"When the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and not finding any, it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds it swept and put in order. Then it goes and takes along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there, and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first."
Now it happened that while Jesus was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, "Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts at which You nursed." But He said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it."
Good Morning my beloved,
We welcome you to worship today in the name of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Whether it's your first time or you are a faithful member of our family in Christ, we're glad you are here. I am grateful for all of you who have been sharing the ministry website, and social media platforms with your family and friends. God has continued to significantly bless your efforts in reaching the lost.
There are many people who like to think of themselves as being open minded, receptive to new ideas, willing to be persuaded, provided there is sufficient enough evidence to sway them. The problem is, however, no matter the amount of evidence presented, it never seems to be sufficient enough to truly persuade them, leaving them in a constant state of skepticism. I believe the reason for this is because far too many Christians, are too attached to the things of this world, the ways of this world, that they continue living on the edge of Hell.
We live in a world that more often than not, prefers convenience and personal comfort over the pursuit of Truth, particularly Truth that demands us to change. And, like most of society's ills, that has inevitably made it's way into the church. But the Gospel, is not always comfortable, the intention is not to cater to our comfort, in fact, it often confront aspects of our lives that we might otherwise prefer to ignore. As children of God, the truth about our identity and purpose is found in Scripture, in who God says we are, not how we "feel." Being led by the Spirit means dying to self, surrendering our thoughts and desires, the things we want for ourselves to God’s greater purpose for our lives and allowing Spirit of God direct and mold us to look more like Jesus. And, sometimes that process can definitely feel like a sacrifice, because, even saved, it is difficult to live like God created us to live, since we can still wrestle with those same thoughts, feelings, desires and attractions.
However, if you continue to live in an unbroken pattern of habitual sin, living in what the Word of God calls sin, participating in acts that God calls shameful and imagine that you are truly born again, when Scripture clearly indicates otherwise, you are horribly mistaken. Quite frankly, it doesn't matter what your pastor calls sin, it matters what God calls sin, not some one else's interpretation of it. Satan loves to cause believers to question the Word of God, in fact, "Did God say" is the original sin.
Jesus, while loving, gentle and compassionate, He was surely not the pushover we imagine Him to be. He frequently confronted sin, presented hard Truths to hard hearts, demanding a response that goes well beyond mere intellectual assent, emphasizing the belief in the heart is required, followed by a life of obedience, rather than just acceptance in our minds. In fact, in Romans chapter 10, verses 9-10, Paul writes, "That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, leading to righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, leading to salvation." I believe that in our text today, Jesus is challenging us to examine our own responses to the Gospel: Do we readily accept the uncomfortable Truths of the Gospel, simply because God says it, or do we allow this fallen world, willing to embrace Satan's ideas and modern interpretations to create doubt, causing us to harden our hearts to God's Truth, leading us further away from God? Satan loves to cause believers to question the Word of God, in fact, "Did God say" is the original sin. As a result, throughout Scripture, we often see the people of God worshiping idols, living in disobedience to God's commands. Don’t miss the irony here. In Galatians 1:6-9,, Paul writes, "I marvel that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is really not another, only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to the gospel we have proclaimed to you, let him be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is proclaiming to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let him be accursed!"
In 2 Chronicles 7, God promises that if His people, who are called by His name, will humble themselves, pray, seeking God's face, turning from their wicked ways, He promises to hear their prayers, forgive their sins and heal their land. On the other hand, God warns that if His people continue in their disobedience, turning away from Him they will face His judgment. This warning serves as a call to repentance and is a demonstration of God's love, intended to bring His people back to Him, rather than a desire to destroy them. However, because of the fallenness of our sinful minds, we are often prone to believe that sin is more enjoyable than righteousness without reservation, yet question a Righteous and Holy God Who cannot lie. The sin of pornography has become so commonplace, woven into the fabric of our daily lives, that many professing Christians, including church leaders, no longer see it as addictive and destructive. The Good News is, it doesn't matter what you've done, or how horrible your past, Jesus Christ, is willing to forgive your sin and give you a new life, with new wants and desires that are pleasing to God. But you must be willing to repent, turn away from your sin, even the ones you have been deceived into believing are who you are. I believe the reason so many Christians are not maturing in Christ, is because sanctification is a Sovereign Work of the Spirit of God, and a process in which believers are required to actively participate. That's why Paul exhorts us in Philippians 2, "to work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure."
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father,
Father, thank You for Word and for the clarity with which Your word speaks. How grateful we are for Your boundless grace, Your endless mercy toward us. We are what we are by Your grace. Lord, I confess that like Paul, I was unworthy sinner, the chief of sinners, who has been made into an under shepherd through Your Spirit by Your grace alone. A precious gift for which I am still to this day in awe. Lord, protect us from ourselves, our selfish ambitions, our lustful desires, our love of money and power, or anything else that might be displeasing to You and could potentially lead us astray from Your righteous path. O' Father, remind us not to look to this world ran by unprincipled men but to You for what we need, Who loves us, convicts us, instructs us, equips us, and strengthens us, enabling us to grow and mature spiritually, by illuminating the Truth, and activating the Scripture in our hearts. Lord, grant me the courage to be bold in confidently declaring the Truth, no matter how fierce the opposition may become, growing in humility, with a commitment to seeking the deeper spiritual Truths found in Your Word. We ask and pray these things in Christ's name, for His sake and for Your glory.
Amen
Today's Message: Hard Truth For Hard Hearts
The Bible is truly an amazing, unequaled book, I am absolutely in awe of its power to completely transform lives. I am thoroughly convinced there is no other book ever written that even comes close to its power, its supreme excellence. In fact, it should probably come with a warning: Regular reading and application of the contents of this book will cause a loss of anxiety, animosity depression, despondency with increased feelings of love, joy, and peace.
We have been exposed by many pastors who have, as you well know, become involved in trend to while remaining true to the text they have softened the offensiveness of the Gospel, they go long on the grace and short on the conviction, a compromise that seeks to make the Gospel more palatable to be more popular among people. God speaks through His Word, by removing the offense of the Gospel—such as the necessity of repentance, turning away from sin and the reality of divine judgment—this pseudo-Gospel has become popular in Contemporary Christianity teaches a defective message and undermines the very essence of the true God-given Gospel message without shame. This watered-down, cheap and easy to digest Gospel no longer saves, transforms, or redeems the sinner, but rather encourages one to continue living in open, unrepentant sin, by removing the demands of the cross that calls us to die to sin and self to follow Christ, leaving one totally unprepared for the imminent return of Christ. I hasten to say, this is not the Gospel of Jesus that produces a humility, a hatred for the sinful life we once lived and a love for the God who had so much mercy on us He forgive our wretchedness. Pastors everywhere, in churches all over the world, have made it exceptionally easy to become a Christian, with the simplified understanding of salvation, misleading the masses with its sin tolerant, all accepting deceiving, soul damning message.
"Do not quench the Spirit" is an unmistakable command given by the apostle Paul to the church at Thessalonica, emphasizing the believer's responsibility to guard their spiritual integrity, and replacing the Spirit's will with one's own, a conscious choice that prevents the Spirit from exerting His full influence. Popularity is a fiery furnace, and no one, but God, can preserve popular preachers from being burned by it. Obviously, I am more concerned with being truthful about what God has revealed on the pages of Scripture in His very clear commandments than I am with being popular. We are commanded to speak the Truth in love, even if people misunderstand or reject you. The temporary applause from men is never worth forfeiting the eternal approval from God. By neglecting to teach the full counsel of God's Word, especially difficult or unpopular passages, it not only leads to spiritual confusion in understanding essential truths, but runs the risk of propagating damning error which has eternal consequences. We must all ask ourselves, "What’s the emphasis of your ministry? Does your life match the message you preach? I believe we often evaluate pastors on the basis of the wrong criteria; his reputation, where did he get his biblical training, what kind of degree does he have et cetera. And, there’s sort of a feather in a pastor’s cap if he's written books. But when we come to the real criteria by which a man of God must be evaluated according to the Word of God, all of the usual human criteria by which we evaluate a pastor, or the criteria by which he evaluates his own ministry, all that can be discarded. He must be able to read, study and understand the Word of God and expound the doctrine in detail in order to warn his people against error and false teachers. Now, having just said that, I do not believe that ministry should be dominated by all negativity either. But, we certainly aren't to ignore it because it's unpleasant or uncomfortable to deal with, we must lovingly confront it head on, offering grace and mercy, just like our Lord did.
Anybody can just show up and read the Bible, not everybody knows what it means by what it says. Satan loves hiding behind church leaders who do not give their full attention to the ministry to which God has called him. A true servant of God must have a warning ministry, followed by sound teaching for equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the full knowledge of the Son of God. The New Testament prioritizes preaching the Word, protecting sound doctrine, and raising up biblically qualified elders. I believe this, along with practicing church discipline, is essential in establishing a healthy church, whether planting or pastoring. You must be able to preach the Word with the authority of Scripture, explain what you've preached and then be able really drive it home with an application to their hearts and bind their consciences to respond with what they are going to do with what they've learned. It’s very easy to be difficult to understand, when don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. I don't want anybody walking away saying, "I didn’t understand a darn thing that he was saying."
Now perhaps, we better get to our text, before we run out of time. Today, as we return to the Word of God, we come to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as recorded by Luke, our beloved physician, highly educated historian and fellow worker to the Apostle Paul during his missionary journeys and imprisonment. I invite you to turn in your Bible to Luke chapter 11 for our ongoing study of this rich and wonderful portion of the Word of God. Luke chapter 11, verses 24 through 28. I encourage you to follow along with me to get the text set in our minds.
"When the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and not finding any, it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds it swept and put in order. Then it goes and takes along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there, and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first."
Now it happened that while Jesus was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, "Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts at which You nursed." But He said, "On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it."
Let's look at verse 24, "When the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and not finding any, it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’"
Here, Jesus is warning us that reformation without transformation, is very dangerous, by giving us a very vivid illustration, highlighting the journey of an unclean spirit after it leaves a man, wandering through waterless places, searching for a place to settle. However, finding no rest, no comfort in the barren, uninhabited areas, it returns to find the previous man. Then, the unclean spirit goes and returns with seven worse spirits, making the man’s spiritual condition worse than before. This may sound shocking you, but Jesus is talking about a very religious person, who has superficially cleaned up his "spiritual house" but is living an immoral life, who decides to stop doing whatever he was doing, cleaned up his life morally but did not filled the emptiness with faith in Christ, which has put him in a very vulnerable, unprotected position after the demon’s departure.
This sounds an awful lot like the Pharisees, who successfully cleaned up their lives, on the outside. They outwardly adhered to strict religious traditions and kept all moral and ceremonial laws, right down to the minutiae. Yet, they failed to accurately address their true spiritual condition, a corrupt heart. And, they hated Jesus' diagnosis of their spiritual condition, in Matthew 23:25-27, when He said, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness." I know some of you have struggled with pornography, even decided to stop engaging with those who do, only to fill that empty void with more and worse sinful habits. We can never get to heaven by self-improvement or good works. We can only get to heaven by trusting in Jesus Christ, and turning away from our "self-ruled" life.
When the unclean spirit, or demon, comes out of a man, the Jews thought it passed through waterless places, which is the Greek word "anudros" which symbolizes a desolate, uninhabited desert because demons were often associated with deserts or desolate places. It's a metaphoric term for distressing situation. Unclean spirit was a term the Jews used to describe demons. All spirits are unclean but not all are equally unclean. We don't know why he cleaned up his life, maybe there was a family member who said, "You have a problem." Maybe he just decided to clean up his act because he wanted to become a better person. Whatever the reason he cleans up his life, it makes the demon uncomfortable enough to want to leave. But demons need a host, after wandering around, restless, unable to find any other place to call "home," the demon decides to go back to his old demon house. Demons need a host, they need a person to possess, because they do their work in and through people. This is where the religious moralists find themselves, it doesn't matter whether they're orthodox Jews, Mormons, Catholics or any other man-made religion. There are a lot of people today who are drawn to Jesus, they pray the little prayer to come to Christ, They sort of clean things up on the surface, they look spotless on the outside, maybe they stopped committing some immoral sin, but inside, they're just as wicked and corrupt as they've ever been. So, they are in a dangerous position than before because now, they are living with the damning delusion of salvation. There's no genuine repentance, or turning away from sin, just moral reformation and still being empty.
Verse 25, "And when it comes, it finds it swept and put in order." Half-hearted commitments lead to a half-hearted salvation, destined for failure. Half-hearted commitments to Christ are actually not commitments at all and can only offer the damning delusion of salvation, which is no salvation at all. God wants your all or nothing at all. It's the Greek verb "saroó," a domestic term that serves as an illustration of profound spiritual truths, which appears only three times in the New Testament and always describes the action of sweeping a house. In the first-century, homes were typically small, one-room dwellings with dirt or stone floors, so diligent housecleaning was needed. Brooms were typically made from a bundle of reeds or palm fibers tied together. Jesus' illustration warns against moral reformation that lacks the genuine repentance leading to authentic conversion. His hearers would have easily grasped this distinctive imagery. Never once did Jesus lie to people to make them feel better about their sin, He unapologetically told them the Truth. His message is clear: Repent and be saved or go to Hell. You can't enter into Heaven if your heart remains in Hell.
Verse 26, "Then it goes and takes along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there, and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first." Listen, this might sound strange, but it's better to be immoral than moral without Christ, because moral reformation without true spiritual transformation is a deceptive form of religiosity. It merely creates the illusion of being right with God thereby blocking the path to true redemption. When moral behavior becomes a substitute for a personal, transformative relationship with Christ, you're treading on treacherous ground. A person who dependent his own righteousness, doesn't need a Savior, rendering him unredeemable. Keep in mind, it wasn't the immoral sinners that blasphemed Jesus, it was the self-righteous moral religious.
Jesus' never taught a message of morality, neither can the church. That's never to be our message, religious people that are moral, are self-righteous, confident in their own holiness, they are disillusioned by the fact they believe that they've been delivered from the powers of Satan. If God has not filled that empty void, you're heading for disaster! Peter put it this way, in 2 Peter 2:20-22, "For if they are overcome, having both escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and having again been entangled in them, then the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them. The message of the true proverb has happened to them, "A dog returns to its own vomit," and, "A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire." As pastors, we have been entrusted with the responsibility to produce a congregation that embodies what God requires—love and devotion toward Him, and encourages a genuine affection and compassion toward those who belong to Him, who hate sin, especially their own. One of Hell's favorite lies is "You don't need to change, God loves you just the way you are!"
That brings us to verse 28, where we see His immediate response, "But He said, "On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it." While Jesus' statement might appear contradictory to some, in reality, He is neither contradicting nor affirming what she said, instead, He's subtly correcting what she said just a little bit, saying just because you give honor to Me, just because you pay Me respect, doesn't necessarily mean you're with Me, if you're really with Me, you will do what I say. This is not just some random, isolated teaching from our Lord, He says the same thing in John 14:15, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments." And, in Luke 6:46, He says, "Now why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?" Obedience is a command that is mentioned no less than 15 times throughout the New Testament. Surrendering our will to the Father's will appears more than forty-five times in various forms throughout the New Testament. Since the God's Truth doesn't evolve, it is fixed and unchanging, "progressive Christianity" whether in theology or practice, simply does not exist and is not really Christian at all. Being a true Christian means as James says in 1:22, "But become doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves."
May it be so..
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
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