Matthew 12:43-45
43 ‘When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting-place, but it finds none. 44Then it says, “I will return to my house from which I came.” When it comes, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order. 45Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So will it be also with this evil generation.’
Blog Discussion Question: What is the danger in being a neat-freak when it comes to sin?
"See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are."
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- Pastor Jerry
- Pastor Jerry is the pastor of Willow Creek and Benton Lutheran Churches of rural Dell Rapids, South Dakota.
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Benton Lutheran Church is 2 miles west of Crooks, S.D. We worship every Sunday at 10:45 with Sunday School for ages 3 yrs. through 7th grade at 9:30.
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7 comments:
I am not sure what it has to do with the parable so I am going probably post later today too after some thought, but as far as being a neat-freak when it comes to sin... When you are continually looking for sin and trying to condemn those sins you start looking at others sins and begin to fail to see your own sin. It is similiar to the statement in scripture of seeing the speck in anothers eye and failing to see the plank in your own. Sorry if this is not where you were going Pastor J...I will probably be back later today!
I think that when the evil spirit returned with his buddies, he did not find the house without the owner present, he found it to be not occuppied by the spirit of God. What good is it to clean up our lives without God?
Up to this point in chapter 12 of Matthew, the Pharisees radar was set on "fault finding" the activities of Jesus and His disciples. They were blinded of the good He was doing and the compassion demonstrated. Jesus unloaded when they asked what they thought was an innocuous request, "WE WANT to see a miraculous sign from you". The lecture began to the "wicked and evil generation" making the request. When our hearts and homes become spirit filled, there is no place for evil to take up residence. I think Jesus is telling us to clutter our hearts and homes with Him.
I'll give this a try. You may have cleaned up your life of some bad habit, such as smoking cigarettes, and concentrated on keeping it out of your life. To substitute, you let some other evil spirits move in and you may start drinking, stealing, practicing immoral habits, drugs, etc. You will find yourself in a worse state than at the beginning.
But at least you don't smoke anymore. (Sorry, I don't consider myself very good at interpreting these parables.)
Sparrow, don't feel badly! This parable seems very deep and hard to understand for me too!
Glad to see Sower and the Wagner Family joining us! We'll all struggle together!
We'll have to leave it to Pastor Jerry to "pull us out of this one!"
Thanks for the blogging....by the way....I don't see myself as the final authority. I hope that my comments add to the discussion...not end it.
The reason that I asked the discussion question that I did is that this parable does seem to point out the problem with being a neat freek when it comes to sin...and that is we can never be neat enough. We can never manage mess of this world, and just when we think we have, we will, as this parable tells us, find out that we can't patch all the holes to keep life's messiness out.
Since we can't manage the messiness and chaos of life, where then shall we turn? As the disciples said to Jesus, "Lord to whom shall we go. You have the words of eternal life."
Thanks Pastor Jerry on your insights on this parable! I think it definately helped me!
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