Luke 11:14-28

We have a title for the remainder of Luke 11: “How to Reject Christ.”  We don’t use this title to give you information on how to do this because to reject Christ is to leave yourself in hopeless blindness; only in Christ can we find true, eternal life.  

But we use the title because, for one thing, that is what is happening here.  His rejection by the people of Israel and especially their leaders is becoming evident in Luke 11.  But we also want this to be a warning to anyone who may see in their lives the same things that were going on in Israel in Jesus’ day.  Today and tomorrow we will consider several answers to that question.

·    1.     Reject Christ by attributing His glory to Satan, 11:14-26.

This was what some people did in vs.14-15.  Jesus, in mercy and love, sought to show the foolishness of such a claim (v17-22).  The occasion for this charge was the casting out of a demon from a man who was mute.  To claim that Jesus’ did this by the power of Satan would have indicated that Satan was fighting against Satan (v17-18).  Furthermore, Jesus was doing what the Jews claimed to do, exorcisms that had the approval of the leaders.  If they approved of the one how could they disapprove of the other (v19-20)?  It didn’t make sense.

And then Jesus pressed His case with power.  His casting out demons, in fact, proved His power over Satan (v21-22).  The bottom line is that there are only two options: either Jesus cast out demons by Beelzebub (v19) or with the finger of God (v20).  Jesus presents the only possible responses: either you are with me or against me; either you are part of His work of gathering people to be saved or you scatter them (v23).  This was a strong word against the leaders who were trying to discourage people from following Christ.

Note that this call to follow Christ is applied also to the man from whom the demon was cast out (v24-26).  If that man, now free of demonic oppression, did not follow Christ his life would become worse than before.  

·       2.  Reject Christ by thinking well of Him but not believing in Him, 11:27-28.

This is a powerful exchange between Jesus and a certain woman from the crowd.  She was clearly moved by Jesus’ actions and words.  Her response was to say, how blessed your mother is to have such a son as you.  But that is not what the call of the gospel is about.  People are called to Christ; this is the word of God that Jesus Himself preached.  That is the word that must be kept.  This woman thought well of Jesus but her words were not an expression of faith.  How sad that there are many today who pursue Jesus’ mother today but not Jesus.  We can never stand in a situation of neutrality about Jesus.  To do that is to reject Him.