An Empty Heart Is A Dangerous Place
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
43 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. 44 Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. 45 Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.
In the 17th century, Blaise Pascal helped us understand the concept of a vacuum…He conducted several experiments that showed how a vacuum exists, and the experiments also helped establish the relationship between atmospheric pressure and altitude.
Pascal was a devout Christian, and there is a quote he is famous for; he stated, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.”
This quote captures Pascal's belief that humans are inherently religious creatures. We have a deep-seated desire for God, and nothing else can truly satisfy that desire.
Colossians 2:10 (KJV 1900)
10 ...ye are complete in him...
We were not made to be empty in our inner being. We are made to be “indwelt” by someone other than ourselves.
Our souls cannot exist in a vacuum. In other words, there is no neutral area when it comes to our souls...
If we do not allow Jesus Christ to occupy His proper place in our inner being through the Person of His Holy Spirit, then—no matter what else we may believe—we are not simply living in a state of spiritual neutrality.
We have, in fact, created a vacuum in our own souls; and that vacuum will inevitably and irresistibly, be filled by something or someone other than Jesus Christ.
In other words, either we are a child of God, or a child of the devil. That sounds rather “black and white”, doesn't it? But that's what the Bible teaches us.
The Bible recognizes only two kinds of people in this world...
10 In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.
What I want you to understand today is that an empty heart is a dangerous place…If you don’t have Jesus occupying your heart…You are in great danger!
Back in verse 22, we read how our Lord had cast a demon out of a man who was blind and mute; and, as a result healed him so that he could both see and speak.
The religious leaders—the scribes and Pharisees who saw this miracle—dared to say that Jesus had cast the demon out of the man “by Beelzebub, the prince of the demons”; that’s in verse 24.
In other words, the religious leaders claimed that Jesus did this by the power of the devil.
Jesus responded by disproving their ridiculous and blasphemous accusation, and by warning them that they were demonstrating themselves to be evil men who speak from evil hearts.
35 A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.
And then He spoke the sobering words we find in our text verses today...
43 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. 44 Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. 45 Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.
Jesus is talking about a man, an individual man, and then He says that is how it will be for this generation for the whole nation - that’s something to think about isn’t it?
An empty generation full of demons! - You go home, look at our world today and think about that statement...
The key word I believe in the whole text is the word “empty.”
The “unclean spirit” or demon had left…We are not told how that came to be; perhaps God had shown great mercy to the man, and allowed him release from the bondage and oppression of this demon.
Perhaps God, in His great mercy, allowed the man some time to temporarily turn away from sin.
Perhaps the man even began to be 'inclined' toward God, and to search after spiritual things.
In fact, it may even be that the man heard the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ and began to be drawn to it…for a time...
Do you see what I’m getting at here?
I speculate all that, but there's one thing we can know for sure—and this is very important to notice.
Whatever else may have been true of this man, he clearly fell short of a genuine relationship with God, and the Holy Spirit had not taken up residence within him. The demon had departed from him, and he remained “empty”.
But he only remained “empty” for a short time. A vacuum had been created in his inner being; but that vacuum would not be a vacuum for long.
Out of the man, the demon is said to be restless; demons are driven by a strong desire to harm God’s creation, including us. They can’t rest until there’s an opportunity to carry out their evil plots.
The Bible seems to suggest to us that it is a kind of torture for a demon to roam about without inhabiting someone. One account from the Bible even seems to suggest to us that a demon would rather inhabit “a herd of swine” than to be wandering about without a “home”...
31 So the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine.
Just the thought of being cast into the lake of fire was enough for demons to cry out in terror at the presence of Jesus and say,
Matthew 8:29 (KJV 1900)
29 ...What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?
So, then...we find his man has not embraced the grace of God, and remains uninhabited by the Spirit of God, and this restless demon, who knows exactly where the man is; verse 44 says,
Matthew 12:44 (KJV 1900)
44 ...I will return into my house from whence I came out...
And when the demon returned, he found that the man has made it a very comfortable home to return to! The man had apparently made some moral reforms in his life. He had cleaned up his act. He may even have decorated it up a bit with a few new religious habits and pseudo-spiritual practices. But in spite of all the things done to “clean up”, there was still no one else taking residence within him.
The man's inner being was empty. The demon returned to find it “empty, swept, and garnished” (that literally means put in order...
What a dreadful and dangerous thing mere 'moral reform' is when Jesus is left out of it!
You know what happens? The demon finding the house in order and clean, but empty…then goes and takes with him seven other spirits “more wicked than himself,” and they all come back and enter the empty man...
Jesus says, “…and the last state of that man is worse than the first...”
It's not just that his condition became as bad as it once was when only one demon indwelt him. Nor is it that his condition became merely seven times as bad because, now, seven more demons dwelt in him than before. Rather, his condition became unspeakably and indescribably worse; because the demon brought in seven others “more wicked than himself”!
Demons do occupy people, they also drive and tempt, and entice, and lure, and seduce, and persuade people to join them in uncleanness all the time.
They entice people to commit sin so that they will be just like them.
Demons want us to be like they are, and enticing us to follow their ways and make us restless, yearning, hungry human beings, always eating but never satisfied. They make us demonic roamers of the earth.
Think about Cain and his punishment…After murdering his brother Abel, God told him...
12 When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.
“…a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.” - He would be a restless wanderer on the earth…the Bible continues...
13 And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. 14 Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.
Do you see how much Cain is like the devil at this point?
1 John 3:12 said he was of that wicked one...Cain was demonic in this way.
This also applied to Israel…When they refused to enter the promised land,
13 And the Lord’s anger was kindled against Israel, and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation, that had done evil in the sight of the Lord, was consumed.
David spoke of evil men in his day in the same terms...
14 And at evening let them return;
And let them make a noise like a dog,
And go round about the city.
15 Let them wander up and down for meat,
And grudge if they be not satisfied.
This describes the behavior of demons…People are hungry and searching for something and the devil keeps prodding them on, and they are never satisfied.
This theme is crystal clear in the Bible…restlessness; roaming; searching, but not finding; hungering and consuming, but never satisfied…It’s demonic! You look at our world today, and the Bible is crystal clear...
2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
Conclusion
Conclusion
Maybe you have tried to cleanup your life as a result of hearing and seeing Jesus, but because you’ve neglected, or refused, to follow him, you will ultimately be worse of than before.
If that vacuum, if that void, isn’t filled with the Spirit of God, then it will be filled with a multitude of other things that’ll make you worse off than before. We cannot simply reform our own hearts.
The Scriptures teach that we are dead in our trespasses and sin, you cannot reform a corpse, it’s a hopeless and futile endeavor. Instead, our only hope is the grace of God, our only hope is new life and the righteousness of Christ.
You see when Jesus died on the cross as an atonement, or as a payment, for our sin he not only bore our sin, not only was our sin imputed, or transferred to his account, but his righteousness was imputed, or transferred to our account.
We need the righteousness of God found only in his Son. We have no ability to manufacture this on our own. However, the Pharisees, and many within their generation, were deceived into thinking that their works were enough, which unavoidably invited the demons to fill the void…
They replaced compassion with legalism which helped them feel superior to others and which allowed them, on occasion, to displace God's will with their own legalistic interpretations of the law. They forced out what was noticeably evil, but replaced it with an evil of their own making, thereby allowing them to reject God's Messiah.
Let me just say, and I’ll be done…There is only one place for your weary soul, your restless soul, your wandering soul to find rest...
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
When we welcome Jesus Christ into our lives in an ongoing, personal, and loving way; so that He makes Himself at home in our hearts and occupies it; He pushes out any evil thing that would attempt to come in.
You can put it this way: The demon, as it were, may come back to us—thinking to return to his old home; and he may find his old home swept and put in order. But he no longer finds it empty! Instead, he finds Jesus Christ occupying our hearts.
And the former tenant will not dare to come in so long as Jesus makes His home there!