Jesus had just been accused of being demonised. The Pharisees said that He cast out demons by the power of Satan. It was a wicked and blasphemous allegation. Jesus knew the full extent of their thoughts and demolished their conclusion by careful logical argument, as a lawyer would.
 
Jesus started by presenting their argument as laughable: if any organisation is internally divided it cannot last long; it must fail. So it made no logical sense for Satan to attack himself. Next, Jesus recognised that some of the Jews were known to practice exorcism and so He played their argument back onto them – if Jesus was working by Satan's power ... then their exorcists were also demonised. Jesus asked them to consider the logical arguments and come to an opinion.
 
Then He spoke clearly about His own powerful ministry. He said that He was working with the Spirit of God and demons had to submit to His authority. If that was true, then surely the kingdom of God had come in power. They needed to think about that and come to a logical conclusion. They should not avoid the evidence which was plain for everybody to see. However the religious leaders could not focus their minds on the truth because their hearts had so much hatred for Jesus. There is no consistent logic in hatred and lies.
 
Wickedness is born in rebellious hearts and has no logical consistency. Like all lies, there will be a logical gap in the story, or a contradiction. No thought, word or action which offends God can ever be fully justified or shown to be true. In the end God will demonstrate the weakness of all our excuses as we give an account of our lives to Him (Hebrews 4:13). So let us decide to reject the works of darkness (Romans 13:12) and live in the light - knowing that we are transparent to God. And let us never credit Satan for anything which God has done.