The Lutheran Hour
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"No Room for Demons"
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Text: Luke 11:14-28
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Reading the Bible with a child is a good thing, but you should expect questions. My friend, Jason, was telling me how he was reading through the Bible with his daughter. They were reading through the Gospel according to Luke, one of the biographies of Jesus in the New Testament. And she told him, “Dad, this is kind of a scary story.”
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“A demon went into that person, and then there were more demons that went into him?” She looked down for a moment and then asked the question, “Can that happen to me?”
They were reading about one of the many times Jesus encounters a person possessed or afflicted by a demon, by an evil spirit. And like usual, Jesus performs an exorcism, that is, He commands the demon to leave the man, and it leaves as commanded. But on this occasion, some of the people who witness the event are suspicious. They wonder where Jesus has gotten the power to do this. They suppose He’s in league with the devil. Others think He’s tricking them with some kind of illusion. Jesus addresses their charges and then goes on to warn them about the tactics of demons. Because, He says, even though they leave for a while, demons have a habit of coming back and bringing reinforcements and making things worse for their victims. And that’s the part that was disturbing Jason’s daughter, the possibility of a mob of demons ganging up on some helpless person. And she wanted to know, can that happen to me? Now, if this were your child or a child you cared about, what would you say? Seeing your child distressed in this way, I’m guessing you’d want to say no, right? “No, that can’t happen to you.” But why would you say that?
Before you answer? Listen to the passage that prompted her question. It’s in the Gospel of Luke 11.
“Now Jesus was casting out a demon that was mute, that prevented speech. And it happened when the demon had gone out, the man who had been mute spoke, and the people were amazed. But some of them said, “By Beelzebul, by the prince of demons, He is casting out demons.” While others kept seeking from Jesus, a sign from heaven to test Him. Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said to them, “Every kingdom that is divided against itself is ruined, and a house divided, falls. And if Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? I say this because you’re claiming that I cast out demons by be Beelzebul. And if I am casting out demons by be Beelzebul, by the prince of demons, by whom are your sons casting them out? So then, they will be your judges. But if it is by the finger of God that I am casting out demons, then the kingdom, the rule and reign of God, has come upon you. When a strong man who is fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are safe, but when someone stronger comes upon him and conquers him and strips him of his armor in which he had trusted, the stronger one divides up the spoils. Whoever is not with Me is against Me. And if you’re not gathering with Me, you are scattering. When the unclean spirit has gone out of the person, it passes through desert landscapes, looking for rest and finding none it says, “I will return to the house I left.” And when it comes, it finds the house swept clean and put in order, then it goes and brings seven other spirits, more evil than itself and they come and dwell there. And the final condition of the person is worse than the first.” The Gospel according to Luke 11.
When you read the Bible with other people, and especially with children, you should expect questions. Jason’s daughter has said to him, “Dad, this is a scary story. Can that happen to me?” And I’m wondering how you would answer. Maybe your first reaction is to say, “No, that can’t happen to you.” If so, why would you say that? It may be because when it comes to scary stories, our culture has taught us to say, “There, there. It’s not real. It’s just a story.”
See, for 300 years, Western culture has been trying to exercise the demons of superstition. We tell ourselves this story: Humanity collectively was like a frightened little child. We went through a phase. We had our dark ages when we thought that the world was full of spooks and specters, but then we had an enlightenment. Someone turned on the light, and we saw that it wasn’t a monster in the closet; it was just a jacket hanging by the door jamb. We don’t have to be afraid. No one else is here. We can all sleep soundly. For three centuries, that’s the story we’ve been telling ourselves. “There, there, we say. Everything’s fine. The devil, demons, it’s all in your head.”
But in our time, it seems that this story is starting to lose its power. According to a recent Gallup Poll, three out of four Americans say that they believe in “paranormal activity.” Now, paranormal could include anything from extra sensory perception of spiritual entities to haunted houses. And this statistic about the beliefs of Americans today helps make sense of the legion of ghost hunter documentary shows being produced today, as well as the uptick in religious practice of witchcraft and Wiccanism and other forms of pagan worship. Westerners are becoming more and more fascinated by the possible activity of spiritual beings. And we have a foreboding sense that there are good ones and not so good ones, spirits that might help us and others that would do us harm. Even for those who still want to tell that old enlightenment story about how humanity outgrew superstition, a logical inference about the existence of evil spirits can be drawn from the magnitude of evil in the world.
As stated in the introduction to the Roman Catholic rite of exorcism, human malice and depravity, even at its worst is not sufficient to account for all the evil in the world. And it must be concluded that the devil is a real person and that his sway is tremendous. Evil is someone, someone who is multiple, and whose name is Legion. You don’t have to read very far in the Bible to see that it’s not a story that says, “There, there. Everything is fine.” And as you read it with others, question will come, like when Jason’s daughter wanted to know if the demons could come into her. And maybe we want to say no, but why we say no matters because the Bible isn’t a there, there kind of story. It’s a wake-up kind of story.
Author Eugene Peterson explains how he encountered a wake-up, kind of story. He was in a bookstore and on the front counter, he saw a book that had been written by a good friend of his. He remembers that he had talked about this book idea with his friend years ago, they had discussed its plot and its characters. And now here it was, published. He said to the clerk, “This book was written by a good friend of mine. I didn’t know it had been published.”
She said to him, “Well, you’d better buy it. You might find yourself in it.” And he did buy it. And he found himself in it, but it wasn’t a flattering picture. He said, there was no escaping the fact that it was me. Unfortunately, though, not the me of my fantasies.
The Bible is that kind of story. We do find ourselves in it. But when we do, it doesn’t flatter us. It doesn’t indulge us. It doesn’t say, “There, there, all is well. Go to sleep.” The Bible is the kind of story that wakes us up from our fantasies and shows us what’s really going on. The Bible tells us that we have an enemy against whom we are helpless. This is the unflattering picture Jesus gives us in His parable that the devil is like a strong man who owns us, like property.
From various passages in the Bible, we learn that the devil is a fallen angel. At some point, prior to his appearance as a snake in the Garden of Eden, we are told through the prophet of Ezekiel, that he was stationed in the Garden of Eden as a guardian angel, that God created him as a magnificent, powerful, spiritual being along with many other spiritual beings created by God as wise and intelligent, more powerful than humankind, but strangely in service to humans. But this chief angel led a rebellion. He became the “Satan,” which means the “adversary.” Not God’s adversary. God has no equal. God has no rival. No adversary can contend with God. So Satan became our adversary. Because Satan couldn’t touch God, he set out to ruin God’s beloved humanity. And in his rebellion he led other angels to fall and become demons. That’s why, as we heard in Luke’s Gospel, Satan’s also called “Beelzebul,” which means, “prince of demons.”
Satan and his demons deceived humankind, and we followed right along. We became something like his property. We turned away from faith in God, and we chose to live in the fantasy of faith in ourselves. And without God’s story, we’re blind to the source of our misery. Now, at this point, another question usually arises. Someone wants to know why. Why did God create the angel that became Satan if he knew how much evil would result?
I’ll tell you upfront that I don’t have an explanation that can satisfy the curiosity of that question. The Bible doesn’t tell us. But the Bible does show us that this isn’t a new question. It’s actually a very old question. The Old Testament prophet Habakkuk, for example, 2,500 years ago once asked God that question. Habakkuk was watching the forces of evil ganging up on helpless people. And he said, “O Lord, why? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?” God doesn’t give him a direct answer. Instead, He tells him to watch, to look up, and to see what God is doing. God more or less tells Habakkuk you can’t step outside the story I’m writing. You have to live it. Even if I did explain it to you all at once, you wouldn’t believe it. You wouldn’t comprehend it.
The Bible doesn’t answer the question, “Why did God allow evil?” The question it does answer is, in spite of evil, what will God do? How will God take our evil and the devil’s evil and turn it for good? That’s what the Bible wants us to ask because is it’s the question that can wake us up from this fantasy of faith in ourselves. The Bible says wake up and look up to the One who’s stronger than your enemy. When Jesus was speaking to those people about waking up to the danger of the devil and his demons, Luke tells us that a woman from the crowd looked up at Jesus and said, “Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts that nursed You.” But Jesus says, “Blessed rather are those who are listening to the Word of God and are keeping it.”
The woman meant it as a compliment. But Jesus shows us that we have to look higher. We have to look higher than His mother. We have to look higher than any human origin. To see who Jesus really is, we have to look to the Most High, to the eternal God, the Word who created all things, who came down to destroy the works of the devil. The poet, John Milton, in his epic poem, “Paradise Lost,” imagines how a war in heaven between God’s angel and the devil and his demons might have taken place. He says that the battle raged on for two days and the armies seem almost equally matched. But then on the third day, Satan and his demons look up and they see the Son of God descend onto the battlefield. Milton writes, “Full soon among them, he arrived. In his right hand grasping ten-thousand thunders, which he sent before him …” and “They, astonished, all resistance lost, all courage; down their idle weapons dropt.” His presence withered all their strength, left them drained, exhausted, spiritless, afflicted, fallen.
God barely raised a finger. And the battle was over. This is a scary story Jason’s daughter told him. In some ways it is. It’s not a there, there, kind of story. It’s not a flattering story. It’s a story from a good friend who tells us to wake up and look up. Look up to Jesus. He alone can save you from the defeated army that would keep you captive in your flattering fantasies. Look up and see all the forces of evil converge on Him at the cross and do their worst. Look up and see Him now risen from the dead, setting captives free. And then look up still higher, because God’s Son could have defeated the army without even lifting a finger, but He did what He did. He shaped the story in this way and in no other, so that you would know Him and who you are in Him.
When Jason’s daughter was distressed about the demons, she asked him, “Can this happen to me?”
And he said, “No.” And then he asked her, “Do you know why?”
When she hesitated, he said, “Who are you?”
She looks up and says, “I’m a child of God, loved and saved by Jesus.”
And he says, “You are a baptized child of God loved and saved by Jesus and where Jesus is, there’s no room for demons.”
Please pray with me. Dear Father in heaven, because of Your dear Son, we can say with our brother Martin Luther that “Though hordes of devils fill the land, all threatening to devour us, we tremble not. Unmoved, we stand. They cannot overpower us. Let this world’s tyrant rage; in battle, we’ll engage. His might is doomed to fail. Your judgment must prevail. One little word subdues him.” Father, keep us steadfast in Your Word who was made flesh, Jesus Christ, our Champion, who lives and reigns to set us free, with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Reflections for March 13, 2022
Title: No Room for Demons
Mark Eischer: You’re listening to The Lutheran Hour. For FREE online resources, archived audio, our mobile app, and more, go to lutheranhour.org. Now back to our Speaker, Dr. Michael Zeigler.
Mike Zeigler: Thanks, Mark. We’re visiting today with Dr. David Lewis. He’s a professor at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. David teaches about life with God as He’s revealed Himself in Jesus Christ, His Son, and especially as Jesus is revealed through the writings of the Bible’s New Testament. Thanks for joining us again, David.
David Lewis: Thank you, Michael. It’s wonderful to be here.
Mike Zeigler: David, last week we talked about an analogy between the experience of watching a film or a movie and the intended experience of hearing or reading the New Testament accounts of Jesus recorded in the four Gospels. How would you summarize that analogy? What are we saying? What are we not saying by it?
David Lewis: First, what we’re not saying by that is that the Gospels are fictional accounts, that they’re made-up stories, which is what we most often experience when we watch a film. You and I both agree that the events in the Gospels are grounded in history and what actually took place in real time and real space. But what we are saying is that the Gospel writers likely intended for their original audiences to experience their narrative in a way that is similar to how we experience a film. Typically, you’re going to sit in your seat and experience this entire film from beginning to end in one setting.
Mike Zeigler: Many parents have this experience as we’re coaching our kids on how to be a good film viewer. The kid’s always asking you, “What’s happening? What does that mean? Who’s that?” And you have to say, “I don’t know either. You just have to watch.”
David Lewis: Right.
Mike Zeigler: Then that’s kind of how the Gospel should be experienced is you just have to sit and be that captured audience. So, you mentioned that this is how the Gospels were likely meant to be heard. How can we say that? How do we know that? What evidence do we have for that?
David Lewis: Actually, pretty strong evidence that this is how all literature was experienced in the first century. It was heard, not read. That’s why in the book of Revelation he says, “Blessed are those who read, and those who hear.” Well, the word “anaginosko” which means “to read” likely means read aloud. John is giving a blessing to the guy, number one, the guy who reads revelation aloud, and then those who hear.
Mike Zeigler: That’s just so striking because this is not how most of us, at least speaking from my experience and the people that I know, this is not how I grew up experiencing the Gospels. I grew up just hearing a little snippet, maybe ten verses, maybe on a long Sunday reading a twenty-verse reading. As we talk about this film comparison with film, I guess it would kind of be like going to some presentation and listening to some speaker and then that speaker shows a film clip, a 30-second film clip of a movie I’ve never seen from start to finish, and I’m just kind of at a loss as to what this film clip even means. I think that’s how most of us experience, at least growing up in the church, we tend to experience the Gospels as these little film clips that are disjointed.
David Lewis: I think you’re exactly right which is one reason why I think it’s good for us now to make that choice to experience the Gospels in a single setting. We use the lectionary system and it’s a useful tool to present the Gospels week by week. Not every Sunday can I read all of Luke. But at the same time, it gives the impression that Luke is not a single narrative, but it’s a bunch of little, how did you put it—movie clips.
Mike Zeigler: Right.
David Lewis: A bunch of little narratives standing independently of each other and that takes away the power of the entire narrative of Luke, which you mentioned last week is driving us to the cross and where Jesus prays, “Father forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.” The power of that prayer is that we’ve seen people opposing Jesus throughout this entire Gospel and yet His attitude towards His enemy is that He would rather God forgive them than God judge them. He doesn’t curse them; He prays for grace. But I would say in a sense the power of what happens there on the cross is taken away if you don’t know the entire story of Luke where you’ve had people accuse Jesus of being in league with Satan. But also notice that if you know a movie very well, right, because it’s one of your favorites and somebody shows a clip from that film, you know that clip.
Mike Zeigler: Right, yeah.
David Lewis: You know where it fits in the story. This would be, I love the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, and the clip where George Bailey is in the bar and he prays to God for deliverance. I just mentioned it, I almost choked up, that scene would mean nothing to anybody who doesn’t know the whole story, right? In other words, there’s some guy in a bar praying to God. Yeah, so what. But when you know the story that scene in a sense brings the whole story back into your mind, and then there’s just a certain power. But notice that only works because I know It’s a Wonderful Life really well. If you showed me a clip from some movie I’ve never seen, I’m going to be kind of like you mentioned, I don’t know … what this has to do with anything. I wonder sometimes when people hear the Gospel read on Sunday, how many of them are wondering, “I don’t know what this has to do with anything,” versus those who I know the Gospel of Matthew really well, and so when you read the story of the Canaanite woman coming in faith to Jesus, I know where this fits in the story. I said, “Here is a Gentile woman expressing faith in Israel’s Messiah that even most of Israel doesn’t have,” and the whole story of Matthew comes back in that single scene, because I have heard Matthew from beginning to end.
Mike Zeigler: That’s the power of the other side of the analogy is when you do hear a little clip in a Bible study or in a worship service, like you said, it can bring back the entire movie in that short 30-second clip, so the two have to work together, that long extended one sitting hearing with these little clips that bring the story back to our hearts and minds.
David Lewis: Again, I would just say do make the time to listen to these Gospels from beginning to end. Imagine you’re watching a film, and the more you do this the more you become familiar with a story so that when you’re in church on Sunday and single clip—when you hear that you’ll know, “Hey, I know that. It brings me back to the whole Gospel of Luke; the whole story comes back to my head, and now I understand this chunk in light of the wider narrative.”
Mike Zeigler: You made the comment how all the Gospels are about and hour and a half to about two hours long. That’s kind of the ideal movie length. Do you have any more thoughts on why they’re that long?
David Lewis: It could be sort of just a human sociological reason. That could be the amount of time that people could sit still. We do have epic films that go for much longer than two and a half hours and usually the epic nature of those films capture us. There’s a reason we want to sit through Lord of the Rings for that long, but not likely a romantic comedy for that long. No one’s going to go see a four-hour romantic comedy. Maybe I shouldn’t say that, but I know I wouldn’t. But I think that seems to be the time in which people can sit still and process a narrative. It seems evident that in the first century, this was kind of how long most live readings would take is an hour and a half to about two and a half hours. It’s very likely that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were both a little longer than average, but John and Mark were, Mark maybe a little shorter than average and John just about right, but I would just say maybe two to two and a half hours is about what you could expect of a human being to sit still and process a narrative all at once.
Mike Zeigler: All right. So the art form is going to work within human limitations; as creatures we can only sit still for so long, but we’re going to maximize that and for the maximum impact upon human beings is to hear this two and a half-hour long story, and it will grab you. So like Dr. Lewis said, I encourage you to try this out. It’s Lent. Pick up this as a devotional discipline, a spiritual discipline. If you’re in the mood for a short action story, go with Mark. It’ll take an hour and a half, hour and forty-five minutes. If you want the epic go with Matthew or Luke because we’re listening to it right now in this series with the church. Give this a try, see what you think, and talk to somebody about it, encourage them to do it. Thank you for being back with us, Dr. Lewis.
David Lewis: You’re very welcome. It’s great to be here.
Music Selections for this program:
“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by Chris Bergmann. Used by permission.
“Lord, Thee I Love with All My Heart” From The Concordia Organist (© 2009 Concordia Publishing House)