Luke 11:1-26 Deliver us from evil

Luke 11:1-4 Jesus teaches the Lord's Prayer. Parallel passage in Matt 6:9-13. Luke's version of the Lord's Prayer omits a couple of clauses. One relates to God's will being done on earth. (Matt 6:10) Another asks for deliverance from the evil one. (Matt 6:13) Matthew followed his version with a focus on forgiving others as the key to being forgiven by God. Luke follows his version with a focus on persistence in prayer.

Luke 11:5-13 Jesus expounds on the importance of persistence in prayer, and the love of God. Matthew 7:7-11 parallels Luke 11:9-13. Luke starts off with the example of a friend who has a late night visitor and asks his friend for food, and who will give him food even though it is inconvenient, because of his persistence. And so God, who is perfect, gives only good gifts to His children; and He also responds because of our persistence. We can pray for spiritual reasons - because God is worthy of our worship, because we want to draw close to Him, because we want to learn from Him  - but Jesus says there is nothing wrong with praying to God for immediate practical needs. In fact, Jesus encourages us to do so persistently and with expectation of answers.

Luke 11:14-26 Jesus confronts the Pharisees and teaches about demons and possession. The story starts with Jesus performing an exorcism. The Pharisees respond by saying Jesus cast the demon out because He was in league with Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons. In Matthew 12:22-24 and Mark 3, when the Pharisees make this accusation, Jesus responds with a warning about blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Luke does not record this, but the later passage in this chapter (11:45-52) pronounces detailed woes on the Pharisees. But first, in this passage, Jesus offers a logical explanation of the realities of spiritual authority.

         Jesus' first point is that a divided kingdom will fall. The second point is that if He is using Satan's authority then the sons of the Pharisees are similarly indicted. They should not miss the logical conclusion of this - if it is therefore the finger of God that is His power, then the kingdom of God is in their presence. His next point is that whoever is stronger wins the fight. And we are left to infer that since the demon left, it had to be God, because God is stronger than the devil.

         Jesus ends with a warning. When demons are cast out, they pass through a wilderness seeking a place to rest. If they do not find one, then they return from whence they were cast out and see if they can re-enter. If that place is not guarded by the strong man, then the demon can go back inside and also invites its friends (fiends?) to join it. So the warning is - if a demon is cast out, it is essential to fill the space it vacated with the Holy Spirit. We are spiritual beings, we do not have a choice in this matter. In every man there is a God-shaped spiritual space, made for God to reside. If we do not allow and invite Him to fill it, then a spiritual being that is not good will occupy it.

         How do demons get inside and establish strongholds in the first place? There are really only hints in the Bible. In I Samuel 16 we see that King Saul was terrorized by an evil spirit. It is clear from Saul's behavior and his interaction with Samuel that although he started out humble, and at one time was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied (I Samuel 10:9-13), he later became so self-centered that The Lord rejected him from being king (I Samuel 15:12,22-23). There is evidence that he later turned to Baal-worship, since one of his sons, who briefly reigned after his death, was named Ishbaal, meaning man of Baal. (2 Samuel 2:8-10). So the hint is that the worship of Baal may have been connected with the evil spirit that afflicted Saul.

         Other cases of demonic possession - Mark 7 records a woman with a demon possessed daughter, and Mark 9, Matthew 17, and Luke 9 all record a man with a demon possessed son. It seems so tremendously unfair that a child would be allowed by God to be controlled by a demon. But of course, we do not know the ages of these children, whether they were older and past the age of accountability, and had done something to allow the evil spirits in. Or possibly their parents had done something that opened the door to demonic activity in their children's lives. Or perhaps a family member or friend of the family did something to the child to enable Satan to establish a stronghold in their soul. These things could have ranged from Satan-worship (Baal standing in for Satan in Saul's case, referred to as Beelzebul by the Pharisees), to witchcraft, fortune-telling, child abuse, drug or alcohol abuse, or simply making a Faustian deal with the devil.

         The bottom line is that regardless of the sin that was chosen by whatever individual, and the consequent vulnerability to having a demonic stronghold established in our life, God is sovereign and Jesus has authority over that being or stronghold.