Question on Mark 3:22-26

[french]

22And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebub[c]! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.”

23So Jesus called them and spoke to them in parables: "How can Satan drive out Satan? 24If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. 26And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come.

Hello you guys!

Now I’m not great at wording questons, but here I go… lol

So my question is this… Why couldn’t Satan condemn himself, if he was still turning people away from Christ? (or CAN he?)

Like ok, in 2 Corinthians 11, Paul comments on how Satan will appear as an “Angel of Light.” EVERY commentary I have read so far says that Satan will appear as someone who acts like a good person, and not bad.

So, now i think of false prophets. In particular, mohammad (who i think might have been possessed by satan.) mohammad taught to love God, he tought that there was one God, he taught the basic Biblical stories (Noah’s ark, Job’s trials, so forth.) But, of coruse mohammad denies Trinity, that Jesus is the Son, and deny the Christian view of salvation.

So, so far I think anyone could say “Oh, the devil could have possessed mohammad, appearing as an angel of light, to get him to turn people away from Christ.” Which makes sense. The only problem though, is that Mark 3:22-26 says that Satan can’t drive out/condemn himself. Yet in the qu’ran, it speaks very bad of satan. in fact, one of the main muslim prayers says something like “keep me safe from satan.” So, wouldn’t Satan be condemning himself? Or would he not be, since he is still denying the divinity of Christ?

The same could also go for Joseph Smith… the Book of Mormon too says that Satan is bad… Yet i wouldn’t rule out the possibility that JS really thought he was a prophet.

 

[Catholic_Dude]

This is a very good question…I dont really know the answer but I have some comments.

It is pretty clear if satan is driving out demons he is hurting his cause…but what about appearing as an angel of light in order to deceive (ie drive out demons to gain trust)??..The context of Paul’s “angel of light” passage is that the Corinthians should know what to look out for “if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted -2 Cor 11”…so it appears you have to take the person’s message as a whole, not just “miracles” they perform, there will come a point where their ‘gospel’ is clearly incompatible with the Christian Gospel.

And with the false prophets you listed that is exactly the case, they made a few claims of divine revelation, but looking at their overall message they are openly preaching a different gospel.

Also keep in mind the Bible tells us what to look out for so we can be on guard, this is where education is critical.

 

[Verisimilitude]

Simple answer is the demon that spoke to Mohamet never did anything in the manner of/like Christ, such as casting out other demons, or curing anyone either through Muhammed or the spirit itself therefore it never divided itself.

Christ had actual authority to do as He did. The others do/did/could not.

You said:

mohammad taught to love God, he tought that there was one God, he taught the basic Biblical stories

No, he didn’t. Muhammeds view of loving God is as a slave with a vengefull master. He taught a view of monotheism that denies the Truth of Christ, and because he was illiterate, he did not know the basic biblical stories. It’s why he killed his critics of his day becasue they made fun of him for confusing the biblical stories. It is also why the OT & NT accounts in the Koran are so much in error.

The demon who did speak to Mohammad I think fostered these untruths, with a ring of the Truth, in order to accomplish the long-term mission of the demonic spirit which was to lead as many astray from the Truth. Look how successful it has been in 1400 years.

I do not think Muhammed was possesed by the spirit for a very specific reason- Christ said it in fact. I think Muhammed was initially sincere in his search for God, but was at first manipulated by the spirit and then when that spirit stopped visiting him after the first few years, he made up the rest on his own.

Since he wasn’t possessed by Satan, Mohamets condemnation of Satan carried as much spiritual weight as Muhammeds authority to speak for God- none. The subtlety here is that Muslims do acknowledge the God of Abraham, but Allah is not His name. I would never call G-d, allah, and would do nothing in allah’s name for allah is a pagan god. This is a whole other topic.

Joseph Smith and the BOM was less demonic and more Jim Baker type claim- opportunistic in my view. That is why Islam is so much more dangerous than Mormonism, but both have a similar effect: a wrong/misguided view of the True God.

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

After Jesus cast out the demons, he led the person to God the father. Satan would not lead people to Jesus, to God the father, nor to the genuine gospel, thus the house divided if he did.

Mo led people away from the real Jesus, and away from the geniue gospel of Christ.