Kingdom Ruined

 The Mission of Jesus

Have you ever thought about answering the question: “What did really Jesus do when He came to the world?”

If I ask you the question right at your face, you would answer in a single sentence: “Jesus died for me”.

That is true. It was His mission on Earth.

But my question still remains answered, because you have answered only one part of the answer.

The answer to my question has two parts.

1.    Jesus fulfilled His mission as atonement for the sins of all human beings from Adam to the last person who will live on this earth.

This is a legal covenant which has to be executed between God and Man on individual basis of faith in the sacrificial death of Jesus.

2.    The second part of the mission is not less important.

Jesus fulfilled His mission to redeem man from the kingdom of satan and restored him in the Kingdom of God.

The fulfillments of both these two missions are often preached, but the second is seldom taken seriously.

That means that we take a part of the fulfilled mission of Jesus and leaves out the other.

In fact the second is the fulfilled mission of Jesus on this earth and the first is included in the second.

Israelites and Egypt

Think about this situation.

The Israelites who were in exile and slavery in Egypt were commanded by God to kill a sacrificial lamb, eat the burned meat of it and ran away from Egypt to the Promised Land.

That they did.

But suppose:

The Israelites obeyed the first part of the commandment and did not take up the second part seriously. They decided to continue in Egypt.

They are saved by the sacrificial lamb but not delivered from the slavery.

The same thing happens to us, if we take the first part of Jesus’ mission and accept not the second part.

Salvation is:

·      Deliverance from sin and the punishment

·      Freedom from the kingdom and slavery of satan

Jesus made it very clear that He came for delivering us from the kingdom of satan.

Luke 11: 14-20  

14  Jesus was driving out a demon that was mute. When the demon left, the man who had been mute spoke, and the crowd was amazed.

15  But some of them said, “By Beelzebul, the prince of demons, he is driving out demons.”

16  Others tested him by asking for a sign from heaven.

17   Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them: “Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall.

18   If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand? I say this because you claim that I drive out demons by Beelzebul.

19  Now if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your followers drive them out? So then, they will be your judges.

20  But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.  (NIV)

Let us have a look into the situation in which Jesus spoke these words.

Jesus was casting out a devil, and it was dumb. When the devil went out, the dumb spoke; and the people wondered.

Some of them said: He casted devils by the power of Beelzebub, the chief of the devils.

Jesus understood their thoughts, said unto them: Every kingdom divided against it is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falls.

If Jesus is casting out demons by the power of devils, it means that the kingdom of satan is divided.

If so satan’s kingdom will not stand.

No divided kingdom, no kingdom with civil strives can stand for long.

But Jesus did not conquer and destroy satan’s kingdom by a ‘divide and rule’ policy.

Casting out demons or devils from a person is the clear evidence that the devil’s kingdom is already defeated.

Jesus casted out devils and delivered people from their control by the power of God, an authority He received from the Kingdom of Heaven.

That means, the Kingdom of God has already come to this world.

 

Here Jesus is refereeing to two different kingdoms

1.    Kingdom of God

2.    Kingdom of satan

Jesus came to defeat, conquer and destroy the kingdom of satan.

Ancient practices

What happens when a kingdom is attacked, defeated and conquered by another King?

To answer this we will have to go through more than one incident described in the Old Testament of the Bible. Let me here tell you what I have understood from the Bible and from ancient history of kingdoms and wars in the Middle East.

When a country is defeated, the victorious country does all or most of the following things:

1.    The king, military generals, noble men and those on the rank will be killed instantly of soon later.

The nation’s leadership and government are destroyed forever.

2.    All inhabitants will be killed.

All men and children will be killed.

Women will be taken as slaves to victorious military generals.

This is done to make sure that the defeated country will not be populated again.

3.    Wise and talented men from the defeated country will be taken to the victorious country. Others killed.

The wisdom and talents of the special group will be used to run the empire.

In modern terms, it is smuggling human resource for the development of the country.

These men will not be allowed to go back to their old nation, but will have the freedom to marry from the country and live there as one among them.

4.    All fertile land used for agriculture along with whatever grows there will be burned.

All livestock will be killed.

This destroys the economy and food supply of the country.

5.    All water sources like, well, lake, rivers etc. will be destroyed and filled with stones and rocks. It will be almost impossible to revive them again.

No chance is left for another inhabitation.

6.    Temples will be destroyed, idols of gods will be either taken away or destroyed, all wealth looted by the victor.

Gods of the defeated nation is proved to be powerless.

Religion destroyed.

7.    A group of people will be taken away to the victorious nation and another group from the victorious nation is populated in the defeated country.

A mingling and mixing of people and culture take place. Since the victors always have more power, they destroy the culture, faith and identity of the destroyed.

Even the memory of the nation will be lost.

8.    The defeated country, people and everything will be kept as a colony, ruled by a delegated king of the emperor and revenue will be collected for the victorious country.

Looting the wealth by the victor.

The above list tells us about the total destruction of the defeated kingdom.

The defeated kingdom will in no way built again to its formal position.

It will never regain its power.

The purpose of all the above described actions taken by the victorious king is to destroy the enemy kingdom, wipe away even its memory so that it will never come back again.

Jesus and the kingdom

Whenever Jesus spoke of two kingdoms and one conquering the other, His audience had in mind all the above actions taken by the victorious King.

So they understood what Jesus meant by telling that He had defeated satan’s kingdom and established the Kingdom of God.

Kingdom Ruined

Jesus made it clear what He did to the enemy kingdom.

Let us read from the same chapter quoted above.

Jesus further explained how He defeated Satan and what He did to his kingdom.

Luke 11:21-22

21  “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe.

22  But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted and divides up his plunder. (NIV)

Kingdom Ransacked

Satan had been maintaining his kingdom on earth like a strong man.

He had a safe treasury filled with peace, health, prosperity, life and many more blessings of God’s people.

He had been guarding it well with his armors.

Then Jesus, someone who is stronger than satan came and defeated his kingdom.

The victorious Jesus:

·      Defeated the enemy

·      Taken away all his armor like lies, murder, abuse, disease, debt, worry, death etc.

·      Thus satan now has no armour or weapons to keep anybody in slavery.

What Jesus did?

Jesus delivered people from the slavery of satan.

Jesus also ransacked the kingdom taking all precious wealth he had been keeping in his treasury for long.

Like a victorious Roman military General, Jesus has been distributing this wealth and blessings to all of His people.

Jesus established the Kingdom of God by defeating and destroying the enemy forever.

Jesus here stated clearly the present state of satan and the blessed condition of God’s people.

Apostles about the victory

Apostles Mark and Paul had same revelations.

Mark’s narration of the last hours of Jesus from His arrest to crucifixion goes parallel to the victory celebration of Roman Generals of the time.

Paul wrote:

Colossians 2:15   And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Conclusion

So believe, the kingdom of satan is no more in effect.

The kingdom of God is present.

Open your eyes to this truth.

Live a blessed life accordingly.