early conquest of space is probable. Large-scale biological controls are possible. The ability to con trol man’s thoughts with precision is by no means out of the question.” Winston Churchill listened and in his speech that night said, regarding thought control, “ I shall be very content if my task in this world is done before that happens.” He foresaw the Evil Spirit returning to the vacant house with seven more demons! When Jesus uttered this parable, He had just cast out a demon. He believed there was a personal devil and a dark and sinister world under his con trol. He was not merely accepting the demonology of His time. Paul wrote that “we are up against the unseen power that controls this dark world and spiritual agents from the very headquarters of evil” (Phillips). Today we boast, both scientifically and theologically, that we have gotten rid o f de mons. We have swept that superstition out of the house, along with hell and angels and miracles! Dr. Adolf Keller of Switzerland said in effect that the demons we have driven from modern civiliza tion have come back through side doors and back entries. Now we call them complexes and neuroses and psychoses and obsessions, but they’re back! Visit any lunatic asylum and you’ll find them. Their blood-curdling crimes are spread all over our news papers. Their hellish music blares from all direc tions. They look out of the wild eyes of beatniks who keep the world in an agony o f anarchy. We have indeed swept out the house these days. We boast that we have gotten rid of old supersti tions. Even the Ten Commandments have been tossed out the window. I read o f a family out pic nicking near a watermelon patch. When a boy stole a melon from the patch, his mother said, “Don’t do that again; you don’t know what those melons have been sprayed with!” Such a light attitude toward stealing is typical o f how we feel toward all the Commandments. We have also garnished, decorated the house. The demythologizers and existentialists have done their work. We have hung up new pictures all over the place. Here is “ The New Morality” ; yonder is “God Is Dead” and over there we read, “ The Bible is God’s Word only as it speaks to you.” But for all o f this, our hearts are empty because they have not been possessed by Jesus Christ. The tenement lacks a tenant. Too many are depressed and re pressed and suppressed because they have never been wholly possessed by Christ until they are ob sessed with that magnificent obsession of Paul’s,
ministry and church. They said o f our Lord, “He is beside Himself.” They said it o f Paul and they will say it o f us for if they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall call them of His own household? One thinks o f the religious zealot walking down the street wearing a sign that said, “ I’m a Fool for Jesus.” On his back another sign asked, “Whose fool are you?” Professing themselves to be wise, men became fools. A Christian is a fool for Christ’s sake. Either way we are fools. The great need o f the hour is for New Testament fools with their facts on fire! The tragedy of today is empty hearts and churches, swept and garnished but not possessed. Laodicea was swept and garnished, rich, increased with goods and needing nothing but EMPTY be cause Jesus Christ stood knocking outside the door. Anybody could get in but Jesus! One sees a vacant look on so many blank faces in church on Sunday morning, vacant because there are so many empty lives back o f those faces. That is why song leaders work so hard trying to work up a song that isn’t in the heart, why pastors labor to work up a love for souls, for God’s house, for the Bible, for deeper truth, a love that just isn’t there. What is down in the well will come up in the bucket and when nothing comes up in the bucket, there is nothing in the well. No matter how well these empty hearts are swept and garnished, unless Jesus Christ fills the vacuum, they are an invitation to the devil to come in and take over. Take over he will, for the heart will not remain without an occupant. This was the tragedy o f Pharasaism. If ever a religious group was swept and garnished, it was the Pharisees, going to God’s house, reading the Scriptures, praying in public, separated from the world, tithing and seeking to win others. But their empty hearts were never possessed by the Heavenly Guest. There are thousands like them today who join church, clean up their lives, become religious and respectable but it is reformation without re generation. It is the good that is not good enough and our Lord said that our righteousness must ex ceed that of the Pharisees if we are to enter the kingdom. So many people are lost today, not be cause they are too bad but because they are too good. The hardest sinner to convert is a reformed religious sinner, swept and garnished but empty. "V ve tried in vain a thousand ways My fears to quell , my hopes to raise $ But what I need , the Bible says 9 Ms Jesus , only Jesus." “As many as received Him, to them he gave power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His Name.” That is the answer to an empty heart! HE
The only answer to a demon- possed generation is a Christ- obsessed ministry and church.
“ To me to live is Christ.” The only answer to a demon-possessed generation is a Christ-obsessed
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JUNE, 1969
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