Meanwhile Belshazzar was living it up in Babylon.
The walls were fortified. There was plenty of food and plenty of water (as there was the Euphrates that ran right through the heart of the city). There literally was not a care in the world for Belshazzar. Until one night as he threw a party. While at the party, he saw the hand of God write something on the wall but he didn’t know what it meant. Daniel would explain.
“Then from his presence the hand was sent, and this writing was inscribed.
And this is the writing that was inscribed: Mene, Mene, Tekel, and Parsin.
This is the interpretation of the matter: Mene, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end;
Tekel, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting;
Peres, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”
Legend says that Cyrus created a channel around Babylon’s wall and rerouted the Euphrates River so the army need only to go under the walls of the city and invade while everyone was asleep or partying with Belshazzar. And by the end of the night, Belshazzar was dead and Babylon was under the control of Darius the Mede, and Cyrus the Great of Persia.
A kingdom is secure until there’s an invader. We think about the Greeks battling Troy and hiding in the large wooden horse and invading the city. A king and his subjects feel secure until suddenly someone greater shows up and overtakes them.
Such is the Kingdom of God. As we look this morning, Jesus is still speaking of the Kingdom of God versus the Kingdom of Satan. Last week, we ended the text at verse 20, but the text actually continues on. So this morning we pick it back up with this idea of two kingdoms continuing and becoming more and more dominating toward the conversation at hand. It’s so dominate a theme that one cannot ignore it.
We see this two-kingdom choice leading to four alternatives. The first alternative is winning or losing. The second is gathering or scattering. The third is holiness or evil. The fourth is minor blessings or greater blessings.
Winning/Losing
Gathering/Scattering
Holiness/Evil
Minor Blessing/Greater Blessing
When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are safe;
but when one stronger than he attacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his spoil.
Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’
And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order.
Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first.”
As he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!”
But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”
Winning/Losing
Winning/Losing
The first alternative that is produced from having two kingdoms is a winning or losing alternative. One kingdom has to win and the other has to lose. The two kingdoms are opposed to one another and cannot coexist for very long. One of the properties of matter is that two objects cannot occupy the same space simultaneously. The same goes with two kingdoms. One must win and one must lose.
Until Jesus, Satan’s kingdom was winning. He, after all, was the prince of demons, the prince of the power of the air, the ruler of the world. And yet, when Jesus came, the kingdom of God was ushered into being. Satan’s kingdom began to be invaded. He who had such a stronghold on this world began to lose it.
When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are safe;
Most of us have seen those movies where the bad guy is holed up somewhere. He got all he needs in his mansion, including a wall all around the perimeter and a plethora of guards on the roof, at the gate, and every place that might be accessed. And yet somehow, the good guy is able to sneak through, disarm the guards, and get to the bad guy. Just like what happened in Babylon.
This is what happened on earth. You may recall that back in chapter 10, when the 72 men that Jesus sent out returned from the missionary journeys, Jesus told them
And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.
Satan had lost his standing in heaven, and he was losing it on earth as well. Why? Because Jesus is greater. He is stronger than the strong man. And we see what happens when someone like that comes into play.
but when one stronger than he attacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his spoil.
There’s a winner and a loser. The one who is stronger than the strong man wins. Jesus wins. The kingdom of God wins. Satan loses. His kingdom is defeated. All the armor, all the power, all the guards and guns and riches that he once thought made him indestructible, impenetrable, invincible are no more.
And it’s tempting to say that this all happens in the future. But that isn’t what Jesus said at all. We go back to the text we read last week.
But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
This is different language here that what we are used to. It’s very deliberate language. Before, we would read, the kingdom of God is at hand or that it’s near. Jesus was saying it’s right here. But in this case, he says, if I’m casting out demons by the finger of God—the Spirit of God—then that means that God’s kingdom is already here.
Satan’s kingdom was being ransacked. Why all the demonic activity in Galilee and Judea? Why during this time and not others? Why not in Rome or Ethiopia or Syria? Why there? Why then? Because Satan’s kingdom was being attacked there and then. It’s walls had been infiltrated and Satan was doing an all out shock and awe campaign to keep his standing.
And it almost worked. Because the people of Judea, led by the Jewish leaders, rejected their Messiah and put him on the cross. But it was all part of God’s plan.
“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—
this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.
And what happened as a result? We read that in
He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
Literally, by having a victory parade. What happens when the stronger than the strong man invades? He overcomes, takes away the armor (i.e. disarms him) and divides the spoils, or as Paul put it has a victory parade, which is often when the spoils would be divided.
So there is a clear winner and a clear loser. Which side do you take? Which side are you on? We are born in the domain of darkness. We are born under Satan’s power and under his rule. The only way to be in the kingdom of light, the kingdom of God, of the beloved Son, is to reject this sin-soaked world, turn from your own sin, and receive God’s mercy that he offers by the blood of his Son.
Scattering/Gathering
Scattering/Gathering
The second alternative that is produced by two-kingdoms is that of scattering and gathering. These two are diametrically opposed to one another. Imagine for a moment that you have just spent the last hour raking up your fall leaves into a big pile. You go to get some yard waste bags to put them in. Upon your return, the leaves are everywhere! It turns out that you and your kids had diametrically opposite ideas for those leaves. You’re gathering, but they are scattering. They’re playing in them, kicking them, throwing them. They may not even really have thought about what they’re doing but they are in one way or another, intentionally or unintentionally undoing all your hard work.
Jesus said,
Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
There’s no middle ground. Many people want to excuse themselves like those little kids. I don’t intentionally scatter. I’m not intentionally going against him. But the result is the same. There are those who gather and those who scatter. To not be for is to be against. As Al Martin would say, “There is no neutral ground.” Or as Robert Stein would say, “One is either pro-Jesus or con-Jesus, for or against, yes or no, heaven bound or hell bound, righteous or unrighteous, gatherers or scatterers. This verse applies the truth of the pericope both to Jesus’ listeners and to Luke’s readers. Neutrality with respect to Jesus is impossible.” One cannot sit on the fence when it comes to Jesus’s kingdom. You will either be for him or against him. You’ll either be gathering more people, more sheep, more land, or you’ll be scattering.
This is a parallelism that Jesus is using. What we would call step-parallelism. He’s saying the same thing in two different ways, but he ramps it up slightly the second time. To be against him then is to scatter. To be for is to gather. No one just sits and does nothing. It doesn’t work that way.
Jesus isn’t playing around here. He’s making it abundantly clear that no one can have a middle of the road approach to Jesus. No one is passive when it comes to Jesus. Everyone is active—actively in favor or actively against.
When Pilate tried to play middle of the road, he found out it was impossible. “I don’t see anything wrong with him, but I’ll flog him and then set him free.” But there’s no neutral ground. So he said, “I’ll give you the choice between Barabbas and Jesus.” No neutral ground. “Give us Barabbas!” So he finally took a basin and washed his hands, “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” but he wasn’t. He actively had him condemned to the cross.
People want to pretend like they’re not fanatics. Like they’re laid back about Jesus. But Jesus says everyone is a fanatic. You’re either on my side or not. You’re either working for me or against me. Gathering or scattering.
“ ‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot!
So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.
Extremes! Hot like the waters of Hieropolis that were used for healing. Or cold like the waters of Colossae which were for refreshing. Lukewarm, middle of the road, sitting on the fence—sickening. Not healing. Nauseating, not refreshing. Be hot or cold as a Christian, but whatever you do, don’t be lukewarm. Christ won’t allow it.
Which kingdom are you in? Who do you work for; who are you working against?
Holiness/Evil
Holiness/Evil
But there’s more. It’s not just about winning and losing or gathering and scattering. It’s a matter of holiness or evil. There are just two alternatives here. One cannot kind of be one or the other.
“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’
And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order.
Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first.”
Now, we aren’t sure if this hypothetical person had a demon exorcised or if the demon just left him because he got bored. We aren’t told. But he’s gone out of the person and enters the desert. Remember demons are not big on water. Water was a sign of the abyss. Again, one reason John the Baptist was considered demon possessed was because he spent his time in the wilderness, aka desert; traditionally, that’s were demons roamed.
But it seems like he got bored in his search for rest, so he went back home. Everything was nice and tidy, but it was empty. It was neither a home for the demon nor a home for the Holy Spirit. One could say that the home was “neutral.” But it couldn’t stay that way, could it?
People who want to stay neutral will find they can’t. One will either fill their home with holiness or with evil.
The point of the parable that Jesus tells here is not about demon possession, but about becoming worse off for trying to stay neutral. The fact that the demon found himself seven buddies is meant to show the completeness of evil in his life. Seven is the number of completion or totality. One cannot stay clean and tidy on the inside.
One either actively makes his way toward holiness or actively makes his way toward evil. That’s how it is when there are only two kingdoms.
This is a situation that often happens with new converts. They come to church. They’re lives have gotten tidy and cleaned up a bit. But then what happens? Nothing. There’s no growth. No holiness. There’s not any prayer. No Bible reading. And they’ve received the assurance of eternal security. Once saved always saved. They’re good to go.
But here’s the thing. We don’t believe in eternal security. Eternal security is not a biblical concept. The perseverance of the saints is what we believe because it is actually biblical. Eternal security is a watered down version of perseverance of the saints. Jesus calls us to persevere to the end. Those who do, are saved.
When we come to know Jesus, unless we have a deathbed conversion or die soon after, we ought to be growing in holiness. Jesus isn’t just in the sweeping and putting in order business. He’s in the holiness business. Hence Peter wrote
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence,
by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge,
and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness,
and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.
God has given us everything we need to become more godly, to become holy. The promise is there, the power is there, the provision is there. It’s all there. Now we must take what he’s given to us and supplement our faith with it all. It’s not about just tidying up a bit. It’s about holiness.
Tidying up, without holiness will put you and me and anyone else who tries to do it, in a worse position than when we started. That’s why I hate all the “try Jesus” stuff that keeps getting repackaged. He’s not something you take home and try for 90 days and return if things don’t get better. There’s no neutrality.
There are two kingdoms. You can’t have a foot in each one. You’re either all in or your all out. This isn’t the hokey pokey.
Minor Blessing/Greater Blessing
Minor Blessing/Greater Blessing
Which leads us to the fourth alternative of having two kingdoms. One can be blessed in this world being in either kingdom. But the degree of those blessings is extreme.
This verse reminds me of Megamind. In this movie, there is a Superman character called MetroMan. Everyone loves him. And near the beginning of the movie, he is speaking to a crowd and someone out of nowhere shouts, “We love you, MetroMan,” to which he responds, “I love you too, random citizen.” Here is Jesus teaching about what the kingdom of God is about,
As he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!”
I have had times when people say weird things while I’m teaching, and I wonder if this was one of those times where Jesus wanted to say what I have wanted to say at times: “What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?”
But he doesn’t. He used it as an opportunity to make a point.
Certainly there are blessings to being Jesus’s mother. But whatever blessings they might be, they are short-lived and are minor to another blessing that could be anyone’s.
But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”
Beloved, every so often, one might hear someone say something like, “I just wish I could have been with Jesus. I just wish I could have sat under his teaching. I wish I could have touched him.” Or something like that. Such a minor blessing compared to this blessing he brings up here.
The word here that is translated “rather” certainly can mean exact opposite. It could actually mean “indeed,” but more likely, it’s a mixture of both in this scenario. What this woman has said is true in so far it goes, but it doesn’t go far enough. There is a greater blessing to be had: hearing and obeying God’s Word is a greater blessing than being Jesus’s mother.
This almost reiterates what Jesus just said about holiness and evil. We aren’t meant to stay stagnant. Mary’s bearing and nursing Jesus was not all she was called to. That blessing was temporary. More important and more blessed was continuous hearing and continuous obedience.
We are meant to be actively growing in holiness. We cannot stay stagnant and live on yesterday’s blessing.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Hopefully, we’ve seen through this passage that because there are only two kingdoms: God’s and Satan’s, that there are multiple alternatives that affect every single person. Every person will be either in the winning team or losing team. Every person is either gathering or scattering because every single person is either for or against Jesus. Every person is either growing in holiness or on a journey toward more and more corruption and evil. Every person is either looking at temporal blessings or greater eternal blessings.
That’s just how it is. That doesn’t mean that everything is going to be great for those who are on this earth. This earth is enemy territory. The Kingdom of God has invaded and has made great inroads against this evil Kingdom, but it is not yet complete. We are in enemy territory. We are behind enemy lines. And some pretty evil things happen when enemies are found within the borders.
John told me about and then sent me an article in Voice of the Martyr’s magazine. In it a pastor named Jon, who pastored a small church in the Middle East had twenty heavily armed al-Qaida fighters burst through the doors. They beat the members and shoved them to one side of the building. Pastor Jon said he had a vision of heaven and yelled to the members of the church, “God is welcoming us! Be at peace! We are going to heaven!” In the end, no one died that day. The jihadists were taken aback by what the pastor said that instead of murdering the congregation as planned, they ransacked and robbed the place. They allowed everyone to live, saying, “This land belongs to Muslims.”
That’s not just the mindset of Muslims, you know. That’s the mindset of everyone outside God’s kingdom. “This land belongs to _____________________.” The more the land is invaded by God’s Kingdom, the more hostile it will become. But victory is guaranteed because victory has already come.
Everyone outside of God’s kingdom—everyone outside of Christ—is losing, trying to scatter, growing in darkness, and is satisfied with temporal blessings. The eternal consequences are graver than the temporal. Those left in Satan’s kingdom when Christ returns will remain under Satan’s reign in hell for all eternity. But all who come to Jesus, he will in no way cast out.
Prayer
Our heavenly Father,
Would that we would fully commit our lives to your kingdom. That we would see and know the victory that has been won for us at the cross. That we would commit to gathering others for your glory and their salvation. That we would grow day by day in holiness, supplementing our faith with virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love. That we would seek the greater blessing that comes from the obedience of faith, rather than the mere temporal and lesser blessings that come in this world.
Forgive us for when and where we fail in these, and may we enjoy this moment in which we dine with you at the King’s table.
In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.