Knowing the Strong Man - Luke 11:14-23

So there's an old saying, never bring a knife to a gunfight.

The point is pretty simple.

Before you enter a fight, you better know what or who you are up against.

You need to know how strong your opponent is.

You need to know what weapons he has.

You need to know what he's capable of doing.

Because one of the most worst mistakes that you can make in any battle is to underestimate your enemy.

And I think Christians sometimes make that mistake when it comes to the devil.

Some people give Satan far too much credit.

They live in constant fear of him, as if Satan somehow is God's equal, but other Christians make the opposite mistake.

They dismiss the power of the devil altogether.

They don't care to take him too seriously.

But one thing that our passage this morning shows us is that we should do neither.

Last week we began looking at this passage of Jesus healing a man who was possessed with a demon, which made him mute.

And after witnessing Jesus demonstrate the power of God, the scribes and the Pharisees immediately try and discredit him.

They claim that he was doing these works by the power of Belzebule, the prince of demons.

In other words, he was doing them through the power of Satan.

But Jesus brilliantly points out their inconsistency, showing them how wrong they were.

That should get our attention.

So what I want to do this morning is continue looking at this passage and looking at Satan and his tactics and some of the ways that he likes to attack the Christian so that we can know the kind of enemy that the Christian that we are up against.

Number one is that he is strong.

Number two, that he is armed.

Number three, that he guards his goods, and number four, that he is defeatable.

He's strong, he's armed, he guards his goods, and he is defeatable.

Let's look at that first one.

We stopped last week at verse 20.

We're going to pick up, pick it up this week at verse 21.

And Jesus simply says, as he begins telling this illustration, when a strong man, so he's talking about this man who is strong.

After Jesus points out what the people were witnessing as he exercised this power over the demonic, as he as he points out what they were witnessing was the power of God at work, he begins giving them this illustration of a strong man who is protecting his goods.

Remember, Jesus had just freed this man of a demonic possession.

And the people knew how strong that these demon forces were.

This poor mute man wasn't able to speak for his entire life, but after he was free, they began seeing him speak.

And they saw how this man was oppressed and attacked by the devil, yet they just witnessed a man with more power come and set him free.

So it is obvious to us that this strong man who Jesus is describing here, this strong man who is protecting his goods is the devil.

And though it is an illustration, we can learn a few things about this foe that should help us in our battle against him.

Every Christian is in a battle against the enemy.

And the first thing that we should learn about him is that he is strong.

It's become common in certain parts of Christianity to dismiss the devil as a weak enemy that can easily be overcome.

There's a theology known as triumphalism, which tends to overemphasize the Christian's walk in victory.

While it is true the Christian does walk in victory, there is still an enemy that we must battle, and he is a formidable foe.

That should help us in knowing what we're up against.

That he is not someone that can be shouted away with a few, I bind you in the name of Jesus statements, no matter how well they're delivered.

In 1879, the British army invaded the Zulu Kingdom in southern Africa.

The British were one of the most powerful forces in the world.

And they knew that this Zulu army that they were up against was very dangerous, but they underestimated their ability.

At Isundwala, part of the British forces left their camp, not realizing that roughly 20,000 Zulu warriors were nearby.

The Zulus eventually attacked the Britons, surrounding them and overwhelming their defenses.

By the end of the battle, more than 1,300 British and Allied troops had been killed.

It is known today as one of Britain's most shocking military defeats.

And it's a sobering reminder of one basic principle of warfare.

Never underestimate the strength of your enemy.

Again, every Christian is in a spiritual battle with an enemy, with the devil.

He is our enemy.

He is the one whom we are at war with.

As I mentioned earlier, we often make two mistakes when judging the strength of the devil.

One is to overestimate it, as if he cannot be defeated, and the other is to underestimate it as if he could as if he could easily be defeated.

I think one verse that captures both of these truths well is Job chapter 1, verse 12, where there we read, And the Lord said to Satan, Behold, all that he has is in your hand, only against him do not stretch out your hand.

Job 1:12

So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.

That is God speaking to the devil about Job, a servant of his, who he has allowed the devil to test, and he says, All that he has is in your power.

You will know that Satan has power.

He had the power to attack Job.

But you will also note that he needed permission from God to do so.

Again, we must not overestimate his power.

He isn't sovereign.

That attribute alone belongs to God, but as the book of Job shows us, he does have power.

If you've ever read the story of Job, you will notice the fierce way that the enemy that Satan attacked him.

He brings about the death of his children and his servants.

He brings about the loss of his possessions, and he eventually afflicts his body with sores.

William Wilhelmus Braakel makes a comment about Satan's attack on Job.

And he says this the active agent was neither an illness, sin, or man, but Satan himself.

It was Satan who caused the wind to arise from the desert by which he smote the house and killed Job's children.

It was also he who smote Job with sore boils.

It is thus confirmed that Satan interacts with human beings as well as physical entities.

Now, most of Satan's attacks are not that way.

They're not physical, like they were with Job.

In fact, they rarely are.

But the point is, Job's attacks give us a glimpse of how powerful the devil can be, and that, and the type of destruction that he can cause when he's not constrained.

The book of Job portrays Satan as having real power, real power to affect physical objects and human bodies and even forces of nature.

He is someone to be reckoned with.

But yet that's not how he typically works.

Although Hollywood would like to portray it as such, he doesn't attack us by opening up doors and closing them or throwing clothes all around the house or hearing footsteps on top of the roof.

That might make you afraid, but that's not really what he's after.

He's after something much higher.

He would destroy your faith if he could.

He wants to take your joy.

He wants to take your peace and kill your assurance.

So he's not going to attack you in these obvious ways that are going to make you run to Jesus for protection.

He's a lot more cunning than that.

Remember, he's an angel of darkness.

He likes to do his work in the dark.

His attacks are not as open and obvious.

Instead, they are much more subtle.

They are covert.

They are done in the dark, behind the scenes.

He's out to turn your temptation into an addiction.

He's out to turn your suspicion over your husband or wife into a broken marriage.

Or he's out to turn your discontent into resenting God.

His attacks might be slow, but he's got the time.

And he's often a lot more patient than we are.

He's willing to wait it out and see you fail.

The point of all this is to show you that this is the enemy that you are up against.

Not only one that is clever, but also one that is capable.

And he's not only, he not only has a strategy, many people have strategies, but he has the power to carry it out.

He is, as our Lord calls him, a strong man.

And that's not to scare you or to make you think that you're hopeless against him.

But it is for you to rightly assess your enemy.

You are up against a formidable foe who would like to destroy you.

1 Peter 5 8 tells us, be sober-minded, be watchful.

Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

John Gill says that he is called a lion because of his rage, malice, and cruelty, which he breathes out against the saints.

The fact that Scripture says he's seeking someone to devour means that he's capable of doing it.

If he didn't have the power to do so, he wouldn't even try.

And just like a lion, he knows his own strength.

And he knows what he's capable of doing.

The question is, do you?

Do you know the strength of the lion that you are up against?

I remember when I was younger, me and my friends and my brothers used to play a game called Mercy.

Some of you might remember this game.

It's a contest of strength and pain tolerance between two people.

You would face each other, interlock your fingers, and then try to bend or twist or force the other person's fingers backwards until they couldn't take the pain anymore.

And the person who would give in would be the first one to yell mercy, meaning surrender.

The other person is supposed to release their hands immediately when they say it.

Well, imagine playing a game like that against someone many times stronger than you, and against someone who has no intention of showing you mercy.

That's what the Christian is up against.

Again, why am I saying this?

What's the point of all this?

To let you know the type of battle that you're in.

And that part-time Christianity is not going to cut it against this kind of enemy.

He's not someone who will be scared away by a few moments in prayer, or by a one-year Bible plan, or by your love for worship music, or by reading the Puritans.

He's to be taken a lot more seriously than that.

William Granal says he has sent the finest among your ranks home, trembling and crying to God, with their hearts bloodstreaming from their wounded consciences.

He is truly a strong man.

And if that's not enough, he's also armed.

Which leads to my next point.

He is armed.

Jesus says, when a strong man, fully armed, which tells us that, which tells us that this strong man is armed with various weapons to use against us.

He not only relies on his own strength, but he also relies on the weapons that he has at his disposal.

Ephesians chapter 6 mentions the flaming or fiery darts of the enemy.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

Satan has many weapons at his disposal, and he will employ them cleverly, knowing which weapon to use, depending on your weakness.

So it's not only important to know his strength, but it is also important to know the weapons that he likes to use, especially those that are most common and those that he likes to use against the saints.

Every effective army learns which weapons work best.

Medieval English armies became famous for using the longbow.

They trained their man to use it because battle after battle, this weapon proved to be effective.

Likewise, our enemy has used the same effective weapons on Christians for generations.

He knows which weapon to use on a young man or a young woman.

He knows which ones to use on that businessman or the one to use on the homemaker.

He knows what's been effective on the seasoned saint, and also which ones to use on the new believer.

With so many weapons at his disposal, it's no wonder he's been effective at taking down so many.

Let me just name you a couple of his weapons.

One is temptation.

A few weeks back we looked at this weapon in the Lord's Prayer.

And we know that he prizes this weapon from the way that he tried to use it on both Adam and Christ.

We did use it.

1 Thessalonians 3:5 tells us, for this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith, for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you, and our labor would be in vain.

1 Thessalonians 3:5

Paul, here in this verse, was afraid that the saints at this church which he planted in Thessalonica might have drifted from the faith.

And notice the means by which he thought this might happen.

They, how will will they drift?

They will drift by and through the tempter tempting them.

The tempter is another name for Satan.

He is the tempter.

Because that's what he does.

That's what he's known for.

That's what he's been doing from the very beginning.

Scripture says that he was a liar from the beginning.

And this is where he places many of his lies, in his temptations.

This is where he placed it in lying to Adam and Eve by saying, God didn't really say that you couldn't eat from the fruit.

Or in lying to Jesus by trying to get him to believe that he even had a kingdom to offer him.

His tactic is to lie so that we can believe him over God, to tempt us and to lure our hearts away from Christ.

That is the end goal of his temptation.

His aim in temptation is not simply to get us to want the fruit, but to get us to not want God.

This is why temptation is one of his favorite weapons.

It doesn't, it it doesn't just lead temptation, doesn't just lead us into sin.

As James says, it leads us into death.

See, Satan is much too sinister than to be content with us finding pleasure in sin.

He'll take it if he can get it, but his ultimate desire is not to hurt our holiness, but to kill our faith.

And temptation has been one of his most effective weapons at doing that.

Be aware of it.

Temptation is the fiery dart you must defend with a shield of faith.

Another favorite weapon that he likes to use is accusation.

Satan will use this fiery dart to bring accusations against you.

He will try and point out every reason why you don't belong to the family of God.

This we read in Revelation 12, 10.

And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.

You know what's interesting here?

Is notice in this passage where Satan is doing the accusing.

He is accusing us day and night before our God.

So I'm trying to imagine this scene.

God is in the heavens, and Satan comes up to God, and he's saying, Your son, your servant, your daughter, look at her, look at her life, look at her thoughts, look at how much they're not yours.

As if you can make God say, you know, that's right.

They're not my child, or they don't belong to me.

But God in his omniscience knows what's true and what's not true.

If Satan brings an accusation against the Christian, saying, look at how much they're disobedient, God will say, That's true.

If Satan says, look at how much, look at how often they they they give their heart over to the world and they love you, they love the world more than you, God will say that's true.

He continues to say, look at how much they are undeserving of your grace, God will say, That's true.

But if the devil adds and they must be condemned, God will say, That is false.

I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.

It is true that they are sinners deserving of my wrath, but it is also true that I have already poured out my wrath on my son at the cross, which has paid for all of their sins.

His accusations against us will not work on God.

The question is, will they work on us?

Because one of his weapons is to bring them to us often, to accuse us of not being in the family of God, to accuse us and remind us of our sin and how short we fall of the glory of Christ.

So, like God, we have to hold fast to what is true.

Charles Spurgeon once remarked, if anyone thinks ill of you, do not be angry with him, for you are far worse than they think you are.

Well, I think that's a good strategy to use on the devil as well.

Whatever the devil says about us, we're probably a lot worse.

The truth is our hearts are probably far more wicked than the devil claims them to be.

But that's not the truth to be pointed out.

The point is not to dwell on the truth that we are sinners because we are, and we know that.

But the point is to dwell on the truth that we are forgiven and that we are loved, and that we are set accepted by God through the work of Jesus Christ.

Romans 8:1 says, There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:1

I can go on and speak at length of many of his other weapons that he likes to use against the Christian, inciting us to fear, inciting us to doubt.

There's bitterness, there's anger, there's lust.

I can go on, but but I think you get the point.

The devil is fully armed.

He has many weapons to use against us.

Be aware of them.

Prepare yourself for them.

Next.

Not only is he strong, not only is he armed, but he's also willing to do everything that he can to protect his own goods or to protect his goods.

He guards his goods.

That is the next point.

Again, Jesus says when a strong man fully armed guards his own goods, his goods are when a strong man fully armed guards his own palace, his goods are safe.

You know, it's one thing to be strong, it's another thing to be armed, but add to that a resolve, and now you have someone extremely dangerous.

There have been many military powers who have fell, not because they lacked the strength, or not because they lacked the arms, but because they lacked the will or the resolve to stay in the fight.

Or maybe they were careless in carrying out their strategy.

But Satan is not that kind of enemy.

He's very calculated.

He not only has the strength, he not only has the arms, but he also has the will.

Or he has the resolve to defeat us.

Or as Jesus puts it, to guard us from being snatched away from him.

The imagery Jesus is using here, before Christ rescued us, we were among the strong man's goods.

We were walking in darkness, we were following the prince of the power of the air.

He had us right where he wanted us, just like he did with this man who was mute.

He may not have had us under his possession like this man, but he certainly had us under the bondage, and to some degree under his power.

Notice what Christ tells Paul about his mission in Acts chapter 26.

Acts 26 · chapter mention

Verse 17.

He says, I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified.

By faith in me.

What does this tell us?

Well, it tells us a couple of things.

First, the devil is not going to let go of those under his power so easily.

Some of us have been praying for dear loved ones to come to faith.

Or maybe some of us have been witnessing and sharing the gospel to friends and co-workers hoping that it would come to Christ.

Just know that Satan is not going to just hand them over without a fight.

They're going to have to be pried from his hands by the power of God, which means that you're going to have to show some resolve yourself.

You're going to have to keep sharing the gospel.

You're going to have to keep praying for them.

You're going to have to keep trusting that God truly has the power to set them free, just like he set you free.

Another thing we can learn from this is though the devil no longer has us, Christians, under his power, he still has some of us under his influence.

Some Christians are under the influence of believing his lies over his word, or believing the lie over the truth, or believing that sin is better than righteousness.

For example, his lies to a drunkard would be that alcohol tastes better than living water, or for someone who's addicted to pornography, that that image that they're looking at is more satisfying than Christ.

Or that you need not battle your depression or your anxiety, just accept it, just live with it, just walk in defeat.

Satan has found a way to keep many Christians in this pattern of believing his lies over the truth.

And whenever Satan has successfully established that kind of influence over someone's life, he isn't going to surrender that easily.

He's not just going to give up when someone decides to open the Bible one day or someone decides to say, I'm going to pray.

This is going to take some real spiritual warfare.

This is going to take getting into the fight because he will guard that influence over you with everything that he's got.

He will do anything that he can to keep you from being set free, to keep your heart and mind trapped in his lies, in his web of lies and deceitfulness.

If you're a Christian, you're already set free from his bondage.

But he will fight with the forces of hell to keep you from being set free from his influence.

And that leads to my final point.

Verse 22.

But when one stronger than he attacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his spoil.

Remember the context here.

Jesus is giving this illustration right after he has just healed a man who had this demon.

He is connecting the illustration to what the people just witnessed.

Yes, this demon had a strong grip on this man and made him mute.

Yes, this demon was powerful, but you have just witnessed an even powerful man set him free.

Which means there is someone who is stronger than the demon, or better yet, there is someone who is stronger than the devil.

Yes, he, the devil is strong.

Yes, he is armed, and yes, he will give every effort to keep you under his influence.

But when Jesus wants to come and get you, he's gonna come and get you.

Because the devil isn't strong enough to hold him back.

In verse 21, the devil is portrayed as someone who is strong and armed, as this imposing figure who attacks and overcomes everyone or others.

But in verse 22, he's the one being attacked.

He's the one being overcome.

And no matter how much he tries to guard that which he wants to keep, he is not strong enough or armed enough or resolved enough to hold back the power of Christ.

We speak a lot about the onslaught of the devil or the onslaught of the enemy, how he's always attacking.

We have to be reminded from time to time that he isn't the only one attacking.

He isn't the only one who is advancing on the enemy.

Christ in his kingdom is also moving forward.

Christ in the key in his kingdom is also advancing, and the scripture tells us the gates of hell will not prevail against them.

The sword of the gospel is being wielded, and it is conquering its enemies every day.

Colossians 2 13 says, And you who were dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us of all our trespass, by canceling the record of death that stood against us with its legal demands.

This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

All across this globe, all across this world, the kingdom of Christ is advancing while the kingdom of darkness is crumbling.

Let me just give you a few statistics to back this up.

Two.

In Africa, it went from about 137 million Christians in 1970 to approximately 754 million in 2025.

That's more than five times the increase in as little as 50 years.

Asia has gone from 97 million Christians in 1970 to 281 million Christians in 2000 and approximately 417 million Christians in 2025.

What does that mean?

It means that the strong man is losing his goods.

It means that Christ is the one who is overcoming.

It means that the devil is being disarmed every day by the power of the gospel.

And if you're a Christian, that is good news for you.

1 John 4, 4 says, Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

Is the devil with his strength and his weapons getting the better of you?

Do you fear what he is capable of doing?

Or what he is doing at the moment.

Remember who's in you.

If you're a believer, remember who's in you.

And remember who is for you.

The one who is stronger than the strong man, the one who is mightier than the forces of hell, the one who has already conquered death in the grave, the one who will overcome the forces of darkness.

Never forget that the stronger man is on your side.

Romans 8.31.

What shall we say to these things?

If God is for us, who can be against us?

If you are someone here today who feels like you're being overcome by someone or something much stronger than you, or who feels that there are some strongholds that you just can't break free of, call upon the name of Jesus.

Ask him to come to your aid.

Draw strength from him through the means of grace which he provides.

This is not a call to do more.

This is not a call to try harder.

This is not a call to muster up your own strength.

This is a call to surrender.

Not to the devil, but to Christ.

You know, sometimes you hear preachers preach sermons on spiritual warfare trying to pump you up, and they'll say things like, You got this, or you have it in you.

But that's not the way to defeat the strong man.

You will only defeat him by admitting you don't got this, and you don't have it in you.

But you know someone who does.

And remember, you are surrendering to Christ, not surrendering to the devil.

You keep on fighting him, not with your own strength, but with the strength that Christ supplies, and with the spiritual weapons that you have at your own disposal.

This is a call to acknowledge that Satan, the devil, is too mighty of a foe for you alone to handle.

So you call upon someone much mightier than him to help you.

You call upon Christ to make good on that old promise to crush the head of the serpent.

And Jesus, here's the thing about it, Jesus enjoys conquering your enemies.

He enjoys attacking and overcoming that and those things which you hate.

What do you hate this morning that is overcoming you?

What do you hate that is creeping into your life, that is destroying your relationship with God, or that is destroying your family or your marriage, or that's coming in and trying to destroy those things, or trying to wreck your faith or wreck your peace?

What is it that you hate?

Jesus Christ loves defeating those things.

How do I know?

How can I tell?

Well, I know because of his love.

Anyone who would go to the cross and die for your freedom must have loved you so much that they hated to see you bound.

As we close in this battle between these two strong men, Jesus is calling us to pick a side.

As he says, Whoever is not with me, verse 23, whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

So the question for us this morning is which side are you on?

If you're not a Christian, you're clearly not on his side.

No one can serve two masters.

Choose this day who you will serve.

Will you serve Jesus or will you continue to serve yourself?

If you choose yourself, you will remain a prisoner of this strong man.

But if you are a Christian, Jesus has shown that he is for you by setting you free of the devil's bondage.

So the next question is are you for him?

Are you for Christ?

Will you join him on his mission?

Will you join him in the fight?

Will you join his army?

Will you battle with him and go with him as he is snatching souls from the grips of hell?

In the end, the stronger man is going to win out.

And that stronger man is Jesus.

Which side are you on?

Let me close with this quote from Thomas Brooks.

He says, A humble soul, being once in a great conflict with Satan, said to him, Satan, reason not with me.

I am weak.

If you have anything to say, say it to Christ.

He is my advocate, he is my strength, and he is my redeemer, and he will plead for me.

A humble soul is good at turning Satan over to the Lord Jesus, and this increases Satan's hell.

Amen.

Let us pray.

As we know we're in a battle against the enemy.

Ever since the beginning of time, Lord, he's come to disrupt our relationship with you.

When Adam and Eve were created, they were created in Lord this wonderful union with you.

And we see him right at the beginning come to try and disrupt that.

And he hasn't stopped today.

He's still doing that.

He's still trying to come and disrupt our relationship with you.

He would have us, Lord, with him in bondage, in slavery.

We thank you, Lord, because you have clearly shown us that you have the power to set us free.

That you have the power, Lord, to free us from the grips of the enemy.

And we pray, Lord, that we would just call upon you.

Lord, somebody here, their God might be just overwhelmed by spiritual attacks.

But I pray, Lord, that they would call upon you, that they would trust in you, that they would seek you, that they would surrender and give up trying to defeat the devil by himself, by themselves.

But they will say, I need you, Jesus.

I need you, Lord.

I need you to come and fight my battles.

I need you, Lord, to come and go before me.

I'm not giving up.

I'm not throwing in the towel.

I'm not laying over to the onslaught of the devil.

I'm going forward.

I'm going to be on your army, in your army, marching forward, continuing to conquer and advance the kingdom of God.

Lord, give us the strength to believe that and to walk in that.

To trust in that.

In Jesus' name.

Amen and amen.