The Strong Man’s House Mk 3:27 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO
When Jesus rebuked the scribes for saying that he had Beelzebub, he said Satan would not rise up against himself, and he added this, “No man can enter into a strong mans house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house,” [Mk 3:27]. That statement is a mouthful. The devil is the strong man, his house is the world, and his goods are the children of the devil and their possessions. When Jesus returns to this earth, he will bind the devil for a thousand years in the bottomless pit and spoil his house. After the Lord’s thousand year reign, he will burn up this heaven and earth and fashion them anew.
What do we learn from this understanding of the strong man’s house?
The god of this world is the devil – 2 Cor 4:4 – he is a king [Job 41:34] – he has all the power and glory of the kingdoms of this world [Lk 4:5-6] – he is the mystery of iniquity, so right now you can’t tell that he is running things [2 Thes 2:6-7] – eventually he will be cast down to the earth and he will take control of the kingdoms personally [Rev 12:9, 12] – at that point he will be revealed [2 Thes 2:3-4, 6-8] – he will bring destruction against God’s people but he will lose fighting against Jesus Christ [Dan 8:23-25] – then he will be bound with a chain and cast into the bottomless pit for a thousand years [Rev 20:1-3].
The Lord entered this world to defeat the devil and set up the kingdom of heaven – he came as the king of the Jews [Matt 2:2] – he attempted to get Israel to receive the kingdom of heaven [Matt 11:12-14; Jn 19:14-15; Acts 1:6] – he cast out devils everywhere he went [Mk 1:23-26; 3:15] – he judged the devil [Jn 14:30, 16:11] – and he triumphed over him and his principalities at the cross [Col 2:14-15] – he won a spiritual victory over the devil and yet left him as king over the kingdom of heaven – so our battles are spiritual battles and our armor and weapons are spiritual.
Since Israel rejected the kingdom, Jesus is building the kingdom of God, instead – when we are born again we enter the kingdom of God [the spiritual kingdom over which the Lord rules rather than the earthly kingdom] – Jn 3:3-8 – each new soul is added to the body of Christ [Eph 4:13-16, 5:30-32] – and each soul added to the body of Christ is added to the building in this kingdom [Eph 2:20-22; 1 Pet 2:5-10] – so our principal concern as Christians is adding souls to the kingdom of God and edifying those who are in it – we are concerned with matters of the spiritual kingdom not the earthly kingdom.
Therefore any attempt now to build the kingdom of heaven is demonic – that’s because the devil is still the god of this world – when the church tries to build itself into a kingdom down here, it is working in cooperation with the devil [Mk 4:30-32, fowls are unclean (Mk 4:4, 15) and should have no association with the kingdom of God] – the church is to be separate from the world [2 Cor 6:14-18] – the world hates God’s children in the kingdom of God [Jn 15:19, though you wouldn’t know that by the way many of his children are acting so much like the world] – and the devil has no rule in the kingdom of God – the only way that the devil can have influence in that kingdom is to get the people in it interested in the kingdom of heaven rather than the kingdom of God.
Conclusion: the world is going further and further away from God and any attempt by us to prevent this downward spiral is a waste of time and energy – we cannot change the devil’s control and direction in the kingdom of heaven – Jesus is the only one who can do that and he will take care of it when he binds the devil in the bottomless pit.