Chapter 11b

Jesus’ enemies are desperate. And why wouldn’t they be?

After all, this man who can heal the sick and raise the dead seems to be muscling in on their turf! A conundrum to be sure.

What makes it all the more alarming is that they (most of Jesus’ enemies) saw themselves as the good guys. And quite simply, that must make Jesus one of the BAD guys. . .

. . . Only problem with that – if he’s a bad guy, how come he’s forcing demons out of their hosts?!

This is a big problem, because although Jesus is asserting His authority over anything bigger than a mosquito, the religious leaders REALLY don’t want to hear it. Just remember how intense they got when Jesus’ disciples were just picking grain in the fields!

They’re at the point where they’re ready to believe ANYTHING except the truth. And that’s where you get this bizarre idea – that Jesus is casting out demons with the power of Demons Himself!

Now, at first this seems fairly far-fetched. But take a moment to think about the idea – it’s not as crazy as it sounds!

The idea is that the Prince of demons (to ancient Jews, Beelzebub) had authority over his troops and could stop them at any time. So one way to defeat a demonic attack was for Satan to order it to stop. So there’s the first reason why this idea isn’t as strange as it looks.

Another reason is that the Pharisees, let’s face it, were grasping at straws. Any idea this upstart was go going to deal with all this with a smile? Doubt it! So any idea that was half-way plausible would be pounced on like the last steak in the world being dragged through a dog pound.

Now, we’d never do something like that, right? Attributing to the devil what God has done?

Scary thought – it’s very close to the unforgivable sin, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit!

Yet putting myself in their place, I think I may well have done similarly. Whatever it is to make people ignore obvious flaws and stick only to their previously held idea, it’s something that may be found in all of us. It’s worth giving ourselves an occasional shake up, just to ensure that we’re thinking straight.

Otherwise there’s every possibility we might be missing something important.