Jesus said
to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided
against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against
itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against
himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. But no one
can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the
strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house. (Mark 3:23-27 ESV)
Grace mercy
and peace be to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Our text is the Gospel text from Mark 3.
Dear friends
in Christ,
There are
two things that we should learn from our text.
The first is
that Satan is very real. This is
important for us to know and understand.
Because many today do not take the Devil seriously. They think of him as a trifle, or a made up
being, a boogey man, a thing that goes bump in the night. Many people today believe that Satan is only
a psychological projection, a personification of fear. He is neither of these things. He is entirely real; just as real as you and
me. A part of our Lord’s creation.
But he is
different from you and me. Satan is not part
of the Lord’s visible creation; rather he is one of the Spirit beings that our
Lord created. One of the angels who God
created and made and was good and perfect and holy. He was made without the wickedness and evil
that is today his calling card. The Lord
created him to be without sin. The Lord
also created him with great power and beauty.
But he coveted the Lord’s power.
He wanted that power for himself.
He hated God for what God did not give him, what he felt God should have
given him, and so He rebelled against the Lord.
For all his power and wisdom and glory, he foolishly over calculated his
strength. He could not defeat God; so
instead he decided to destroy the perfect world God made. And he would do it by
leading the man and his wife to commit that same sin that he committed. He took the form of a serpent and he tempted
Adam and his wife to believe that the Lord hadn’t given them all that there was
to receive, that the Lord held back in his gifts and if they would only rebel
they could be like God. Wasn’t that what
Satan wanted? Wasn’t that the same
temptation that destroyed him? And now
it has taken hold of us. A desire to be
like God, a desire to be our own God, free from the true God. We don’t need him. We are okay without him. He hasn’t exactly lived up to our standard
anyway. That is what Satan wants you to
believe. And so he pushes you. Oh so subtlely, so subtlely in fact that we
don’t even know he has been there. His
temptations are so easily and naturally slipped in to our own thoughts that we
don’t even perceive him. We are so quick
to agree with him that we don’t recognize him.
We have a lot in common with him, after all. We fell for the same sin. He wanted to be like God. We want to be like God. There is solidarity between us and the
devil. And so we have the words of
Jesus.
No one can enter a strong man's house
and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man.
Satan is the
strong man. His house where he lives,
his kingdom, is the world of men. He is
the prince of this world. He is the
ruler, the authority, the Lord of this present darkness. (Eph. 6:12)
In the Large
Catechism, Luther writes, “Let me tell you this, even though you know God’s
Word perfectly and are already a master in all things: you are daily in the
devil’s kingdom [Colossians 1:13–14]. He ceases neither day nor night to sneak
up on you and to kindle in your heart unbelief and wicked thoughts against the commandments.”
[LC I p.100]
So far, here
is what we know. Satan is real. He is part of God’s creation. He was created to be perfect but then fell
into wickedness because he wanted to be like God. He failed in that attempt and so he set about
destroying God’s creation and taking control of God’s creation by convincing us
to fall for that same sin. He succeeded
with Adam and Eve our first parents and he has, ever since, been repeating that
same temptation with us so that this world of wickedness and sin is his
kingdom. We live in the house of the strong man. We are the possession of that strong man –
the trophies that sit on his mantle. God’s
beloved creation that have been stuffed and mounted as evidence of his victory.
But there is
another thing for us to know, a more important thing for us to know. It is one thing to know that Satan is
real. It is one thing to know who he is
and what he does and how he does it. But
if that is all you know, then that will only terrify you. Jesus was not in the business of terrifying
people. Jesus came to bring
comfort. It is as he said when he went
to visit the folks in his home town of Nazareth. Luke records for us in chapter 4 that he had
just been out in the wilderness doing battle with the devil. He defeated Satan and his temptations and
then he began to teach; not a do it yourself gospel. Not an, “I’ve done it and you can too” gospel. Instead, Jesus came to preach I’ve done
it. I have gone toe to toe with the
Devil and I won. He came after me with
everything he had and I didn’t budge. I
have done what you couldn’t do and I did it for you. I defeated the Devil, I am about to defeat
death, and I have done it for you. And so Jesus opened the scroll of Isaiah and
began to read, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he
has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim
liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty
those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” (Luke 4:18-19 ESV)
In our text
from the Gospel of Mark, Jesus said that the only way to plunder the house of a
strong man is to tie him up. The first
thing you have to do is overpower him.
The way to defeat a strong man is that you have to first find a stronger
man. It’s kind of like all those big
summer movies that are in the theaters these days – The Avengers or Spiderman or
Batman. There is a villain, a “strong man”, if you
will who is bent on chaos and destruction.
The human race is in peril and the only way for us to survive is for a
hero, a man stronger than the villain to come to our aid, to fight on our
behalf and to defeat this enemy for us so that we can be free. Satan is the strong man. Jesus is the hero. Jesus is the one who fights the battle for us
in our place and overcomes the strong man, who restrains the strong man, who
ties him up and then plunders his house.
In Revelation 20, John sees a vision. He writes: “Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the
key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that
ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand
years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that
he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were
ended.” (Revelation 20:1-3 ESV)
John tells
us of a time when this very thing has occurred!
When Satan, dragon, or from Jesus’ parable, “the strong man”, is tied up
so that he can’t hurt you and so that his captives can be set free. John tells us that he saw an angel come down
from heaven with a chain, he seized the devil and tied him up for a thousand
years.
And so the
question for us is who is that angel and when will that devil be tied up? When will it happen that he is restrained so
that his house can be plundered? When
will it happen that the saints of God can be set free from the chains of the
devil?
Dear
friends, do you remember that word that Jesus spoke to his disciples. He said it first to Peter. Peter you are the rock, and on this rock I
will build my Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And I tell you that whatever you bind on
earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed
in heaven. (Matthew 16:18-19)
But that
Word was too good to only say once!
Jesus had to say it again. And he
did. It was in fact the first thing he
said to his disciples when he saw them after he had been raised from the
dead. He had suffered, he died, he was
buried. On the third day he was raised
again and his disciples were locked up, terrified of what would happened next
and Jesus came to set them free. To
untie them. To unlock them. I hold the keys of sin and death. I hold the chain that binds the devil and I
give that chain to you. I give the key
that binds Satan to my church. Jesus
breathed on them. Jesus gave them His Holy Spirit so that their words were His Words
and he said, “As the Father has sent me so I am sending you. If you forgive the sins of any they are
forgiven. If you withhold forgiveness it
is withheld.” (John 20:20, 23)
Dear
friends, Satan is a strong man who has taken control of God’s world. He has enslaved all of humanity, every man,
woman and child. But God made a key that
unlocks each and every one. A master key
that when inserted into their chains unties them and sets them free. And then God made another chain. A bigger chain, an enormous restraint that
wraps around that strong man’s neck and binds him and holds him fast so that he
cannot escape. And the Lord has given
the power, the keys to that chain into the hands of his church. And I speak that key that sets you free and
that ties up the devil so that he cannot touch you, I speak that Word of God to
you now. Your sins are forgiven. Jesus has set you free. Satan cannot touch you. He is locked up, locked away. Satan is bound. Bound by the promise. Bound by the blood. Bound by the name of Jesus.
In the name
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen
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