Luke 11:14-23 (Devotion)

JESUS AND BEELZEBUL - "Now he (Jesus) was casting out a demon that was mute. When the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke, and the people marveled. But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of demons,” while others, to test him, kept seeking from him a sign from heaven. But he, knowing their thoughts, said to them, 'Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a divided household falls. And if Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul. And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. 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.'"

Spiritual warfare is real. Anyone who has ever felt the pull of temptation can attest to it, yet how often are we fully aware of all that is going on around us in the spiritual realm? Can we see it? Hear it? Feel it? Taste it? The Bible reminds us that we must "be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour" (1 Peter 5:8). Therefore, it is imperative we understand how Satan perverts absolute truth with confusion in order to twist our minds into believing false truth. Here in Luke 11:14-23, we see the heart of man confused by Satan's influence to contradict and downplay a miracle Jesus performed. In the minds of some people, the authority by which Jesus healed a man is questioned. Was it Divine or Satanic? The amazing thing about Jesus is that He embodies the loving character of God the Father while maintaining His righteous judgment of unbelief. He could have chosen to ignore His naysayers. However, He took time to not only set straight their twisted logic, but sternly warned of the dangers unbelief has on man's eternal resting place. These people had the luxury of witnessing Jesus' miracles firsthand, yet still struggled with believing He was the Messiah. According to their logic, they simply wanted more proof, but inevitably their skepticism revealed the hardness of their hearts which resisted the testimony right before their eyes. "He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him" (John 1:10-11).

Keep in mind, this was not the first nor last time Jesus was questioned, challenged and doubted regarding His identity and purpose. "The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, 'Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation'" (Mark 8:11-12). Even Jesus labored at how hardhearted people were to doubt His divinity despite the countless miracles He performed, which is why He grievously wept before entering Jerusalem prior to His death. "And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, 'Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation'" (Luke 19:41-44). The sad truth is that despite Jerusalem suffering the wrath of God's fury for it's unbelief and subsequent destruction as Jesus prophesied, to this day the heart of man still resists yielding to the undeniable truth of the Gospel. In other words, people are CHOOSING doubt and skepticism over Biblical proof. What they fail to realize is that God's patience has an expiration date, and that hour is reserved for when we pass from this life to the next—from temporary to eternal. "But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed" (Romans 2:5).

Now certainly there is justifiable cause for concern when we hear relative truth packaged as absolute. In those instances, we are wise to question and test the authority of both the message and messenger. "Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil" (1 Thessalonians 5:20-22). But when God chooses to reveal Himself in our lives, we must be properly equipped to discern whether the voices we hear are good or evil because Satan uses whatever means necessary to lead us astray from submission and obedience to Scripture. "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already" (1 John 4:1-3). They key is understanding Satan's tactics and strategies which seek to ISOLATE our minds, MINIMIZE consequences, MAXIMIZE hypocrisy, and JUSTIFY sin, because the intoxicating perfume of temptation has a pleasing aroma which preys upon our weaknesses and provides opportunity for failure and compromise if we allow it. Satan knows if he can single us out from the herd like a young or wounded animal, we are much more susceptible to being overcome and killed by powers much stronger than we can bear. Therefore, we must remain close to the body of Christ in fellowship and accountability to ensure we have the necessary support and protection of those who love us unconditionally. "Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!" (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10).

Isolation is a tactic we must be on guard about at all times, especially as men, because pride and arrogance are common tools Satan uses to feed our insecurities when we should be asking for help. It began in the garden of Eden when Satan tempted Eve by isolating her from God and continues to this day through the myriad of escapism tactics readily available to us through the technological advancements of our day and age. For instance, prior to the birth of the Internet in 1991, if a man was overcome by lust and sought an outlet to feed his desires, he had to venture outside his home to appease his cravings. Today, Internet and social media provide all the ammunition a man needs to severely enslave his heart in the privacy of his own home without anyone knowing about it to intervene and hold him accountable. The Bible teaches, "Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy" (Proverbs 27:5-6), but a friend is limited in his ability to help when we isolate ourselves to such an extent that no one is aware of our struggles. Once we are isolated, Satan then begins to wear down our psyche by minimizing the consequences we know will come as a result of our disobedience to God's righteous standard. In other words, minimizing consequences paves the wave for habitual addiction. Let us be clear: The minute we allow ourselves to minimize consequences, we maximize hypocrisy by our actions and do far more damage than good to ourselves, our friends and family, the church, and the world at large by inevitably justifying our sin rather than enacting heart change. "For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries" (Hebrews 10:26-27).

When Eve bit into the forbidden fruit God specifically instructed her to avoid, she unlocked a knowledge that haunts us to this day. The ability to discern good and evil is powerful because it places us in a judgment seat every day of our lives. What we do with that responsibility is dependent upon the time we spend not only reading God's Word, but applying its teachings throughout every facet of our lives. Eve chose to justify her sin when God confronted her in the garden, which sealed her fate and invoked a chain reaction we all struggle with to this day. By justifying our sin, we are essentially attempting to minimize or altogether eliminate guilt, shame and regret, as is the case with blame-shifting. "The man said, 'The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.' Then the LORD God said to the woman, 'What is this that you have done?' The woman said, 'The serpent deceived me, and I ate'" (Genesis 3:12-13). The problem is that the more we justify sin, the more calloused we become toward the consequences of sin, and our spiral of degradation entrenches us deeper and deeper into a stronghold we have no power to overcome without Christ. Therefore, we must embrace honesty, humility, transparency, vulnerability and brokenness if we truly desire righteousness through accountability. It all begins with surrendering our selfish will for God's will and accepting His sovereignty despite our limited knowledge and wisdom. "And he (Jesus) withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, 'Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done'" (Luke 22:41-42).

What Jesus leaves us with at the end of Luke 11:14-23 is a key element to understanding the over-arching tactic Satan uses to break our will and hold us captive. Keep in mind, Satan spends very little time tormenting unbelievers because they have already succumbed to his power and chose to reject Christ. Therefore, he has already won those souls for the time being. Where Satan invests the bulk of his time, energy and resources is targeting those of us who have accepted Christ by undermining the areas which we feel we're the strongest in. Logic would tell us that if a man struggles with lust, Satan will target that weakness and prey upon it tirelessly by creating environments where that fleshly desire can flourish. What we fail to realize is that planting seeds of lustful opportunity is simply a distraction to indirectly to lure our attention, so that he can target our strengths in order to break us down from within. Think of it practically. A married man feels he is spiritually grounded but spends little to no time reading his Bible. He knows he is saved but struggles with lust, so he safeguards himself by not befriending or having personal conversations with other women, bouncing his eyes, and avoiding sexually graphic images on television or the Internet. All are good and wise choices. Unfortunately, where he is doomed to fail is not safeguarding the true root of pride which undermines his efforts. That is why Jesus said, "When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings with it 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. So also will it be with this evil generation" (Matthew 12:43-45).

It is no different that the tactic Joshua used to capture the city of Ai (Joshua 8). By luring his enemies away from their stronghold, Joshua successfully ambushed his enemies by using their pride against them. Ai was a powerful city and their inhabitants knew it. But when their greatest strength was manipulated for the benefit of the Israelites, the people of Ai were quickly destroyed and their city plundered all because they assumed their strengths were unbreakable. Fast-forward to Luke 11:14-23 and we can see the power of Jesus' message that our perceived strengths can become our greatest weakness when spiritual warfare is ratcheted up. What we must realize is that the more time we invest trimming weeds without pulling them up from their root, the more their seeds will spread across our entire lives (just like they do in our lawns). We simply cannot become comfortable and complacent, assuming we can ignore our strengths to focus on shoring up our weaknesses. Satan is too smart for that and he will find opportunity to break through and tear our walls down if we are not cognoscente of his tactics and strategically ensuring we are guarded appropriately on all sides of our character. Jesus said, "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned" (John 15:4-6). May we heed this warning and align our hearts with His, so that when Satan attempts to overcome us with guilt, shame and despair, we will hold fast to God's Word which assures our salvation and provides us the tools we need to overcome the forces of darkness by the power of the blood of the Lamb.