Dear friend, welcome back to the Setting Captives Free course.
In the teaching of the past few days, we were told to put to death whatever belongs to our earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, etc. We learned that we were to declare war on it, to seek and destroy all sin, taking a proactive stance against it.
And let’s say you do that. You entirely rid your life of anything remotely associated with sexual sin. It feels good to take out the trash, to rid your life of all forms of uncleanness, doesn’t it?
Acts 19:18-20 (ESV) Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. 19 And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver. 20 So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.
Notice three things about this text:
They rid their lives of impure books! They wanted to burn them into ashes that the wind would blow away.
They counted those filthy books (worth “fifty thousand pieces of silver”) as absolutely worthless! After they heard and believed the gospel, received Jesus as Lord and Savior, they valued Him above all else.
They burned these foul books “in the sight of all.” They wanted everybody to know, “we’re done with that stuff!”
Like the Thessalonians, who burned their impure books in the fire, we rid our lives of all impurity as if it was entirely meaningless to us because we value Jesus Christ much more now.
But this deep cleaning of all things that promote or enable impurity from our lives can produce a problem, and hence the need for this day of warning.
Aristotle said, “Nature abhors a vacuum.” This “vacuum” effect is what forms destructive tornadoes as the low-pressure area sucks in everything around it. Similarly, when we rid ourselves of all things impure, we might create a vacuum effect which can be dangerous to us.
Now that we understand the potential problem, let’s review Jesus’ teaching on this subject:
Matthew 12:43-45 ESV “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. (44) Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. (45) Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.”
Question 2. When the evil spirit comes back to the house it left, in what condition does it find the house?