Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝
If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.
These words of Scripture from today’s Gospel were included very distinctively in a famous speech by Abraham Lincoln. The year was 1858 and the United States were just on the brink of erupting into the Civil War. The hot issues at the Republican Convention in Springfield, Illinois centered around slavery, and in his address, Lincoln quoted this Bible verse to make his point that the Union could not remain half-slave and half-free. It only seemed logical: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
It’s more important for us today, though, to consider how the original speaker, Jesus, uses these words. Who’s house is He talking about? The Jerusalem leaders accused Him of something very serious—they said Jesus was in league with the devil, and that by the power of Beelzebul (which is another name for Satan) He drove demons out of people. Rather than call them out right there on their blasphemy, Jesus instead exposes their wrong-headed logic: “How can Satan drive out Satan? If Satan is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand?” Jesus is talking about the kingdom of the devil, and He says that Satan would surely fall to oblivion if his house were divided against itself.
Why should Jesus concern Himself with the devil’s house? Is Satan really that powerful? He certainly has been around a long time. This constant battle between Satan and the Son of God has been around since Genesis 3, when humanity and the whole world fell into sin, thanks to the Serpent’s lies and crafty power over Adam and Eve. Here in God’s blessed creation, Satan gained a foothold and started setting up his house of doom. Our Old Testament reading recounts for us another skirmish between those two enemies that took place in 1446 B.C. when God sent Moses to Pharaoh in order to demand that he “Let My people go.” Ten times Pharaoh denied, ten times Egypt was ravaged by plagues, the original catastrophes of Biblical proportions as you may hear them still called every now and then.
As he did earlier in Genesis, when the devil convinced Adam and Eve that they could be like God just by eating the fruit of the forbidden tree, he’s constantly using the tactic against you too, feeding you the delusion that you can get along much better without God calling all the shots. Satan tricked Pharaoh through his court magicians that these divine plagues were just tricks that anyone with magical skills or contacts with evil spirits could perform. Turn your staff into a serpent? We can do that! Turn the Nile River into blood—that’s an old one. Thanks to the devil’s work, our human race has turned into a house divided, for it was he who convinced human beings that they should attempt to declare their independence from God. And when sinful human creatures declare their independence from God, they quickly turn on each other as well, as we’ve seen all too clearly these days.
Do you think you’re safe from this evil scheme? Does your baptism somehow protect you from the assaults of the devil? If you think so, you should guess again. Satan works the hardest against those who are not his. He can divide those in a Christian house against each other just as easily as he could anyone else. But he doesn’t stop with messing up your relationship to God and with other people. The devil also attacks your very self and actually creates a civil war within you.
The Apostle Paul describes this inner conflict in his letter to the Romans: “For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I desire not to do, that’s what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I desire not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.”
What’s true for Paul is also true for you. As a Christian, you want to do what pleases God and helps other people, yet you actually do the very opposite. That’s the war between good and evil also going on within your flesh—a war instigated by the devil himself. And what’s more, he has an ally in your own sinful human nature, a traitor that would make even Benedict Arnold blush. It’s the sin that dwells in you, it’s in your very nature, causing you to divide yourself against God and feed your own lusts and desires. It’s that part of you that says you’d get along much better without God calling all the shots. Your heart is a house divided, and if the devil and your sinful self had their way, you would not stand.
You know how the devil is often portrayed—a funny red guy with horns and a pitchfork, a voice in your left ear trying to out-shout the angel on your right that tells you to do the good thing. Satan is not a made-up idea or practical joke. He is real, and as First Peter says, like a roaring lion he seeks those whom he may devour. He is what Jesus likened to a strong man who vigilantly guards his possessions against any who are out to take them. By his crafty lies and deception, he seeks to take possession of you, turning you into a house divided against yourself and against God. We have no ability in and of ourselves to oppose him—Satan truly is strong…far stronger than we are.
However, in this parable, Jesus only likened the devil to a strong man in order to point this out: He is the stronger man, the one who actually has bound Satan and plundered him for all he’s worth. Though we have given in to temptations and disregarded God’s will, Jesus stood up to the crafts and assaults of the devil. He prevailed without falling into sin—for our sakes. God has always had the upper hand in these battles with the Evil One. Remember that Pharaoh was convinced that his magicians could match the plagues that Moses dished out? Then the gnats and the flies started attacking in unprecedented swarms, those magicians could only admit the truth: This is the finger of God. Their snake-staffs were swallowed by the serpents made from Moses and Aaron’s staffs. Even they could see that every time God faced off with the devil, that God would always win. Though we, following our deceived sinful nature, would rather side with the devil and only think for ourselves, Jesus took it upon Himself to rescue us from the slavery that placed us in the house of Satan.
Our rescue was certainly a show of divine power, because Jesus destroyed the power of the devil once and for all. Yet at the same time, it looked the opposite—like the devil was the one who would emerge victorious. With Jesus and what He’s going through as we read in the Gospels, we don’t see cataclysmic plagues unleashed against the bad guys and our Savior’s boot pressing down on the devil’s neck. In fact, the ultimate death blow in this war that had begun at the dawn of time was when Jesus humbled Himself to the point of death, even death on a cross!
He chose to bind your sins to Himself and forced God the Father to be divided against His own Son—after all, who was it that said, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” The rejection and scorn, suffering and dying of His crucifixion, these were in fact the very cords that bound up Satan and rendered him powerless and divided. Now with the strong man tied up, Jesus the Stronger Man robbed his house, taking back you and me, the poor souls who were once lost in our sins and slavery. Once we were rightfully accused of sin and rebellion, of doubt and hypocrisy. Now we are in Christ, the risen and victorious Savior. It’s your emancipation proclamation– You are free!
Now that you are released from the devil’s kingdom and made a part of the Kingdom of God, you are no longer a house divided from Him. Instead, Jesus took great pains to unite you as one with Him and with your fellow believers. He does some binding on you, too, a different kind of binding. Christ binds you close to Himself in faith that is His gift to you, and He binds you to your neighbor in love, so that you may fulfill each other’s needs. Jesus calls you His brother, sister and mother, because you believe in Him and by His grace perform His will, not as a requirement but as a response. Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it.
Renounce the devil, and all his works and all his ways. Resist his evil schemes and deceptions. Instead, turn in faith to your Savior Jesus, who called you out of darkness and into His marvelous light. Do not remain a “house divided” within your soul. Drown that confederate rebel sinful nature in the waters of your baptism into Christ, a baptism that still lives on to make you grow in your Christian life. You are not a possession of Beelzebul. He has no power over you. Instead, you belong to Jesus and your sinful division is mended because of His word of forgiveness.
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” It is true for us as a free country, and it is also true for us as Christians, now that we are free from the bondage of sin, death and the devil. Because of Christ, Satan’s kingdom has been divided and his eternal judgment has come, but we on the other hand stand united in our Lord and share in the everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness that God has in store for us. Thanks be to stronger man Jesus, for He bound strong man Satan, and released us from his prison. Now you are in God’s house unto eternity.
In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Readings:
Ex. 8:16–24 the magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.”
Eph. 5:1–9 be imitators of God as dear children
Luke 11:14–28 blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!