00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
Good morning, everyone. Welcome
here to our morning service at Calvary Baptist Church of Trehearne.
And welcome, for those who included us faithfully, to our live stream
all over the world. Lord bless, and please open your
hymnals to number 176. 176, break thou the bread of
life. Number 176. Break all the bread
of life, dear Lord, its breakdown loops beside the
sea. Beyond these sacred beats, I
seek thee, Lord. My spirit pines for thee, O As thou didst bless the bread
by Galilee Then shall our bondage cease, all fetters fall And I
shall find my peace, my all in all Thou art the bread of life,
O Lord, to Thee Thy holy Word, the truth that saveth me Give
me to eat and live with Thee above Teach me to love thy truth
for thou art love. Oh, send thy spirit, Lord, now
unto me, that he may touch my eyes and me Show me the truth concealed within
thy word, and in thy book revealed, I see the Lord. Our Heavenly Father, we are thankful
for Thankful to thee for that bread of life, thy word, which
is available to us. We're thankful for the Holy Spirit
who gives us understanding once we are saved and also works in
the hearts of the lost, convincing them of sin, of judgment, and
of righteousness. We're thankful for thy mercy
and grace toward us. And we pray for each one that's
listening today. Thou knowest the heart of each
one. Pray that each one might desire to know thy peace and
blessing. We do pray for our Zoom meetings
that we have on Fridays that we can be a help there as well.
People would understand the truth and understand the importance
of submitting to the truth. And we continue to pray for our
country of Canada and the great need for souls to be saved. We
do pray that the outs continue to work in the hearts of individuals,
that there might be someone who would want to come and join us
here and learn the work so that they could assist and take over
eventually. We pray for health and strength
to carry on, and we ask that thy will would be accomplished,
that we would be a light and a blessing in this community
and around the world. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. And over to 218. Burden are lifted
at Calvary. Number 218. Days are filled with sorrow and
care Hearts are lonely and queer Burdens are lifted at Calvary
Jesus is very near Burdens are lifted at Calvary Calvary, Calvary
Burdens are lifted at Calvary Jesus is very near Cast your
guilt on Jesus today Leave your worry and fear Burdens are lifted
at Calvary Jesus is very near Burdens are lifted at Calvary
Calvary, Calvary Burdens are lifted at Calvary Jesus is very
near From old souls the Savior can see Every heart they can
see Burdens are lifted at Calvary Jesus is very near Burdens are
lifted at Calvary Calvary Burdens are lifted at Calvary,
Jesus is very near. And over to 225. 225. Blessed assurance. Sorry, 255. 255. Blessed assurance. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine
O'er the fortress of glory divine Hail of salvation, purchase of
God Born of His Spirit, was in His blood This is my story, this
is my song Praising my Savior all the day long This is my story,
this is my song Praising my Savior all the day long Perfect submission,
perfect delight Visions of rapture have burst on my sight Angels
descending bring from above Echoes of mercy, whispers of love This
is my story, this is my song Praising my Savior This is my story, this is my
song Praising my Saviour all the day long Perfect submission,
all is at rest I am my Saviour Watching and waiting, looking
above Filled with His mercies, love of His love This is my story,
this is my song Praising my Saviour all the day long This is my story,
this is my song ♪ Praising my Savior all the day long ♪ Morning. Take your Bibles and turn to
Luke's Gospel account of the Lord Jesus Christ, chapter 11. We're going to be reading there
verses 24 to 26 of that chapter. We'll stand, please, for reading
of God's word, Luke chapter 11, verses 24 to 26. When the unclean spirit is gone
out of a man, he walketh through dry places seeking rest. And
finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I
came out. And when he cometh, he findeth
it swept and garnished. Then goeth he and taketh to him
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. Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful
this morning again that we have thy word, that thou hast been
gracious to us in recording thy word and then preserving it for
us so that we have the truth today. Things that we need to
consider in our own lives as we live in this world that we
might understand the importance of knowing thee as our God and
Savior. Understand as well that there
is an enemy. Satan is trying to keep people
from knowing the truth, trying to interfere in Christians' lives
once we are saved. But we're thankful that thy word
tells us that we have a God who is greater than all and that
we can live victorious lives. We can know thy peace in our
hearts. and we can be a blessing to others as well. So we pray
as we look at these verses today that we would allow thee to be
our teacher, that we would want to know the truth and know thy
peace and blessing in our hearts. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. The title
of the message this morning is Be Careful, Who Cleans Your House? Be careful who cleans your house. And that's very important. Last
week, we looked at the verses from verse 14 on to verse 23,
where Jesus was casting out a devil. And we have noted in the past
that Jesus was faced with people that were possessed of devils
many times through his three and a half years of public ministry. And we've noted that, that for
some reason, we don't know, we're not given the details, but seemed
to be a lot of people in the time that Jesus was on earth
who were possessed with devils. Personally, I still believe that
there are people that are possessed with devils today. I don't believe
that God has called anyone to have a ministry of exorcism,
but I do believe that people can be possessed and that the
way to fix that, to address that, is when the person realizes their
need and turns to God for salvation. Christians cannot be possessed
of the devil. They can be oppressed, but they
cannot be possessed, because the Spirit of God dwells inside
the true child of God. The first thing that we want
to notice in this passage is the nature of the unclean spirit. So we see in verse 24, when the
unclean spirit is gone out of a man, Now, it doesn't tell us
in this context, it doesn't tell us that he is cast out, but it
says that he goes out when the unclean spirit is gone out of
a man. So it would seem by the context
of the verses that we read, that this unclean spirit is just going
to look around somewhere else. And that's the nature we see
here. It says, When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man,
he walketh through dry places, seeking rest. When Jesus cast
out devils, he never left them to just wander around and inflict
their torment on others. He dealt with them in such a
way that they could not be a problem to others. But this unclean spirit,
he tells us here, leaves the man and he's walking through
dry places seeking rest. Now, we don't see these unclean
spirits. The Bible calls them devils at
times. Satan, of course, as we noted
last time, the Jews accused Jesus of working through Beelzebub
in verse 18. Beelzebub was the chief of the
devils, and that makes him Satan. Verse 15 tells us that. So he is the chief of the devils. And under him, the Bible tells
us that when Satan fell, he took one third of the angels with
him. So we don't know how many angels there are. In fact, the
Bible tells us there's an innumerable number of angels. So we don't
know how many there are, but one third of them were cast out
when Satan was cast out. So he has many helpers to do
his evil work in this world. Now, one of the things that we
also understand from the scriptures is that we cannot excuse ourselves
and say, well, the devil made me do it. And we don't walk around
and think that there's a devil behind every door. But we do
need to understand that the devil is busy today. He is at work. When we listen to the news, and
there's an account right now of a young man, 17 years old,
in Ontario, who apparently got a hold of an eight-year-old girl,
and this has happened a couple of weeks ago already, and the
girl went missing from her house, her yard. And they found her,
I believe it was a day later, and the injuries on her, at first
they thought that she had been attacked by an animal. The injuries,
they said, were quite severe on her, and they assumed that
she had been attacked by a wild animal. So the police warned
the families in that community, keep your children indoors or
well supervised, because they thought there was a wild animal
roaming around. And then through testing, they
discovered it was not a wild animal, but it was a person.
So now they had to find the person. And they did. It was a 17-year-old
male that attacked this eight-year-old girl and hurt her severely. And so they're still working
on releasing details on that. But what would cause a 17-year-old
boy to do that to a young girl? There's obviously not a Christian
boy that he would do something like that. Is he possessed? No, I'm not willing to say that.
I don't know the boy. But obviously he is being influenced
by evil things to go and hurt someone else. There's no other
reason why you would go and attack someone and hurt them. So we
know that there is much evil in our world, and that's just
one case of many. where people are being influenced
to do things that are not right. And that's why it's so important
for parents, first of all, to be saved. And then secondly,
to be teaching their children the importance of knowing the
Lord and knowing him personally in their own lives. Because otherwise,
Anybody is capable of doing evil deeds. Not everybody does, not
to that extent at least, but anybody is capable of that. And
the Bible doesn't teach us again to have to walk around on our
tiptoes being fearful that we're going to be possessed, but we
need to understand that there is only two ways to live. One is the right way and one
is the wrong way. The Bible tells us that we're
all born as lost sinners. And as lost sinners, we are influenced
by the devil. And so there are many things
that people do to expose themselves to that. And we have talked about
that in the past. We know that one of the things
that our current government did about 10 years ago is they legalized
marijuana, and marijuana is proved to be a drug that affects the
mental state of the individual. It's worse in that regard than
alcohol is. Alcohol is also a drug that affects
the mental state of a person. But marijuana is worse. And marijuana
is the gateway to harder drugs. And that's the problem. Our government
either doesn't care to know that or knows it and doesn't care
that they are encouraging people to get involved in such things. Now again, everybody needs to
choose for themselves. Nobody is forced to do wrong.
So we need to choose for ourselves what we're going to get involved
in. But again, we don't know how to make wise choices unless
we are, first of all, saved. So again, going back to our text,
we see this unclean spirit who's walking around looking for a
place to rest. And it says in verse 24, finding
none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. So again, this gives me the the
understanding that this devil was not cast out, but chose to
leave for whatever reason. Doesn't tell us the reason, but
he chose to leave. So the Bible is clear that there
is spirit activity taking place in our world. Again, not something
that we need to be frightened of, but we need to understand
it and we need to guard against it. One of the things that, there
are several ways that people open themselves up to this. We
have talked before that rock music is one avenue that the
devil uses to get into people's lives. The musicians, some of
the rock musicians have admitted themselves that when they get
up on the stage, something takes over their bodies. They have
admitted to that. So there is demonic activity
taking place that people open themselves up to, but because
of their ignorance of what's going on, they are not even really
aware of what they're doing. And they think it's fun. When
I was a young person, LSD was a very common drug that people
would get involved in, but it was also a very harmful drug.
And a lot of people were killed through the use of that, and
many others were damaged for life because of that drug and
its effects on a person. But all of those things are ways
that a person opens them up for the devil to come in. The Bible
tells us that we are to be in control of our minds. And when a person takes something
that alters their mind, whether it's alcohol or drugs, They are
no longer in control. They are opening themselves up
for something else to enter in. Now, as I mentioned, we don't
know what was going on in the time of Christ that people were
possessed. They didn't have the drugs that
we have today, but they obviously had hallucinating type of drugs
at that time as well. But what the people were doing
here to open themselves up, we don't know. Bible doesn't tell
us that. But we know in our time, we know
some of the things that open a mind up for the devil to be
able to enter in. And it's important for us to
be aware of that and to stay away from those things. So here it talks about this spirit,
this unclean spirit, and that's what they are. They're unclean,
and it's leaving one person's life. It's not talking about
a physical house. It's using the word house, but
it's speaking of a person. It tells us that in verse 24,
when the unclean spirit has gone out of a man. And then later
on it says, I will return unto my house. So that unclean spirit
takes up residence in this man leaves that man, goes somewhere
else, or is looking for somewhere else, doesn't find anything suitable,
goes back to where it came from. The second thing we want to notice
here is the danger of secular exorcists. The danger of secular exorcists
says in verse 25, and when he cometh, he findeth it swept and
garnished. So again, we note that Jesus
cast out many devils. We notice as well in the book
of Acts that the apostles had the same ability to cast out
devils. The apostle Paul did that. He
addressed people that were possessed with devils as they were following
after him, and he was able to cast them out. Today, as I mentioned,
I don't believe that anybody is given that particular ministry
of going around and casting out devils. I believe that in the
course of any godly church, there might be opportunity to help
someone who is possessed of a devil. But again, that would take discernment
from the Lord to be able to do that, and that we don't just
go around and think that everybody's got a devil. We know that in
the early history of Canada, that the Catholics and the Anglicans
assumed that the natives were possessed and they tried different
ways to purge them of their language and to change them and it was
very ineffective and it was wrong. Yes, the native culture is a
pagan culture, but you don't change it by taking away their
language. Their customs, yes, some of them
need to be addressed, but again, it's through the preaching of
the gospel that you help people to see the importance of right
thinking and right action. So when you have, uh, A person, it tells us here again,
when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. So here
is a man, verse 24, and in verse 25, that the devil has left,
and now he comes back and he finds the place clean, and the
word garnished there means that things are set in order. So this
devil sees inside this person, and he sees that this person
has things set in order. But again, the order is not according
to the word of God. Now there are, as I mentioned,
there are many lost people who live quite decent lives. They're not outgoing and murdering.
They're not stealing. They may swear sometimes, which
is sin as well, but in the eyes of the world, the world would
say, that person lives a pretty clean life. They're not in trouble
with the law, and they get along with other people, and they grow
up, they get married, they have children, and life carries on. So they look like from the outside,
from the secular mindset, they look like things are going pretty
good. They've got their house in order.
But there's something missing. Even though their house may look
like it's in order, it's still unprotected. And that's the problem
that we find here. And that's the problem that we
have in our world today when people go to individuals who
claim to have the power to cast out devils, but they don't. And
they are not able, therefore, to help the person who is in
trouble to get their life in order. The only hope, we've talked
about that many times, we talked about it in Sunday school, the
only real hope that there is for man is to turn to God, be
forgiven, and saved. Otherwise, they're still lost. There are many people who reform
themselves over time. There are people who have had
trouble with alcohol and they're able to get off the bottle. and
they can change their life, but they're still lost. So in the
end, they're still going to hell. And that's the problem. We need
to understand that. A person needs to be more than
just reformed. A person needs to be transformed. And that's something that we
cannot do for ourselves. If you go in your Bibles to Romans
chapter 12, Romans chapter 12, verse 1, the Apostle Paul is
writing there and says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the
mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice,
wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And
be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the
renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and
acceptable and perfect will of God. So I think there are still
toys around today, used to be when our children were young,
and they were called transformers. And someone gave our boys cars
at one time, And those cars, you could flip things on them,
and then they were a person. And that's a transformer. It
changes from one thing to something else. And the Bible tells us
in Romans 12, 2, that we need to be transformed, not conformed,
but transformed. We need to be changed. And how
are we changed? It says, by the renewing of our
minds. So our minds need to be changed
the way that we think needs to change. And that happens when
a person gets saved and as they continue on in their Christian
lives, they're continually transformed. I was saved when I was 20 years
old. That was the beginning of my
transformation. But those people that know me
from when I was 20 till now, they would say that there has
been quite a bit of change that has taken place in my life from
that time. Because the transforming work
that happens in a Christian's life takes place as long as the
person lives. There are still things that need
to change in my life. God knows that better than I
do. But it's important for me to be willing to be changed. And of course, the changes need
to be in accordance with God's word. So the renewing of our
minds is as we are impacted and influenced by the truth that
we change. And so here this unclean spirit
is looking around and looking for a place to rest, doesn't
find a place, goes back where he came from, and finds the place
is clean, and it's set in order. So the person has tried to fix
his life, but he's done it on his own. How do we know that? Well, the third point we have
is an open invitation to destruction, verse 26. Then goeth he, and taketh to him 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." So
there's the problem when a person tries to either clean up his
own life or goes to some other secular source to try to find
help, but doesn't go to the right source, which is God. The only
way to fix the problem stated here is when the person is born
again, when the person is saved. That is what the Bible teaches. Salvation is what changes the
person. If you go in your Bible, it's
2 Corinthians 5. 2 Corinthians chapter 5. And in verse 17 it says, therefore,
if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are
passed away. Behold, all things are become
new. That's what happens when a person
gets saved. As I mentioned, I got saved when
I was 20. I was raised in a home. My parents took us to church
every Sunday, and until I was about 16, I went to church every
Sunday. At that age, I decided I'm done
with church, and I left home, and I didn't want anything to
do with God, and so I went to church occasionally. but not
because I was interested in the truth, but simply because I wanted
to meet with other young people. So I would go to church at times
for that reason. So I knew of God, but I didn't
know him as my God. And when I was 20, that is when
God got through to me and showed me that I needed to repent and
be saved. And when I did that, my life
was changed. And everything that I had been
taught in the past, I needed to now examine all of that in
the light of the truth, which is the word of God. And so as
I began to read my Bible, and I began to realize that there
were things that I had come to believe that were not biblical. So then I had a choice to make.
Is the Bible true? Or is the church true? Now, the
church should be true, but if the church is teaching different
than what the Bible teaches, then it's a choice that has to
be made. Who's right? And the fact is,
the Bible is right. If you have a King James Bible
for the English-speaking world, you have the Word of God. If
you take one of the perversions, and there are many of those,
you do not have the word of God. So you're gonna find things that
disagree with the King James, and you're gonna find things
that are not true. So it's very important to have
the word of God, and that's a discussion for another day, but it is very
important to have the word of God in order to be able to examine
what it is that you believe. Is it right or is it just your
opinion or the opinion of someone else that you have accepted?
So in our text again, this unclean spirit, he goes back to where
he came from and he finds the house is clean, everything is
in order, secularly speaking. So what does he do now? He goes
and he takes seven other spirits more wicked than himself. And again, we see that in the
spirit world, and it is a real part of society, In the spirit
world, there are many devils and there are different rankings.
Some are more wicked than others. That's what it tells us here.
More wicked than himself. So this evil spirit, this unclean
spirit, he wants friends. He wants association. And so
even amongst the angels, they are not independent. The good
angels, they're not independent. They work together. The fallen
angels, they work together as well. The fallen angels have
a goal, and their goal is to keep people from the truth. No
one is born possessed of the devil, but everybody is born
a lost sinner. And so as lost sinners, we get
our influence from the devil through the music and other things
that we involve ourselves in. Some people, as we mentioned
already before, some people open themselves up to being possessed
of the devil. When we were younger, there was
a thing out there called the Ouija board. I don't know if
it's still being used or not, but the Ouija board was a tool
of the devil. And through the use of the Ouija
board, people were opening themselves up to greater influence and possibly
even possession from the devil. And so there are things that
people do that open themselves up. They invite, not that they
say Satan come into my life. Now there are places where people
do worship the devil intentionally, but there are ways that people
open themselves up through ignorance of not being aware of what they're
doing, but it feels good. And so that's why they do it.
And that goes for many activities that the world has out there
that feel good to the flesh, but they're not good for us.
And so it's important for us to understand that. We don't
go by feelings. A Christian doesn't go by feelings. A Christian goes by truth. But
the world goes by feelings. Up until I was 20, as I mentioned,
I decided I'd had enough of church, I didn't like what I saw there,
didn't like what I saw in my family, so I left. But I was
basing my judgment on my feelings, what I thought was right, not
based on truth. And that's the way many people
operate. They just operate on the superficial
level of feelings. This sounds good to me, makes
me feel good, so I'm going to do it. We do that with food. We have different things that
we like. There are things that my wife
likes that I don't eat. There are things that I eat that
she doesn't eat, because we have different things that appeal
to our taste buds. Some of them, my wife will tell
you, that I eat things that are not good for me. They're not
healthy for me. And I don't doubt it that there
are some things that I shouldn't be eating. And I've cut back
on some things because I realize they're not good for me. So that's the way it is with
our taste buds. But it's also the way it is with
other things. There are things that we like,
and there are things that we don't like. And once we get saved,
now we can begin to understand if those things that we like
are good for us or not. And so we need to be saved and
have the Spirit of God dwelling in us to be able to have that
discernment. This person in our text doesn't
have the Spirit of God in him. And so this unclean spirit comes
back to him. And because everything is clean
in this person's life, secularly speaking, He brings seven other
evil spirits with him, more wicked than himself, and they enter
into this person. They take over in this person's
life. Says they dwell there, and the
last state of that man is worse than the first. So the devil,
again, according to the word of God, has no interest in your
well-being, nor in mine. He's not interested in us being
happy. He's interested in destroying
life. That's the purpose of Satan.
That's the purpose of the unclean spirits. They don't care that
you're happy. And so people look for ways to
be happy, again, through drugs and alcohol and rock music and
other things like that, but they're not really happy. If you're into
drinking, you know that if you take your liquor and you drink
it and you feel a little bit better because you're drinking,
but you know that it doesn't last. And if you drink enough
and when you get off of it, you got a headache. And if people
talk too loud and you say, don't talk so loud, it hurts. Why? Because that alcohol is a poison. and it's affecting you in a negative
way. For a while, it makes you feel
good in secular terms, but the after effects are not good. In
fact, even secular society has realized recently that consuming
too much alcohol causes cancer. So now they're warning about
that. And so, They understand that there are dangers to drinking
alcohol, and yet they don't want you to stop drinking because
they make too much money off it. It's all about the money. Same with cigarettes. They don't
really want people to stop smoking because they make a lot of money
off of cigarettes. If they really wanted people
to stop, they would just ban it, period, and that's it. But
then we'd be back into the time of the Prohibition days, and
that was impossible to stop people from bootlegging, and so they
figured the better way is to legalize it. Same thing with
gambling. Gambling used to be a crime,
and they would go after gamblers and shut down gambling houses,
but now the government is in charge of the gambling houses. And so, that's the way the world
deals with sin. They can't stop it, so they legalize
it and they try to make money off it. But a Christian doesn't
need that stuff and finds satisfaction through serving God. That's the
difference. I don't need alcohol in my life.
I don't need to gamble. I can't understand why anybody
would want to work hard for their money and then go and throw it
away in a gambling house. Doesn't make sense to me, but
a lot of people do it. But I don't need that. And I
don't need cigarettes. I don't need drugs. I am on some
medication because of my heart issues, but that's not designed
to put me into an altered state of consciousness. And so there's
a difference. But here, this individual who
is ignorant of the realities of life, and he is open for the
devil to come into his life, and he's even allowing this devil
to bring in seven spirits worse than the first one, and the end
result for this person is that he's in worse shape at the end
than he was before. And that's what happens when
people try to fix their problems without God. their life continues
to go on a downward spiral. They're trapped in ungodly ways,
and the world has no answer for fixing those ungodly ways, and
so things just go from bad to worse. And that's the problem
that many people are facing today. It doesn't mean that they're
possessed, but that's something you can see in society. that people, when they get involved
in things that are not good for them, they need to increase. As I mentioned, marijuana is
a gateway drug to harder drugs. And so the person starts off
with what they call a soft drug, and then they gotta have some
bigger fix over time, and it just gets worse for them instead
of better. And of course, the world doesn't
know how to address that. And so then they make safe injection
sites. And they suggest that a person
can go there and they can safely take a drug that's designed to
kill them. And there's no such a thing as
a safe injection site. It's a deadly thing that the
government is going to answer to God for encouraging people
to stay in their crippled state rather than finding real help.
And that's where the local church is so important. Local church
is designed by God, if it's a true church, to teach the truth, to
help people to see that there is a real answer to the problems
that we face. And that answer is to turn to
God and be forgiven and saved. That's what the Bible teaches.
That's what Jesus told Nicodemus. He must be born again. When a
person is born again, they are changed from the inside out.
The Spirit of God indwells the saved person. and helps that
saved person to begin to understand the word of God and to begin
to build their lives according to the word of God. If you go
in your Bibles to 1 Peter 2. 1 Peter 2 again is addressing born again Christians. And it says there in verse one,
wherefore laying aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisies
and envies and all evil speakings as newborn babes desire the sincere
milk of the word that he may grow thereby. So the Christian,
because the person is saved, Now he needs to understand the
importance of laying aside. So as a Christian, I need to
actively put aside those things that are wrong, those things
that are sin. And so how do I know what is
sin? Well, I know that from the word
of God, not from my own opinions, but from the word of God. The
word of God will tell me what is sin and what is good. And
so malice and guile, those are things that affect our emotions
and we need to get rid of them. Guile is a form of deceit. Hypocrisy is deceit. It's trying
to act like someone that you're not. So as a Christian, I need
to live according to what the word of God says, but it needs
to be real. I can't be a Sunday Christian.
I need to be a seven-day-a-week, 24-hours-a-day Christian, someone
who knows the Lord and who is governed by the word of God. Envying, we know what that is,
and evil speaking, well, there's a lot of that that goes on, and
the Christian needs to get rid of that. And then it says, as
newborn babes, and that's how every Christian starts, desire
the sincere milk of the word that he may grow thereby. So
I need to make the choice as a Christian to read the word
of God, to attend a good church faithfully, to allow the word
of God to affect my life and to change me into what God says
I need to be. And that will happen in a true
Christian's life because we're saved as newborn babes. The Christian is not someone
who is experimenting, but is someone who has come to become
a child of God. So just as in our text, this
man has opened himself up to devils, the Christian opens himself
up or herself up to salvation. The Christian is someone who,
before being saved, understands he's lost, just like I did when
I was 20, realized that I was headed for hell, and didn't want
to go there, and realized there was only one solution, and that
was in turning to God. And that's what I did. So I opened
myself up, I stopped fighting against God, and asked God to
forgive me and to save me. And when I did that, God, in
his mercy and grace, he forgave me and saved me. And his Holy
Spirit came and dwelt inside of me. So I opened myself up
for the Holy Spirit to come in. And since that time, he has been
working in my heart and life to help me to be what I need
to be, to be growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus
Christ. So it's a choice that I made, but having made that
choice to be saved, I can't unmake that choice. I don't want to
unmake that choice, but I can't unmake that choice. Once the
person is saved, the Bible says we have eternal life. We have
everlasting life. The Holy Spirit moves into the
Christian's life and he doesn't leave. I can grieve the Holy
Spirit, I can disregard what the Bible says, and I can hinder
the growth that needs to take place, but I can't kick God out
of my life, and I don't want to do that. The Bible says that
when a person is saved, they are held in the Father's hand.
And so now I'm in that protective hand, and that's why I said before
that a Christian cannot be possessed by the devil. cannot be like
what we're reading here in these verses. So I'm not afraid that
somehow, if I drop my guard, Satan's gonna come in and take
over. He can't do that, because the Spirit of God dwells in my
heart. Now that doesn't mean I can't sin, and I do sin. But the difference is I don't
live in sin. And when I sin, the Holy Spirit
indwelling me shows me that I'm sinning, and helps me to see
the importance of confessing that sin to God and asking for
his forgiveness and then continuing to grow in him. There's not a
person alive that can say they never sin. They're lying if they
say that. But Christians don't live in
sin. And the reason that we don't live in sin is because the Spirit
of God dwells in us. And so he points out what is
right and what is good. And because we are saved, that's
what we want. We want what is right and what
is good. That's what causes a Christian
to want to be in church when the doors are open. It's not
because someone is standing at their door and saying, you better
get to church. It's because the spirit of God inside motivates
that person to want to be in the house of God, learning of
God. That's what motivates the Christian
to read their Bible every day because the Spirit of God dwells
inside them and motivates them to want to read the Word of God.
So in our text, we're dealing with unclean spirits. And the
Christian has the Holy Spirit indwelling him. There's the difference. The unclean spirit makes things
worse. The Holy Spirit indwelling a
Christian's life makes things better. So again, as a Christian,
the Holy Spirit indwells me, but I need to choose whether
I'm going to listen to him. And so it's wise for me to listen
to him. submit to God and to allow Him
to lead and direct me in the choices that I make, and so on. And that's true for every Christian.
There's one Holy Spirit, but just as there's one God, but
He is over all things, and so the Holy Spirit indwells every
true born-again Christian. And He is there to give us the
ability to understand the Word of God properly, and to be able
to apply the Word of God properly to our own hearts and lives.
So there's always the fact that we need to choose. The Christian
needs to choose if he's going to listen to the Word of God
faithfully. The unbeliever is choosing whether
he wants to allow the devil to have more access to him or not.
And the choices that the unbeliever makes, as it tells us here in
this passage, causes things to go from bad to worse. Man is not strong enough to control
the devil. We need God to take control of
our lives so that we can live God honoring lives. If a person
wants to live for himself and allow Satan to have impact in
his life, he doesn't have the ability to say no to Satan. And that's why the alcohol industry
does so well. That's why the cigarette business
does so well. That's why pornography is so
prominent in many people's lives and so on, because lost people
can't say no to the temptation to sin. It's just different sins
that they get involved in. But when a person is saved, now
they can say no to wrong and yes to right. because the Holy
Spirit indwells the Christian's life. So that's the important
thing to understand that lost people are open to being influenced
by unclean spirits. Not all lost people are possessed,
but they are definitely open to be influenced by unclean spirits. When a person gets saved, That
is when the unclean spirit can no longer dwell there, and that
is when the person can begin to enjoy life the way God intended
for them to do. So if you're listening today,
whether here or online, it's important to understand that
the only hope for you is to be born again, to be saved. And
once you're saved, it's important to be in a good church where
you can be fed, where you can be taught, and where you can
grow in the Lord and know His blessing. That's what the Word
of God teaches us, and that is what works. God's way is always
right. It's important for us to submit
to Him and to know His peace and blessing. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly
Father, we're thankful that we have Thy Word. We're thankful
for the truthfulness of Thy Word. And that we can see in our text
that the devil is real, that he has helpers, unclean spirits,
who are looking for a way to keep people from the truth and
to keep people from knowing thy peace and blessing. But we're
thankful that we are not trapped, that a person cannot be saved.
and cannot be set free from the desire of the devil, but we can
be forgiven, and we can know thy peace in our hearts, and
we can make wise choices. And we're thankful for that fact
from thy word that we can be saved, we can know thy peace
in our hearts. So we pray for each one that's
listening today, thou knowest the heart of each one, and we
pray that each one would want to know thy peace and blessing,
who would want to serve Thee faithfully and honor Thee in
their lives. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Careful Who Cleans Your House
Series Luke
unclean spirits still exist today. Many people open themselves up to these unclean spirits.
| Sermon ID | 7142515312452 |
| Duration | 1:01:19 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | Luke 11:24-26 |
| Language | English |
Documents
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.