Matthew 12:43-45

Jesus said in the title verses above, "When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to my house from which I came'; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there, and the last state of that man is worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation."

To understand what He meant, we have to understand the entire context. The religious leaders said that Jesus was casting out demons by the power of Beelzebub the prince of demons; in essence Satan (Matthew 12:24). Jesus exposed the foolishness of their logic. He said, "If Satan casts out himself how can his kingdom stand" (Matthew 12:26-27)? In other words, why would anyone fight against themselves? Why would anyone tear themselves down? That is lunacy. The Pharisees' jealousy and hatred of Jesus blinded their reasoning to the degree that they would say anything to discredit Him; not realizing the enormity and danger of their hatred Jesus had to warn them that blaspheming the Holy Spirit would place a person in an unforgivable state with God! You never want to attribute the power of God to that of the devil, ever (Matthew 12:31-32). 

Jesus also made it clear to them that they were against Him because of their adversarial attitude. They were not in support of Him or His ministry. 

Jesus provides two Old Testaments accounts of those who were wise and listened to God's word: the Ninevites during the preaching of Jonah, and the Queen of the south who came from very far to listen to the wisdom of Solomon. Jesus said that both the people of Nineveh and the Queen of the south will rise up in the judgment and condemn His generation because they heeded the Word of God in their day and one greater than Jonah and Solomon was in their midst, namely Jesus Himself (Matthew 12:40-42). 

Finally, Jesus likened His generation to a man who had a demon cast out of him. The demon is looking for an oasis but does not find any. The demon decides to return to the house (i.e. man) that he formerly possessed. The man is cured but apparently has not changed his ways. So the demon returns and brings seven more unclean spirits more wicked than itself and they dwell in that house. The last state of that man is worse than before. Jesus said that is the state of the generation that He lived in. That is also the state of any unrepentant person or generation.

You see Jesus is the light of the world (John 9:5). The light shines on all so that darkness is removed. But when one loves darkness rather than light because of their evil deeds, wickedness will prevail in that person's life (John 3:19). When one is exposed to the true light of Jesus' love and power and decides to reject it, you will be worse off than you were before the light of Jesus came to you. It is as if you were cured of evil by God's power but you remained recalcitrant. Sadly, for a person like that, because you did not put on Jesus Christ (Romans 13:14), you have left yourself wide open for Satan to take control. When the devil returns, he will make sure he will have a greater hold on that rebellious person's life so that they are worse off later than they were before they were exposed to the love and healing power of Jesus Christ.

Two passages all need to take heed to, "Behold NOW (emphasis added) is the acceptable time, behold now is the day of salvation" (2 Corinthians 6:2b).

"Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked me" (Hebrews 3:15).

Can someone sell their soul to the devil?

Many of us have heard tales or read stories of those who supposedly sold their souls to the devil for a life of riches, indulgence, and luxury on earth only to want to renege on their deal with the devil when their life is over. Can one offer their soul to the devil for sale? Let's take a look at some Bible passages to gain some insight into this serious matter.

To my knowledge, the only person the devil approached about selling his soul to him was the Lord Jesus Christ at the temptation described in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The gospel of John does not record the temptation of Christ.

I want to look at the third temptation Satan presented to Jesus. In Matthew 4:8-11 we read, "Again, the devil takes Him up into an exceeding high mountain and shows Him all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory: And says unto Him (Jesus), all these things will I give You, if You will fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said unto him, "Get behind me Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve." 

The devil's wicked proposition obviously did not work with Jesus. The Lord used the greatest weapon at His disposal, the Sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17), the Word of Truth to extinguish Satan's fiery darts (again Ephesians 6:16,17). 

In truth, all those who are not in Christ already belong to the devil - body, soul, and spirit. 1 John 5:19 says the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. Jesus told the religious leaders of His day that they were of their father the devil (John 8:44). So the devil does not have to purchase what already belongs to him. The idea of selling one's soul to the devil is a lie from the devil himself! Remember Jesus also said the devil is a liar. Here is the entire text of John 8:44, "You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own. For he is a liar and the father of it."

To think that you can bargain with the devil is insane. Only a fool would want to do that. Those that are into the worship of the devil as if he is some type of benevolent being are deceived. The devil could never provide true happiness of any kind; not physical, financial or spiritual. He is a doomed, damned soul headed for the eternal lake of fire. He has very little time and he only wants to kill, steal, and destroy; not give anyone the "good life" (John 10:10). Anyone that rejects Jesus Christ serves the devil by default whether they know it or not, or like it or not! Bottom line is that your soul belongs to him unless you genuinely repent of your sins, and place your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then your soul will be snatched from the devil's grip and eternally placed into the loving arms of your Lord, Savior, and Creator.

What if the Bible is not true?

There are many people in this world that deny the truth of God's word. There are many that believe none of it is true. There are others that choose that some accounts are true and that other accounts are not true.  So what does one believe? Just because many people believe the Bible is not true does not invalidate its truth. And just because someone believes something is true when it is not will never make it objectively true.

We have many people today making the declaration that, "Truth is relative. There is no absolute truth!" Those that make that bold unwise claim have not taken the time to consider that that is a self-refuting statement - a strawman. Let me prove what I mean. For one to say that there is no absolute truth is to deny their own statement is absolutely true. Let me explain further: To say there is no absolute truth means that one cannot say there is no absolute truth. To do so is to contradict oneself. 

Wait a minute! What? 

Alright, let me hit it again okay? To say there is no such thing as absolute truth is an absolutely true statement in the sense that the statement was uttered even though the statement itself is not true. 

Uhhh....come again?!

Still confused? I'm still not making sense? Let me break it down.

Its absolutely true the statement there is no absolute truth was made, but the statement, in essence, is a lie. Why? Because two plus two equals four right? That is an absolutely true statement without a doubt.  No one will deny that equation. Let me provide another example of the reality of a statement being true and false at the same time. In Matthew 11:19 we read, "The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, behold a man glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners...

Now it is absolutely true that these accusations were hurled at Jesus, but the part about Him being a glutton and a drunk is not true at all. So truth can never be relative or subjective. Because if they can, then each person can manufacture and concoct any story they want and it would be accepted as truth. Fake news would not be fake news anymore in a truth-is-relative universe. Why? The truth would subjectively be in the eyes of the beholder.

What would be the ramifications of our world and existence if the Bible, God's Word is not true? Absolutely nothing in this world would matter. Absolutely nothing would make sense. We might as well be living in a dream world, a virtual reality like the Matrix. We would not know the difference between reality and fantasy. It would not matter anyway because nothing we experience would be true except in each individual's mind. Oh...wait a minute - If one does not exist you can never have a mind to even think! You wouldn't know if you really existed or not. Your parents would not be your parents. There wouldn't be any such things as parents. There would be no falling in love, sharing a kiss, no sunshine, no moonlight, no holding of hands, walking along the beach. No sweet music, no laughter. No awareness of right and wrong. 

You get the idea. Life, as we know it now, could never exist. 

Yet all these things do exist and so much more because the Bible is a reality and it is true! God's Word explains the meaning of our existence: Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Verse 26 of the same chapter tells us God made man in His own image. It is astounding to me how haters of God and His Word continue to attack that central truth. They rather us believe that a force called evolution caused this vast universe to come into being. Nonsense! Evil men would rather believe an impersonal force created all things instead of a personal being named God so that they do not have to answer to Him. 

An attack on the Bible is a personal attack on Almighty God Himself. He is synonymous with His written word (Psalm 138:2). So if you who are reading this article, or someone you know makes the foolish statement that the Bible is not true should read the aforementioned argument in this brief diatribe. If one believes the Bible is not absolute truth, you have proven that you are utterly deceived. The fact you are reading this article proves the Bible is true. How do I know? Simple, you exist. 

To subscribe to the "truth is relative" lie is a reasoning of deconstruction. Its a house of cards on sinking sand with the wind blowing through them. The result, it is absolutely true that sorry foundation will fall and will be blown away.

Can we lose the assurance of our salvation?

This is a very important question. It is also important the reader understand the entire question. If one is truly saved, they cannot lose their salvation. God is the one that grants salvation to all those who believe, and He is the one that secures salvation forever. The scripture says, "He that began a good work in you will complete until the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6). God is and will always be faithful to His word and to us. From the divine side, God assures and insures our salvation.

But, can we lose the assurance of our salvation? Yes. What does that mean? It means what it says. We lose confidence in the reality that we are saved. What causes this lack of assurance? I would say mainly two things: 1) doubt and 2) sin.

Doubt arises as a result of our lack of knowledge on what the Bible teaches about salvation. When a person's ignorance of the truth of salvation is high, then doubt will also be at a high level. This lack of assurance also produces fear in one's mind and heart. Salvation is still there, but for the one going through the aforementioned trauma, there is no real joy for them.

Sin also will produce a lack of assurance. If one is living in habitual sin, then it is an open door for Satan to interfere and create doubt. That is the time to run to God humbly and repent so you can be restored (1 John 1:9). The Bible commands us to make our calling and election sure (2 Peter 1:10).
That is divine wisdom because we are frail so God provides us with clear instruction on how to have individual assurance. This is what the apostle Peter instructs us to do: "Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue knowledge, and knowledge with self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins (2 Peter 1:5-9).

That is why we are to make our calling and election sure. This is the beauty of the Word of God, it instructs on how we are to obey its commands specifically and then gives us the marching orders to do it - totally and perfectly unambiguous. God's word is totally opposite of the often inept communication we deal with every day. I believe we are in the poorest communication era of all time despite all our fancy overpriced communication technology.

Getting back to the subject at hand, Christians lose the assurance of their salvation every day. So much so that many believe losing their assurance is equal to losing actual salvation and going to hell.
See why it is important to lean on the immutable Word of God and not our own understanding?

Our feelings often betray us. Child of God you cannot allow that to happen. Here is another command of God we must employ: "Do not be conformed to this world (i.e. the world's evil system), but be transformed by the renewing of your mind (emphasis added) that you may prove what is good, acceptable and perfect will of God" (Romans 12:2).

Practical assurance is something we must do. God will not do that for us for He has already provided eternal positional assurance. If one desires a victorious Christian life then you must throw off the distractions that are holding you down - mainly our sin and lack of the knowledge of God's Word. When we have gotten rid of every encumbrance, we can live bold, confident, assured lives in Christ.  Our light will shine before God and men so that they can be drawn by God's power and we can give glory to Him.

Goal Planning or Presumption?

Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit - yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this and that."

                                                                                                                                       -James 4:13-15

I believe it is a fair supposition that most people in the world do not heed the above admonition. Why? Because they presume on their lives - that they are going to be around to fulfill all their dreams and desires. Please do not get me wrong, I realize everyone is not arrogant when it comes to planning their lives for the future and how they desire for it to go, but I am talking about those that believe that just because they "spoke positivity into the universe" that the universe will return that "positivity" back to them. There is no such thing. Others refer to this as good and bad karma; a brainchild of Hindus and Buddhists. 

Anything anybody does whether they realize it or not is 1) a gift from God or 2) an allowance by God. Anything that is good is a gift from above (James 1:17). God provides good gifts to all despite our sinfulness.

So, back to the idea of goals. Goals are good because it allows us to challenge ourselves so we can work hard to meet certain benchmarks we have set for ourselves. It is wise to plan for the future even though we do not know what the future holds. For me personally, the best type of goals are short term goals not long term. The writer James is warning all against arrogance and presumption on our lives because we do not know what the day will bring. That is why he said we should say, "If the Lord wills we will do this or that."  The opposite of that is arrogance which is evil.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

That question irritates me. Why? Because I do not know what is going to happen an hour from now let alone five years! To me, this is boasting even if it is not with malicious intent. God says this type of boasting is evil. So, how would one answer it? I would answer it this way, "Lord willing If I am fortunate to still be around, hopefully, I will be doing..."

For me, that would be the best reply - it submits our wills to the will of the Father. To ignore God in what we do is once again is presumptuous and evil.

For those of you that believe you can of your own corrupt will plan your life are in for a divine reckoning from God. While it is never wrong to plan ahead, it is indeed evil to do so ignoring the Lord in the process. We are not the ones that cause the night and day to come, so who are we to determine how long we are going to be here? If the Lord will we will do this or that.

The sovereignty of God and the sovereignty of Man - A second look.

This subject will always be full of tension. Unfortunately, the tension is usually negative. Why? Because of man's distorted worldview of both matters. That is why I want to analyze it again. You may recall that I wrote an article entitled, "The will of God vs. the will of Man" some time ago. This will be an addendum to that article. This matter is so crucial to the nature of God and man that it deserves more treatment. My goal is to get you closer to the nature of God and the nature of man through this article - to provide Biblical insight so the tension we feel can become a positive instead of a negative. 

Is that possible? Can tension become positive? With clear Biblical explanation, I believe it can.

So, let us start with man since that is who we are. 

God at the beginning of time created man and gave him dominion over everything He created. Man had the absolute power to do anything he wanted within the confines of God's will. In other words. man was the sovereign of the earth. A sovereign is one who has absolute rule, total control. Where man tragically fell was when his sovereignty clashed with Almighty God's authority. We must remember man's rule has limits - meaning we cannot do anything we want without penalty. Our problem is that we do not want limitations. We do not like law and order. Because man is a usurper, he was kicked out of the Garden of Eden. Adam wanted to be like God, in every way. That is the reason he took the devil's lying words over God's and ate the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3:6). The reality was Adam and Eve were already like God. I am not saying they were God or little gods, but they were like God in this sense: They had intelligence; they had a moral compass; they had emotions; they had the ability to make choices and reason; they had the gift of communication and relationship. These are some of the things that made them God-like.  

The scripture said, "let us make man in our image after our likeness (Genesis 1:26). So when we see and relate to one another, we are looking at the made-image of God. Here is our problem: because of sin, God's image - that is mankind is ruined and depraved. Man no longer has the perfect beauty and innocence  he once had. That is why there is an ongoing war between God's will and man's will -  God's rule versus man's rule. Man has forgotten that the earth is the Lord's and the fullness of it (Psalm 24:1). God left man as the manager of His world.  We see that has turned out tragically. 

Now, let us look at the sovereignty of God.

As I have mentioned in the past, God's rule is autonomous - meaning His rule is absolute, no limits. God can do whatever He wants to do. Psalm 115:3 says, "our God is in the heavens. He does whatever He pleases." When God created the heavens and earth, He did not ask for permission from anyone - no one was here! When He decided to create man, He did not need anyone's consent. God always fulfills His own will without apology. Unlike us, God has no authority He is accountable to. God is judgment proof - no one can ever successfully accuse God of evil. 

All the things that God is, man covets in an evil way: that complete dominion and total worship. And because he can never obtain "god-hood", he will forever be in conflict with his Maker, losing every time. 

So, how is the tension resolved between God and man? It starts with correctly recognizing the roles of each which I have explained above. See God is perfect so He does not have to adjust to us - we must submit to His Lordship. We are the offenders in the relationship so it is incumbent upon man to repent and humbly bow before the Lord of all the universe.

When one views the relationship of both the right way, then the tension dynamic is positive - Man understands his role, and he understands God's role. While we can never understand God fully, we can praise Him and trust that He is in control of the circumstances in our lives.

Concluding, our sovereignty is a gift and a trust God has granted. Since time began, man has continually abused that trust. We see that in our government and police forces. Since most men do not fear God, sin has run wild - it is the sovereign the world happily serves. This is an affront to God, and for His holiness' sake He must judge it. Like the devil said in Isaiah 14:14, "I will be like the Most High", man in his heart utters the same blasphemy to his own doom. 

The love God hates

”Love not the world neither the things that are in the world. Anyone that loves the world the love of the Father is not him.” 

                                                                                                                                     

                                                                                             - 2 John 2:15

As believers, it is absolutely imperative that we think as much like God as possible. In order for us to do that, we must know God’s word. As His children, it has to be our lifelong pursuit - the practical pursuit of holiness. Only then will we have the knowledge and awareness to conduct ourselves right in a world gone wrong. 

John commands us not to love the world. What does that mean? Does it mean we hate this current life? That we hate the planet and this creation? Are we to hate people? No. Rather we do not love this evil world system. As a matter of fact, the Bible says that to be friends with the world makes one an enemy of God (James 4:4). 

A terrible position for one to be in.

So, we all have to ask ourselves this question, do we want to be a friend of God or an enemy? Tragically there are many in this world who believe God is their friend when He is, in fact, their enemy.

We cannot be conformed to this world but we must be transformed the Bible tells us by the renewing of our minds so that we can prove what is good, acceptable and perfect will of God (Romans 12:2).  What it boils down to is that we have to get rid of the sin in our lives that is weighing us down like heavy baggage.

Sin is a master deceiver in that it tricks people (if they allow it) into thinking that what they are doing is not bad, but actually virtuous. Really? Absolutely. How do I know? Well, let's take homosexuality for example. There is now at least one commercial where a young girl is crying with joy that she is gay. Now, in the world's eyes that is a reason for celebration, but in the eyes of God that is reason for condemnation. Homosexuality is sin. It is part of this evil worldly system that He hates. People that celebrate the evil in this world loves the world's system. So guess what? You have made yourself an enemy of God. Only a lunatic wants to be an enemy of God Almighty!

In Isaiah 5:20 we read these words, "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter."

And why are thoughts of the world totally upside down?

Jesus Christ speaking to Nicodemus declared these words, "And this is the judgment: light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil" (John 3:19).

This is why Jesus had to come, to bring the light of the gospel of truth so that He could expose the darkness of evil men's hearts, reveal to all their true sinful nature. Give them the ability to repent and believe the gospel truth and be saved.

So we all need to examine ourselves (2 Corinthians 13:5). Are we truly in the faith, or are we deceived? Do we love the world's system of evil? Because if we do, the love of the Father is not in us. Are we living just for the now, or are we laying up treasures in heaven (Matthew 6:19-21)? Hopefully, this article is a good litmus test for all of us to see where our affections lie.

Bottom line, we are NOT to love this world's system, but rather we should have compassion for it, pray for it, and share the truth of the gospel with it.