Luke 11:14 And once He was casting out a demon, and it was dumb. And when the demon had gone out, the dumb man spoke, and the crowds marveled. 15 But some of them said, By Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons, He casts out the demons. (17) But He, knowing their thoughts, said to them, Every kingdom divided against itself becomes desolate, and a house divided against a house falls. 18 And if Satan also is divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand? For you say that it is by Beelzebul that I cast out the demons. (20) But if I by the finger of God cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. 21 When the strong man, fully armed, guards his own homestead, his possessions are in peace. 22 But when one stronger than he comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes away his whole armor in which he had trusted and distributes his spoil
The Lord's word indicates that Satan has a kingdom. Satan is the ruler of this world (John 12:31) and the ruler of the power of the air (Eph. 2:2). He has his authority (Acts 26:18) and his angels (Matt. 25:41), who are his subordinates as principalities, powers, and rulers of the darkness of this world (Eph. 6:12). Hence, he has his kingdom, the authority of darkness (Col. 1:13). The strong man here [vs. 21-22] is Satan, the evil one, and the house signifies the kingdom of Satan. But Christ, the Son of God, is much stronger than Satan, the strong man. The first section of Luke 11, verses 1 through 13, is wonderful. Here we see the matter of praying ourselves into God and remaining in Him to receive the life supply, the riches of the Holy Spirit. Now in the second section we have demons, the ruler of the demons, and the strong man. This indicates that as we are in God receiving His riches, we need to remember that demons are around us wherever we may be, and there are evil spirits in the air. Hence, a war is raging all the time. Therefore, the Man-Savior teaches us not only to pray ourselves into God and remain in Him to receive His Spirit as the riches of the life supply, but He also reveals that He is working to cast out demons. We have seen that the Devil is likened to a strong man. But the Man-Savior is stronger than this strong man. Simply by using His finger, the Man-Savior is able to cast out demons. If we are those who pray ourselves into God and remain in Him to receive the life supply, we shall be one with the Man- Savior. Since He is stronger than the strong man and since we are one with Him, we also shall be stronger than the strong man and able to deal with the unclean spirits and cast them out. (c) 2007 Living Stream Ministry.
Bible verses are taken from the Recovery Version of the Bible and Words of Ministry from Witness Lee, Life-study of Luke, pp. 236-237. Both are published by Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim, CA. Please visit us at www.emanna.com. Send comments to: [email protected].
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