This morning I was reading Matthew Henry's commentary on Luke 11, specifically verses 24-26. This is the verse that got me: "On return, it [corrupting spirit/Devil] finds the person swept and dusted, but vacant." It broke my heart because it perfectly describes so many of my friends and some family members. They are good people, people I love, but they are vacant. Praying that this passage and commentary below will move you to action and prayer for your own friends and family or simply compel you to go back to the Bible and read what it says for yourself.
LUKE 11:24-26 (TMSG)
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.’
25On return, it finds the person swept and dusted, but vacant. 26It 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.”
Matthew Henry's Commentary:
That there was a vast difference between the devil’s going out by compact and his being cast out by compulsion. Those out of whom Christ cast him he never entered into again, for so was Christ’s charge (Mk. 9:25 ); whereas, if he had gone out, whenever he saw fit he would have made a re-entry, for that is the way of the unclean spirit, when he voluntarily and with design goes out of a man, v. 24-26. The prince of the devils may give leave, nay, may give order, to his forces to retreat, or make a feint, to draw the poor deluded soul into an ambush; but Christ, as he gives a total, so he gives a final, defeat to the enemy. In this part of the argument he has a further intention, which is to represent the state of those who have had fair offers made them,—among whom, and in whom, God has begun to break the devil’s power and overthrow his kingdom,—but they reject his counsel against themselves, and relapse into a state of subjection to Satan. Here we have,
(1.) The condition of a formal hypocrite, his bright side and his dark side. His heart still remains the devil’s house; he calls it his own, and he retains his interest in it; and yet, [1.] The unclean spirit is gone out. He was not driven out by the power of converting grace; there was none of that violence which the kingdom of heaven suffers; but he went out, withdrew for a time, so that the man seemed not to be under the power of Satan as formerly, nor so followed with his temptations. Satan is gone, or has turned himself into an angel of light. [2.] The house is swept from common pollutions, by a forced confession of sin, as Pharaoh’s—a feigned contrition for it, as Ahab’s,—and a partial reformation, as Herod’s. There are those that have escaped the pollutions of the world, and yet are still under the power of the god of this world, 2 Pet. 2:20 . The house is swept, but it is not washed; and Christ hath said, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me; the house must be washed, or it is none of his. Sweeping takes off only the loose dirt, while the sin that besets the sinner, the beloved sin, is untouched. It is swept from the filth that lies open to the eye of the world, but it is not searched and ransacked for secret filthiness, Mt. 23:25 . It is swept, but the leprosy is in the wall, and will be till something more be done. [3.] The house is garnished with common gifts and graces. It is not furnished with any true grace, but garnished with the pictures of all graces. Simon Magus was garnished with faith, Balaam with good desires, Herod with a respect for John, the Pharisees with many external performances. It is garnished, but it is like a potsherd covered with silver dross, it is all paint and varnish, not real, not lasting. The house is garnished, but the property is not altered; it was never surrendered to Christ, nor inhabited by the Spirit. Let us therefore take heed of resting in that which a man may have and yet come short.
No comments:
Post a Comment