May 23rd
Speaker: Michael Dugone Text: Mark 3:20-30 20 And He came home, and the crowd gathered again, to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal. 21 When His own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, “He has lost His senses.” 22 The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.” 23 And He called them to Himself and began speaking to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 26 If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but [l]he is finished! 27 But no one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house. 28 “Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— 30 because they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.” big idea: Jesus has declared war on an established kingdom. He is healing the sick, bringing new authority and teachings, forgiving sins, breaking the oral tradition, "working" on the sabbath, overcoming temptation, and opposing the Jewish/religious leaders of his time. However, it is not the kingdom of Israel or the Jewish religion that is under attack but the Kingdom of Darkness. Jesus says in Matthew 5:17 that "He has not come to abolish the law and prophets but to fulfill them," but He says no such thing about the realm of Satan. In fact, He is in open opposition and has begun to attack this kingdom. It started in the desert when Jesus resisted the devil's temptations and continues as we see Jesus exert his power and authority over the demon possessed. In this passage we see Jesus’ power and authority come into question by two different groups in two different ways. It reminds me of a C.S. Lewis quote from Mere Christianity, “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” This is exactly what we see play out in the passage and Jesus leaves the Pharisees with a very stern warning about the road they are headed down. Questions to consider:
parallel passage: Mark 12 1And He began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard and put a [a]wall around it, and dug a vat under the wine press and built a tower, and rented it out to [b]vine-growers and went on a journey. 2 At the harvest time he sent a slave to the vine-growers, in order to receive some of the produce of the vineyard from the vine-growers. 3 They took him, and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Again he sent them another slave, and they wounded him in the head, and treated him shamefully. 5 And he sent another, and that one they killed; and so with many others, beating some and killing others. 6 He had one more to send, a beloved son; he sent him last of all to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 7 But those vine-growers said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours!’ 8 They took him, and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. Matthew 12: 22-32 22 Then a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute was brought to [v]Jesus, and He healed him, so that the mute man spoke and saw. 23 All the crowds were amazed, and were saying, “This man cannot be the Son of David, can he?” 24 But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, “This man casts out demons only by [w]Beelzebul the ruler of the demons.” 25 And knowing their thoughts Jesus said to them, “[x]Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and [y]any city or house divided against itself will not stand. 26 If Satan casts out Satan, he [z]is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand? 27 If I by [aa]Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? For this reason they will be your judges. 28 But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. 29 Or how can anyone enter the strong man’s house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house.30 He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters.31 “Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. 32 Whoever [ab]speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever [ac]speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come. Theology/apologetics:
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