Posted on 06/25/2016 9:39:43 PM PDT by pastorbillrandles
When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.(Matthew 12:43-45)
In the passage in Matthew, Jesus had come to a cross roads in his ministry to Israel. He and John Baptist had been sent to Israel forty years before the cataclysmic judgment which would allow the Romans to come in and destroy the temple, slaughter more than a million of Jews and glut the world’s slave markets with Jewish captives, spreading them from one end of the globe to the other, as Moses had predicted.
The congregation of Israel were looking to their own leaders, to see what they made of the miracles and teachings of the Rabbi from Nazareth. Israel’s leaders couldn’t deny that Jesus did indeed perform miracles, nor could they successfully refute the teachings of Jesus. Rather than validate Jesus they turned the people away from Jesus by telling them that Jesus did his miracles through the power of Satan.
This was the reason Jesus warned them and the nation of the danger of the sin of “Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit”, a sin for which there can be no forgiveness, not in this life or the life to come.
He also told them the parable of the empty house, swept and garnished. Israel had been nationally cleansed, given Godss law and was allowed to build a Holy House of worship, which God inhabited by His Spirit. This was the glory of Israel, and of Jerusalem, “the city of the great King…beautiful for situation…the joy of the whole earth…the city of our God“.
But when God came to them in the person of Jesus, they rejected him and turned the people away from Him who came to cleanse and save them, by his blood. Thus Jesus wanted Israel of the judgment coming , and of the need to recognize himself as the Messiah, (You shall not see me again until you say,Blessed is He that comes in the name of the LORD!”)
But perhaps the severest words in Matthew 23, were Jesus’ warning to the nation that “Your house is left to you desolate”. The house is empty, devoid of God, and his spirit.
In this parable , Jesus warns that there can be no vacuum in the Spirit. No spiritual house can remain empty for long. After a while it is inevitable that whatever evil spirits inhabited the house before God had come in, would return with a vengeance, should the house be found empty.Seven worse shall come in and the last state shall be worse than the first.
There was a remarkable example of this , on display for all of the world to see, in the dedication in Switzerland of the opening of the recently constructed Gothard base tunnel under the Alps. Every pre-Christian occult symbol imaginable made its appearance in this openly Satanic festival, it was truly unsettling.
A Dutch theologian and philosopher was once asked, “When did Europe begin?” . His answer was “Europe began when the Holy Spirit told Paul to go to Macedonia and Phillipi”. Obviously there was a European continent and there were Roman and Greek influences centuries before, as well as animistic and pagan Celtic and Teutonic tribes with their religions.
But from his perspective, the recognizable Europe that has contributed so much to civilization can be traced to the introduction of Christianity. God came in, through the gospel, and the pagan Gods were suppressed and cast out for the most part.
But Europe has changed, especially in the aftermath of the two World Wars and the horrors of the last century. Though there is avery small remnant of true believers in Jesus, Europe’s house has been left desolate.
The massive Cathedrals bare witness to another time, an Age of faith, a time when the average man no matter how lowly or exalted his life was, thought day and night about salvation and attaining the glory of God. Europe had been Christian.
It is interesting that the accepted name for those more religious and spiritual days has become “The Dark Ages”.
Now those Cathedrals lay empty and in some cases unused for worship. To modern Europeans and Western tourists they are interesting Museums and beautiful examples of Architecture. All over Europe those cathedrals and less expansive houses of worship have been emptying, and re-used for stores, cafes and sadly, Mosques. The house cannot lay empty.
Godless, socialistic European society had created a kind of comfortable order, post World war 2, the towns and cities of Europe charming places to live. Marriage was lessened and so also having children. But European baby boomers could make a kind of secular life, enjoying the comfort of little towns or cities, cafes, theater and a consumer kind of personal peace and affluence, without God.
With womb to tomb promise of care from the all powerful new “god” Government, currently typified in the superstate, the Baby boomers were just settling into retirement and hopefully just watching the sun go down.
One of the meanings of the terror scenes of last September right up till today, in which long lines of angry Muslim men stream in to rape and plunder across Europe, is that the emptiness could not maintain, there can be no spiritual vacuum for long. Seven worse Spirits are coming into Europe and the stage is being set for Europe’s and the world’s final chapter.
The iron is being compromised with clay, Europe is being “mixed” with an element that cannot adhere,(the word in the text in Daniel 2 for ‘mixed ‘is ‘Arav’, Arab) and the Spirit of Anti-Christ is asserting itself in the godless and heartless leadership of Europe, the so-called “Kings of the earth and their rulers”.
These people have no national allegiance, all they truly worship is a “God of forces”, the will to power, and they rely on skillful lies and manipulation of their own people, even going so far as to unleash hordes of savages on peaceful and aging populations of their own people, disregarding the blatant rape, nurder and lawlessness they have unleashed upon them.
Soon they will meet the last great Leader, the new, European Nimrod, the ultimate Beast, the very son of Perdition, whom they will admire and serve, because he “opposes all that is called God or is worshipped, showing himself that he is god…”. He comes in his own name and they will readily greet him, as will all like them who have long been conditioned to have a knee jerk reaction against anything resembling the Truth.
Wow, just discussed the “swept clean” scripture with a church friend minutes ago.
Bookmark the rest. Thank you Pastor R
Good article. We live in interesting times.
Great post - spot on. I lived in Europe for several years. Lovely in so many ways, but yes, secular and even hostile to Jesus Christ. Without God, we are slaves to sin. We don’t want the light to shine, lest our sins be exposed. That is Europe, and sadly, most of America. Today in the USA, True Christians are a small minority. I would say the number is between 5 and 7%.
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