Mighty the King, Mightier the Kingdom

We who live in the twenty-first century find war among nations, especially for people to take other’s lands at the expense of innocent lives, irrational. As I write this devotion, Russia and Ukraine, Hamas and Israel, and thirty-two other nations and people groups within nations (like the two tribes in Imphal, India) are at war. And we wonder, “Can’t people be content with the land they have?” “Should they start a war or kill people to gain their land?”

Sadly, many rulers lived by a rule, “The mighty the king, the mightier the kingdom.” That was the principle of Thutmose III of Egypt, Asoka the Great of India, Genghis Kahn, Atilla the Hun, Charlemagne, and Alexander the Great – to name a few. None were satisfied with what they had; they wanted more!

Jesus wasn’t a king like that, yet people accused him of being like that with a name they were familiar with – Beelzebul in Greek, but Ba’al–Zebul in Hebrew/Aramaic. Ba’al was the name for the Canaanite fertility god, who was Israel’s chief adversary (1 Kings 18:16–40), and Zebul meant “exalted dwelling,” a reference to heavenly dwelling. We could call him “the Lord of the heavens,” who set himself as an enemy of the true God of the Heavens, YHWH. He was a counterfeit to the true God.

When Jesus chased away a demon that had power over one’s speech and the crowd marveled (Luke 11:14), some said,

“He casts away the demons by Ba’al-Zebul, the ruler of demons.” (11:15)

The Lord Jesus questioned the logic of that – if Alexander’s soldiers – cavalry versus army – were divided against one another, could Alexander have won the whole eastern region? Absolutely not! When divided, a kingdom or a house couldn’t stand (11:17–18). The same was true of Satan or Ba’al-Zebul – if he chased away demons from people, he couldn’t grow his kingdom!

Further, other Israelites, too, have done miracles as Jesus had done, and that, too, by the power of God – in fact, by the little figure of God (11:19–20). So why are they thinking Jesus was doing anything extraordinary and attributing it to Ba’al-Zebul? They shouldn’t.

Instead, they should know that someone so powerful than Ba’al-Zebul had come into their midst who could tie him up and plunder his possessions. That was Jesus. Jesus wasn’t empowered by Ba’al-Zebul; instead, he had overcome Ba’al-Zebulto free the people he oppressed. That drives the people to an important choice: Are they with Jesus or not? In his words,

“The one who isn’t with me is against me. The one who doesn’t cling to me scatters.” (11:23)

People then had only two choices – side with Jesus or be scattered and lost away from Jesus.

The same holds true even now. One could side with the king of kings or be lost, scattered, and aimless in life. We’ve chosen to side with him, and our mission is to draw others to draw near to him. He isn’t the prince of demons but the visible image of the unseeable God. He cast out demons two thousand years ago and continues to free people of demons’ oppression because he is different and far greater than the demons or their ruler, Ba’al-Zebul.