Come And See His Enemies

The miracles of Jesus gladdened the hearts of the crowds that pressed to see Him.

But those miracles darkened the hearts of the Pharisees who saw Jesus as a grave threat to their positions and authority. Indeed, the stage is being set for a final, decisive confrontation. Stay with us. From Chicago, this is The Moody Church Hour, a weekly service of worship and teaching with Pastor Erwin Lutzer. Today we continue our series on Come and See Jesus, pictures of the Savior that teach us about His mission on earth.

Later in our broadcast, Erwin Lutzer will speak on Come and See His Enemies. Pastor Lutzer comes now to open our service. We're so glad that you have come to worship with us, and we hope that you have taken time to prepare your heart, because we are here today in the presence of God. As you look at your bulletin, you'll notice that in a moment we're going to be singing together, God of Grace, God of Glory. Scripture reading today is by Pastor Milko. Pastor Milko has many responsibilities here at The Moody Church—men's ministry, shepherding, small groups.

He helps us in many different areas, and we'll have the privilege of also participating. A little later, Abby Dalich is going to be singing, All for a Heart to Praise My God. As you've come to worship today, I want you to know that we have spent time thinking about this service, praying through it, so that we will be changed forever in the presence of the Almighty.

You'll notice that as we sing today the marvelous words that are printed out for us. The second part, where we participate with the choir, notice, Cure thy children's warring madness, Bend our pride to thy control, Shame our wanton selfish gladness, Rich in things and poor in soul. Notice that this song is actually a prayer. It goes on to say, Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, Lest we miss thy kingdom's goal. And so as we sing and worship, we are also praying as we do that.

Let this song be your heart's expression. Let's pray together, and then we shall participate in singing. And our Father, today we want to thank you that you are a God of glory, a God of greatness. We thank you that the leaves that fall from the tree do so according to your plan and for your glory. Thank you that you created us to bring glory to your name, to enjoy glory. And so, Father, transport us, we pray, in mind and heart into your presence as we sing and worship in Jesus' name.

Amen. To know the glory of our life, we call on the Lord God. And like a ancient church, like a story, we will come to know thy Son. Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, all the way to thy Son.

Lord, we sing of his love. Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, for the living of his face, for the living of his face. Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, for the living of his face, for the living of his face. Spirit of God, we come from three places.

Learn our lives when they may be. Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, for the living of his face. Spirit of God, we come from three places.

Learn our lives when they may be. Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, for the living of his face. Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, for the living of his face. Spirit of God, we come from three places. Psalm 24 verses 1 through 6.

Please join me in the bold print. The earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all who live in it. For he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters. Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place?

He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false. He will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from God, his Savior. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face, O God of Jacob.

Does it ever pass him by? Take me to the cross. Your greatness is mine, his love. Rejoice in me. In all my loves and all my sorrows. Who will find my joys? Who will find my joys? Who will find my joys?

I sleep in the ransomed cloud. Take me to the cross. Your greatness is mine, his love. Rejoice in me. In all my loves and all my sorrows. Who will find my joys?

Rejoice in me. In all my loves and all my sorrows. Who will find my joys? My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord. And my spirit exalts in God my Savior. For he has looked with mercy on my loneliness, and my name will be forever exalted. For the mighty God has done great things for me, and his mercy will reach from age to age. And holy, holy, holy is his name. Holy, holy, holy is his name.

For the mighty God has done great things for me, and his mercy will reach from age to age. And holy, holy, holy is his name. Holy, holy, holy is his name. Holy, holy, holy is his name.

Thank you. Holy, holy, holy is his name. Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty, merciful is he. Holy, holy, holy is his name.

I of sinful man by glory may not sleep. Holy, there is none beside me, nor with me nor with me. Holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy. Holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy. Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty, God in reverse art blessed him. Holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy.

Holy, holy, holy is his name. Applause. Oh, for a heart to praise my God, a heart for sin is set free. A heart that always heals your pride, so freely shed for me. A heart resigned submissively, my great Redeemer's throne, where only Christ is heard to seek, where Jesus reigns alone. A heart in every thought renewed and full of love divine, perfect and right and pure and good.

A coming Lord of laws. Oh, for a humble, contrite heart, believing true and clean. Each neighbor dead, no life can part from him who dwells within. Your nature gracious, Lord in blood, come quickly from above, upon my heart, write your new name, your new best name of love. Applause.

Thank you so much, Abby. One day Jesus said to his disciples, who do men say that I am? They said, well, some say John the Baptist, one of the prophets. And then he said, who do you say that I am? He didn't say, now tell me, do you like me? What do you think of the miracles that I perform?

Pretty good, huh? He said, who do you say that I am? He was asking about his person. And I want you to know today that your answer to that question determines your eternity. Who do you say that he is? 12th chapter of the book of Matthew, what's happening is this. Jesus performs a wonderful miracle. Matthew chapter 12, verse 22. And those around him are trying to figure out who he is.

They're trying to answer that question, who do you say that I am? It says in Matthew chapter 12, verse 22, then a demon-oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to him, and he healed them so that the man spoke and saw. The man had two problems. First of all, he had a demonic problem. He was demonically oppressed, maybe even possessed. And there are some of you who are listening to this message who understand those words very clearly, because you are in the same situation, filled with condemnation and self-hatred.

And some of you have battled evil spirits, or maybe battling them. The other problem with this man is he couldn't speak. Jesus healed both problems, and it was verifiable they could see it there. And, verse 23, all the people were amazed and said, can this be the son of David? They're trying to figure out who Jesus was. That expression, son of David, actually is a messianic title. What they're saying is, could this be the Messiah? Some of you may be asking that question.

Some of you should be asking that question. Is this the Messiah? The Pharisees, and those were the religious elite. We often put them in bad light, but they were trying to do their best in many situations. But they really hated Jesus. And I'll tell you why they didn't like him. First of all, because he trampled on some of their pet traditions.

They didn't like that. The other thing was Jesus sometimes spoke to them with such a sense of, oh, what shall we say? Jesus judged them. I mean, you know, he called them hypocrites. He pointed out the sin in their hearts, and they didn't like that. So they begin to panic here, because you have an uprising of people who are at least questioning, is this the son of David? Could it be that this is the Messiah? And so these Pharisees, when they see this happening, they're in a situation where they make up an explanation for what they saw.

And this is what they said. I'm in verse 24, it is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons. Wow, Beelzebul or Beelzebub, as it is sometimes written, is a Canaanite deity and actually stood for Satan. So they're saying the miracle that you have just seen, and nobody could deny that a miracle had happened, the miracle that we've just seen is actually done by the devil. The devil cast out these evil spirits, and it is the devil who caused the mute to be able to speak.

They're pretty desperate, actually, at that point. Jesus, in this context, gives some reasons why that conclusion is false. And if you think that that conclusion is right, I want you to know today that it is false. And the reasons that Jesus gives to this people to believe in him is the same reason why you and I should believe on him.

First of all, the first reason, and I've titled it, a kingdom must be unified. Maybe not said in the best way, but that's the essence of it. Notice what Jesus said in verse 25. By the way, Jesus knowing their thoughts. Did you know that Jesus knows your thoughts today? Some of you, God bless you, you have come with open minds and hearts, and you've said, oh, Lord, speak to me. Some of you have come sort of as if to say, I wonder how boring this is going to be. And others of you maybe have come and said, there's no way that I'm going to believe on this Jesus.

I've rejected him before, and this is going to be the same old story. And Jesus knows your thoughts. He says to them, every kingdom divided itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided itself will stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, he has divided himself.

How then will his kingdom stand? You know, the devil does many destructive things. He overreaches and actually harms himself by his overreach. He is oftentimes the master of chaos.

He absolutely loves chaos. And sometimes there's chaos in his kingdom. And sometimes he even will fake exorcism, pretending that he's casting out a demon. Certainly that happens with false teachers who go through certain incantations and they pretend that they're casting out demons and it appears as if it's working, but it's not really working. Now here's Christ's point.

Don't miss it. He's saying that not even the devil, or let me put it positively, even the devil is smart enough to know that he can't be the one casting out his own demons or his kingdom is going to collapse. Even he knows that when there's civil war within his own kingdom that he's going to be weakened and not be able to take on any attempt to take on Jesus Christ and the church. So the devil is not going to cast out devils, said Jesus.

And that's true, isn't it? The miracle that Jesus performed was so direct, so verifiable, so unique, so unquestionable that they couldn't deny that. And to say that somehow Satan was doing what Jesus was doing was utter foolishness. It was an act of desperation by those who were committed to not believing. In fact, Jesus takes them a little further in this discussion and says to them in verse 27, And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, or Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out?

They will be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you. You see, they had their own, the Jewish community in those days, had their own exorcists. They would go through these incantations and cast out devils.

And I don't know whether or not it was working. I have no way of knowing. But Jesus is saying, go to them and ask them by whose authority they cast out demons. If they say of the devil, which they would never say, they would be condemning themselves. Obviously, they would not say that. If they say that they're doing it by God's power, then why should you be critical of me and say that I'm not doing it by God's power?

In other words, if you go to them and ask them, it will undercut your own criticism. That's what Jesus is saying. So the first reason that they should believe is to know that the devil can't do what Jesus did. He would never do what Jesus did.

Jesus is not from Satan, but from God. Second reason, and I'm calling this, I guess, that a house must be guarded. Jesus goes on and says, in verse 29, or how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods? Unless he first binds the strong man, then indeed he will plunder his house. I want you to imagine that there's a hostage taker who's grabbed some children, thrown them in the house, and now he's holding them hostage, and he's threatening to kill them if any of the police get to him. Sometimes that happens, as you know. Now, the police just can't go in and say, oh, we're just going to walk in on this sunny day in Chicago and release the children.

It's no problem. No, no, no, no, no. The strong man, the hostage taker, has to be arrested. He has to be neutralized. He has to be bound. He has to be taken care of.

And then once he is taken care of, why then indeed the police can go, and they can take the children and reunite them with their family. Now, Jesus is saying, in light of the fact that I'm doing so much damage to Satan's kingdom, and the damage is extensive, that I'm actually casting out demons and delivering people from that and also that I am able to take mute people and people with these disabilities and cause them to be able to speak and to see and all the other miracles. In light of that, don't you see that I must be stronger than the enemy who is holding them bound? Don't you see that I am able to crush the strong man, the hostage taker, and set captives free? You ought to know that I've triumphed over Satan. And Jesus has triumphed over Satan. Already then, he had power over Satan, just in terms of power. And then after the cross, he not only had power, but he had moral authority, having destroyed Satan's ability to claim certain rights. And so Jesus says, you have to understand here that I have bound the strong man. I've gotten to those whom he took hostage, and that proves I'm stronger than the hostage taker. There's a third reason that Jesus goes into here, and that is that he's saying that a ruler must be served.

Once again, I've not said this as well as I should, but the whole idea, I think, it's better to simply say the myth, the myth of neutrality. Notice what Jesus said in verse 30. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. The imagery there is of the ancient imagery of the way in which they had at harvest. What happened is you took the harvest, you took the grain, and cattle perhaps stepped on it and helped to crush it and to thresh it.

And then you threw it up, and you threw it in the air, and the chaff blew away, and you kept the grain. What Jesus is saying is he who's not gathering in the harvest and helping me do it, he's the one who's just letting all the grain blow in the wind and to blow it away instead of keeping it. So either you are for me or you are against me. This idea of being neutral is impossible. I want to say this clearly, and that is that if you do not belong to God, you are God's enemy.

You're God's enemy. There's no neutrality there regarding Jesus. And so what Jesus is speaking about is the fact that you just can't, you can't think that you're neutral, kind of. In order to illustrate the seriousness of it, Jesus now goes on and talks about an unpardonable sin.

This is very serious business, folks. Verse 31, therefore I tell you every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the one to come. There is a sin for which there is no forgiveness. I suppose that everyone who's ever heard of the unpardonable sin at some point in their life thinks that they have committed it.

Here I am, I'm a boy of 11 or 12 riding my bicycle at the back of our house one Easter Sunday afternoon. It's amazing how you remember such things with real clarity. And I had what I deemed to be some very blasphemous thoughts against Jesus. And I'll never forget the turmoil that I was in for days wondering whether I had committed the unpardonable sin. I wish that I had kept all of the letters that have been sent me throughout the years of people who believe that they have committed the unpardonable sin.

I have some of them. I was going to read a few of them to you today, but I don't think that we'll take time to do that because you probably know already what those letters say. They say something like this, like one man said, Saturday evening, three weeks ago, I committed the unpardonable sin. I was angry, and I blasphemed God, and now I have to deal with the devil. Do you think that I can be forgiven? And then there are those who commit this sin or that sin, and they ask the question of whether or not forgiveness is possible for this sin or that sin. Have they committed the unpardonable sin?

Well, let's look at this with a little bit of care. First of all, we are encouraged to learn that all sin, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people. And Jesus even said, if you blaspheme against the Son of Man, you'll be forgiven. Because when Jesus was here on Earth, if he didn't pick up on the fact that he was Messiah and divine, that in a certain sense was forgivable. After you realized the truth, you could be forgiven for that.

After all, he did look like a man. He ate, and he slept, and even the disciples themselves. It took them a while to understand that they were in the presence of divinity. But if you commit a sin or a sin against the Spirit, it can't be forgiven. What is the sin against the Spirit? Well, in context, the sin against the Spirit is to take the marvelous miracles of Jesus and ascribe them to Beelzebul.

To say that the miracles of Jesus are not real, to reject Jesus Christ's Messiahship because you credit all of his wonderful works and his miraculous abilities, and you give credit somewhere else other than Jesus and not accept him as the miracle worker, as the Messiah. Now, when you stop to think of it, you realize that for these Pharisees, they had crossed a line like a boat in the mighty Niagara River gets to a certain point where all turning back now is too late. And for them, that was unpardonable.

They were set in their hardness against Jesus. I'm not sure if the unpardonable sin can be committed today in the same way as it was in New Testament times, but I'm absolutely convinced that there is an unpardonable sin. The unpardonable sin is to reject Jesus until you get to a point in your life where you no longer care about him or responding to him because God says, my spirit will not always strive with man. An unpardonable sin is a hard, determined heart to not be affected by Jesus, no matter what.

And that is unpardonable because you need faith to accept Jesus to be pardoned. And so there is such a thing as an unpardonable sin. But I do need to tell you this, that if you write me a letter and ask whether or not you've committed it, I'm going to write back and tell you that I'm quite sure you haven't because the very fact that you are concerned about having committed the unpardonable sin is a marvelous sign that you haven't. If you commit an unpardonable sin, you will not be writing me a letter and asking and be troubled about it. You will say, nothing troubles me. I reject Jesus and am at peace with my rebellion.

That is unpardonable. What are the lessons that we need to learn here as we begin to think about a two in number today from this awesome passage of scripture? The first is a lesson about Christ's power over Beelzebul, over the strong man.

That's lesson number one. About three weeks ago, I spoke on the telephone with a student who called me, who said that he was very troubled by satanic conflict. There was no doubt that there was activity in his life of demonic spirits. So I asked him the question that is obviously one of the most important questions you could ever possibly ask. I said, do you have in your mind any recollection of when this began? And he said, yes. He said, at the age of 11, in a fit of anger, I sold my soul to the devil.

All right. And then, of course, the devil comes to collect. You know, you sold your soul.

You owe me. And so there he is, hassling, insisting, threatening, demeaning, causing people to have great self-hatred. That's what the devil loves is self-hatred, so that you just think, I'm no good. Nobody will ever love me. God can't love me. Might as well end it all.

That's the kind of thing that the devil specializes in, among other things. So here he is. He's saying that he's hassled. How do you think I helped him? What did I say in counseling? Lord, help me as I explain this to these people, because for many of you, this could be a tremendous moment of deliverance.

The next five or seven minutes of what I say is incredibly important. I only pray that I shall say it well and clearly. I said to him, the first thing that you need to know, since you are a believer in Jesus, the first thing that you need to know is that your agreement with the devil was totally illegitimate. Because when Christ redeemed you, the Bible says that we were not redeemed with corruptible things, but rather we were purchased by God.

And catch this now. The scripture says you are not your own. Your soul was not yours to give to the devil.

Your soul belongs to Jesus. What if someone were to come to you as parents? I'm speaking to parents now. And say, you know what I just did? I just gave your children to the devil.

You'd say, wait a moment. You gave my children to the devil. My children were not yours to give to him, thank you. They are not yours to put a curse on because you do not own them. I regard all of your remarks as illegitimate and DOA. I do not accept any such thing. The Bible says that we have been translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his dear son, into the kingdom of light. When you make that transfer, all allegiances, all agreements, all commitments, all covenants that belong to the kingdom of darkness are broken as you have a new allegiance to the one who is the king of light. You no longer owe him anything.

And all agreements are null and void. One time I met a man who took this a little step further. And he said, I sold my soul to the devil in a blood covenant.

And then he came out with this. He said, and I'm a man of integrity. So I have to keep my covenant. Could I take my glasses off at this point? First of all, for openers, you've made an agreement with a being who doesn't even understand the meaning of the word integrity.

That's for openers. You've made an agreement with a being who the Bible says that Jesus said, there is no truth in him. When he speaks, he speaks a lie. In fact, the only time you can believe the devil is if he were to say to you, I'm lying, then believe him. And then I said something like this to him. Because the devil is not a being of integrity, he probably didn't tell you that any agreement that you made with him was illegitimate because he had no right to make any agreements with you. He didn't tell you that, did he? Oh, no, no, no. He doesn't tell you that.

All that he does is come and collect. When I teach homiletics, which is really a big word for trying to teach young preachers to get them to be better preachers, I always say to them, clarity, clarity, clarity, clarity. Be clear. Don't ever allow people to leave wondering what you believe.

So I'm going to take my own advice today, and I'm going to be clear. Thanks to Jesus, the devil has no rights at all. None. Amen. None.

None. Those little children that are being held hostage by a hostage taker may be foolish enough to make an agreement with a hostage taker. When that hostage taker is arrested, and when he's carried off, and the parents come and pick up the children, they begin to understand that all agreements with this evil hostage taker are null and void, and they do not count. It is the fact that they belong to these parents to whom they owe allegiance. And you owe no one allegiance unless that person has ownership in your life. And when you are bought by Jesus, he is the one who owns you, and your allegiance is to him alone. Amen. Amen. Jesus has bound the strong man.

He disarmed all principalities and all powers, making a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. You say, well, yeah, he still hassles me. Of course he hassles you, but his hassles are illegitimately based.

They are not legitimate, and you need to know that. Because Jesus is stronger than the devil, and he's proved it. Satan has no rights at all. He does have some obligations, chief among which is to go to hell forever.

That is his obligation. Amen, right? Amen. Amen. Corner over here is responding.

Christ power. There's a second lesson. And that is the lesson of no neutrality, no fence sitters. So I'm going to end today by talking to you fence sitters. There are a number of you out there, and let me give you the fence sitters take that I've heard in my life. Some of you are out there and saying, I'm not going to believe in Jesus. I'm not going to accept him because I like my life the way it is, and I like to be alone, and I don't want him to disrupt anything.

It's the, if I accept Jesus, I'm going to have to stop sleeping with my boyfriend syndrome. And right now, that's not where I'm at. So you're a fence sitter. Some of you are fence sitters because of fear, fear of your family. What you're saying is like a man said to me, I'm going to accept Jesus, but I'm going to wait until my parents die because I don't want to hurt them. Fence sitters.

Some of you, bless you, you're a fence sitters because you're saying, well, I don't have enough time. I haven't investigated Jesus enough. Well, that's fine. You can go ahead and investigate him. But some people use that as an opportunity to constantly hold him at arm's length, as if to say, you know, it really doesn't matter. I'm not against him.

I think he's great. I just am not going to accept him. Jesus said, if you aren't for me, you're against me.

If I don't own you, you're my enemy. All the nice talk put aside. You remember Pilate, when he brought Jesus out, he said, who is this man? He said, Jesus, I'm not going to accept you.

I'm not going to accept this man. What do you want me to do with Jesus, who is called the Christ? And today, Jesus asks each of these questions, so what are you going to do with me? Some of you are visiting today, and you need to face that issue. What are you going to do with him?

Some of you have been around a while. What are you going to do with him? Are you going to say, yes, I accept him as Messiah, Lord, as King, as the one who bound the enemy and sets the captives free? Bless God. Let's pray. Our Father, we ask today for those who have never trusted Christ as Savior. We pray for all the fence sitters here today, never believed in Jesus, have heard the gospel many times, for whatever reason, have put it off and thought that it's OK. Give them hearts today that are open, Father, hearts that say, yes, I believe, I embrace. In fact, I'm going to stop praying right now and give you a moment of silence, because there are some of you who can be saved right where you're seated. If you say, Lord Jesus, I accept you as my Deliverer. I accept you as my Savior.

Why don't you tell him that right there? Oh, Father, for those who struggle, we ask overcome the natural reluctance of people to come to Jesus. And may there be those who right now are saying, I accept him as mine.

I choose sides. I receive him as the one who forgives my sins, who translates me from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. Grant, oh God, that grace. And where grace, that grace has not yet been granted.

Help those people to be troubled all week until they do. We need you, Jesus. We need your grace and your spirit upon which we rely totally in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. On today's Moody Church Hour, Pastor Lutzer brought a message on Come and See His Enemies, the fifth of eight pictures of the life of Christ in a series entitled Come and See Jesus. The true glory of Christ was veiled to those around him.

Once, though, he let it shine forth on a remote mountaintop. Next week, join us as Dr. Lutzer speaks on Come and See His Transfiguration. Our eight-part series on Come and See Jesus can be yours on CD for a gift of any amount to The Moody Church Hour.

Our thank you to you will be a set of eight messages you can hear and then pass on to others. Just call us at 1-800-215-5001. Let us know you'd like to support Moody Church's ministry. Call 1-800-215-5001 or you can write to us at Moody Church Media, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614.

Mention the series Come and See Jesus when you write or call. Online, go to moodyoffer.com. That's moodyoffer.com. Join us next time for another Moody Church Hour with Pastor Erwin Lutzer and the Congregation of Historic Moody Church in Chicago. This broadcast is a ministry of The Moody Church. ... ... ...