Bible Commentaries
Luke 11

Verses 1-59

VIII

THE MODEL PRAYER REPEATED; A BLASPHEMOUS ACCUSATION; HOW TO BE CLEAN; AND A DISCOURSE ON HYPOCRISY, WORLDLY ANXIETIES, WATCHFULNESS, ETC.

Harmony, pages 112-118 and Luke 11:1-13; 59.

In section 83 of the Harmony (Luke 11:1-13) we have the model prayer repeated. It will be noted that the phraseology here is quite different from that found in section 42 (Matthew 6:5-15), but the ideas are the same. Then follows immediately the parable of the friend at midnight, which teaches that importunate prayer overcomes the greatest difficulties, to which is added the promise of success to the one who asks, seeks, and knocks. In this same connection is also given the promise of the Holy Spirit to them who ask for him. This promise is emphasized by contrasting the willingness of earthly parents, though evil, in giving good gifts to their children, with the heavenly Father’s willingness to give the Holy Spirit.

In section 84 of the Harmony (Luke 11:14-36) we have the incident of casting out the demon which was dumb, and the blasphemous accusation that Jesus did this by the prince of demons. This incident and the teaching growing out of it needs to be considered more particularly.

When that question came up about the expulsion of that demon, Jesus met it substantially thus: Here is a fact. This man was occupied and Satan has been cast out. How do you account for it? The Pharisees reply: "You cast him out by the chief of demons." "But that is absurd. A house divided against itself cannot stand, and if Satan cast out Satan, Satan’s kingdom ends. Moreover, you and your children profess to be able to cast out demons. Turn your logic there, and if I, by the prince of demons, cast out demons, do not your children? As you say of your children, then let them judge you in this accusation. If not then by Satan, then what follows? Here is a superhuman power that could not be expelled except by a stronger force. Man is no stronger force. This superhuman power has been overthrown. It is absurd to suppose that Satan did it himself. Hence it follows that I by the finger of God have cast him out. And then it follows that if I by the finger of God have cast him out, the kingdom of heaven is come to him. The kingdom of heaven is present whenever Satan is overthrown, for Satan will not overthrow himself, and it must be a power greater than Satan, and therefore it is the kingdom of heaven, and that kingdom of heaven is among you." What a thought! See one who last year rejoiced in the fact that he was a sinner, that he did not go to church, that he reviled religion, that he mocked at its holy claims, that he laughed at its threatenings, that he invoked presumptuously a judgment – this man that pitched his frail straws of opposition against the thick bosses of Jehovah’s buckler – look, a change has come, and profanity has died on his lips and praises sit there, praises unto his God. A glorious change! Light has come into his eye, innocence into his face, joy and love into his heart, hope into his soul, consecration into his life, and it has been done by the finger of God, and it is a demonstration that the kingdom Of God has come. It is here. That is one thing it proves. What other thing? It proves the Judgment. "When the Holy Spirit is come he will convince the world of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged." The Scriptures say that there shall appear a great white throne, and him that sitteth on it, before whom the heavens shall fade away, and before whom all nations shall be gathered, and that they shall be judged out of the things that are written in the book. One solid argument that judgment is coming is that the prince of this world is judged. Satan is judged and overthrown, and if the captain be judged and his power demolished, then we may rest assured that his subjects will be judged. That crisis on Calvary was the only crisis the world ever had after the fall of man in the garden of Eden, the only one. Just as sure as Satan is judged; just as sure as the finger of God delivers one here and there throughout the land; every time there is heard the voice of a newborn soul; every time there is an emergence from darkness into light; every time one lifts himself up through the power of God and shakes off the crushing bondage of the devil, it is another thunder-toned demonstration that the judgment is coming, and all who are of Satan shall go to Satan’s place, to the place prepared for the devil and his angels.

The strong man here then is Satan, but what is his trusted armor? I will name some pieces of it which show the ground of his confidence. First, "this subject of mine is lawfully condemned by the divine statute. There is the strength of my hold on him. There is the chief part of my armor – even the righteous law of God. I could not have done anything with him if I had not made him transgress the law, and now, while God’s law stands and calls for a victim to satisfy its penal sanction, my hold on him is good." What else? "When he sinned his nature became perverted. That which had loved God now hates God, and I trust in that aversion to his heart from God. I know that his mind is not subject to God’s law and cannot be made subject to God’s law. His inherited depravity, therefore, is a part of my armor. By it I shut the windows of the cup held out before him. If his bent be not in this direction, if he have a disposition that cannot be extravagant or spendthrift, then I lead him in the path of the miser, and fill his mind full of wise laws and maxims and apothegms about saving and holding on to what he gets, and that ’if a man doth not provide for his own he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel’; and in the guise of economy I will make him so stingy and hard-hearted that the granite is softer than his soul. I trust to his habits." These things constitute Satan’s armor. Evidently till some one stronger than Satan shall come, this usurped dominion over this world will be successfully maintained. And Just here I want to call attention to one of the most remarkable missionary sermons ever preached by man, by one of the profoundest thinkers that ever honored the American continent. It is Dr. Lyman Beecher’s great sermon on the "Resources of the Adversary and the Means of His Overthrow."

The next question is, "How are these captives at peace in a state of captivity?" "When a strong man armed keepeth his palace his goods are at peace." How can people be at peace who are in bondage, who are slaves, who have lost that liberty with which God originally endowed the moral agent? How is it that they are at peace? In a case of mesmerism so long as the subject is under the influence of the mesmerizer he is at peace; he reflects the mind of the one who has put the spell upon him. He voices the will of that one. He performs what the mesmerizer commands. No one can come in from the outside and break that spell, and so long as the spell obtains, that man, if one were to ask him the question, "Are you obeying this mesmerizer cheerfully?" "Yes." "Are you doing this of your own will?" "Yes, I want to do just what he tells me to do." That illustration may partly serve to introduce this scriptural thought, that when a strong delusion possesses the mind it assures the mind of its rightfulness, and there is perfect confidence on the part of the deluded one in the rightfulness of the position which he occupies. He is thinking another’s thought. A superior and imperious will is suggesting his thought and inditing his words and prompting his acts and filling his heart so that he becomes but the expression of another, doing the will of another, and while in that state he is at peace. What good would it do to argue with one who is mesmerized? What pictures would he see if we were to hold them up before him? What impression could we make on his mind that is occupied? His mind is preoccupied. His mind is filled full of another. Hence, before that man can be delivered we must overcome the one that holds him under the spell. Hence, this passage says that "when a strong man armed keepeth his palace his goods are at peace." We have illustrations of this in people that we from our standpoint of regeneration, of redemption in Christ, know to be lost. We know them to be slaves. We know them to be doomed. And yet, they calmly look into our eyes and claim as complete a satisfaction with their state as we claim for our state. How many times have I heard one of the most deluded men repeat, putting his hand upon his heart, "I have perfect peace. I am at rest."

The next question is, "How is the captor at peace?" He seems to be perfectly quiet, as long as his subject remains in subordination, as long as there is no effort to throw off the yoke of bondage, as long as there is no rebellion against his authority, the captor seems to be at peace; and we also notice in this passage that if that evil spirit be expelled from a man or voluntarily leaves him that then he, the captor, is at unrest: "But when the unclean spirit is gone out of the man he walketh through dry places seeking rest and finding none." To dispossess him is to put him at unrest. Note this thought. We get at the nature of a mind by the surroundings it seeks. This evil spirit seeks dry places, waste places, desolate spots, volcanic shores, treeless countries. There is something in the brazen sky above, in the iron bound earth beneath, in the dust, in the barren rocks, in the lava beds and other tokens of volcanic eruptions; in other words, in the desolation and the absence and privation of life, there is something consonant with his feelings. If consonant with his feelings why does he not find the rest that he seeks in these places? This demon that has been cast out, when he comes to a desert where no rose blossoms and no water laughs, no birds sing and no flowers perfume the air, no luscious fruits hang from the trees; when he comes to a country that seems to be a land of ashes and despair, looking for rest in such surroundings, why does he not find it? Here is the answer:

It does not content a deathless mind to have an empire only over rock and soil. It does not content such a lost spirit to see a land burned up in drought or convulsed by volcanic eruptions. It does not content such a mind as that to see the lightning rive the vigorous oak and blast the surrounding trees about it. That does not content it. "I want to see desolation and despair come not only to rocks and trees, but I want to see it come to intelligence. I want to rule over minds. I want to rule over souls." Hence, he is never at rest until he gets some soul in subjection. When the unclean spirit is gone out of the man he walketh through dry places seeking rest, and finding none he says, "I cannot stay out here. I will return unto my house, whence I came out. I want to inhabit a man’s body and dominate a man’s soul and make that a desert. I want to put that in ruin, so that when I look abroad on the prostrate image of God, on the understanding darkened, on the conscience seared, on the judgment deflected, on the affections perverted, on the brain collapsed, on great powers prostituted – when I look on that I can then say, I am getting even with God.’ I am at rest, satisfied while I can hold such a possession as that. Take this away from me and I cannot content myself with fire and ashes and rock and drought." And what is true of an expelled demon is true of one who is demon like. A man whose character is crystallized in evil would not be satisfied in the presence of purity. He seeks impurity. He is not satisfied simply to have the forces of nature subject to him. Not he. "I want to poison youth. I want to defile the minds of young men. I want to turn aside the right thoughts of young maidens. I want to dominate and hold in subjection, under bondage to my dictation, people who have immortal souls." We sometimes wonder why these recruiting sergeants of the devil, these agents of evil, why they take such a delight and go so much out of their way, to cause another human being to fall. That is the reason. It is their unrest. They will not be content with a barren sway. They want to exercise power over intellect and over soul, and that is why they do this.

Who then is the stronger than Satan? On this point the Bible is clear as the sun. Immediately after Satan obtained his dominion by guile, God promised to put enmity between the woman and Satan, and that the seed of the woman should bruise his head – the seed of the woman, not of the man. As by subtlety he overcame Eve, so through the seed of the woman shall a Deliverer come. When Cain was born Eve thought the promise was fulfilled and said, "I have gotten the man from the Lord," but that was not the seed of the woman, nor was Abel. Not he. He saith, "And the seed" (not seeds), meaning one – there should come one born of a woman that would overthrow Satan. How could he do it? Who could solve the problem? And yet at last a bright being winged his way from the heavenly mansion and came down to the lowly hut of a Jewish maiden and said, "Hail, Mary. Blessed art thou among women. I announce to thee that of thee shall be born the Holy One that shall overcome Satan." And the power of the Highest overshadowed the virgin and the Holy One born of her was called the Son of God.

Here in this passage, are two releases spoken of: A release that simply expels Satan and then a release that expels Satan and puts Christ in: that release which simply drives out Satan and leaves the house empty is not a complete victory, for there may be a relapse. The mind is not occupied. Man’s mind, man’s soul, is derived, it is created. It is not a creator. Hence it must be in subjection, and simply to expel one master and not provide another is not to win a final victory, because when the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, that does not mean that the Holy Spirit is gone into the man. And though that house be swept and garnished, yet if it is empty, no Spirit of God reigning in those chambers, that evil spirit may come back, and "the last state of that man is worse than the first." And just here a capital mistake is often made. Some men suppose that it is conversion to have Satan expelled. How does the expulsion of Satan turn the carnal mind into amity? Now, if Satan had taken possession of innocent people, if Satan had taken violent possession, and not by guile and through their consent, the expulsion of Satan would have been sufficient. But since they are fallen in their nature the expulsion of Satan and the cessation of his direct domination, does not mean that a man is converted. We have seen people who had an experience similar to this in the abandonment of a bad habit, and they thought they were converted. "I was once a drunkard; I have quit; now am I not a Christian? I was once a swearer; I no longer swear; am I not now a Christian? I was once the slave of sensual desires; I now govern my passions; am I not now a Christian? I once was stingy; I now make large contributions to benevolent purposes. The evil spirit is gone out of me; am I not now a Christian?" Certainly not, unless another master has come in – unless Christ, unless the Holy Spirit dwell in that heart, and have renewed that soul by regeneration we are simply delivered from the immediate domination of Satan, and our house is without a tenant. That is all – without a tenant; but we may be assured the devil will get tired of ruling over dry rocks, and he will say, "I cannot find anything to sufficiently occupy my powers or satisfy my desires out here on mere material nature. I will go back to my old house. I remember, I remember how I dominated that intellect, that soul; how I prostituted it. I will go back." And he goes back and he takes a look, looks into the window: "The house is swept; it is garnished. Nobody in that house; empty, empty! Jesus is not in there. The Holy Spirit is not in there. I went out, but nobody else has been put in, and now I go back in there, this time to stay, and so I will call to me other evil spirits, many in number, more evil than I am, and our name shall be legion, and we will re-enter that house and fortify again and hold that soul," and the "last state of that man is worse than the first." Sometimes a man, just by one of those little tricks of the devil, the cessation of an evil habit, perhaps imagines he in converted, joins the church and becomes a preacher, but the house being empty shall he escape Satan? Can Satan find him in the pastor’s study? Can Satan follow him into the pulpit? Can Satan enter into that pulpit and refill that unoccupied heart, and say, "Go thou and be my infidel! go thou and be the apostle of unbelief"? Unquestionably. And unquestionably the "last state of that man is worse than the first," for it is hopeless.

I have never in my life heard of any man being saved who has apostatized from the pulpit – mean who went into infidelity from the pulpit. I have never heard of a case; I have never read of a case. "The last state of that man is worse than the first."

There are several other items of interest in section 84 (Luke 11:14-36) which call for special mention. First, a woman with true motherly instinct cried out from the multitude: "Blessed is your mother." But Jesus referred her to the higher relation which is expressed in obedience to God. Second, he reproved that generation as evil because they were seeking a sign, but no sign would be given it but that of Jonah, typifying the Lord Jesus Christ in his resurrection. Third, he gives a principle of the judgment, as illustrated by the incident of the "queen of the south" and that also of the Ninevites. These show that the judgment will be conducted on the principle that the condemnation will be according to the amount of light that people have here in this world. Fourth, the illustration of the lighted lamp, which connects back with Matthew 6:22-23. There the dark side of the illustration is presented, but here the light side. The thought is expressed in Matthew 6:36, which is a thrust at their stubborn and wilful darkness in the face of such light as they had in Jesus Christ.

We now take up section 85 (Luke 11:37-54) of the Harmony, the incident of Jesus break fasting with a Pharisee. The paragraph is Luke 11:37-54. Now as he spake, a Pharisee asketh him to take breakfast with him, and he went in, and sat down to meat. And when the Pharisee saw it, he marveled that he had not dipped himself before breakfast. And the Lord said unto him, replying to his thought, "Now do ye Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter; but your inward part is full of extortion and wickedness. Ye foolish ones, did not he that made the outside make the inside also? Howbeit, give for alms those things which are within; and behold, all things are clean unto you." The King James Version reads: "But rather give alms of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you." But this reads: "Give for alms those things which are within and all things are clean unto you." There is no doubt in anybody’s mind as to the word in the original Greek, enonta. This word was before the King James translators and the Canterbury revisers, but it can be grammatically derived from either one of two words, eni or eneimi. If from the former, it means "such things as ye have," but if from the latter, it means, "those things that are within." Where the grammatical construction favors one derivation as much as another, we must go to the context to determine the true word from which it is derived; and the context here unquestionably shows that the Canterbury revisers derived it from the right word. I recall many books which I have read and hundreds’ of things which I have heard, predicating an awfully false theology upon the King James rendering, "Give alms of such things as ye have and all things are clean unto you," that is, if we are benevolent, if we are open-hearted, why, the Lord will forgive everything else; and the way to get to heaven, the way to inherit eternal life, is just to give alms. But that is far from the meaning of Jesus.

To resume the quotation: "But woe unto you Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and every herb, and pass over judgment and the love of God; but these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Woe unto you Pharisees! for ye love the chief seats in the synagogues and the salutations in the market places. Woe unto you! for ye are as the tombs which appear not, and the men that walk over them know it not. And one of the lawyers answering said unto him, Master, in saying this thou reproachest us also. And he said, Woe unto you lawyers also! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe unto you! for ye build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. So ye are witnesses and consent unto the works of your fathers; for they killed them, and ye build their tombs. Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send unto them prophets and apostles; and some of them they shall kill and persecute; that the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; from the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zachariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary: Yea, I say unto you, it shall be required of this generation" (Luke 11:42-50).

What an awful thing is God’s dealing with a nation or a race! Just as he deals with an individual, so with a nation – the whole race. And how the long treasured wrath that has been massing up from the beginning of a nation’s history until its iniquity is full, bursts over the barriers, and on that last generation falls all of the accumulated woe.

Instance the French Revolution. Louis XVI was about the most moderate, the most amiable of all the Bourbon kings, and yet on him and in his day came the doom that the predecessors of his dynasty had gathered up. "Woe unto you lawyers! for ye took away the key of knowledge!" Not the key that unlocks knowledge, but the key, knowledge; knowledge itself is the key. "Ye took away the key." What key? Knowledge. "Ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in, ye hindered."

This passage shows that what that man in section 81 (Luke 10:25-37) did as an individual the Pharisees did as a class; that in order to obtain justification by the law they were sliding God’s law down on everything. How? Well, the law requires us to be clean, clean, clean. But they said that we will slide the law down so that it just means to be clean on the outside; that it only means to keep the outside of the cup and the platter clean. That is all. Inwardly full of rottenness and dead men’s bones. "Ye foolish ones! Did not he that made the outside make the inside also? Does not the law of God require truth in the inward part? Does it not say that the inward part shall know wisdom and righteousness? And now you will slide it down until it only means obedience in little things, but not the great things, tithing mint and rue and herbs and leaving undone love and judgment and mercy. Ye hypocrites! It says, ’Honor thy father and thy mother,’ but you do not want to honor your father and your mother, so you slide that law down, so that it says, that if I take some of my property and write ’Corban’ on it, and say, It is a gift,’ then I am under no obligation to take care of my old worn-out father; I am under no obligation to support, in her last days, my infirm mother. Thou hypocrite! sliding the law down, and it must be slided down to get any justification."

How shall I be clean? How shall I keep clean? "Give alms of those things that are within and all things are clean unto you." Here is a question of how to be clean and how to keep clean. Some say, "Wash externally"; Jesus says, "Wash inwardly, and let the soul be made clean." What a man has on his hands, the little dirt on his hands that when he goes to eat may get into his mouth, that does not defile him, but defilement comes from within. "Out of the heart of man proceed murder and blasphemy and adultery and every foul and loathsome thing." That is where defilement comes from.

In section 86 of the Harmony (Luke 12) we have a continued discourse of our Lord, interrupted here and there by a question from the audience. There are some things in this discourse which remind us of the Sermon on the Mount, and others which remind us of his great discourse on the second advent. These parts are Luke 12:21-34 and Luke 12:35-40 respectively. The first thought here presented by our Lord is the danger of the leaven of the Pharisees, which was hypocrisy. With this statement as a predicate he showed that all hidden things should be revealed, and exhorted them not to fear them who could kill the body and not hurt the soul, but to fear him who had power to cast into hell. Then follows the great passage on the providential care of God’s children; that God cares for the small birds, and the very hairs on our heads are numbered. All this was given to encourage them to be steadfast in their testimony of him in the most trying times of persecution. In this connection he refers to the sin against the Holy Spirit which I discussed at length in The Four Gospels, Volume I of this INTERPRETATION.

Just at this point our Lord was interrupted by a request from the audience, that he become a divider of an inheritance, to which he replied that he was not a judge nor a divider of inheritances. Then he issued a warning against covetousness, illustrating it by the parable of the rich fool, which shows the folly and danger of selfish wealth. Out of this incident also came forth his great teaching on God’s providential care for his children (Luke 12:21-34) so similar to his great teaching on the same subject in his Sermon on the Mount. In this she shows God’s pledge to care for those who make his kingdom paramount in their lives. Then he closes this paragraph by exhorting them to secure perennial purses by transmuting the money of this world into the money of heaven, where thieves and moths could not steal nor destroy. But the reason for it all is that the heart follows the treasure.

Our Lord follows this teaching with the parable of the watchful servant, which warns God’s people to be ready at all times to meet the coming Lord. He introduces this thought with the imagery of the parable of the ten virgins, viz.: the girded loins, the burning lamps, and the watchfulness of the five who were ready to go out to meet him, but the thought is different in that when they receive him as here described he makes a feast for them and serves them. The point of both, though, is readiness for his coming in view of the concealment of the time at which he shall come.

The next paragraph (Luke 12:41-48) enlarges the idea and teaching of the preceding parable. This was suggested by Peter’s question, "Speakest thou this parable unto us, or even unto all?" The Lord apparently ignores Peter’s question, but" shows by the application that he here included all, i.e., those who were his faithful servants, and that his dealing with all would be on the same principle of justice; that one principle is that the rewards and punishments at the judgment will be according to the amount of light people have here, but all disobedience will receive its just recompense of the reward.

The rest of this chapter consists of three parables. The first is the parable of fire, sword, and flood, which shows the divisive effect of the gospel. This has been illustrated in thousands of homes as here described. The second is the parable of the weather signs, which shows that, as the weather signs forecast the weather, so spiritual developments forecast themselves to the observing, just as the sons of Issachar were wise to discern what Israel ought to do. The third is the parable of the settlement with an adversary which warns against the delay in being reconciled with God.

QUESTIONS

1. What can you say of the model prayer given, here as compared with the one given in Matthew 6:5-15?

2. What parable in this connection, what is its lesson, what promises growing out of it, and how is the latter one emphasized?

3. What blasphemous accusation did the Jews make against Jesus here, what was its occasion and how did Jesus meet it?

4. How does Jesus turn their logic against them?

5. If Christ cast out demons by finger of God, what followed from that fact?

6. How is the kingdom of heaven brought to a man? Illustrate.

7. How does this prove the judgment?

8. Who then is the strong man here and what is his trusted armor?

9. What sermon commended by the author in this connection?

10. How are these captives at peace?

11. When is the captor at peace and what causes his unrest?

12. Who then is the stronger than Satan?

13. What two releases here spoken of? Discuss and illustrate each.

14. What cry from the multitude in response to this teaching of Jesus, what was the reply of Jesus and what its meaning?

15. What reproof did Jesus here give the Jews? Explain?

16. What principle of judgment did he here announce & how did he illustrate?

17. What is the illustration of the lighted lamp and what does it illustrate?

18. Give an account of Jesus’ breakfasting with a Pharisee.

19. What is the difference in the rendering of Luke 11:41 in the King James Version and in the Canterbury Version?

20. Which is the true rendering and what is the proof?

21. What heresy based upon the King James rendering?

22. What was Jesus’ charge here against the Pharisees?

23. What was his charge against the lawyers?

24. How does Jesus here show God’s dealing with a nation? Illustrate.

25. What is the meaning & application "Ye took away the key of knowledge"?

26. How does this passage here show that the Pharisees as a class did just what the man described in section 81 (Luke 10:25-37) did as an individual? Discuss.

27. What are the two theories of cleanliness and which is scriptural?

28. In our Lord’s discourse in Luke 12 what do we find to remind us of the Sermon on the Mount and the discourse on the second advent?

29. What was our Lord’s warning respecting the Pharisees and what his teaching growing out of this warning?

30. What is the teaching here on the providence of God, and what was its occasion and what its purpose?

31. What reference here to the sin against the Holy Spirit?

32. What was our Lord’s teaching respecting wealth, what was the occasion of this teaching, how did he illustrate it, and what special teaching on the providence of God growing out of this incident?

33. What is the meaning of "purses perennial"?

34. What of the parable of the watchful servant; its imagery; the difference in the thought of this and that of the parables of the ten virgins?

35. How does the next paragraph (Luke 12:41-48) enlarge the idea and teaching of this parable and what is the teaching here in particular?

36. What three parables in Luke 12:49-59, and what is the import of each? Illustrate.