Matthew 12:43-45 When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.”
Jesus is talking directly to the Pharisees and teachers of the law when He says the above statement: That is how it will be with this wicked generation. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day had the responsibility of shepherding the people, leading them to know God. Their teachings, attitudes, and lifestyles should have revealed clearly the God of Israel. The law and its regulations that they expounded should have enlightened the Israelites to the nature of God; instead, these religious leaders used Moses’ law and their own additional regulations as a heavy burden, making the people suffer under the obligations of Judaism. Jesus tells the priests and teachers of the law that they might achieve temporarily a people that are obedient to their teachings, but their efforts to keep the house of Israel clean and in order will eventually fail. What they now believe is a powerful exorcism of ungodliness in the people’s house remains ephemeral and weak. The evil kingdom has many spirits more powerful than man’s efforts to maintain order and cleanliness in his spiritual house. Jesus tells them that keeping an evil spirit out of the house of Jacob might succeed for a while, but evil is never static, always seeking rest. Evil will make attempts to occupy the domain of a person, a people, a country. I will return to the house I left. The best efforts of the priests and their laws will not keep the Israelites clean and law abiding. When it (the evil spirit) arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. Sadly, the final condition of the house will be worse than the first condition, for the occupation of many evil spirits will cause the people to follow many errant beliefs and activities. In the wilderness, we see the devil’s attempt to occupy Jesus’ life. He comes to him when Jesus is weak physically, for He has been fasting. The devil and his spirits always use places of weakness in mind and spirit to attack humans, to occupy their house and to have them do their will, not God’s will. The devil comes to Jesus in the wilderness where food and water are lacking. He believes this place is where he will succeed in deceiving Jesus, have Jesus serve him and not God. Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. (Luke 4:1-2) In the wilderness, Jesus uses the word to combat the devil’s temptations. But this does not discourage the devil, as with the focus above, for Jesus said to the Pharisees, the evil spirit decided to occupy the house again with help from other evil spirits. We see the devil leaving Jesus in the wilderness, but with the intentions of coming back again, tempting Jesus to follow the devil’s will and not God’s. When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time. (Luke 4:13) Otherwise, as with the evil spirit in the above verses, the devil intends to come back again in Jesus’ life, to try to occupyJesus’ house with the devil’s will.
This constant temptation of Satan is in every person’s life. We can either do God’s will or the will of the devil. We can either allow the demons of the kingdom of evil to demonstrate their will in us or we can yield to God’s authority in our house. We, as Christians, know that Satan will be back, even when we have great victories overcoming him in our lives. As we see in the above focus, when the devil loses out in our lives, we do not have a permanent inoculation from his input—he will be back again and again. When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ But we are not helpless when the devil seeks to devour us, for the Spirit of God is now part of our lives when we place our complete trust in Jesus and his works. We no longer depend on obedience to the laws and regulations advocated by the priests of Jesus’ time. We are not people of the law, but people of the Spirit of God. We do not live by good words passed down to us from previous generations: we live by every word that comes from the mouth of God as the Spirit gives unction. The Spirit is the dynamo within us. Literally the power of God abides in us, so we can be confident of his work to keep in abeyance the evil spirits’ attacks. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. (Ephesian 6:10-13) We see Jesus once again attacked by the devil’s scheme in the Garden. Jesus was feeling pressed by the devil to avoid the cross, but Jesus had the full armor of God present with him, the Holy Spirit. He knew it was not the will of the flesh He desired, but the will of the Father, and the will of the Father was the cross. As Paul said, be strong in the faith: strong in the Lord and strong in his power. We are but children of God, but we are not powerless, for the Spirit has made us into the likeness of God with his power to resist the devil in times of temptation.
Jesus in today’s scriptures comes against the Pharisee’s idea that law and regulations are the strength of God’s kingdom. They despised Jesus’ teaching of faith. They opposed him in many ways such as claiming Jesus’ disciples broke the Sabbath law by eating grain on that holy day. They postulated that Jesus’ ministry of healing came from the devil, not God. Rather than accept the good things Jesus did and the obvious wisdom in his teachings, they wanted Jesus to perform miracles as a magician on stage, hoping to open him up to ridicule. Their unbelief, their envy of Jesus, was so strong that Jesus called them a bad tree, producing evil fruit. He knew their hearts would not change. They had hardened their hearts to God’s grace and mercy. Jesus implied that their clean house would be contaminated by other more powerful evil spirits. We see this prophetic word come to the foreground when they encourage the people to cry, “Crucify him,” on the day of Jesus’ crucifixion. Later on, they persecuted the church, killing the righteous man, Stephen, by stoning him to death. We see Saul (later Paul) filled with a murderous hatred for Christ’s followers, arresting Christians, persecuting both men and women. In Paul’s own ministry, Jews followed him from city to city, intent on killing him. The Roman commander, Lysias, has to arrest Paul to keep him from being stoned to death in Jerusalem. Then Lysias used 470 of his soldiers to escort Paul away from Jerusalem to Caesarea, the headquarters of the Roman occupation of Israel. Obedience to laws and regulations might keep a house clean for a while, but no power exists to fight against evil by mere works. Jesus predicted that in everyone’s life, obeying God through self effort will eventually fail because the powers of the evil world are greater than the wisdom and knowledge of men. Man cannot overcome evil through works. Today, in every land, in every people, we see laws clamped down on man’s nature. But evil survives and flourishes in the world. A house or a country might seem good and righteous for a period of time, but the devil will bring seven more evil spirits to contaminate any people or land that believes it has finally succeeded in being good and godly without the Holy Spirit. The nature of man is always open to more evil. The heart is deceitfully wicked. The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9) Jesus understood that the law would never keep a person in right standing with God; the law could never keep a house forever clean. Paul states this very well, As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. (Romans 7:17-20) Sin is present in the house whether the law is there or not. The Bible says the law is a mirror, showing us our sin. Evil is an active force in the hearts of men. However, we do not live by law but by the power of the Spirit of God. Therefore, we do not inherently succumb to the power of the flesh, for it is dead permanently. We now live because the power the Spirit has made us new creatures. All of this will be fully realized after the final death of the flesh. Now we live by the Spirit, not by the will of the flesh. The Spirit through faith in Christ’s work has made us free from the works of man and his futile efforts to please God. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:1-2) We are free from the final condition of evil occupying our house, for we have been freed from the works of the flesh, for the power of God, THE HOLY SPIRIT, is occupying our spirits. When God freed us from sin and cleansed our house, He did not leave us empty; He filled us with the Holy Spirit. No spirit of any kind that is obstinate to the works of God can come and reside in our souls. We are free, free indeed!
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