Soul for Rent

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 (Matthew 12:43-45).
Every word in this little story serves a purpose.
Evil lives in the heart, then leaves, then returns.
The man ends up worse off than in the beginning.
If we say, But I am in church so this could not be me, let
us not be so sure.
Each story Jesus told has its own tone. This one has a tone of
shock and sadness meant to produce a disquiet in our soul. The
warning springs from love and comes from the One who reads
every heart. He knows how easy it is to give the appearance of
devotion and yet have an empty heart.
When Joseph Parker of London preached on this text over a
century ago, he began his sermon by commenting that Jesus
rarely said no. He almost always said yes.
He said yes to the hurting. He said yes to the guilty. He said yes to
the confused. He said yes to the hopeless. He said yes to the
downtrodden. He said yes to the rejected.
Jesus nearly always said yes. He delighted to encourage and to
console.
He fulfilled the words of Isaiah 42:3, A bruised reed he will not
break. He did not come to heap more pain on those who suffer.
He came to lift the load and bear the burdens of those whose lives

had been ruined by sin.

Thats why this story startles us. Here is a time when
Jesus said no.
This little parable is not about prostitutes. Jesus never said a
harsh word to a prostitute. He met them where they were and
pointed them to a new and better life.
When Jesus said these words, he wasnt talking to those addicted
to some enslaving habit. Jesus never had a harsh word to say to
those unfortunate souls. He loved them, and they loved him. He
was a friend of sinners.
When Jesus told this story, he was talking to the most religious
people in ancient Israel. These words were not directed at
notorious sinners but to religious people whose religion had
hardened their hearts.
They stood in danger of hell every day, and they didnt realize it.
Jesus was talking to men who made their living studying the Torah
of God, and he doesnt sound very friendly.
This parable was for the scribes and the Pharisees and the whole
religious establishment. Lest they miss the point, he even
says, The last condition of this man is worse than the first. That
is how it will be with this evil generation (v. 45).
Jesus takes dead aim at the people who thought these words
could never apply to them. Heres a shocking thought:
No prostitute ever blasphemed his name.
But the religious leaders did.
No addict ever blasphemed his name.
But the religious leaders did.
What should we learn from this little story? If we ponder it
carefully, we can see how the devil captures a soul in three steps.
Step # 1: Reformation

Remember the trajectory of the story. In the beginning there was

a man under the grip of an evil spirit. If you want to call him
demon-possessed, that would certainly be true. Sin has a
stranglehold on his life. It would not be wrong to say he was a
slave to sin. His life had no positive meaning. He sinned and
sinned again and then sinned again. That was his life, his pattern,
and he could do nothing about it.
At some point the demon leaves the man. Jesus doesnt explain
how or why that happens, and it is useless to speculate. The evil
spirit leaves the man and begins to wander in the waterless
desert.
Now things start to improve. When you get to the middle of the
story, he has cleaned up his life. The self-destructive habits
suddenly are gone. Perhaps we should make it more literal. In our
day there are many men and women enslaved by pornography. It
flows across the Internet like a vast, filthy stream. No matter how
wise and good and strong you are, you are always only one click
away from disaster. It flows freely from the polluted springs of
perverted, depraved minds. It has captured and enslaved so
many people inside and outside the church.
So let us suppose pornography has a grip on this man. It controls
and enslaves him. Then one day he is set free. The evil spirit
leaves and the desperate urges leave with it. One day the habit
loses its hold. One day the compulsion disappears.
The man lives for days and weeks and months and never goes
back to those hidden, dark corners of the Internet. Oh, the
freedom he feels. The urges that were dragging him down to hell
have disappeared.
Upon a day, someone says something slightly suggestive to him.
Or someone sends him an email. Or he hits a moment of
weakness when he is tired and angry and discouraged. He
remembers what he used to look at. And just like that, the
memories come flooding back. In less time than it takes to tell the

story, the flood overwhelms him, and he is back in the pit again.
In the end, what he never thought possible has happened. He is
far worse off than he ever was before. Shame overwhelms him
even as he plunges deeper and deeper. What has happened?
Satan called a retreat to set up an ambush, and the man walked
right into it.
He made one fundamental mistake. He got rid of the evil, but he
never replaced it with the good. Once the evil spirit left him, he
made a sort of moral reformation, but his heart never changed.
He
He
He
He

swept the house clean.

got rid of the dirt.
wiped the crud off the walls.
cleaned the vomit out of the sink.

He made the house look good, but he didnt put anything in place
of the evil. The house was furnished and ready for someone to
move in. It was clean but empty.
Jesus said this man was worse off in the end than he was at the
beginning. It happened so subtly that onlookers knew nothing
about it. That leads me to an important point: Many people who
seem free struggle terribly on the inside. That fact should not
surprise us or discourage us.
The Apostle Paul said as much in Romans 7 when he talked about
the inner struggle between the pull of good and evil. We like to
think we are doing better than we are. We clean up pretty well on
Sunday morning.
We look good, were dressed up, pressed up, and were all smiles.
We know the routine. We know what to say. But behind every
smiling face there is a story.
If you get to know people long enough, you discover everyone is
having a hard time.
We all fall short in many ways. Ive often said if we knew the
naked truth about each other, we would run screaming from the
auditorium, and wed never come back.

If I knew the truth about you . . .

And you knew the truth about me . . .
And we all knew the truth about each other . . .
Well, wed all be in for a big shock.
Many people who appear to be free struggle with anger,
resentment, rage, bitterness, a critical spirit, lust, dishonesty,
cruelty, fear, doubt, unbelief, and unforgiveness. We go to church
and nobody knows our story. Were scared to say anything about
it because were church people, and what would the other church
people say about us?
The man in this story ended up in a very bad place and most of
his friends didnt know it because the battles of the heart are
rarely seen by others.
Step #2: Relief
Give this man his due. When the demon came back and saw the
house he had left, it had been swept clean. The clutter was gone,
the dirt had been swept up, the walls had been repainted, the
windows repaired, the graffiti washed away, the locks replaced,
the carpet shampooed, the lawn mowed, and the flowers
replanted.
Everything looked great.
Give this man all the credit he deserves.
We all understand change is hard, and it seems like the older wed
get, the harder change becomes because we get set in our ways.
This man, by hard work and deep resolution, had managed to
vastly improve his life.
Its always good to get rid of outward disorder. God bless all those
organizations that exist to help men and women break free of the
destructive patterns of addictive behavior. God bless all those
who help hurting people and try to restore those who have been

broken by life. Its hard work, and they deserve our prayers and
our support. They do tremendous good in the world.
This mans triumph didnt last because it was incomplete. Let me
give you something to ponder. Small victories can be a curse.
They can lead us to pride and to ultimate destruction. Incomplete
success makes us look in the mirror and congratulate ourselves
on something we havent really done. It makes us think were the
one who made it happen, that we deserve the credit for breaking
the habit, that we somehow managed to pull ourselves up by the
bootstraps.
Whenever you see a turtle on a fencepost, you know one thing for
certain. He didnt get there by himself. Someone had to put him
there. Bill Gates remarked that success is a lousy teacher. It
makes smart people think they can do no wrong.
So this man did some admirable housecleaning. He got his life in
orderto a point. He changed his habits and made things better
on the outside. But nothing changed on the inside.

Step # 3: Relapse
The
The
The
The

problem
problem
problem
problem

was
was
was
was

not
not
not
not

pornographyand it never is.

alcoholand it never is.
drug abuseand it never is.
sexual immoralityand it never is.

Those things are terrible, but they point to a deeper

problem. Many years ago I knew a young man who was struggling
mightily with a certain form of sexual sin. He was far gone down
the path of destructive behavior. Heres the kicker. His father was
a Baptist minister. That meant he had been exposed to the gospel
and to biblical teaching. I recall one thing he said to me that came
from the words of Jesus in Matthew 3:10, The ax is already at the
root of the trees. The young man said when it comes to breaking
sinful habits, you have to lay the ax at the root of the tree. You

cant just chop off the branches because they will grow back. You
have to get down to the root of the matter. Thats hard to do
because the roots are hidden. Its much easier to hack off the
branches of bad behavior while leaving the roots in place.
In the story Jesus told, cleaning the house was like hacking away
the diseased branches. It left the evil root system intact. So while
the house superficially looked better, it was still empty. Thats
why the last state of the man was worse than the first. His life
was like a furnished apartment, ready for rent.
No soul can stay unoccupied for very long. Either the Lord will
come in, or the evil spirits will return. We know this is true
because the demon says to himself, I will return to my house (v.
44 ESV). Somehow he knew all that outward reformation counted
for nothing. The house was still empty, and an empty house
meant the demon could go back any time.
So he did. Only this time he brought along seven of his buddies
seriously bad demons, much worse than himself. It would be like a
gang of hoodlums finding an empty house and making it their
own, only this is happening in the spirit realm.
So I imagine the demon going back to the house and knocking on
the door: Hello. Anybody there? When no one answered, the
demon would say, Hello. Jesus? Are you there? If Jesus comes to
the door, the demon has to leave. But if Jesus doesnt answer, the
demon is free to enter.
In this case, the demon enters, calls seven of his buddies, and
says, I found a house we can live in. So eight demons move in
to the house because the man has cleaned himself up by moral
reformation, but he has not filled the empty house with Christ.
This story stays in the mind because it applies to you and me.
Jesus aimed his words, not to prostitutes or addicts, but to morally
upright religious types.
Folks like you and me.

If you go to church long enough, you stand in great danger of

believing you are better than you really are. You start to believe
your own PR, and you go to church, hear a sermon, and say, I
wish so-and-so could hear this, when in fact you need it more
than they do.
Something in all of us wants to substitute moral reformation for
genuine salvation. The more religious we are, the more likely we
are to clean up the outside and leave the inside empty. When you
leave the house clean but empty, you have opened yourself up to
seven devils worse than the first.
When Christ Comes In
When George Morrison of Scotland preached on this text, he
commented that we talk about the indwelling Christ as if it were
an abstract doctrine. But it is not abstract. It is the truth that sets
us free.
When
When
When
When

we
we
we
we

come to Christ, he comes to us.

trust in Christ, he dwells with us.
believe in Christ, he takes up residence within us.
say yes to Jesus, he makes our heart his home.

No amount of moral reformation can accomplish that. Only the

new birth from above can bring Christ into the human heart. No
amount of religion can do what conversion does. We may stop our
bad habits and become better people, but that will do nothing to
fill the God-shaped vacuum in the heart.
Christ alone makes the difference.
Jesus never says, Clean yourself up, and I will come in. No, the
invitation is always, Believe in me, and I will give you a brandnew life. The gospel gives you something much better than what
it drives away.
We discover the power of the indwelling Christ in the moment of

bitter temptation. When we feel pulled to take the downward

path, Christ within says, No, there is a better way. He not only
points us in a new direction, he also gives us the power to walk
that way. An old chorus points out the difference between moral
reformation and the gospel:
Do this and live, the Law commands,
But gives me neither feet nor hands.
A better word the gospel brings,
Bids me fly and gives me wings.
That last partbids me fly and gives me wingsis a pure miracle.
Every sermon should have an application, so heres mine. Jesus
told a sad story about a man who cleaned up his life but left his
heart empty and ended up much worse off.
Dont be like him!
When it comes to your works, dont just run away from your bad
works. Run away from your good works and run to Jesus.
Believe in him!
Trust in him!
Welcome him into your heart!
That way when the devil comes and knocks at your doorand, my
friends, he comes again and again and againwhen he comes,
send Jesus to answer in your place. The devil will flee for he
cannot enter where Jesus has already moved in.
Oh, the wonderful truth of the indwelling Christ. It is fine and good
to go to church and to live as a Christian. But it will not help you
unless Christ is living in your heart. Some people have cleaned up
on the outside, but they have never been washed in the blood of
the Lamb. We need to meet Jesus. Heres a little chorus we used
to sing that brings the truth home:
Into my heart, into my heart,

Come into my heart, Lord Jesus.

Come in today, come in to stay,
Come into my heart, Lord Jesus.
May God help you to open your heart and say, Lord Jesus, you
are welcome here.
Lord Jesus, come and slay the enemy within.
Come and crush the devil in my soul.
Come and defeat the enemy who would destroy me.
Come and fill my heart with your indwelling power.
Come into my heart, Lord Jesus. Amen.