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INJ
'The Stronger Man'
St Luke 11:14-28
Divine Service
Oculi, Lent IV
March 19th, 2006
Hope Lutheran Church, Aurora, CO
Dear Saints,
“I'll believe it when I see it.” You've heard that before, haven't you? “Seeing is believing.” That's the common wisdom, that reality is seen, that our eyes will tell us what's true and what's false. And so we believe what we see.
But perhaps there is another way to know reality and understand what's really going on in this world, what's real and what's not. Perhaps instead of trusting our eyes, we ought to trust our ears, what we hear in the Lord's Word. “For we,” says St Paul, “walk by faith, not by sight.” [2 Corinthians 5:7] And this “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” [Romans 10:17] An old pastor and teacher of mine told me, “One of your jobs as a pastor is to teach people that reality is not what they see, but what they hear in the Lord's Word.” And so to get a right understanding of things, to get a grip on reality and the way things really are, we listen to the Lord's Word. Then we learn the truth.
This morning's Gospel text [St Luke 11:14-28] is a good opportunity to talk about this: the difference between what we see and what we hear in the Lord's Word. The Lord Jesus demonstrates His authority over the principalities and powers of this world by casting a demon out of a mute man. Jesus' opponents will not believe, and instead blaspheme and say that the Lord cast out demons by Beelzebub, the ruler of demons. How can Jesus do this great miracle and cast out demons? His opponents explain it by saying that Jesus Himself has a demon, the chief of demons, and so a greater demon is throwing out a lesser one.
Jesus, of course, sees through this false teaching, saying that no kingdom that is divided against himself can stand. Abraham Lincoln made this verse famous, using it to decry the Civil War. Jesus was talking about the devil's kingdom, and He tells us that this kingdom is unified, the devil does not work against itself. The devil's kingdom will not implode, it must be destroyed from the outside.
This is what Jesus has done, “But if I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.” [11:20] The kingdom of God is the rule and reign of the Lord Christ, so where ever Jesus is, there is the kingdom. And the kingdom of heaven is set against and opposed to the kingdom of the devil and the kingdom of the world. And this kingdom of God is overcoming and overthrowing the devil's kingdom.
And then Jesus tells us a parable. “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace. But when a stronger than he comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes from him all his armor in which he trusted, and divides his spoils.” [11:21,22] This is the passage which we will focus on, for in this passage Jesus tells us what He is doing, His work in the invisible word of angels and demons. This is the work that we cannot see, but which we know that the Lord has accomplished by His cross. Well, what is that work?
First Jesus tells of a strong man who is clad in full armor. Picture a Roman soldier, with shield, helmet, sword, body armor, well trained and tried in battle, standing at the door of his palace, this is the picture the Lord uses to describe the devil. And what is the devil's palace and what are the devil's goods? This is a description of the world, the unbelieving world which the Scriptures call the devil's kingdom. And the devil's treasure? All sinners. This is where we fit into the picture that Jesus is painting for us. We were born as the devil's goods and the children of “the power of darkness,” [Colossians 1:13] and we were locked up tight, in the devil's treasure hold, or perhaps his dungeon, held captive by the fear of death [Hebrews 2:15].
And what is this kingdom of the devil like? “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace.” The peaceful kingdom of the devil, this might sound strange, but we might know something of this. The unbeliever is often very comfortable in their unbelief and has no trouble. But even if there is a desire to break out of this palace, there is no chance, the goods are safe, there is no way that we can, on our own and by our own strength, break out and over come the devil. This devil is strong, and he need not worry about being overcome by us. We are born into his strangling death-grip with no way out by our own power and strength.
This is what our eyes see. We can look around and read the paper and watch the news and it seems as if the devil is in charge, as if this world is completely under his control, and as if his kingdom is in peace.
But Jesus changes things. His parable continues, “But when a stronger than he comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes from him all his armor in which he trusted, and divides his spoils.” Look at how Jesus is described: the stronger than he. Jesus is the stronger man. This is a wonderful comfort to us. The devil is the armored up strong man whom we could not overcome, but we have another, a stronger man, the one who does overcome the devil: our Lord Jesus.
And so when the Gospel of Jesus comes in, when the preaching of the kingdom is heard, then things change, then the devil's kingdom is threatened and overthrown. By Jesus, the stronger man, the strong man is defeated, is stripped of his armor, is publicly exposed as a mockery, and his spoils are divided, that is, you and I are rescued and delivered and set free from bondage, ransomed. We are plundered out of the devil's house by Jesus. “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.” [Colossians 1:13] “For this reason the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.” [1 John 3:8]
Jesus, on the cross, triumphed over the devil [See Colossians 2:15]. St John sees it like this in the Revelation, chapter 20 [:1-3], “Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished.”
Or the writer of Hebrews gives it to us like this, “For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.” [Hebrews 2:14]
Jesus has overcome the devil, and He did it on the cross. It is there, in His bitter sufferings and death, in His agony and bloody sweat, in His body broken and blood spilt, in His bearing the sins of all the world and being forsaken by the Father, in His passion and in His being overcome by death and the devil, it is there, in His weakness and humility, that He conquer and overcomes. It is there that His kingdom has the victory, for there, on the cross, the devil bites off more that he can chew and death and the grave try to snare the innocent Lord of life and they fail, are choked. Jesus has the victory, the devil is overcome, his palace is plundered and his kingdom is overthrown.
Now, this may not be what our eyes see. It still may appear that the devil is free, not bound, that his kingdom is strong, not overcome, that he has all things in a tight grip, not that the Lord has a hold of the devil's throat. But, “we walk by faith, not by sight.” [2 Corinthians 5:7] “Seeing is believing?” No, hearing is believing, hearing the Lord's Word and promises. We walk by faith, trusting the Lord's promise that He is the stronger man, the One who has overcome and plundered the devil, the One who has bound him and set us free, the One who has triumphed over death and conquered the grave. We walk by faith, trusting the Lord's promise, “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” [St John 16:33]
May the Lord Jesus grant us His Holy Spirit, that we would walk by faith and not by sight, that we would understand reality through the words of the Holy Scriptures, and that we would take heart and comfort and peace from the knowledge that the Lord Jesus has overcome the devil and still continues to overcome him through His Word, and that He has rescued us sinners from the devils grasp, and delivered us to His own good and gracious kingdom, where we live under Him and serve Him in righteousness, innocence and blessedness. May this be your comfort and your peace. Amen.
And now may the peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Pastor Wolfmueller
A list of the Scriptures that show Christ' cross as His victory over the devil, here.