When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.
Jesus spoke these words just after healing a demon-possessed man who was blind and unable to speak, when the Pharisees repeated for the second time the accusation that He cast out devils through the prince of the devils. They belong to a plain warning that crediting the work of the Holy Spirit to Satan cuts a person off from the fountain of blessing, for speaking against Jesus without discerning His divine character can still be forgiven, since through the Holy Spirit the person can yet be brought to see error and repent, and whatever sin is repented of and believed is washed away in the blood of Christ, but wilfully rejecting the Spirit and declaring it to be from Satan removes the channel by which God works on the heart to bring repentance and faith, so that when the Spirit is finally rejected there is nothing more God can do for the soul.
The verse pictures an unclean spirit after going out of a man wandering through dry, waterless places seeking rest and finding none, and then desiring to go back to the heart it had left. On returning it finds the heart swept clean and put in order yet empty and unoccupied, because the person broke with Satan for a time and refused to do his work but did not surrender fully to God and invite the heavenly Guest to dwell within. The returning spirit then reenters with seven other spirits more evil than itself, so that temporary freedom from Satanic control ends in regained dominion and a last condition worse and more completely dominated by evil than before. Safety therefore depends on continued surrender to God and communion with Him so the heart is filled with the Holy Spirit, for without that continuing surrender old habits return and the soul is left open to evil.
Merely talking about the Holy Spirit is not enough, since an unguarded person can become a dwelling place for the evil spirit and allow inherited and cultivated evil tendencies to grow, rather than living under the Spirit's influence with a character shaped by God. When Satan is not fully cast out of the mind he stays ready to retake control, so that a person who has been reproved and warned but is not thoroughly converted, established, settled, and fully yielded to the Holy Spirit's guidance still retains an evil presence, and very little can fully bring back former wrong conditions. Freedom is not secured while the soul remains spiritually defiled and Christ does not dwell within, so the inner soul temple must be cleansed of moral and spiritual defilement and false teaching, and one who remains allied with Satan is not free.
Merely emptying the heart and giving up bad habits, a merely negative religion, is not enough and does not truly sanctify. The vacuum must be filled with the love of God and the soul furnished with the graces of the Spirit through connection with God and union with Christ. The heart must be cultivated like a garden whose soil is broken up by the Word of God and sown with seeds of truth, and the life placed in a holy atmosphere as a reservoir of power, for without this the soul remains in a dark, cold, sunless cave of unbelief unable to catch the bright beams of the Sun of Righteousness.
Jesus spoke these words just after healing a demon-possessed man who was blind and unable to speak, when the Pharisees repeated for the second time the accusation that He cast out devils through the prince of the devils. They belong to a plain warning that crediting the work of the Holy Spirit to Satan cuts a person off from the fountain of blessing, for speaking against Jesus without discerning His divine character can still be forgiven, since through the Holy Spirit the person can yet be brought to see error and repent, and whatever sin is repented of and believed is washed away in the blood of Christ, but wilfully rejecting the Spirit and declaring it to be from Satan removes the channel by which God works on the heart to bring repentance and faith, so that when the Spirit is finally rejected there is nothing more God can do for the soul.
The verse pictures an unclean spirit after going out of a man wandering through dry, waterless places seeking rest and finding none, and then desiring to go back to the heart it had left. On returning it finds the heart swept clean and put in order yet empty and unoccupied, because the person broke with Satan for a time and refused to do his work but did not surrender fully to God and invite the heavenly Guest to dwell within. The returning spirit then reenters with seven other spirits more evil than itself, so that temporary freedom from Satanic control ends in regained dominion and a last condition worse and more completely dominated by evil than before. Safety therefore depends on continued surrender to God and communion with Him so the heart is filled with the Holy Spirit, for without that continuing surrender old habits return and the soul is left open to evil.
Merely talking about the Holy Spirit is not enough, since an unguarded person can become a dwelling place for the evil spirit and allow inherited and cultivated evil tendencies to grow, rather than living under the Spirit's influence with a character shaped by God. When Satan is not fully cast out of the mind he stays ready to retake control, so that a person who has been reproved and warned but is not thoroughly converted, established, settled, and fully yielded to the Holy Spirit's guidance still retains an evil presence, and very little can fully bring back former wrong conditions. Freedom is not secured while the soul remains spiritually defiled and Christ does not dwell within, so the inner soul temple must be cleansed of moral and spiritual defilement and false teaching, and one who remains allied with Satan is not free.
Merely emptying the heart and giving up bad habits, a merely negative religion, is not enough and does not truly sanctify. The vacuum must be filled with the love of God and the soul furnished with the graces of the Spirit through connection with God and union with Christ. The heart must be cultivated like a garden whose soil is broken up by the Word of God and sown with seeds of truth, and the life placed in a holy atmosphere as a reservoir of power, for without this the soul remains in a dark, cold, sunless cave of unbelief unable to catch the bright beams of the Sun of Righteousness.