Authority - 12

From the point of the temptations in the wilderness on, satan uses every person and every means possible to destroy Jesus. But satan could find nothing in Jesus to nail him as He had done Adam. Jesus had no sin nature and was the Word. Therefore, He was full of the Word, full of God, and satan could find nothing to work on. Jesus said His life was His own to give and satan had nothing in Him (John 10:17,18 and John 14:30). Instead of satan finding anything in Jesus, satan would be judged, cast out. In John 12:31 the word judgment is the Greek word krisis, crisis, turning point.

Jesus spoke through out His ministry of people being released from satan’s kingdom. Jesus knew to whom you submit, you are subject to. That’s why it is so important to submit to Jesus’ ways and then you will be subject to Him----reaping the fruit of the love walk and acting as Jesus acts and saying what Jesus says and thinking what Jesus thinks. What I am saying here is that we must learn obedience before we can exercise authority.

In Luke 11:14-23 Jesus came to release men from the dark rule of satan by inviting man to willingly submit to Jesus and His kingdom. The meaning of these verses is this: Man was in a helpless, miserable condition as an unconverted man, an unregenerate man, a man without God. Satan and his whole government as the strong man had one goal-----to keep humans captive and subject to his desires. Jesus exposed him.

Satan was fully armed but Jesus disarmed him. Satan was carefully guarding his possessions, thus far undisturbed. But Jesus not only disturbed him; He defeated him forever and stripped him of all authority and took away the weapons of his demonic forces forever.

Unlike Adam, satan was carefully guarding his kingdom, or so he thought he was. But One greater than he came and took away his goods. And now you and I are greater than he is because greater is He Who is in us (Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit) than he who is in the world.

Jesus as the stronger One suddenly overtook satan. Even as Jesus was walking the earth before He went to the cross He was casting out demons, and satan’s authority was being challenged, overpowered and overtaken. After Jesus’ death and resurrection, satan was stripped of his armor of protection, and Jesus gave us His armor of Light. It says in John 1 that in God, Who was The Word, was life and the life was the light of men. The Light who said Light Be, in the beginning was back in the earth in the person of Jesus, legally, in a man’s body, about to take back everything that had been stolen illegally from man. And the wonderful part about this whole scenario is that satan could do nothing about it. He was already defeated before Jesus ever went to the cross. All Jesus had to do was carry out His Father’s commands and it was forever settled, stamped with the long-promised seal of the Holy Spirit that satan was defeated and man was once again free to be God’s dearly beloved child, His child with His power and His authority to use that power.

Satan had ruled mankind through doubts about God’s love and God’s ability to make good His Word to man. But Jesus showed a God of love and compassion, Who was willing to heal and deliver and bring a better life. He walked with love and joy and peace everywhere he went. People loved to be around him, as evidenced by the little children who flocked to his side wherever he went. He was fun and full of life that was spilling over into everything He did and over everyone who came in contact with Him. He was life personified on the earth, and people felt good when they were around Him. They wanted more of what He had. And so it should be with you and me. We are full of Jesus and His life and people should want to be around us and HIs life that is flowing out of us to heal the sick, cleanse the lepers and raise the dead from their spiritual deaths and physical deaths.