Introduction
Well, I've got some good news and I've got some bad news. The bad news is that we are no longer children of God by birth. Instead of trusting in our Father, we believed the enemy's lie and followed him right into a trap—the sand pit of Satan. He led us astray, took us captive, and now we're stuck in our sins. We're standing on the quick-sand of our own merit and it seems like we just keep sinking deeper and deeper. There's nothing we can do to get ourselves out of this stinking, sinking situation. And, needless to say, things are looking pretty bleak. I'm not alone in the sand pit, though. I've got lots of company! The problem is that no one else in the pit has any rock of merit to stand on either. I could try to get help from them, but it's futile. They've got no more leverage for getting out of the pit than I have. We're all in the same boat, and that boat is sinking. What we really need is some outside help—someone outside of the sand pit to give us a hand—otherwise we're all destined to perish...
ccc The good news—otherwise known as the “gospel”—is that God sent His Son, Jesus, to stand on the edge of the sand pit and pull people out. He hasn't fallen into Satan's sandy sin trap. There are no restrictions on who He'll rescue. The only catch is that you have to believe in His strength to save you by reaching out and accepting His hand of salvation... In other words, as I said last week, God “has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves...” (Colossians 1:12-13). This is the gospel.
ccc The gospel is like a gem that you can rotate beneath a source of light. As you “rotate” the gospel, different facets of the gem light up, emphasizing different aspects of the wonderful truth of God's plan of salvation for mankind. There are many angles from which we could begin to look at how God has “rescued us from the dominion of darkness,” but this week, I will focus on two things: (1) Jesus' leverage to redeem us and (2) His defeat of Satan. This topic is related to our salvation and our eventual adoption back into God's family, but it's only one facet of the gospel truth, which we will continue to explore next week from another angle.
Possessed by Satan
I know what the title of this section—“Possessed by Satan”—most likely brings to mind. Right now you are probably taking the word “possessed” to mean “demon-possessed” and are therefore thinking about an exorcism. However, this is not the intended meaning. I doubt many people would consider themselves to be possessed by Satan, but would you concede that we were once Satan's possessions, children, or belongings? In a passage of Scripture that we explored last week, Jesus distinguishes between those who belong to God and those who belong to the devil. He says this: “He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God”... “You belong to your father, the devil” (John 8:47,44).
ccc The same basic truth is stated in 1 John 3:8-10, which says: “He who does what is right is righteous, just as [Jesus] is righteous. He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.”
The Man, the Strong Man, and the Stronger Man
Now let's consider what Matthew 12:22-29 says about Satan's possessions: “Then they brought [Jesus] a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute, and Jesus healed him, so that he could both talk and see. All the people were astonished and said, 'Could this be the Son of David?' But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, 'It is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons.' Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, 'Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? And if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your people drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or again, how can anyone enter a strong man's house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can rob his house.'”
ccc The last verse of this passage of Scripture (Matthew 12:29) is the key verse here, but the previous verses provide the context for understanding this passage. Jesus performed an exorcism. The Pharisees' suggestion that Jesus used the power of Satan to drive out demons is absurd. As Jesus said, “If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? ...But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” From Jesus' response, it is clear that He is claiming to drive out demons by the power of God. This is the context for understanding the last verse, which is recorded slightly differently in the gospel of Luke: “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted and divides up the spoils” (11:21-22). Who are the characters in this parable?
ccc From the context, we learned of a blind and mute, demon-possessed man who was under the control of Satan's kingdom. Satan was stronger than the man and was, therefore, able to possess him. But Jesus drove away the demons and freed the man from his captivity. We can therefore conclude that the “strong man” is Satan, the demon-possessed man was his possession, and Jesus was the “someone stronger.” This is the story of the man, the strong man, and the stronger man. In another sense, you and I are the man—the possessions of Satan—caught in the strong man's trap (cf., 1 John 5:19, Revelation 12:9). But Jesus is the stronger man (cf., Ephesians 1:20-22), who has come to set the captives free (Isaiah 42:7, 61:1). Jesus is stronger than Satan. He is the offspring of the woman who came to crush the serpent's head (Genesis 3:15).
You Really Got a Hold on Me
The passages discussed above reenforce the idea from last week's devotion that there are two “invisible” kingdoms—God's Kingdom and Satan's kingdom—which are in conflict with one another (see Galatians 5:17). The Kingdom of God stands for life, light, truth, and righteousness, but the kingdom of Satan represents death, darkness, lies, and sin. As the passages above indicate, the kingdom—or rather the king—to which we belong is evident by our actions (see James 2:18-20). We are slaves to the one (the king) whom we obey (Romans 6:16). We can't belong to both kingdoms because they are diametrically opposed to one another. Submission to the devil is inherently disobedience towards God. And, in order to be obedient to God, we must resist the devil (see James 4:7). According to Romans 3:23, all of us have sinned. And by our sins we have inadvertently allied ourselves with Satan, who has claimed us as his possessions and has now taken us captive to do his will (2 Timothy 2:26). We are stuck in Satan's sand trap. Not only do we need someone to free us from Satan's hold on us (which he uses to torment and tempt us), but also we need someone to pay the price for our sins or else we will all perish—“For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).
ccc Because of our sins, Satan has a hold on us. Our sins give him a foothold over us (Ephesians 4:27). And with his foot in the door of our lives, he can slink inside and begin to build his strongholds of sin in our hearts and minds (2 Corinthians 10:4-5). We are slaves of sin and captives of his will. We have broken God's law (1 John 3:4) and are now facing the death penalty (Romans 6:23). Satan “holds the power of death,” and we are therefore “held in slavery by [our] fear of death” (Hebrews 2:14-15). And because our sins deserve death (Romans 6:23), our death accomplishes nothing (Psalm 49:7-9). It is simply the punishment that we deserve for breaking God's law and allying ourselves with Satan. This is the reason why we have no leverage to get out of the slippery sand pit of sin and death.
ccc But there is One who does have leverage to help us out of the pit—Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Galatians 4:3-5 says that “when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world. But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.” In John 14:30-31, just before His arrest and execution, Jesus said to His disciples, “I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me, but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.” Why did the devil—the “prince of this world”—have no hold on Jesus? Because Jesus was without sin (Hebrews 4:15; see also John 8:46, 2 Corinthians 5:21)! And when Jesus died to pay the ransom for our lives, death could not hold Him (Acts 2:24) because—having kept all of the commands of God's law—He was not deserving of death! Jesus lived a perfect life under the law and therefore has the leverage before God the Father to help us out of the devil's snare.
Satan's Defeat
Before His arrest, Jesus said, “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him” (John 17:1-2). “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work” (1 John 3:8). He will destroy “all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:24-26). Jesus also came to “seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10)—to redeem the lost children of God. And “Since the [lost] children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Hebrews 2:14-15).
ccc Because Jesus lived a perfect life of obedience, God the Father “raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way” (Ephesians 1:20-23). Although the strong man once held the power of death, Jesus—the stronger man—defeated him and now proclaims: “I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades” (Revelation 1:18). “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25-26).
