[Note: This sermon expounds Matthew 12:22–29 as part of the continuing study of the Lord's teaching in Matthew. Delivered 11 December 1977, Montreal.]
Last week we saw that the Lord Jesus is the greater David, David's Lord — as established in Psalm 110:1, where David calls his own son "my Lord." This week the passage shifts from the glory of Jesus to his enemy, and ours. The whole theme now is Satan. The word Satan is a Hebrew word meaning enemy, adversary; its Greek equivalent, Diabolos, is transliterated into English as "devil." It is also the root of our English word diabolical — meaning exactly that.
Satan is not a theoretical or symbolic figure. He is a real, powerful, and dreadful enemy. As the principle from Chinese military science states — 知己知彼，必勝之道也 — you must know your enemy and know yourself. To underestimate the enemy is fatal; to overestimate him is also fatal; and to underestimate yourself is fatal. Precision in understanding the enemy is essential to spiritual warfare. Against Satan in our own strength, we would never win a single battle. But this does not mean we should fear him: we do not fear him, but we respect his power and we take him seriously.
Satan may attack personally or through his agents, the demons — his army. I will share an account told to me directly by the man himself, without embellishment. A Christian man was selling Bibles in a village in the east of England. He had been told that a woman in the local post office was a spirit medium — someone with direct contact with evil spirits. He went to her and placed a gospel tract on the counter, warning her against involvement with spirits. She looked up at him with sharp, evil eyes, said "come with me," and led him upstairs to a meeting room covered with strange pictures. As he continued to warn her, she suddenly moved with remarkable speed, seized the pen from his breast pocket, and began to mutter over it while squeezing it. He retrieved his pen and, thinking little more of it, went on with his work and returned to his room that night. In the middle of the night he woke to find himself being strangled by an invisible but very powerful force. Looking up, he saw two strange yellow eyes staring down at him in the darkness. He struggled, prayed, and nothing happened — until in desperation he called out the name of Jesus. At that name, the creature immediately fled straight out through the closed door. He realised afterwards what he had failed to do: before replacing the pen in his pocket, he should have prayed for the Lord's cleansing, to destroy the power of the enemy's curse. Because he had not asked, he had not received the protection he needed.
This account illustrates the point the Lord is making in Matthew 12:22, where a man who is both blind and dumb is brought to Jesus — blind and mute not from any organic cause, but because of a demon. The Bible clearly distinguishes between these two kinds of illness. The man blind from birth in John 9 is not said to be demon-possessed; his condition is physical and organic. But this man's blindness and muteness are caused directly by a spirit. When the Lord Jesus casts out the demon, the man immediately sees and speaks. The people are amazed: "Can this be the Son of David?" — that is, is this the Messiah?
The Pharisees refuse to accept the evidence. Their response: "He casts out demons by Beelzebul" — another name for Satan, the prince of demons. The word devil, Diabolos, means a slanderer or accuser; this is Satan's characteristic work, slandering God's servants before God and before men. When the Pharisees say this of Jesus, they are doing Satan's own work for him. Slander is a very serious sin — especially when directed at a servant of God. What is most striking about the Lord's response is its utter calm: no anger, no raised voice, no loss of composure. He simply reasons with them, clearly and logically. You will never find Jesus doing what the Pharisees do — using emotional pressure, threats, or abuse. He loves the truth, he is not fighting for his reputation, and therefore he speaks quietly and lets the logic stand.
His first reply is simple: if Satan were casting out Satan, he would be destroying his own house — a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. If the demon is truly cast out, Satan cannot be the one who cast it out. His second reply presses further: by whom do your own sons cast out demons? If you say it is by Satan's power, then let your own workers judge you. And his third reply points to what is actually happening: "How can anyone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man?" Notice carefully what the Lord Jesus calls Satan: a strong man. Not a pushover, not a defeated prisoner with his hands tied behind his back — a strong man, and in the parallel passage in Luke 11, a strong man who is fully armed. The Lord does not underestimate his enemy.
# The Spirit of God Overcomes Satanic Affliction — Matthew 12:22–29 (Part B) — Satan's Continuing Power; the Danger of Complacency; Victory Only in Christ
[Note: This is Part B of the sermon on Matthew 12:22–29, continuing directly from Part A. Delivered 11 December 1977, Montreal.]
The person who shouts loudest in an argument is often the most uncertain. I have noticed again and again that when a Christian worker cannot answer your question, he becomes more excited and more aggressive rather than less. He cannot answer the objection, so he crushes you with authority instead — "You are resisting God, your heart is hardened." How different is the Lord Jesus. When he is accused of the most outrageous slander — that he casts out Satan by the power of Satan — he does not turn red in the face or lose his composure. He speaks quietly, clearly, and lets the logic do its work. A person who knows the truth has a certain calm about him. Those who are in error are the ones who begin to shout. I once accepted a challenge to a public debate from some Jehovah's Witnesses in Scotland. The more they were losing the argument, the redder their faces grew, and by the end they were in a state of bad temper. That is always the sign.
This calmness of the Lord in the face of slander teaches us the first principle of dealing with Satan: do not lose your temper. If you allow Satan to make you angry, he has already won a point. If you love the truth more than your own reputation, he cannot trap you in that way. The second principle is clarity of mind. Muddled thinking has no place in spiritual warfare; in no area of life is there more confused reasoning than in religion. The third principle, and the key one, the Lord states in verse 29: "How can anyone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man?" The binding of Satan is not a once-for-all event completed at Calvary, after which he may be safely ignored. Many preachers give the impression that Satan has been bound for good and is now a harmless prisoner of war. But the Lord Jesus calls him a strong man — fully armed according to Luke 11 — and the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 6 says: "Put on the whole armour of God; and having done all, stand." Not advance — stand. Even fully equipped, Paul says, you might just manage to stand your ground. The Apostle Peter warns in 1 Peter 5:8 that your adversary the devil goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour — and he is speaking to Christians.
Revelation 20:2 is the passage where Satan is finally bound, and that lies far ahead. Until then, as the Lord Jesus and Paul and Peter all warn, the enemy is still very much active and very much dangerous. The battle since Calvary is like the battle of Stalingrad: inch by inch, room by room, soul by soul. Calvary was the turning point — the moment after which the ultimate victory was certain — but the fighting continued with every bit as much intensity after that point. When the Allied forces turned the tide in the Second World War, German soldiers continued to fight, to take casualties, to kill. The certainty of the final outcome did not lessen the cost of the battles still to be fought. In the same way, Satan is a defeated enemy in the ultimate sense, but he has not surrendered; his weapons are still deadly and his aim is very good.
The doctrine of "once saved, always saved" — in its popular form — hands Satan exactly what he wants: a church that has put down its armour. Why watch and pray, if a defeated enemy can do you no harm? Why fear, if your place in heaven is reserved regardless of how you live? But the Lord Jesus told his disciples to watch and pray repeatedly; Paul told the Philippian and Thessalonian and Corinthian churches to hold fast, to stand firm, to keep themselves pure. These are not pointless warnings if Christians cannot be harmed. I can see what has happened to people who responded with tears and commitment at conferences — where are they now? Satan has made mincemeat of far too many, and the doctrine that lulled them to sleep bears a share of the blame.
Notice finally how this passage ends: "Or else how can anyone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house." The Lord Jesus is the one who binds the strong man and sets the captives free. In every person who is delivered from bondage — from spiritual blindness, from muteness, from whatever form Satan's grip takes — it is Christ who has bound the strong man in that instance. The power to do this is entrusted to Christians as well, as Matthew 10 already established. But there is only one kind of person whom Satan respects: the one in whom Jesus actually lives, in whom the Holy Spirit abides in fullness. As the Apostle John says: "He that is in you is greater than he that is in the world." Only in close fellowship with Christ, with him living in you, will you win. In your own strength, not for a moment.