Luke 11:14-26

Let’s start with what the Bible has to say.  If you don’t have one handy, read it here:

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2011%3A%2014-26&version=GNT

Haters gonna hate.  Apparently, that’s not a recent development.  It truly did not matter what Jesus did, the people who didn’t like him, were not going to change their minds.  People are being tormented by demons.  These spiritual forces of evil are causing them to have severe and debilitating symptoms from which they cannot heal.  We are given some descriptions throughout scripture of the ways in which demons destroyed lives.  We hear of seizures, violent outbursts, even spiritual gifting like fortune telling that made them subject to exploitation.  We hear of isolation and self-harm.  Demons are not fascinating mystical beings.  They are as real as trees, but the harm they cause is instigated on a spiritual level, so we sometimes assume it’s less real.  

Think of the difference between a heart attack and heart break.  Both can compromise a person’s life when they are severe.  Heart attacks are obvious and easy to diagnose, but the heartbreak that a parent suffers when their child’s poor choices land them in addiction and incarceration and vicious resentment can do the same damage.  If I understand it correctly, and I am keenly aware that my understanding is limited, demons operate on a level like heart break, on that spiritual plane where evil influence can cause more harm than a bullet.  God made people in his image.  When they look at us, they see him reflected in us.  They hate him.  He is untouchable, but we are not.  

We have been self-serving, and treacherous and unkind.  We have placed ourselves within their reach.  So they do their utmost to blot out every beautiful feature with which God enables us to reflect him in this world.  When our focus is on anything but God, we are susceptible to their corrupting influence.   I don’t want to waste a lot of time on them, but I also don’t want to be ignorant of them.  

The Bible doesn’t waste a lot of time on them either.  What it does teach us is how the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, acts in our lives.  Among many things, we are told he counsels us, reminds us of what we have learned, comforts us, convicts and inspires us, and is a seal on the life of the believer that guarantees that God’s promise of salvation and eternity with him will be kept.  While God can and does step into the natural world in supernatural ways, healing disease, literally sending angels to protect people and the like, most often God works by orchestrating the circumstances and influences in our lives to move us in the direction we need to go.  

For example, I have seen a young person who loved Jesus but was kind of floating without direction and getting distracted from God’s work in her life, go to a random party where she chatted with someone she had known for years but never really spoke with, who was leading a mission trip.  She encouraged her to go on that trip and it gave her direction and inspiration for her future.  The Holy Spirit speaks to our hearts to influence us to do things that lead us into his good plan for us.  

If I understand correctly, and feel free to read the Bible and correct me if I’m wrong, the spiritual world interacts with the physical world most frequently in that sort of way.  I think of it as speaking to our hearts as opposed to physically picking us up and putting us in a different room (although there is biblical precedent for that level of intervention by the Holy Spirit).  Never underestimate the Holy Spirit.  There is nothing he can’t do that is within his character.  

Demons, on the other hand, are limited.  They have influence on our spirits.  In some circumstances they seem to be able to cause disease.  It appears they can torment animals enough to cause problems for humans.  From what I have read and observed, they do their best work by influencing humans to behave contrary to the image of God at work in us.  They convince us we are hopeless and our lives cannot change.  They inspire anger, pride, greed and selfishness in us.  And let’s be honest, once those emotions take root in our lives, we can do plenty of damage without any help at all from the spiritual world. 

So in the same way that, in the physical world, there are people whose lives are submitted to God and there are people who are committed to rebelling against him, in the spiritual realm there are spirits who serve God and spirits who oppose him.  To keep it simple, we can generally say that the spirits who honour God have come to be called angels (although that is probably more of a species) and those who oppose him we call demons.  In reality, demons are angels, they are just angels that have turned so far from God that they have been given a different name.  

Hmm, there’s a crazy thought.  Demons are just angels that have so entirely ceased to be what they were created to be that we typically don’t even remember that they are angels.  That might be an interesting picture of how humans can so entirely abandon God that we barely live like humans anymore.  Remember that when God made humans, every other part of creation he declared good, but he called us very good. Being human is something incredibly beautiful and noble.  The phrase, “I’m only human” is based in a gross misunderstanding of what it is to be human.

All that to say that when the religious leaders tried to call Jesus the prince of demons, they crossed a line, several in fact.  They underestimated both his power and his goodness.  They accused the Son of God of being the enemy of God.  Jesus barely addressed the attempted character assasination.  It seems to me that Jesus never wasted much time defending himself.  His focus was spreading the message that the kingdom of God was arriving. So he took the foolish accusation and used it as a teaching point.  

The kingdom of God was stronger than the kingdom of Beelzebub, one of the many names used for Satan the leader of demons.  Satan’s spiritual kingdom, which includes anyone who has not submitted their life to God, is strong, he explained.  If someone were to attack that kingdom, in this case by driving demons from someone over whom they had influence, they would need to be stronger.  The fact that Jesus had been successful over and over, was proof that he was greater than Satan and opposed to him. Jesus had pointed out that some who followed the teachings of the religious leaders also claimed to drive out demons.  Either both they and he were doing it in the power and authority of God, or neither were.  And he warned them, you can’t just drive out a demon and expect that to be the end of the matter.  Like a vacant house, a person who is freed from the influence of demons can quite easily be enslaved again, and when demons return they will return with vengeance.  But if the stronger man is given residence in that house, they won’t be able to move in.  Jesus was explaining that tossing demons was only effective if you gave the Holy Spirit the place they had vacated.  Humans are going to be influenced.  We aren’t islands and we interact in the spiritual world whether or not we are aware of it.  The Holy Spirit’s presence alone is enough to beat out those other influences and set us free to be whole and clean.  God’s kingdom needs to come in each of our lives.  

Jesus points out that his capacity to drive out demons proves that the kingdom has come, and it is time to acknowledge the sides we have taken.  Either we are for Jesus or we are against him, and if we want our freedom and healing to be a lasting thing, we need to invite him, the strong man, to lead and protect our home.