Resisting the Kingdom of God (Matthew #60)

Text: Matthew 12

Recognition by the people (vss 22-23)

This man is an illustration of the nation of Israel. He’s blind, he’s dumb – can’t speak, and he’s full of the devil. Matthew records this man’s case because it is a type of the nation of Israel itself.
The Lord heals this man and the people say Jesus must be the Messiah. Is not this the son of David?

But when the Pharisees heard it…
The priests turn public opinion against Jesus Christ with their dumbest answer yet. They say Jesus is casting out devils because he is the devil.

Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation…
Jesus makes the point that this is no divided house, this is a greater and mightier kingdom that has come to oppose the current kingdom of this world.
The children of verse 27 are the apostles. (See Matthew 19:23-30)

But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God…
The Spirit of God’s coming kingdom is here according to verse 28.
Strong man is Satan. Satan is a spirit. God’s Spirit has now come in fullness in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ is binding the strong man in verse 29.
If you’re not part of God’s solution, you’re part of His problem (vs 30)
- Jesus Christ is gathering His sheep.
- If you’re not helping Him gather sheep, you’re scattering His sheep.
Blasphemy of the Holy Ghost
- The kingdom of God is brought to them by the Spirit of God as the Lordsaid in verse 28. This is why he says what he says about blasphemy against the Holy Ghost in verse 31.
- The nation God will give the kingdom to are those who repent of their sin and put their trust in Jesus Christ and His future kingdom. In other words, those who do the will of God as he’ll say at the end of this chapter (12:46-50).
- Particularly those who abandoned hope in this present evil kingdom and invested their lives in the coming kingdom will have much more opportunity in the world to come and give God much more pleasure.
- Rejecting the Spirit of Jesus Christ’s coming kingdom is rejecting Jesus Christ’s coming kingdom. Acts 7:51, 54-58

The kingdom of God has come to the very culture that was designed to receive it. But now the people of Israel are in danger of having the kingdom of God taken away.
Matthew 21:33-46. Notice particularly 21:43 where the fruit is mentioned exactly as the Lord Jesus Christ said it in 12:33.
Now the axe is laid to the root in Matthew 3:10.

Let me ask you this, are they requiring a sign from the Lord because they genuinely want a sign or are they requiring a sign from the Lord because they’re patronizing him?
How can you say you desire a sign? Jesus just healed a devil possessed man who was blind and dumb. This is insincere demand.
Look at 1 Corinthians 1:21-23 because this verse is so often misapplied by independent baptists.
Jonah is the sign. Body is dead in a whale, his soul in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.

Ninevites and the Queen of the south responded to God’s blessings.
These Gentiles will have place in God’s kingdom as a testimony against the very people God spent years preparing to receive His kingdom.

Once the strong man was removed from his house, and the house cleaned, there was no one to occupy the house. So the unclean spirit returns to the mansion and finds it all clean and stocked, ready for occupancy, but it’s vacant. So he gathers 7 other devils and they party hard in drunken revelry and utterly destroy the house.
Jesus Christ brought with him the kingdom of God by the Spirit of God. He cleaned house and prepared the nation for occupancy. When the people choose to get rid of the one who bound the strong man, the devils will return and have their way. God will give them over to reprobate minds, and the people will suffer beyond measure without hope in this life, without joy, and without God.
This is true of an individual. He gets tired of living the way he’s living with a devil. He tries to clean things up. He makes some reforms. But he keeps Jesus Christ out of the house so to speak. And the devil returns with friends.
2 Peter 2 deals with this in detail.

Now, Jesus Christ really makes it plain. His people are those that do the will of God. If His own family will not do the will of God, they are not His people.
Some of you really understand this. You’re closer to outsiders than you are to your own family because of the Lord Jesus Christ.