"And He was casting out a demon, and it was mute. Now it happened that when the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke, and the crowds marveled. But some of them said, "He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons." And others, testing Him, were seeking from Him a sign from heaven. But He knew their thoughts and said to them, “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a house divided against itself falls. But 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 by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? For this reason, they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are undisturbed. But when someone stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied and distributes his plunder. He who is not with Me is against Me and he who does not gather with Me, scatters."
Good Morning my beloved,
We welcome you to worship today in the name of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for joining us today, whether it's your first time or you are a faithful member of our family in Christ, I give thanks and praise God for each one of you. It's all about Jesus, isn't it? He's the reason we're all here. I would personally like to thank those of you who have been sharing the ministry website, and social media platforms with all of your family and friends. There are many around the world who are responding to God's Word, with more and more confessing Christ.
We have abandoned the once precious Truth of God and traded it for the mantra of the post-modern world, "Your truth is your truth, and my truth is my truth." There’s no longer such a thing as absolute truth, not only is everyone is entitled to his own opinion, now, everyone has the right to believe whatever they want to believe, whether it’s true or not. We imagine there is no longer black and white, we now live in a world where everything is gray. The once clear, well-defined boundaries between right and wrong, fantasy and reality, fact and fiction, has now become so blurred, so obscured, to the point where everyone can not only believe whatever they want, they can become whatever they envision themselves to be without limitations. In fact, by mutilating your body, you can even become the opposite sex, as if it were interchangeable. And, we celebrate this madness as if it were a virtue. Allow me to quickly cut through all the confusion for you, while you are free to think whatever you want to think, while you may believe whatever you choose to believe. With the rise of social media platforms, where individual opinions and personal beliefs are the primary source of knowledge, often overshadow absolute truth based on facts, it has given people the tools necessary to create and share their own narratives, often without regard for factual accuracy, leading to a proliferation of misinformation.
However, that does not negate the reality there is only one Truth. The template for the entire human race has already been laid by the One Who has created them and therefore, everyone in the world falls into one of two categories; male and female. Genesis 1 says In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, He created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them, underscoring God's intentionality and purpose in the creation process. Furthermore, the Word of God unequivocally states that every form of sexual immorality, encompassing any sexual act outside the sacred union of marriage, between a biological man and biological women, constitutes sin, a transgression against God.
I understand this is not the popular view in the church today, especially among younger evangelicals, where there is a growing acceptance of same-sex relationships and the adoption of more inclusive interpretations of Scripture, aligning with broader cultural shifts towards tolerance and acceptance of diverse lifestyles, highlighting that internal struggles and conflicts occurring within the church which are often a microcosm of the much larger societal debates surrounding morality and inclusion and other non-traditional forms of relationships. As followers of Christ, I firmly believe that it is imperative that we remain steadfast in our faith, united in our beliefs and convictions, standing against the forces of evil, in any and all forms in which they present themselves, just as Jesus did. Your eternal destination is determined by whether you are in the kingdom of Light, or you are in the kingdom of darkness. These are the only two options, there is no neutrality with Christ, you're either with Him or against Him. In the complex tapestry of life, I believe that it is essential to recognize that God created the life, not the lifestyle. Satan doesn't care how much truth you believe, so long as it isn't enough Truth to lead to genuine salvation. So he often exploits the superficial allure of a sinful lifestyle as "born this way" to distract from the much deeper spiritual Truth, that man was created in God's image, He created them male and female.In John chapter 17, shortly before Jesus went to the cross, in His High Priestly Prayer, He prayed, asking the Father that we would all be one, just as He and the Father are one. I am convinced that can only be accomplished if we are part of the same local body, a church of dedicated, faithful followers of Christ, who are learning from those whom the Holy Spirit has gifted for us for the edification of the church. A church divided cannot stand, where there is division, Satan is in the middle. I remember several years ago, there was a church near where I live, and the pastor stood in the pulpit the entire to express "extreme dissatisfaction" regarding the way some personal issues were handled with the board of directors, the disagreement went all the way to the top and much of the congregation was divided, it became quite ugly. There was an awful lot of ungodly banter back and forth, resulting in name calling, and eventually, the pastor was removed.
While it is easy to become enamored with charismatic spiritual leaders who offer compelling philosophical insights, true spiritual fulfillment can only come from aligning our core beliefs and values with the Word of God, the ultimate source of Truth that transcends mere human knowledge and opinion, and leads us to eternal life. This involves immersing ourselves in scripture, engaging in meaningful communication with Christ, maintaining a close relationship with God, through regular prayer, seeking His will, not our own. Unfortunately, we live in a world consumed with self; self- love, self-care, self-esteem, self-importance, self-acceptance, self-awareness, self-worth. We are constantly encouraged to "feel good" about ourselves. As a result, we now imagine ourselves to be so important, that our opinion are so valuable, that everybody must hear them, whether they want to or not. The problem with that is, being ignorant of God's righteousness, we have become flawed in our thinking, we imagine that we are more righteous than we are and God is less holier than He is, therefore, He's easier on sin than He is, that He is more tolerant than He has said He is in His Word. The wages of sin is death. (Romans 6:23) We have refused to know the God Who has been revealed to us in Scripture.
In Psalm 145:17, David wrote, "Yahweh is righteous in all His ways And holy in all His works." Works and ways are not exact synonyms, but they can sometimes run parallel to each other, depending on the context in which they're used. We should not expect that our finite minds can understand God’s works or His ways. Because God is so high above us in wisdom, that alone should cause us to worship Him, especially when we encounter things about Him that perplex us. Our ultimate goal must be to trust God and submit to His character. God's people have faced the same problem for centuries, they don't know God. That's why in Luke 23:34, as Jesus was hanging on the cross, He prayed, "Father, forgive them; for—they are willfully ignorant—they do not know what they are doing." I want you to know that when I mention things that convict you, its because I find them rather important, and I also speak these things to my own heart as well, for which I also often feel deeply convicted about the lack of them. Other times, I'm not convicted because those things are being manifest in my life. If it were up to us and our spiritually dead hearts, not one of us would be saved. The Good News is that Jesus has already procured everything we need to be saved as part of His comprehensive salvation—not just forgiveness of sin, but even the faith by which we receive forgiveness! John 10:25-29 tells us those He died for will hear His voice and choose to follow Him. Upon closer examination, Jesus emphasizes that those who do not come to believe in Him and follow His teachings are not counted among His flock. We cannot exercise repentance and faith as an act of our own free will. Romans 3:11-12 highlights the innate inability of humanity to seek God on its own, signifying that divine intervention is necessary, "There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside, together they have become worthless; There is none who does good, There is not even one." However, I am acutely aware that when I preach the Gospel, it will resonate with some, and they will immediately embrace it, while others will sadly remain indifferent, unmoved by what they hear. Therefore, we must be patient, persisting in prayer, with the hope that more hearts may eventually be opened to the transformative power of the Gospel.
Let's pray
Heavenly Father,
Father, thank You for reminding us of some of these very basic things. We all need to be reminded, I know that I do, because I want to live a life that pleases You. Lord, we need Your help that we might learn how to love, not in human terms, but the love that You shed abroad in our hearts, that we might learn what it is to hate sin, especially our own. Lord, we pray not only corporately for our church but for every individual, that each of them might come to know the fullness of blessing that comes to every one who lives for Christ. O Father, if there are any among us who do not yet know Christ as Lord, may this be the day You draw them to Him, so that none may perish in accordance to Your will. And may it be for Your glory and for Christ's sake. We ask and pray these things in His precious Name.
Amen.
Today's Message: A Kingdom Divided
Anyone who does not receive Jesus Christ, who does not welcome Him into their lives, who fails to wholeheartedly follow His teachings with all of their heart, is essentially aligning themselves with Satan. Contrary to popular belief, it is not necessary to actively despise Him or openly reject His deity. Nor is it necessary to attack His character, slander His name or try to discredit His finished work on the cross. You don't even have hate His Gospel, His Kingdom or participate in the persecution of His Church. All you have to do when it comes to Jesus Christ is simply choose to do nothing and you inadvertently out yourself in the same category as those who worship Satan. No decision concerning Jesus Christ is a decision to be against Him, it will damn you as fast as if you bowed down to Satan.
Every person who has ever born on this planet either belongs to Christ or Satan.
This is not merely my opinion, this Truth is supported in various texts throughout Scripture. In 1 John 3, John says, 'The one who does righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. The one who does sin is of the devil, because the devil sins from the beginning." Then, here in Luke 11, verse 23, Jesus Himself tells us, "He who is not with Me is against Me and he who does not gather with Me, scatters."
We are now rapidly approaching the cross, where Jesus would serve as the final and ultimate sacrifice, the sole atonement for humanity's sin. For the last several years, Jesus and His twelve disciples, along with the seventy, have been traveling all over Galilee, throughout Jerusalem and Judea, going to every town and village, performing signs, wonders and extraordinary miracles, healing every kind of illness and disease, casting out demons, teaching in the synagogues, proclaiming the Good News about the Kingdom of Heaven, calling sinners to repentance, in a deep commitment to His divine mission. You know, I see so many professing Christians, frequently engaging in activities that are questionable, really pushing it to the edge as if they're more interested with fulfilling their personal lusts and desires than they are with pleasing the Lord. If you want to keep doing all that stuff, you're free to do so, but you can’t have God. God won't any part of that behavior. If you want to be saved, if you want your sins forgiven, if you want to enter the kingdom of God, you must be willing to humble yourself, and walk away from everything that is a part of your old self. If sin is such a dreadful thing, demanding the pouring out of God's wrath, then surely we must conclude that sin is extremely offensive and displeasing to God because it is contrary to His holy and righteous character.
Therefore, sin can be no trivial matter for those of us who claim to love and follow Christ. Understanding the gravity of sin, we who profess our devotion to Christ, must acknowledge that sin, is not merely a matter of theological doctrine, but a call to embody the values and principles of our faith with a commitment to Christ to live our daily lives in a manner consistent with those beliefs, pursuing holiness and obedience through our daily choices. I am frequently asked if I am concerned about offending people, not really, I am not too concerned about what people think of me, I am far more concerned about offending God than avoiding human judgment. Sinners have been offending God since the beginning of time, yet few seem to be concerned about that. As someone who has experienced the transformative impact that Jesus Christ can truly have on a life firsthand, I continue to preach the Truth for His Glory.
Let's take out our Bibles and open them to the Gospel of Luke chapter 11. Luke 11:14-23. I encourage you to follow along with me as I read to set the text in our minds. "And He was casting out a demon, and it was mute. Now it happened that when the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke, and the crowds marveled. But some of them said, "He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons." And others, testing Him, were seeking from Him a sign from heaven. But He knew their thoughts and said to them, “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a house divided against itself falls. But 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 by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? For this reason, they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are undisturbed. But when someone stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied and distributes his plunder. He who is not with Me is against Me and he who does not gather with Me, scatters."
Let's look at verse 14, "And He was casting out a demon, and it was mute. Now it happened that when the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke, and the crowds marveled." This incident was routine, there's nothing unusual about this particular incident. It happened all the time, performing miracles and casting out demons was a very common occurrence in the daily life of our Lord. Unlike other exorcisms performed during that time that used rituals and incantations, Jesus expelled demons with a simple command, demonstrating His sovereignty and divine authority over demonic spiritual forces. Notice Luke does note that this particular demon was mute. In keeping with the flow of Luke's Gospel, this particular incident happens in Judea, in the southern part of Israel. Some tend to confuse this incident with the one in Matthew 12, where the man was blind and mute, indicating they are not the same event, not to mention, the fact the one in Matthew's account occurred in Galilee, located in northern Israel. Notice, when the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke, and the crowds marveled. In Matthew 12, after Jesus had cast the demon out from the blind mute man and when he began to see and speak, all the crowds were astounded, and were saying, "Can this man really be the Son of David?" The parallel however, is that these two separate incidents, which happened several months apart, in two different locations, they would come up with the same conclusion. This miracle sparks a debate about the source of His power, leading to Jesus’ teaching on the Kingdom of God versus the kingdom of Satan, and the call to align with Him.
Look at verse 15, "But some of them said, "He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons." The Pharisees quickly responded that Jesus was casting out demons by Beelzebul, meaning "lord of the flies," a name associated with Beelzebub, a Philistine god and was later used to refer to Satan himself. This is the best they can come up with? He performs miracle by the power of the dung-god?
No rational person would assume that! Their reaction is disturbing and not only illustrates a significant misinterpretation of the Holy Scriptures, leading them to fail to recognize and accept the Messiah, Who is standing in their midst, but the broader misunderstanding of Jesus' true mission, restoring the relationship between humanity and God through salvation and deliverance from sin, to all who would believe in Him. This accusation is both perplexing and absolutely devastating to me, because the Jewish people had long awaited for the covenant promise to be fulfilled in the arrival of the Messiah, and when He finally arrives, the erroneous conclusion is that the Holy One of God is from hell? Talk about blasphemy! After you've rejected the full revelation of the Truth, the author of Hebrews 6 says, "it is impossible to renew them again to repentance." These were the most influential religious leaders in all of Israel? Is there anything more repulsive to God than self-righteous pride? Is there any wonder why Jerusalem was judged and the Second Temple destroyed in A.D. 70.? Josephus summed up the horrendous outcome by saying that "no other city has ever endured such horrors, and no generation in history has fathered such wickedness. In the end they brought the whole Hebrew race into contempt in order to make their own impiety seem less outrageous in foreign eyes, and confessed the painful truth that they were slaves, the dregs of humanity, bastards, and outcasts of their nation. Daniel's heart-breaking prophecy in chapter 9 that the Temple would be destroyed after the Messiah had come, not before, would be fulfilled. It would have been a just judgment is Jesus had spoken them out of existence on the spot, but He didn't.
I believe the way a pastor treats the worship service is fundamentally indicative of what he thinks of God Himself. Frankly, I am convinced that many demonstrate that they think God is a cosmic ATM, a means to their own material gain, playing on the emotions of an unsuspecting congregation to sow seeds, because God loves a cheerful giver. Yet, these pony show preachers refuse to insist upon holy living, tolerating sin and immorality in their congregations by refusing to preach messages that convict, call for self-examination demonstrate that they believe since everybody sins God really doesn’t think sin is that big a deal. No wonder Jesus said in Matthew 15:8,, "This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far away from Me.”
The God Who once filled a sanctuary, the holy place, where He dwelt and spoke to His people, now occupies an “auditorium”, where His Name is often blasphemed, even profaned with sermons that are sympathetic to the sins of congregation, offering grace, grace and more grace, for those who are unwilling to pursue righteousness and holiness. It would certainly be a just judgment if He merely wiped them right out of existence on the spot, with just a spoken Word, but He doesn't. He patiently waits for them to repent and return to their “first love” the Savior Who redeemed them, in genuine repentance. Yet, they refuse, because the pews are filling up. Surely God is pleased with the half-hearted worship, man-pleasing messages, and corrupt worship music that has infiltrated the church, right?
Have we forgotten that Jesus confronted those He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers by overturning their tables. And still we imagine He will not confront those who think He can be manipulated to respond to their phony displays of religious devotion? And let's not forget the Jesus-is-my-boyfriend "worship" music that whips the congregation up into an emotional frenzy to simulate genuine worship that ought to overflow from the devoted heart of a true believer. As if God doesn't know the difference.
Verse 16, "And others, testing Him, were seeking from Him a sign from heaven."
The phrase "And others, testing Him" indicates this group, distinct from those accusing Him. The Greek verb, "peirázō" or testing Him suggests the motive in demanding an undeniable supernatural sign from heaven, like Elijah calling down fire in 1 Kings 18:38. This was not born out of curiosity or a genuine desire to believe, but rather a hostile intent to discredit Jesus. They were questioning His authority and authenticity, to see if He was truly sent by God or merely a fraud. They were refusing to accept His works as sufficient evidence of His divine nature.
This is insane, after everything they've just witnessed, they're still not convinced?
We know in John 3:1-3, they had it right because Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, came to Him by night and said to Him, "Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him." Jesus answered and said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Friends, He either has to be from Heaven or Hell, those are your only options. I believe we are challenged to examine our own faith. Are we seeking "signs" to justify our belief in Jesus, or do we simply trust the evidence of His Word? Do we acknowledge Jesus’ authority in our lives, and humbly submitting to His leadership, or do we question His authority in our own lives, by seeking to act according to our own desires? All Christians claim to follow Jesus, to have fellowship with Him and yet many continue to walk in the darkness rather than to walk in the same manner as He walked.
Verse 17, "But He knew their thoughts and said to them, "Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a house divided against itself falls." By "He knew their thoughts," Jesus is demonstrating His authority by showcasing His divine perception into the human heart. He responds to their irrational accusation with a clear invitation to reconsider their claims: Hold on, wait a minute! Stop and think about what you're saying, your claim is absurd. It doesn't make sense. Satan cannot cast out Satan, if he did, he'd would be working against his own interests by enabling Me to cast out demons, pointing out that a house divided against itself cannot stand.
The broader principle here, is about division and how it applies beyond the present context, pointing to the need for unity among God's people, suggesting that division leads to spiritual ruin. If Jesus cared about the unity of His people, over two millennia ago, then I strongly believe that Jesus is clearly calling us learn to work together to overcome non-doctrinal differences and petty divisions within the community of faith today. In John 17, anticipating His departure from the world, Jesus earnestly prayed for His disciples and those also who believe in Him through their testimony and witness, that continue living in a world that is often hostile to God’s purposes, asking the Father, to protect us from the world's influence, assuring that we might be united, a unity rooted in love that is not just superficial, prioritizing individual desires over God’s will but a profound connection like the one that exists between Himself and the Father, to fulfill God’s mission. He knew their thoughts, just as He knows your and mine, surely you understand the principle, He knows some of you are just playing church. Don't live under the illusion that you are saved. Overconfidence can lead to eternal separation from God. Listen to me, people, you can't be saved just by praying a little prayer, then continue to live your old lifestyle, or so close to the line that you could fall in. So, before you go, our Lord is inviting you to believe the Truth and be saved. Salvation is still available, for those who will humble themselves, reject their sinful past and come to Him in genuine repentance. I pray that's you...
May it be so..
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
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