Teachings of Jesus

Jesus made many warnings against hypocrisy, wealth, unbelief, legalism, etc., but the one teaching from today's reading that was unclear to me, was the one from Luke 11:24-26. "When an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert, searching for rest. But when it finds none, it says 'I will return to the person I came from'. So it returns and finds that it's former home is swept and in good order. Then the spirit finds seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they all enter the person and live there. And the person is worse off than before".

For the life of me, I could not figure out what spiritual truth this story was meant to convey. I read Dr. Constable's notes on soniclight.com and found great clarity. The point is that when someone removes the bad (demons) without replacing it with good (God), the void leaves room for the worst. In the story, after the demon has been cast out, the home is swept and in good order. This sounds like a positive thing, but the connotation is that it is uninhabited. Therefore the spirit returns and brings seven others, thereby making the person worse off than before.

Though we do not often cast out demons in our modern world, the application remains. Whenever any stronghold is lifted in a person's life; whether addictions or mental illness or physical/emotional/sexual abuse, etc., a dangerous void is created that needs to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Though it is vital to the work of the Lord to rid society of these social evils, we cannot stop there. We must ensure that in our efforts to "help", we do not inadvertently create greater problems by "casting out a demon" and leaving no One to take it's place.

Tomorrow's reading: Luke 12:35-13:21; John 9:1-41