Luke 11:14-26
Jesus delivered a man from a demon that had kept
him speechless. The demon gone, the man started talking a blue streak, taking
the crowd by complete surprise. 15 But some from the crowd were cynical.
"Black magic," they said. "Some devil trick he's pulled from his
sleeve." 16 Others were skeptical, waiting around for him to prove himself
with a spectacular miracle. 17 Jesus knew what they were thinking and said,
"Any country in civil war for very long is wasted. A constantly squabbling
family falls to pieces. 18 If Satan cancels Satan, is there any Satan left? You
accuse me of ganging up with the Devil, the prince of demons, to cast out
demons, 19 but if you're slinging devil mud at me, calling me a devil who kicks
out devils, doesn't the same mud stick to your own exorcists? 20 But if it's
God's finger I'm pointing that sends the demons on their way, then God's
kingdom is here for sure. 21" When a strong man, armed to the teeth,
stands guard in his front yard, his property is safe and sound. 22 But what if
a stronger man comes along with superior weapons? Then he's beaten at his own
game, the arsenal that gave him such confidence hauled off, and his precious
possessions plundered.
23 "This is war, and there is no neutral ground.
If you're not on my side, you're the enemy; if you're not helping, you're
making things worse. 24" When a corrupting spirit is expelled from
someone, it drifts along through the desert looking for an oasis, some
unsuspecting soul it can bedevil. When it doesn't find anyone, it says, 'I'll
go back to my old haunt.' 25 On return, it finds the person swept and dusted,
but vacant. 26 It then runs out and rounds up seven other spirits dirtier than
itself and they all move in, whooping it up. That person ends up far worse than
if he'd never gotten cleaned up in the first place. "
Food for thought!
When Jesus' enemies were helpless to oppose him by
fair means they resorted to slander. They declared that his power over the
demons was due to the fact that he was in league with the prince of demons.
They attributed his power not to God but to the devil.
This is sad. Calling good as evil; calling Jesus as
agent of the devil. This normally happens when we don't like someone;
everything that person does will look evil to us; it is then that we resort to
slander.
There is nothing so cruel as slander, for it is apt
to stick because the human mind always tends to think the worst and very often
the human ear prefers to hear the derogatory rather than the complimentary
tale. We need not think that we are free of that particular sin. How often do
we tend to think the worst of the people we hate?
THE PERIL OF THE EMPTY SOUL
Here is a grim and terrible story. There was a man
from whom an unclean spirit was expelled. It wandered seeking rest and found
none. It determined to return to the man. It found his soul swept and
garnished--but empty. So the spirit went and collected seven spirits worse than
itself and came back and entered in; and the man's last state was worse than
his first.
(i) Here is the fundamental truth that you cannot
leave the soul empty. It is not enough to banish the evil thoughts and the evil
habits and the old ways and leave the soul empty. An empty soul is a soul in
peril. We've got to fill a man with something. It is not enough to drive out
evil; good must come in.
(ii) The best way to avoid evil is to do good. The
loveliest garden I ever saw was so full of flowers that there was scarcely room
for a weed to grow. In no garden is it enough to uproot weeds; flowers must be
sown and planted until the space is filled. Nowhere is this truer than in the
world of thoughts. Often we may be troubled with wrong thoughts. If we go no further
than to say to ourselves, "I will not think about that," all we do is
fix our thoughts upon it more and more. The cure is to think of something else,
to banish the evil thought by thinking a good thought. We never become good by
not doing things, but by filling life with lovely things.
Phillipians 4:8
Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best
by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable,
authentic, compelling, gracious-- the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the
ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.
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