And The Winner Is...jesus Series

Text: Mark 3:22-30

Title: And the Winner is…Jesus!

The Teachers of the Law walk 100 miles to take on Jesus.

Their attack will be two-fold. First they accuse Jesus of being demon-possessed and secondly they accuse him of driving out demons by the power of demons.

V23 “So Jesus called them and spoke to them in parables”

1. What you accuse me of is illogical.(24-26)

“How can Satan drive out Satan “If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself, and is divided he cannot stand; his end has come.”

Satan does not drive out anything

“He wants to possess, not deliver, to inhabit not vacate; to bind, not set free.”

You don’t drive out evil with evil

2. What you accuse me of is a tactic of Satan

Notice that Jesus used the word Satan instead of the word Devil.The word Satan means “Accuser”

The Devil is using the Teachers of the Law to accuse Jesus of being demon possessed.

The Bible tells us that the Devil is our Accuser.

1. He accuses us before God

He tells God our sins.

Rev 12:10 “for the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before God day and night has been hurled down.”

2. He accuses God before us

He tells us that God is not good

He accused God of not being good to Eve

Gen 3:4-5 “you will not surely die, “ the serpent said to the woman. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Whenever bad things happen he accuses God. It’s God’s fault!

3. Thirdly the Devil accuses us before ourselves

We will look more at how the devil does this a little later.

So how is our accuser Satan defeated?

(v27) In fact, no one can 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.”

What is described here in verse 27 is a parable. Jesus is not a burglar. He is not for breaking into homes.

He is using an analogy.

A. The strong man is Satan.

Even though the Scriptures tell us little about Satan’s origin, they do inform us that he is a fallen angel of considerable power. The New Testament describes him as a “great enemy” who “prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Jesus Himself said that Satan is such a force to be reckoned with that He is the only one strong enough to conquer him. He also portrayed him as the head of a great, highly organized “army” of evil spirit beings.He is a cunning liar, capable of seducing Adam and Eve by disguising himself as an “angel of light.”The book of Revelation says that his powers of deception are so potent that he is able to lead the whole world astray.

B. The Strong Man’s house is this world

Jesus would go on to refer to Satan as the “ruler of this world.” Paul called him the “god of this age.”

C. Satan’s possessions = All the people of the world.

Ephesians 2:1-2

“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.

So our only hope is for a stronger man than Satan to enter this world; tie up (bind up) Satan and carry us off so that we would no longer be the possessions of Satan.

The only man stronger than Satan is Jesus himself!

Jesus has overcome an assassination attempt; the temptation in the desert and he has cast out demons, healed the sick and forgiven people of their sins.

Now notice Jesus said he cannot carry or rob Satan of his possessions until he first binds him.

Has Jesus bound Satan and if so when?

Hebrews 2:14

Since the 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.

Colossians 2:15

And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the Cross.

So clearly Jesus bound Satan by his death on the Cross.

We don’t need to bind Satan because Jesus bound Satan already.

He bound Satan but he did not silence Satan!

Satan is no longer our master but he is still our accuser

He can’t make us do the wrong thing but he can still ask us to do the wrong thing