Matthew 12:22-32 Mark 3:19-30
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22 Then
a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute was brought to
Jesus, and He healed him, so that the mute man spoke and saw. 23 All
the crowds were amazed, and were saying, “This man cannot be the Son of
David, can he?” 24 But when the Pharisees heard this, they
said, “This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons.”
25 And knowing their thoughts Jesus
said to them, “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city
or house divided against itself will not stand. 26 “If
Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his
kingdom stand? 27 “If I by Beelzebul cast out
demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? For this reason
they will be your judges. 28 “But if I cast out demons by the
Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. 29 “Or
how can anyone enter the strong man’s house and carry off his property,
unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will
plunder hisvhouse. 30 “He
who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me
scatters. 31 “Therefore I say to you, any sin
and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit
shall not be forgiven. 32 “Whoever speaks a word against
the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy
Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to
come.
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19 and
Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Him.
20 And He came home, and the crowd
gathered again, to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal. 21 When
His own people heard of this, they went out to
take custody of Him; for they were saying, “He has lost His senses.” 22 The
scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by
Beelzebul,” and “He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.” 23 And
He called them to Himself and began speaking to them in parables, “How can
Satan cast out Satan? 24 “If a kingdom is divided against
itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 “If
a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 26 “If
Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is
finished! 27 “But no one can enter the strong
man’s house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man,
and then he will plunder his house.
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Fear of the unknown is a very dangerous thing that can
provoke some very dangerous responses.
Jesus performs an amazing miracle in today’s text. A man who is both blind and mute due to
daemon possession was liberated of the daemon and healed of his physical
diseases. We would expect this miracle
to cause celebration and honest evaluation about who Jesus was. Instead, the Pharisees respond in fear. They fear losing their power and influence so
they try to distract the people from the miraculous thing they witnessed by
questioning the means through which He did it.
Jesus reads their thoughts and knows the intentions of their heart so He
confronts their thinking and argues against their entire thought process. He also warns them about the consequences and
implications of their response. We need
to make sure that we respond to Jesus in faith and not fear.
THE ACCUSATION: When Jesus performed the miracle of
expelling the daemons that were causing the man to be blind and mute, the
people began to question if Jesus was truly the Messiah. This line of questioning was dangerous to the
Pharisees because they had already spoken out against Jesus and He represented
a threat to their power and influence over the people. These fears lead them to make a wild accusation
against Jesus. They claim that His
ability to cast out these daemons came from Satan and not the Holy Spirit. Their fear leads them to try to cause the people
to be afraid of looking to Jesus as being Messiah. These men were hungry to hang onto their
power and too proud to even consider the possibility that they could be
wrong. This made them blind to the
consequences that being wrong would have.
We need to be alert in evaluating our own hearts. Our fears and desires can cause us to say and
do some very foolish things.
THE AGGRAVATION: Jesus performed miracles in order to
provide relief to those that were suffering; but His main motive was to
convince the people of His identity as Messiah.
When He perceives that the Pharisees are promoting the idea of his
healings being empowered by Satan; He becomes very aggravated. He demonstrates the absurdity of the
accusation with two lines of reasoning.
The first argument is that it doesn’t make any sense for Satan to cast
out his own daemons. This would be a
division of a kingdom against itself.
Such a kingdom would have no ability to stand. The second line of reasoning is that they too
had confrontations with daemons. So He
points out that their line of thinking opens them up to the same type of
accusation. When our heart are hard it
often makes our heads hard too. They
were unwilling to consider that they could be wrong so they end up making
foolish assumptions that end up taking away their credibility as leaders.
THE ABOMINATION: Attributing the work of the Holy Spirit to
Satan is serious stuff. The greatest
need man has is forgiveness. Our sin
separates us from God and condemns us for all of eternity to the fires of
hell. The only hope we have to escape
the wrath of God is through forgiveness.
Jesus offers forgiveness through faith in His death and resurrection. When we recognize Jesus as the Son of God and
trust exclusively on His sacrifice for us; our sins are forgiven, the
righteousness of Christ is credited to our account and we have peace with
God. However, those who blaspheme
against the Holy Spirit will never experience this salvation from sin because
apart from His work in our hearts none of us can be saved. He is the One who gives us understanding of
the Gospel, love for the Lord, repentance from sin and faith in Christ. Without the work of the Holy Spirit no man
can be saved. The Holy Spirit empowered
Jesus to perform the miracles He did while He walked this earth. When the Pharisees accused Him of doing
miracles in Satan’s strength they were not only rejecting Jesus but blaspheming
the Holy Spirit.
APPLICATION: Have compassion on those who are in need and do
all we can to love and serve hurting people.
Don’t be surprised when people become critical of our service towards
others. Negativity towards others helps
people feel better about their own failings.
Be very careful about criticizing people who may had a different
understanding of Scripture than we do.
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