Neutrality is not an Option. Luke 11:14-28 Praying and working for the Lord are very closely linked in life and also in the later part of this chapter. The principles of service for the Lord are set out for our learning. They also remind us that anything we seek to do for God will be opposed in one way or another. The powers of darkness and evil constantly strive to stop and defeat the work of the Lord and those who are engaged in that work. The attacks against the Gospel may be against what we do, but of even more concern, is that they will attack the servants of the Lord in some way. The enemy of God and men will attempt to disrupt and defeat all that has been done as well as to seek to stop what is just being started. They will even seek to discount and bring down what has been accomplished for the glory of God.
Spirit-directed prayer is where Spirit-guided workers begin. “Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.” There are dangers to the work of God and His servants from the unseen world of evil spirits around us. There are also dangers from the world of religion represented by the Pharisees, scribes, and lawyers in this series of conflicts recorded by Luke. There were likely ongoing forces that opposed the ministry of our Lord daily when He was here. We need to be aware that this battle continues today and will often be waged by using different tactics in different places and at different times.
Religious leaders sometimes make their own rules to their own advantage and then use them to control and direct the lives of those who listen to them. It is incumbent on us not to take self-directed or man-directed action without first being sure that what we do and others say is scriptural. If there are additions or subtractions from what the Bible says, those need to be carefully scrutinized by the truth of God's word.
Many today direct the work and service of those who follow them and pretend to speak for God. They twist the written word of God to suit their own agenda. They often claim their allegiance and loyalty are to the Lord, but they want to “upgrade” the scriptures to make them easy to understand by those who don’t usually read the Bible.
Commitment to prayer and careful reading of the Bible in a contextual way will enable a serious Christian to discern whether the applications preachers and teachers give of a passage of scripture is what God intends. We must keep within the boundaries of the word of God as our guidelines to service and the book containing our instructions to live by.
A good practice when reading the Bible is first to ask ourselves, “What does this say in its context in words that I can understand?” Make sure that it is clearly understood in the place where it is written and in the context of the paragraph in which it is written. A verse taken out of context can mislead us and, through us, mislead others.
Secondly, ask yourself, “What does this mean to me in my own words?” In other words, do I have a clear grasp of the truth that is being conveyed? This part of our reading and study will take the most time. The wisdom in the word of God is so deep and significant that we cannot fathom it. The truths in a chapter, paragraph, or verse will always give you more insight each time you read it than when you read it before. Care must be taken to ensure we clearly understand the little we do grasp.
The third step of learning is to ask oneself, “How do I apply this?” Application takes a statement of truth and directs it to events, issues, and needs I have at this particular time. It may also have pertinent information and truth that I can pass on to benefit someone else. Likely, the next time you read the same passage, you will find a whole lot more to feed your soul, and your next application will be somewhat different, depending on what is going on at present in your life.
One of the important themes Luke addressed when he wrote the eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ ministry was Jesus’ power over demons and the fact that the powers of darkness had to obey Him. On several occasions, he previously wrote about the Lord having cast out demons from people whom they had controlled in one way or another. This challenged the authority of those religious leaders who opposed the Lord Jesus Christ. They or those under their auspices had supposedly cast out demons. When the Lord Jesus cast demons out, the person they had controlled was immediately made normal. The mute man from whom the Lord had cast out the demon in this chapter, immediately spoke, to the amazement of the crowd gathered around the Lord. There was no question about the Lord’s authority over the power of darkness. Those who were there and saw it happen, could not deny the reality of the power of Jesus.
Some changes can be observed when a person is saved by God’s grace today. These may not be too obvious at first in young children, but as time passes, attitudes and actions will show them to be true children of God. In those who are older, “Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.” Every believer who was once in sin, and especially those who were obviously under Satan’s control, will praise God and tell others the Gospel in their testimony of salvation, their new life, and “the hope that lies within them.”
To charge the Lord Jesus Christ with getting His power from the devil is a terrible sin and an awful thing to do. When those men charged the Lord with casting out demons by the power of “the lord of the flies,” they were aligning themselves with the devil. The exorcists of their group would be challenged by their criticism. Why would the devil cast out his demons from those they controlled? The Lord’s power over demons and the obvious result demonstrated that the kingdom of God had come.
On some occasions, the demons openly testified they knew who Jesus was and were afraid He would cast them immediately into the lake of fire. Satan’s power was broken by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ over all the powers of darkness. Disease, sickness, demons, and even death were subject to Him. The conflict between God and the devil is such that there is no place for neutrality. One is either a child of God or a child of the devil. There is no middle ground. When Jesus spoke about “the finger of God,” it was a reference to the ease with which the Lord Jesus exercised the power of God over all adversaries.
Our Lord Jesus Christ has the power to deliver those “who all their lifetime were subject to bondage.” Those who were led captive by Satan are set at liberty when they repent of their sins and accept the Lord Jesus as their personal Savior. Those who change their way of living and seek to live a moral and upright life in their own strength will find themselves powerless to maintain that. They are still empty despite cleaning up their act because they are still without Christ. They do not have the Holy Spirit within them. The clean slate they thought would make them acceptable to God was done by the sin-polluted works of a sinful person. All those changes make them more open to evil than before, even though that evil may take a different form. In their struggle to be righteous, they are worse off than before.
Knowing what is right and one must be saved is a good start. But turning away after the light of the Gospel has shined into them is tragic, “If that light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” Walking away from the grace of God after experiencing the conviction of sin and learning the way of salvation is more tragic than never having known the sweet strains of the Gospel.
Those who hear and keep the word of God are blessed above those who know it but do not commit themselves to obeying it. This is true of believers as well as those who are not saved. Unbelievers lose their souls. Believers lose the potential of their life. A person’s obedience to God is of greater importance than their association with those who love them in their family. Family ties, by nature, are significant because they link us with our loved ones for life. Our ties to the Lord Jesus Christ are spiritual, and join us to Him for eternity. It is far better to do the work of God from the heart for His glory alone than to merely feel good about it and talk about it.