Bible Text: Luke 11:14-28 | Preacher: Pastor Christian Preus
The devil deals in absurdities. And he makes people absurd. He will lead people to do and believe the most ridiculous things. The Pharisees’ accusation against Jesus is a perfect example. It’s simply not believable. Jesus casts out a demon, a man who can’t talk and can’t hear can now talk and hear again. It’s very clearly a God thing. And the Pharisees say He did it by the power of the devil. He casts out demons by the power of Beelzebul, the chief of the demons. Jesus makes short work of the accusation. It’s absurd. A Kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. Obviously. The devil doesn’t cast out the devil. It’s as simple as that.
The devil still deals in absurdities. He tries the same thing today. He’ll actually convince people that God doesn’t exist. Obviously absurd. How did things get here, devil? How do I have any conception of eternity? Of good and evil? It’s absurd. But the devil is the master of absurdities. Paul calls them empty words in our Epistle lesson. Let no one deceive you by empty words, by absurdities. He mentions two absurdities, sexual immorality and covetousness. The devil promises happiness through sexual immorality, and he only gives pain. Any unbiased observer and anyone who’s experienced it sees it. No one in the history of the world has been fulfilled by pornography, and yet the devil’s temptation is exactly that, this will fill your need, make you feel better, satisfy your craving. But it’s absurd, of course it won’t. It’ll only make it worse and make you feel empty and sad and worthless. And the same goes with covetousness, being discontent with what God gives, always wanting more and more, it never ends, and you work and you work for more and then you get all the stuff and you’re still not content because God didn’t make you for the accumulation of stuff, He made you for Him. No, if you can’t be content now, be thankful to God for what He’s give you now, you’ll never be content and you’ll always want more and more. But the devil gets people to believe these absurdities. Gets us to fall into them.
In everything he does, the devil opposes happiness. We have to understand this. God wants our happiness. The devil wants our misery. Look at the devil here. He makes a man miserable by taking away his ability to speak and hear. That’s the devil. He never intends anything but grief for you. You see the devil’s cruelty again in the Pharisees’ response to Jesus’ healing the man. They don’t care a thing about the man’s release, his happiness, his wholeness, this amazing thing – think of it, if you couldn’t hear, couldn’t speak, for months, years, oppressed by a devil, with all the despair and depression that comes with it, and Jesus comes and gives you release, no devil anymore, no weight hanging on your soul, and you could speak and hear, think how sweet the birds would sound, how much pleasure you would have with every syllable coming out of your mouth. The Pharisees have seen this in their fellow man, and they can’t even share in the joy, can’t rejoice with Jesus and humanity. They’re unhappy, unsatisfied. And this is what the devil brings. He opposes all human happiness. It’s why he excites the sexual sins, the covetousness, the unbelief, the irrational doubts and fears, he delights in our misery.
But Jesus gives pleasure. That’s what we just sang and it’s true. “Jesus has come and brings pleasure eternal.” If this sounds strange, that Jesus brings pleasure, you need to rethink what pleasure is. Look at what Jesus gives this man, to hear again, to speak again. Look at what He gives you. He is your God. He created you. The pleasure of a good meal, of good conversation, of drink, of laughter, of satisfaction after a hard day’s work, of rest and sleep, of a walk on a sunny day, of marital intimacy, of a clean conscience, these all come from Him. The devil gives no pleasure. He only corrupts what Jesus gives. Benjamin Franklin was right when he said that the rain falling on the vineyards was constant proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. But it’s equally true that the abuse of the vine and the overdrinking of its wine is proof that the devil hates us and wants us to be miserable.
The devil is not the Creator. He is only a corrupter of creation. He only takes what God made good and takes away from it and twists it. And that’s what sin is. It’s why it can’t possibly make us happy. Because happiness is doing, is being, what we were created for. And we were created to enjoy God, to know Him, to love Him, to be with Him now and forever.
The devil can’t give that. He can only take away from it.
So Jesus describes him as the strong man, because his temptations have power over us poor sinners. He deceives us with empty words. He makes us believe the absurdities. Even to act on them. He gets us to sin, and then to despair and doubt the God who made us and bought us with His blood.
But Jesus is the stronger man. And that is a massive comparative, that word “Stronger.” He is infinitely stronger. He binds the strong man, He frees us, He undeceives us, He takes all the devil’s absurdities in which he trusted and He exposes them for what they are, and He divides the spoil with us, so that we can laugh with Him at the devil, sing as we just did, “Satan you wicked one, own now your Master.” Jesus is infinitely stronger. He is the Creator. Our Creator. And he arms us with the truth.
The devil doesn’t even pretend to create. He can’t. It would be too absurd. Even the pagan gods, who were demons, didn’t claim to be creators. They claimed power, they demanded worship, but they didn’t claim to be creators of the world. You see this in the Egyptian magicians in our reading. St. Paul tells us their names, Jannes and Jambres, and they can do miraculous things by the devil’ power. Aaron throws down his staff and it becomes a serpent, and they throw down their staffs and their staffs become serpents. They can manipulate creation. So they mimic the first plague. When God turns the Nile’s water into blood, they copy it with their devilish enchantments and turn water into blood, however that happens. And the second plague, when Moses calls out the frogs from the Nile, they use the devil’s power to do the same, bring frogs from the River. But then their power stops.
It’s not just because God got tired of allowing them to do their magic. It’s because they reached the limit of the devil’s power. Because the devil can’t create. So when Aaron’s staff strikes the earth and the dust becomes gnats, they can’t do it, they can’t mimic it, because they can’t create. And so they say to Pharoah, This is the finger of God. It creates. That’s what they’re saying – the finger of God is the creative finger, the finger that formed the world, that can create from dust or from nothing. And this no devil can do. Only God can. And this is God, our God, our Lord Jesus, who acts with the finger of God, with creative power, who creates us new, and makes us children of God, and is the Stronger Man, and holds the field forever.
And Jesus consistently exercises this power, this creative power, by speaking. Because that’s what created all things in the first place, this Word who was with the Father in the beginning. And look at what this Word gave at Creation – pure happiness, “God saw all that he had made and it was very good.”
And it is the Word that continues to give happiness, joy, and pleasure eternal. Everything depends on this Word of God. Look at our Gospel. Jesus begins by giving a man hearing – so he can hear the Word – and speaking, so he can confess the Word, and He ends by saying “blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it.” This is His almighty and invincible power. The Word that we have. It is the Sword of the Spirit. You see what it does to the devil. Makes him flee. It reveals him as absurd and his temptations as empty. This is why the devil’s very real temptations of Jesus in the wilderness seem so absurd after Jesus applies the Word of God to them. Jump off the temple, devil? Fall down and worship you, devil? Silly. Absurd.
This is what the Word of God does for us now. It exposes the devil’s absurdities and all the emptiness of sin. Why would I desire more and more and more stuff, when Jesus has given me everything, forgiveness of sins, life everlasting, communion with God, a clean conscience, and besides all this my daily bread, everything I need in this life until He takes me to everlasting life? Why would I seek to satisfy instant sinful pleasures that only make me feel sad and dirty, when I have the eternal pleasure that never disappoints and is pure and holy and rests in my Savior’s wounds? The Word of God shows us the God who loved us and gave Himself up for us. All that the devil corrupted, Jesus renews, all the happiness he robbed from us, Jesus restores.
So Jesus says, “But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” The Kingdom of God has come upon us. The Creator has entered His creation. And He brings pleasure eternal. He buys it with His own pain and suffering on the cross, He earns it by His spotless life, His innocence, His conquering of every temptation, His crushing of the devil. And this is the Kingdom we live in, it is the gracious Ruling of His Word, the finger of God, which creates new hearts in us, which forgives us, calls us beloved children, teaches us what true happiness is, and establishes the firm reality that we belong to the God who has made us and bought us and baptized us, and we will live with Him forever.
Lord, open our ears to hear Your Word and keep it. In the name of Jesus. Amen.