Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

I’m glad that you’re able to join us today as we are on the second week on our series on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.

As I mentioned to you last week, approaching the end of Matthew 12 as part of our expository sermons, God has given us an interesting few passages that helps lay certain foundations that serve as a good transition into our topical series on the Spiritual Gifts.

And the passage before us today deals with a subject so big, that a detailed study would probably take us weeks.

Instead, what I am going to try and do is to overview it as best I can in two sermons, one today and one next week, so that we have a sufficient grasp on this subject as we move ahead.

Today, we are going to talk about the world of the miraculous.

Matthew 12:43–45 (ESV)

43 “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none.

44 Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’

And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order.

45 Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first.

So also will it be with this evil generation.”

Exegesis

Unclean Spirit

What is an unclean spirit?

It’s a demon, a spirit that is in league with Satan.

But then, what is a spirit?

When we as Christians consider the world of the supernatural, we are either too presumptious or too uncomfortable.

And so, in our study of Spiritual Gifts, we will have to navigate between these two sentiments.

On one side, we will see many who love this topic and have many opinion on the spiritual world, whereas on the other side, we will have many who are wary of the topic, and would rather stick to the more rational or tangible aspects of the Christian faith.

Both are a danger and a sin in their own rights.

Here’s what you must understand.

As a Christian, there is no escaping the supernatural and the spiritual.

It is not merely a part of our worldview or belief, it is the central part.

How can you understand these verses if you don’t have some grasp of the spiritual nature of things?

At the same time, it does not help to speculate.

There is no denying the fact that there are many false teachers who lead many astray in this regard.

Our only source of understanding the world of the miraculous is to go to Scripture, not by soaking in the spiritual mysticism of the popular charismatic world.

Releasing our mind to enter in to some trance, and inviting spiritual forces to lead us in a mindless pursuit of God, is evil.

When Jesus appear to John in the spiritual realm, even there he asked him to write things down.

It wasn’t a mindless pursuit of extasy, it was mindful and thoughtful.

A spirit, or a spiritual being, is a living being in that it has a conscience, a will, a personality.

But they are immaterial beings in that they are not made up of matter like we are.

So, they don’t possess physical bodies like we do.

Now, don’t get me wrong , that doesn’t mean they’re less than we are, it is quite the opposite.

During the transfiguration, we read in Matthew 17:2

Or even when Jesus ascended, that he was taken up bodily into heaven.

Although there are many unanswered questions, about this spiritual world, one thing is certain, that world is not a lesser world, it is greater.

So, maybe when considering the material world we live in and the immaterial world of spiritual beings, we should think of them as being of a different type, rather than a simplistic view of ‘body here’ and ‘no body there’.

We know that angels have spiritual bodies, often expressed as having six wings and so on, and we also know that spiritual beings can inhabit or even take the form of physical bodies like we have.

Now amongst this so called spiritual beings, we have those whose allegiance is to the Living God, and those whose allegiance is to Satan, what we typically distinguish as angels and demons.

Now, in our passage here, the evil spirit or the demon is called an ‘unclean spirit’.

They are impure spirits or unholy spirits, that are hostile to God and evil in every sense.

They are by nature totally and utterly depraved, eternally.

it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none

And the state of their existence is made aware here by Christ, when he says that they pass through waterless places seeking rest.

Throughout the Bible waterless places and deserts were used as examples of a place devoid of God’s blessing, a dry and weary land.

And so it is the life of demons as they traverse through dry and weary lands, which is a picture of thirst and hunger though spiritual beings have no need for food or water like humans do.

It is a picutre of being impoverished - a horrible existence.

Now, look at what they are seeking.

For rest.

There is no peace in their lives, and they yearn for it.

They seek it but they find none.

One of the main reasons that we have a difficult time understanding or believing the spiritual world is because we confuse the immaterial with the imaginary.

Whenever we consider a world beyond the material world we live in, we use our imagination.

And we’ve all had our fair share of imaginary friends, and some of you still might.

But sanity demands that we understand the imaginary to be ‘not real’.

So, the material and imaginary world are real and fiction respectively.

This is what we are used to.

However, not all imagination is fiction.

In fact, I believe that the human imagination is a great faculty of the human mind that God has gifted us with, that we can contemplate of things beyond our physical senses.

We use our imagination to picutre realities that we haven’t experienced with our senses.

That doesn’t make those realities an illusion.

Beloved, the spiritual world is not an imaginary world or an illusion, and to comprehend this world we don’t depend on our imagination, we look to God’s word.

Our imagination is merely a tool here, that helps us ponder on what these spiritual realities might be.

Therefore, we need a new category other than material and imaginary.

We need to believe in a real and powerful world of the spiritual.

Then it says

So we see here that it can reason and think - a conscience.

I will return to my house from which I came

Whether the demon is presumptious here or not, one thing is for certain, it believes that the man it inhabited belongs to him.

There is a degree of possessiveness and ownership we see displayed here.

So having roamed about and found no rest, it then seeks to return to the man it inhabited.

Why is that?

What rest is there in man that it could not find anywhere else?

We know from many passages that demons prefer to indwell human bodies, or even animal bodies.

As John MacArthur points out, perhaps demons feel most at home in a human being, because it is through human beings that Satan and his demons can most successfully work their evil and oppose God.

That in their endless misery, the only pleasure they can find is to manifest their evil upon our world by influencing, indwelling and inflicting man.

Now, we read something interesting.

And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order.

Everything about the state of this man’s life (the house) seems to be antithetical to the nature of the demon.

A miserable, impure and evil wandering spirit would not have kept the house swept and in order.

We all know that the state of our rooms are a good picture of the state of our minds.

When we have guests coming around, we rush to tidy everything up so that we can welcome them to a clean, homely and safe environment.

And so it is with our minds.

When we are on our own or with our own family, we let our thoughts and impulses, our words and actions languish as though there is no high standard of character we must keep.

Yet, when someone knocks on the door, we cast some spell and behold, everything is in order and we are on our toes in the best of behaviour.

This is no different whether you’re a believer or unbeliever.

So, it was with this man.

Though he’d tidied everything up and kept everything in order in his heart, in life and action, we read that he was still empty.

Now, for whatever reason the demon had to go out of the man in the first place, it was coming back with reinforcements.

Many people, whether by fear or social and cultural pressure, are able to push themselves to a certain moral standard.

Maybe such a reform, possibly pushed the demon out.

Or, maybe it was the work of God throught the prayer or work of a believer who prayed over this man and the demon was cast out.

Regardless, upon its return, the demon finding the man empty, goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there.

The number seven here is probably a symbol of completion (like the order creation and Sabbath).

So the demon possession of the man is now complete, which means that earlier it wasn’t as bad or as strong a demonic intrusion maybe.

And so now, the state of the man is worse than the first.

There is no question about the fact that this is not fiction or illusion.

This is as real as real can get.