Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Plunder of the Strong Man: Kingdom Power and the Logic of Sovereignty (Matthew 12:25–29)

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The Plunder of the Strong Man: Kingdom Power and the Logic of Sovereignty (Matthew 12:25–29) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back. You are listening to REFORMED
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  Thinking. Today we are opening a file that
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  puts us right in the middle of a crime scene.
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  Or maybe it's a courtroom or a battlefield.
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  Honestly, it feels like all three at once.
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  It's good to be back. And you're right about the
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  setting. We're looking at Matthew chapter
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  12, specifically verses 25 through 29.
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  And this is not just some, you know, gentle story about
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  healing. This is a a violent collision
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  between two kingdoms. We're calling this deep dive the
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  binding of the strongman, and I think it's worth setting the
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  stage before we even get to verse 25.
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  We have Jesus, we have the Pharisees, and we have this
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  crowd that's just holding its breath.
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  But the thing that kicks this whole situation off, the spark
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  in the powder keg, is a very specific miracle.
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  Yeah, the context is, I mean, it's everything here.
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  Jesus has been moving through the region, teaching and
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  healing. The pressure is building.
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  The religious leaders are already, well, they're looking
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  for a reason, any reason to arrest him or, you know, worse.
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  And then this man is brought to Jesus.
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  Right and Matthew describes him as demon oppressed, but he adds
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  2 very specific physical details.
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  The man is blind and he is mute. Wow, that is a heavy
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  combination. Blind and mute.
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  It's terrifying if you really stop and think about.
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  It I mean, just imagine the isolation.
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  You can't see who's around you, you can't ask for help.
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  You're completely locked inside your own head.
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  And on top of that, you have this spiritual oppressor just
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  locking you down. It's total darkness inside and
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  out. A.
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  Picture of complete helplessness.
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  It is. It's the ultimate picture of
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  helplessness. And I think that's exactly why
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  Matthew includes those details. This man can't cooperate with
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  his own rescue. He can't see the Savior walking
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  towards him. He can't cry out, you know, the
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  way Bartimaeus did. Jesus, son of David, have mercy
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  on me. He's just there.
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  A captive, and Jesus heals him. Instantly just like that.
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  No ceremony. No, the text says.
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  The man spoke and saw the change was total.
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  One man, he's in the dark, silent, tormented.
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  The next minute he's looking at the face of Christ and probably,
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  I mean you can imagine, just shouting his head off with joy.
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  And the crowd sees this. This wasn't done in a corner
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  somewhere. It is undeniable.
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  Absolutely undeniable. And the reaction of the crowd is
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  fascinating. They ask a question, but it's a
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  dangerous question, isn't it? They say Can this be the son of
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  David? Oh, that title, Son of David is
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  so loaded. It's Messianic.
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  They're asking, is this the one? Is this the king we've been
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  waiting for all these centuries? And for the Pharisees hearing
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  that question, it's a threat to their entire system, their whole
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  existence. Because they can't deny the
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  miracle itself, right? I mean, the guys standing right
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  there probably describing the color of their robes to them, so
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  they can't just say it didn't happen.
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  No. The evidence is standing right
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  in front of them, talking and seeing, so they have to pivot.
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  It's a classic strategy. If you can't attack the fact of
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  the miracle, you have to attack the source.
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  They have to explain away the supernatural without giving any
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  credit to God. So they come up with this, the
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  sinister theory. They do.
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  They say it is only by Beelzebul, Prince of Demons,
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  that this man casts out demons. Beelzebul.
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  It just sounds evil, like something out of a horror movie.
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  It essentially is. It's a name that's derived from
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  an old Canon ID deity, Belalzabub, which literally
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  means Lord of the Flies. By the 1st century, it had
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  become just another name for Satan, the ruler of the demonic
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  hierarchy. So they are looking at an act of
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  pure mercy, a man getting his sight back, his voice back, his
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  life back, and they're saying the devil did that.
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  They're looking at the work of the Holy Spirit and calling it
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  the Spirit of Filth. It's a moral inversion that just
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  makes your stomach turn. But here's the thing.
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  They probably thought it was a pretty clever argument.
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  Well, it solves their problem, doesn't it?
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  It admits the power is real, so they don't look like they're
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  denying reality. But it frames Jesus as a
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  sorcerer, A deceiver, someone in league with the darkest forces
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  imaginable. It's the ultimate smear
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  campaign. Sure, he can do miracles, but
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  he's a black magician. He's on the wrong team.
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  Spot on. And our mission for this deep
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  dive is to watch how Jesus just systematically dismantles them.
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  He doesn't lose his temper, he doesn't start shouting, he uses
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  razor sharp logic. Then he sets a legal trap, and
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  finally he drops a theological nuclear bomb right on top of
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  them. And somewhere in there, he tells
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  a parable about furniture that completely changes how you view
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  your own salvation. We will definitely get to the
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  furniture that might be the most important part of the whole
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  passage. All right, let's walk through
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  the argument verse 25. The Pharisees have muttered this
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  accusation, maybe just among themselves, But then Matthew
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  writes, knowing their thoughts, he said to them.
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  Let's just pause right there, knowing their thoughts.
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  OK. Is this just, you know, good
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  intuition? Like you see some guys
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  whispering in the corn, they look angry and you can sort of
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  figure out what they're saying, I think.
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  It's much more than that. The Greek word Matthew uses is
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  enthemisace. It's a very heavy word.
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  It doesn't mean a random thought that just pops into your head
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  like did I leave the oven on? It refers to deep seated
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  deliberations, inner dialogues, the calculated purposes of the
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  heart, the kind of stuff you Mull over and reason through.
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  So he's not just guessing, he's reading the actual script
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  they're writing in their head. He's reading their intent.
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  You know in a court of law you have the difference between the
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  ACT itself and the Mens react. The guilty mind Jesus is
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  piercing right through their external behavior and looking at
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  the malice in the engine room of their souls.
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  That's unnerving. It's divine.
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  I mean, who is the one in the Old Testament who searches the
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  heart and tests the mind? It's Yahweh.
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  Jeremiah 17.10 is crystal clear on that.
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  By telling us that Jesus knew their infamies, Matthew is
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  subtly but powerfully identifying Jesus with the God
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  of Israel. He's acting as the judge before
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  the trial even officially begins.
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  So he knows exactly what they're thinking, and he starts his
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  rebuttal with, well, it's a logic puzzle, he says.
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  Every Kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no
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  city or house divided against itself will stand.
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  He starts with a universal axiom, a rule of reality that no
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  one, not even a Pharisee, could argue with.
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  Division brings desolation. And I like the progression
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  there. He starts big.
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  A Kingdom, then a city, then a house.
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  Like a zoom lens, isn't it? Yeah, it shows that this
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  principle works at every single level of existence.
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  If a Kingdom is fighting a civil war, it can't defend its
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  borders. It ends up burning its own
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  crops, killing its own soldiers. It just it collapses from the
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  inside out. The phrase laid waste sounds
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  pretty final. It is the Greek is Aramo.
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  It means to be turned into a desert, to be stripped bare.
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  It's the picture of a city after a brutal siege where there is
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  nothing left but smoking rubble and silence.
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  Jesus is saying that internal conflict isn't just bad for
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  business, it's a fatal structural flaw.
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  It guarantees total ruin and. Then he applies this directly to
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  Satan. He says if Satan casts out
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  Satan, he is divided against himself.
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  How then will his Kingdom stand? And this is the reductio ad
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  absurdum. He takes their argument and
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  follows it to its logical conclusion to show just how
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  absurd it really is. Walk us through that logic
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  chain. OK, so premise Hey, the
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  Pharisees claim Jesus is working for Satan.
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  Premise B Jesus is casting out demons.
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  Conclusion. Therefore, Satan is casting out
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  his own demons. Which means Satan is essentially
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  firing his own employees. He's evicting his own troops
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  from a Garrison they've already secured.
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  He's surrendering territory he had already won.
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  I mean, if Satan is actually doing this, he's committing
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  strategic suicide. He's dismantling his own empire,
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  brick by brick. But wait a second, does Satan
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  really have a Kingdom? I think a lot of us tend to
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  think of evil as just chaotic, you know, like the Joker in
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  Batman. He just wants to watch the world
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  burn. Is it really an organized
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  government? That's a very modern, and I
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  would say very secular mistake to make.
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  We like to think of evil as pure anarchy, but the source material
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  and Jesus himself right here treats Satan as a ruler with a
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  basalaya, a Kingdom. He has a hierarchy, he has a
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  strategy, he has a unified purpose.
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  What is that purpose? Oppression, bondage, deception.
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  Ultimately, death. Satan is profoundly evil, but he
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  is not an idiot. He's a pragmatist.
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  A Kingdom of darkness does not advance its cause by turning on
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  the lights in its own territory. Satan does not adopt a policy of
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  liberating the very captives he worked so hard to enslave.
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  So the Pharisees argument relies on Satan acting completely out
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  of character. It relies on Satan acting
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  directly against his own self-interest.
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  It would be like a general ordering his most successful
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  army to shoot themselves. Just doesn't happen.
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  It's illogical. So why would the Pharisees who
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  are educated men? They know how logic works.
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  Why would they believe something so illogical?
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  And that is the absolute tragedy of it all.
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  It shows that their unbelief isn't really intellectual, it's
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  moral. It's a matter of the will.
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  They are not rejecting Jesus because they ran the numbers and
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  the math didn't add up. They're rejecting him because
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  they hate. Him, they hate him and they
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  would rather believe in a suicidal, self defeating Satan
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  than a saving, sovereign Jesus. That is the state of the
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  hardened heart. When you are committed to
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  rejecting God's anointed King. You will embrace any absurdity
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  to protect your worldview. You will believe things that
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  make 0 logical sense just so you don't have to bend the knee.
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  OK, so he's destroyed their logic.
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  The satanic civil war theory is dead in the water.
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  But he doesn't stop there. He pivots in verse 27.
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  And this to me, is where it gets really personal and a little bit
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  nasty. He asks.
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  And if I cast out demons by Beelzebel, by whom do your sons
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  cast? Them out.
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  This is the second phase of the attack.
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  The sons of the Pharisees. Now when he says sons, who is he
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  talking about? Is this their actual biological
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  kids? Probably not.
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  So it's possible, I suppose. In that 1st century Jewish
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  context, sons usually meant disciples or members of a
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  particular school or Guild. You know, like the sons of the
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  prophets in the Old Testament. The Pharisees had their own
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  followers, their own school of exorcists.
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  I honestly didn't know the Pharisees were in the exorcism
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  business. Oh, they were deeply involved in
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  it. We actually have historical
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  records, specifically from Josephus, the Jewish historian,
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  that describe what these exorcisms often look like.
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  And they were, well, they were very theatrical.
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  Give us the details. What are we picturing?
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  Josephus describes these very elaborate rituals that often
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  involve things like smelly roots.
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  There's one in particular called the Barra's root.
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  The barra's root. Yes, and you had to pull it out
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  of the ground in a very specific way or it would kill you.
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  So they would tie a dog to it, have the dog pull it up, and the
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  dog would supposedly die in the process.
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  That sounds like something straight out of witchcraft.
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  It definitely borders on it and then they would take this route,
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  maybe burn it and hold it under the nose of the possessed
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  person. They would recite these long,
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  complicated incantations, invoke the name of Solomon, maybe use a
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  ring with a special seal on it. It was a whole spectacle.
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  Lots of smoke, lots of chanting, lots of sweat.
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  So let's just picture the scene. You have the Pharisee students
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  doing this elaborate, smelly, dangerous ritual, and maybe it
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  works, maybe it doesn't. And then you have Jesus.
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  Who just speaks? Go and the demon is gone.
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  No roots, no dead dogs, no incantations, Just pure,
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  unadulterated authority. So why does bringing up their
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  sons trap the Pharisees so badly?
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  Because it creates A dilemma, a set of horns that they cannot
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  escape. Jesus is essentially saying,
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  look, you guys approve of your students doing exorcisms.
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  You believe that when they do it, it's by the power of God.
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  But when I do it, and frankly I do it better, faster, and more
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  completely, you immediately call it the devil.
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  I see it. So if all is demonic then they
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  have to condemn their own students.
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  Exactly. If the very act of casting out a
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  demon is proof that you're in league with Satan, then their
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  sons are all sorcerers. They would be obligated by their
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  own law to dry their disciples before the Sanhedrin and have
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  them stoned. And they're obviously not going
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  to do that. Of course not, it would destroy
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  their entire movement. But that leaves them with option
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  B. If their sons are actually
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  casting out demons by God's help, even using these lesser,
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  weaker, more ritualistic methods, then they have no
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  choice but to admit that Jesus, who is doing it with absolute
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  ease and authority, is also working by the power of God.
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  And if they admit that, then they have to admit he might be
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  the Messiah. They are checkmated.
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  It's a brilliant move. And then he delivers the killer
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  blow. Therefore they will be your
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  judges. He calls their own disciples as
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  witnesses for the prosecution. He's saying that the very people
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  the Pharisees are training will stand up at the final judgement
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  and say our masters were hypocrites.
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  They didn't care about the truth, they only cared about who
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  was getting the credit. It's pure tribalism.
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  It's a genuine miracle when our guide does it.
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  It's dark magic when your guide does it.
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  And we call this the sin of selective standards.
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  It's looking at the exact same fruit and judging it differently
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  based on your party line rather than on objective truth.
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  And we still see that today, don't we?
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  All the time. Constantly, if a leader in our
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  own theological camp have a moral falling, we say, oh, he's
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  under spiritual attack. Or, well, he's a complicated
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  man. But if a leader in the opposing
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  camp does the exact same thing, we're the first to shout, see,
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  he's a wolf. He was never one of us to begin
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  with. That's yeah, it's gross.
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  It is. It's fallen human nature, and
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  Jesus exposes it ruthlessly. He just strips away the pretense
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  that this is some kind of serious theological
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  investigation. He shows it for what it is,
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  pure, unadulterated jealousy. So logic crushed, hypocrisy
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  exposed, now we get to the theological summit.
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  Verse 28. But if it is by the Spirit of
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  God that I cast out demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon
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  you. This is the massive shift from
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  defense to declaration. He stops playing their what if
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  game and just tells them the reality of the situation.
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  And notice the trinitarian dynamic.
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  Here you have the Son Jesus casting out demons by the Spirit
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  of God. Can we stop there for a second?
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  Because this used to really confuse me.
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  Jesus is God, He's the second person of the Trinity.
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  He has all authority in heaven and on earth.
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  So why does he need the Holy Spirit to cast out a demon?
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  Can he just, you know, ZAP them with his own divinity?
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  That is a fantastic question, and it takes us right into the
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  heart of the doctrine of the Incarnation.
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  When the sun became flesh, He did not for a moment cease to be
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  God, but He willingly laid aside the independent use of His
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  divine attributes. He lived his life as a man under
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  the Law. He lived in perfect dependence
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  on the Father and in the power of the Spirit.
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  So he isn't walking around with God Mode turned on all the time,
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  so to speak. Right.
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  This is what theologians sometimes call the economic
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  Trinity, Not about money, but about how the Persons of the
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  Godhead relate to each other in the plan, The Economy of
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  Redemption, the Westminster Confession says the Mediator was
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  anointed with the Holy Spirit above measure.
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  Jesus is the anointed one. That's literally what Messiah
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  means. So when he heals, when he casts
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  out demons, he's doing it as a man who is perfectly filled with
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  the spirit. Spot on.
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  He is showing us what the perfect man, the new Adam, looks
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  like, living in perfect reliance on God.
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  And there's a powerful historical echo here, too.
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  In Luke's account of this very same story, Jesus says If I cast
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  out demons by the finger of God, the.
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  Finger of God, that that sounds familiar.
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  Where's that from? It goes all the way back to
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  Exodus. Remember the contest between
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  Moses and Aaron and Pharaoh's magicians?
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  Moses turns the water to blood. The Egyptian magicians copy it.
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  Moses brings frogs. The magicians copy that too.
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  But then Moses brings forth gnats from the dust.
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  And the magicians try to copy. It and they can't.
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  They fail. And what do they say to Pharaoh?
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  They say this is the finger of God.
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  It's that moment where the enemy's power runs out and
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  they're forced to admit we are outmatched.
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  This is not a human trick. This is the Almighty.
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  So Jesus is essentially telling the Pharisees you are standing
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  in the middle of a new exodus and you're on the wrong side.
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  A greater exodus, yes. And the result of this new
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  exodus is revealed in the second-half of the verse.
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  Then the Kingdom of God has come upon you.
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  That phrase come upon you. It feels aggressive.
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  It doesn't sound like an invitation.
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  It is aggressive. The Greek word is Ephesian.
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  It doesn't just mean the Kingdom is nearby or the Kingdom is
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  coming soon to a theater near you.
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  It implies A rival contact overtaking.
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  Like a tidal way of hitting the shore.
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  Or an ambush, or an invading army suddenly appearing on the
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  horizon. It means the Kingdom has landed.
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  It is collided with their reality.
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  Well wait a minute. As Reformed thinkers, we believe
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  in the already, not yet of the Kingdom.
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  We know the Kingdom isn't fully here yet.
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  I mean, there's still sin, there's still death, we're still
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  waiting for the final consummation.
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  So how can Jesus say it has come?
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  That is the essential tension we live in as Christians.
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  The final consummated Kingdom, the physical reign of Christ, of
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  the new earth that is still flutter, but the dynamic rule of
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  God, the kingly power that breaks the back of the enemy
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  that invaded history at that very moment.
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  The king is in the room. Because the king is in the room,
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  the Kingdom is in the room. The exorcism is the proof it's a
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  military incursion. Jesus has just breached the
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  perimeter of Satan's occupied territory.
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  It's D-Day. It is the beachhead.
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  The evasion has begun. And for the Pharisees this is a
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  terrifying realization, because if the Kingdom has come upon
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  them, they are no longer impartial observers in a
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  theological debate. They are occupied territory.
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  They're standing before a sovereign who has already begun
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  the conquest of their land. You can't really debate a
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  Kingdom that just landed on your head, no.
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  You can either surrender or you will be crushed.
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  There's no third option. And that leads us directly to
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  the illustration, the parable that explains how this conquest
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  is happening, verse 29. Or how can someone enter a
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  strong man's house and plunder his goods?
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  Unless he first binds the strongman, then indeed he may
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  plunder his house. This is the climax of the entire
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  argument, and honestly, it's the climax of human history
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  compressed into one single powerful sentence.
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  OK, so we have a few characters here.
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  The strongman, the house and the intruder, the thief.
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  Let's identify them clearly. The strong man is Satan.
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  And notice Jesus gives him his due.
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  He calls him strong. He held that blind and mute man
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  captive for years. No human doctor, no ritual, no
• 18:12
  exorcist could break his grip. He is a formidable enemy.
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  OK. And the House, what does that
• 18:17
  represent? The house is his domain.
• 18:20
  It's this present evil age. It's the world system that, as
• 18:23
  first John 5.9 says, lies under the power of the wicked one.
• 18:26
  And the intruder, the one breaking in to steal things.
• 18:30
  That's Jesus, the stronger man. It's funny, we usually think of
• 18:33
  the thief breaking into the house as the bad guy, but in the
• 18:36
  story, Jesus is the thief. He is the great thief.
• 18:38
  He's the divine cat burglar who breaks into the prison to steal
• 18:41
  the prisoners and set them free. OK, so let's talk about the
• 18:44
  goods, the stuff that he's stealing, the plunder.
• 18:46
  The Greek word is skewy. Skew.
• 18:48
  It means vessels, instruments, tools, household utensils.
• 18:51
  Lamps, bowls, chairs, tables. Furniture.
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  And who is the furniture we are? See, that hurts my ego a little
• 18:58
  bit. I like to think of myself as a,
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  you know, a soldier in God's army, or at least an active
• 19:05
  participant. But Jesus here calls me a lamp.
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  And this is where the Reformed doctrine of total depravity
• 19:10
  becomes absolutely inescapable. Just think about the analogy for
• 19:14
  a second. Does a lamp decide to be stolen?
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  No, it just sits there on the table.
• 19:19
  Does a bowl run to the front door, unlock it from the inside
• 19:22
  and wave the thief in? No, of course not.
• 19:25
  It's inanimate. Does the furniture help the
• 19:27
  thief fight off the homeowner? Definitely not.
• 19:30
  That is our condition by nature, Ephesians 2 says.
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  We were dead in our trespasses and sins.
• 19:35
  We were not drowning swimmers weekly waving a hand for help.
• 19:39
  That's the error of synergism, the idea that we cooperate with
• 19:41
  God in our own salvation. Jesus completely destroys
• 19:44
  synergism here. We were the property of the
• 19:46
  strongman. We were in his house, under his
• 19:49
  lock and key, and utterly passive.
• 19:51
  We were the spoils of his ancient war against God.
• 19:54
  We were chattels, we belong to the Kingdom of Darkness and
• 19:58
  worse, we didn't want to leave. A lamp is perfectly content to
• 20:02
  sit on the table of the strongman because that is the
• 20:04
  only house it has ever known. So if the furniture is helpless,
• 20:07
  the only hope is the intruder. That is the doctrine of
• 20:10
  monarchism. Salvation is the work of 1.
• 20:13
  The stronger man comes in and look very carefully at the order
• 20:17
  of operations here. This is so crucial.
• 20:19
  He doesn't start grabbing lamps and chairs while the throng man
• 20:23
  is still running around the kitchen with a weapon.
• 20:25
  Unless he first binds the strongman, a binding comes
• 20:28
  first. The binding happens first.
• 20:31
  It is a decisive confrontation between the two commanders.
• 20:34
  The goods, the furniture, are just watching, or rather, just
• 20:37
  sitting there while the epic battle for the house rages above
• 20:40
  their heads. So Jesus enters the house.
• 20:43
  He confronts the strongman. He overpowers him.
• 20:45
  He ties him up. And once the strong man is
• 20:48
  bound, what happens to the goods?
• 20:50
  Then indeed he may plunder his house.
• 20:52
  He takes what he came for. If the strong man is tied up and
• 20:56
  neutralized, he is powerless to stop the thief from taking the
• 20:59
  lamp off the table. This is the doctrine of
• 21:02
  irresistible grace. If Jesus decides to save you, if
• 21:05
  he has set his affection on you, Satan cannot stop him.
• 21:08
  You cannot stop him. The rescue is inevitable because
• 21:11
  the rescuer is sovereign and unopposed.
• 21:15
  That is incredibly comforting, but I have to ask about this
• 21:17
  binding part. I I grew up in some circles
• 21:21
  where binding Satan was a pretty common daily activity.
• 21:24
  We would pray things like I bind you Satan, in the name of Jesus,
• 21:27
  or I bind the spirit of poverty, or I bind the spirit of traffic
• 21:30
  on the freeway. I have, I have been in those
• 21:33
  prayer meetings. Is that what this verse is
• 21:34
  telling us to do? Do we need to carry around
• 21:36
  spiritual duct tape with us everywhere we go?
• 21:38
  No. In fact, that kind of practice
• 21:40
  completely misunderstands the entire point of the passage.
• 21:43
  The binding that Jesus is Speaking of here is an
• 21:45
  objective, historical, once for all accomplishment.
• 21:49
  It is something He did, not something we are commanded to
• 21:51
  redo. So when did he do it?
• 21:53
  He was certainly doing it in his earthly ministry every time he
• 21:56
  cast out a demon, but the definitive final binding
• 21:59
  happened at the Cross and in the Resurrection.
• 22:03
  Colossians 2 verse 15 tells us that on the cross He disarmed
• 22:07
  the rulers and authorities and put them to open chain by
• 22:09
  triumphing over them in it. So the strong man is already
• 22:13
  tied up. In the sense that he cannot
• 22:14
  prevent the spread of the gospel and he cannot prevent the
• 22:17
  salvation of God's elect. Yes, he is bound.
• 22:20
  He is a defeated foe. He's on a leash.
• 22:22
  So if I pray, I bind you Satan. I'm basically asking Jesus to go
• 22:26
  back and do something he already finished 2000 years ago.
• 22:29
  It implies the knot came loose. It implies the victory at
• 22:32
  Calvary wasn't total or sufficient.
• 22:34
  And if you look through the New Testament epistles, all the
• 22:36
  instructions given to the church on how to live the Christian
• 22:38
  life, nowhere are we ever commanded to bind Satan.
• 22:42
  We are told to resist him. We are told to stand firm
• 22:44
  against his schemes. We are told to put on the full
• 22:46
  armor of God. But we stand in the victory that
• 22:49
  has already been won by our captain.
• 22:51
  That changes the whole posture of spiritual warfare, doesn't
• 22:54
  it? It's not me trying to wrestle
• 22:57
  Satan into submission every morning.
• 22:58
  It's me hiding behind the one who already crushed his head at
• 23:02
  the cross. Precisely.
• 23:04
  It shifts the focus from your spiritual muscle to Christ's
• 23:08
  finished work. You are safe not because you're
• 23:11
  a good spiritual fighter, but because the strongman has been
• 23:13
  decisively and eternally neutralized by the King.
• 23:17
  OK, so let's zoom out a little. We've walked through the logic,
• 23:20
  the trap, the theology, and the parable.
• 23:23
  What do we do with this? What does Reformed thinking on
• 23:26
  this passage look like on a Tuesday morning?
• 23:29
  I think there are three major takeaways, 2 pretty sober
• 23:33
  warnings, and then one massive life changing encouragement.
• 23:37
  Right, let's hit the warnings first.
• 23:38
  Warning #1 is what we could call malicious misattribution.
• 23:41
  This is the core sin of the Pharisees.
• 23:43
  They saw the undeniable grace of God and they deliberately
• 23:46
  relabeled it as a threat. How do we do that today?
• 23:49
  I don't think many of our listeners are walking around
• 23:51
  seeing miracles and calling them demonic.
• 23:53
  No, we do it in much more subtle, respectable ways.
• 23:57
  We do it when we relabel. The conviction of the Holy
• 23:59
  Spirit is something else because we don't want to change.
• 24:01
  Give me an example of that. OK, let's say you are sitting in
• 24:04
  church or you're reading your Bible at home and the Spirit
• 24:09
  puts his finger on a particular sin in your life.
• 24:12
  Maybe it's your quick temper. Maybe it's your love of gossip.
• 24:16
  Maybe it's your greed and it hurts.
• 24:19
  You feel that spiritual pressure.
• 24:21
  That is the Spirit of God doing His gracious surgical work.
• 24:24
  But instead of repenting. Instead of repenting, our first
• 24:28
  instinct is often to explain it away.
• 24:29
  We say I'm just tired today, or that preacher is just a bit of a
• 24:33
  legalist, or I'm just having a high anxiety day.
• 24:37
  We attribute the spiritual pressure to psychological or
• 24:39
  environmental causes so that we can dismiss it without having to
• 24:42
  obey. We explain away the finger of
• 24:45
  God so we can keep our precious autonomy.
• 24:47
  That is a dangerous game to play that is hardening the heart.
• 24:50
  It is, and the second warning is against those selective
• 24:53
  standards, the hypocrisy of the Suns.
• 24:55
  Judging our tribe by one set of rules and the other tribe by a
• 24:58
  much harsher set. We have to be absolutely
• 25:01
  ruthless with ourselves on this. When we see a theological error
• 25:06
  in a writer we really like, do we excuse it?
• 25:09
  When we see a moral failure in a pastor we follow online, do we
• 25:13
  minimize it? Oh, he has such a good heart.
• 25:15
  He was just under a lot of pressure.
• 25:17
  But if it's someone from the other side, a different
• 25:21
  denomination, a different political party, we are ready to
• 25:23
  burn them at the stake for the smallest infraction.
• 25:26
  And Jesus says our own sons, our own people, will be our judges
• 25:31
  for that hypocrisy. Truth must be the standard, not
• 25:34
  tribal loyalty. Full stop.
• 25:36
  OK, those are sobering. Now give us the encouragement.
• 25:39
  I think we need the good news after that.
• 25:40
  The encouragement is for the furniture.
• 25:42
  For the goods. If you are a believer in Jesus
• 25:45
  Christ, this morning you are plundered goods.
• 25:48
  You've been stolen out of the House of Darkness and carried
• 25:50
  into the Kingdom of Light. And the implication of that is
• 25:53
  the. Implication is that your
• 25:54
  salvation is eternally secure. Think about it logically.
• 25:58
  If you were completely passive in your own rescue, if you
• 26:01
  couldn't help Jesus get you out, you certainly can't accidentally
• 26:04
  wander back in. Right.
• 26:06
  If it didn't depend on my strengths to leave the house, it
• 26:08
  doesn't depend on my strength to stay out of it.
• 26:10
  Exactly. And even more importantly, Satan
• 26:13
  cannot steal you back. Why?
• 26:15
  Because he is bound, and because the one who was holding you now
• 26:20
  is the stronger man. Jesus said it himself in John
• 26:23
  10. No one is able to snatch them
• 26:25
  out of my Father's hand. The string man was strong, but
• 26:27
  he wasn't strong enough. He met his match more than his
• 26:31
  match, he met his master. And for anyone listening who
• 26:34
  feels suppressed, maybe you feel like you're under spiritual
• 26:37
  attack, or you live in fear of the demonic.
• 26:41
  This is your bedrock. You don't need a special ritual.
• 26:43
  You don't need a barest route. You need to anchor your soul in
• 26:47
  the truth that strongman has been bound regarding you.
• 26:49
  You are the property of the king now.
• 26:51
  He doesn't lose his things. That is real freedom.
• 26:53
  It's the only real freedom there is.
• 26:55
  Jesus ends this whole section with a line that just It draws a
• 26:58
  clear line in the sand. Verse 30.
• 27:00
  Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not
• 27:04
  gather with me scatters. He destroys the myth of
• 27:06
  neutrality. This is where the rubber meets
• 27:08
  the road for every single person.
• 27:10
  And we love neutrality, don't we?
• 27:12
  As a culture, we love the middle ground.
• 27:14
  Oh, I'm spiritual, but not religious.
• 27:17
  I admire the teachings of Jesus, but I don't want to get too
• 27:19
  fanatical about it. Jesus just obliterates the
• 27:22
  middle ground. He says there are only two
• 27:24
  kingdoms in the entire universe. There is the House of the
• 27:27
  strongman, and there is the Kingdom of God's beloved Son.
• 27:30
  You are a resident of one, or you are a resident of the other.
• 27:34
  There's no Demilitarized Zone. There is no Switzerland.
• 27:37
  So you can't just be an admirer of Jesus from a safe distance,
• 27:40
  no. Admiration is not submission, he
• 27:44
  says. If you are not actively
• 27:45
  gathering with him, if you are not actively aligned with his
• 27:48
  Kingdom, work building his church, then you are by default
• 27:52
  scattering. You are working, consciously or
• 27:55
  not, for the other Kingdom. That is a hard work.
• 27:58
  It's a necessary word. The Pharisees tried to find a
• 28:00
  third option. He's a sorcerer working for a
• 28:02
  third party. Jesus took that option off the
• 28:05
  table. He forces a choice.
• 28:07
  You have to decide, is he the invading king from heaven, or is
• 28:11
  he a damnable liar? You cannot simply call him a
• 28:14
  good moral teacher and walk away.
• 28:15
  Force is a verdict from everyone who hears it.
• 28:17
  And that is what the Gospel always, always does.
• 28:21
  It corners us. It confronts our pride.
• 28:24
  It demands our unconditional surrender.
• 28:27
  But the beautiful paradox of it all is that in that surrender is
• 28:32
  the only place we find victory. The world tells you keep your
• 28:35
  autonomy, be your own king, protect your house.
• 28:39
  Jesus says, let me plunder you, and I will give you a Kingdom
• 28:42
  that cannot be shaken. Amen.
• 28:45
  We are only truly free because we have been captured by grace.
• 28:48
  That's a powerful place to land. It's not about how strong we
• 28:50
  are, it's about who the stronger man is.
• 28:53
  It always has been and it always will be.
• 28:55
  Thank you for walking us through that.
• 28:56
  That was dense, but man, it was so good.
• 28:58
  It was my pleasure. And to everyone listening,
• 29:00
  remember you have been plundered for a purpose.
• 29:03
  Don't try to go back to the old house.
• 29:05
  Trust the stronger man. We will see you next time on
• 29:07
  reformed thinking.