NXR Podcast - THE SERMON - Always Vigilant | When Satan Retreats, He Plans To Return
Aired: 2025-09-29
Duration: 51:09


=== Outward Reform Without Grace (04:20) ===

[00:00:00]  Leave us a five star review on your favorite podcast platform.
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[00:00:27]  Amen.
[00:00:27]  Please stand with me for the reading of God's word.
[00:00:30]  This morning, we continue our series through the Gospel according to Matthew.
[00:00:33]  Our text is Matthew chapter 12, verses 43 through 45.
[00:00:38]  I'll read our text in its entirety.
[00:00:39]  When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say, This is the word of the Lord, at which point I would appreciate very much if you would respond by saying, Thanks be to God.
[00:00:48]  One final time, our text for today is the Gospel according to Matthew chapter 12, verses 43 through 45.
[00:00:54]  The Bible says this When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, It passes through waterless places, seeking rest, but finds none.
[00:01:04]  Then it says, I will return to my house from which I came.
[00:01:09]  And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order.
[00:01:14]  Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself.
[00:01:19]  And they enter and dwell there.
[00:01:21]  And the last state of that person is worse than the first.
[00:01:26]  So also will it be with this evil generation.
[00:01:30]  This is the word of the Lord.
[00:01:33]  All right, please be seated.
[00:01:34]  Let's go ahead and dive in.
[00:01:35]  There's two primary points that I would like for us to see, and then one final application.
[00:01:42]  The two primary points are as follows first, behavioral modification versus inward transformation.
[00:01:50]  It is not enough to merely outwardly reform a man, he must be born again.
[00:01:57]  He must be changed from the inside out.
[00:01:59]  He must actually become, by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, a new creature.
[00:02:05]  In Christ Jesus.
[00:02:07]  Not just new habits, not just living a new life with new behaviors, but he must be a new creature with a new nature.
[00:02:16]  The second point that we'll find in the text is that Satan is relentless.
[00:02:22]  He does not retreat without plans to return.
[00:02:26]  He does not retreat without plans to return.
[00:02:30]  It is not enough to cast out Satan, to reform your life.
[00:02:37]  To send the devils that you personally struggle with on the run for a time.
[00:02:43]  They will return.
[00:02:45]  And if not those particular devils, then new devils will return.
[00:02:49]  And the final state of your life will be worse than the former.
[00:02:55]  So it's not enough simply to resist the devil that he may flee from you for a time, but also to fortify your life, your soul, your heart, your family in such a way that the devil cannot return.
[00:03:09]  And then finally, the application that I'd like to see us understand and correlate from our text today is that there are similarities between Israel at the time of Christ, where he is speaking these things in our text today, and our nation, these United States of America, today.
[00:03:28]  I do believe that there are correlations and similarities, and I'll seek to draw those out.
[00:03:34]  So, beginning with the first point behavioral modification versus inward transformation.
[00:03:38]  I've written the following in your notes.
[00:03:40]  Christ tells us, That the unclean spirit is said to depart.
[00:03:44]  This, at first glance, seems a mercy.
[00:03:48]  Right?
[00:03:48]  This demonic spirit, it's on the run.
[00:03:51]  That's a good thing.
[00:03:52]  But we must observe what follows.
[00:03:55]  Though the house, that is the person, the house be swept clean and set in order, it remains, in this case, empty.
[00:04:04]  Here our Lord teaches that a man may be outwardly reformed, his life morally improved, his habits corrected, and his conscience may be somewhat stirred, yet still he can be void of saving grace.

=== A Shiny Tomb Remains Dead (16:19) ===

[00:04:20]  This is a most dangerous condition, for such a one may presume that he is well, while he is, in truth, Only a cleaner sepulchre, that is a tomb.
[00:04:34]  He's still a tomb, still dead, rotted bones lying inside.
[00:04:39]  The tomb on the outside has merely been bleached, cleaned.
[00:04:43]  He's a shiny tomb.
[00:04:46]  There is no indwelling Christ in this case, no regenerating spirit, no communion with the living God.
[00:04:53]  The heart is swept but not filled.
[00:04:56]  The house is tidy but still vacant.
[00:04:59]  Vacant of the master.
[00:05:03]  This is an analogy, an illustration that Christ Himself uses elsewhere in the gospel narratives when speaking of the Pharisees, when speaking of the lawyers, the scribes, the Jewish religious rulers at that time.
[00:05:18]  He actually calls them sepulchers, he calls them tombs, tombs, graves.
[00:05:25]  And yet, He says that you are whitewashed tombs.
[00:05:29]  If you remember that portion of scripture, what he's essentially saying is that on the outside, you're squeaky clean.
[00:05:37]  On the outside, you're bleached.
[00:05:39]  On the outside, you look tidy, well kept, put in order.
[00:05:44]  But you're still a tomb.
[00:05:46]  On the inside, what truly counts, it's not clean, but rather there is a rotting corpse, dead men's bones.
[00:05:56]  This is the description that Jesus uses for his adversaries, those who opposed his earthly ministry.
[00:06:03]  And now, in our text today, Jesus is saying that their state, it is possible, it can be anyone's state.
[00:06:10]  This is not unique, in other words, just to the Pharisees.
[00:06:14]  So it's not as though there is just an isolated, exclusive class of really, really, really, really bad people.
[00:06:22]  And this could happen to them, but no one else.
[00:06:26]  That's not what Jesus is teaching.
[00:06:29]  Jesus is making it clear that it is the case, it is the state.
[00:06:34]  Of his adversaries, those religious rulers opposing him in his earthly ministry.
[00:06:39]  But it could be the state of anyone.
[00:06:42]  And I think, in a broader sense, and we'll get to this at the end of the sermon as I give an application, in a broader sense, I think that Jesus is saying that this is the state, or it soon will be the state, not merely of the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes and the lawyers, but it will be the state of Israel, the nation, collectively, corporately, as a whole.
[00:07:04]  Where do we get that?
[00:07:05]  Well, we get that from the very last sentence of our text where Jesus says, So also will it be with this evil generation.
[00:07:14]  And I want to be consistent in my hermeneutic.
[00:07:17]  Hermeneutic is simply a word that describes a way of reading, understanding, and interpreting the Bible.
[00:07:26]  And when we think of the Olivet discourse in Matthew chapter 24, later in this gospel narrative, Jesus says, These things will come to pass before.
[00:07:38]  This generation passes.
[00:07:40]  And there, for many of us, you would agree with the interpretation that I've taken to, which is that Jesus is being literal.
[00:07:50]  He's not merely speaking of a generation as a metaphor.
[00:07:55]  He's not just saying, hey, this type of generation will not pass away before these things are fulfilled.
[00:08:02]  That these things, in that case, in Matthew chapter 24, is the destruction of Jerusalem, the tearing down of the temple, that not one stone would be left on another.
[00:08:13]  Jesus says all these things, prophesies these things, predicts these things, and says that they will, in fact, come to pass before the generation that he's speaking to in Matthew chapter 24 before they pass away.
[00:08:27]  And it's not a type of generation.
[00:08:29]  It's not a type of person.
[00:08:31]  Some have interpreted Matthew 24 to mean that, that Jesus is saying, well, there'll always be rebellious people.
[00:08:38]  And these final things at the end of the age, when they're fulfilled, they'll still be that metaphorical generation that Jesus was speaking to in Matthew 24.
[00:08:47]  In the metaphorical sense, there'll always be a generation of rebellious people, even at the end of the age, when these things are fulfilled.
[00:08:56]  But I don't believe that's the proper way of interpreting Matthew 24.
[00:08:59]  I believe that Jesus is, in fact, being literal.
[00:09:02]  He is saying that the temple will be destroyed before that literal physical generation passes away.
[00:09:09]  And that's precisely what happened.
[00:09:11]  Now, to interpret Matthew 24 in any other way robs Jesus of one of the greatest prophecies that he ever gave and that was, in fact, fulfilled.
[00:09:21]  Jesus says, This will happen.
[00:09:24]  It will happen in this timeline.
[00:09:26]  And it did.
[00:09:28]  And I don't want to rob Jesus of one of the clearest and most significant prophecies he ever gave.
[00:09:35]  And a timeline that he gave attached to it, and historically we know it was fulfilled.
[00:09:40]  Titus did, in fact, come and sack Jerusalem and destroy the temple, and it wasn't even metaphorical the language of not one stone of the temple remaining lying on top of another.
[00:09:53]  There was the temple, the stones were inlaid with gold.
[00:09:57]  Instead of merely mortar, there was gold that was containing and keeping each of these stones attached to one another, and the Romans actually came and they took apart every single one of them.
[00:10:08]  Of the temple stones in order to collect the gold.
[00:10:11]  This is an incredible fulfillment of prophecy.
[00:10:15]  And it's one thing to say something will happen, but it's another to say precisely the details of how it will happen.
[00:10:22]  Not just the temple destroyed, but not one stone left on another.
[00:10:26]  For it to happen, not just what you're predicting, but how.
[00:10:30]  So the manner, this is what will happen destruction.
[00:10:35]  This is how it will happen, not a single stone left on another.
[00:10:39]  And this is when it will happen.
[00:10:42]  Before this generation passes away, Jesus predicted all these things, prophesied all these things, and that's precisely what came to pass.
[00:10:51]  Now, being consistent, back to the point, being consistent in our hermeneutic, looking at Matthew 24 and Jesus saying that, now looking at Matthew chapter 12, the latter portion of verse 45, I believe we should take the same interpretation, the same approach.
[00:11:07]  So also will it be with this evil generation.
[00:11:12]  I don't believe that that's a metaphor.
[00:11:14]  I don't believe Jesus is referencing just a A mere type of people, you always have this kind of people.
[00:11:22]  No, I think he's saying this generation in the physical, literal sense, the people that Jesus is speaking to in Matthew chapter 12, he's saying it will be with this generation.
[00:11:33]  So Jesus describes, some would say that our text today is a parable.
[00:11:38]  I don't think so.
[00:11:40]  I think there's a sense in which you can read it like that.
[00:11:42]  There are, you know, general principles certainly that can be gleaned from the example that's given.
[00:11:49]  But I also believe that Jesus is giving some literal demonology.
[00:11:54]  I believe that he's describing what actually happens in a spiritual sense when it comes to spiritual warfare with spiritual adversaries like demonic entities.
[00:12:05]  Jesus is saying that it is quite possible, not just possible, but normative, that when a demonic spirit is cast out of a man, it always intends to return.
[00:12:18]  He can't just let his guard down.
[00:12:20]  He can't say, Phew, that was rough, but we're good now.
[00:12:24]  No, it's not enough to simply be delivered.
[00:12:27]  But then a man must be guarded.
[00:12:31]  Not merely delivered in a one off experience, but then vigilant and guarded from that moment on.
[00:12:39]  Because when Satan retreats, he plans to return.
[00:12:43]  When Satan retreats, he plans to return.
[00:12:47]  So, this is the principle that Jesus is giving.
[00:12:50]  And I also believe that not only is it a principle in a general, broader sense, but it's also, I believe, a literal demonology description of how demonic entities work.
[00:13:02]  How they behave, what strategies they employ.
[00:13:06]  But at the end of our text, as I just referenced earlier, Jesus then applies this principle and this demonology of how demonic spirits work.
[00:13:16]  He applies it not just to a singular individual man who may have been demon possessed for a time, then delivered, but if the house is not filled with the presence of Christ, the demon with seven other friends worse than itself will eventually return.
[00:13:31]  Jesus, at the end of our text, Takes it from just the individual application and he provides a corporate application.
[00:13:39]  And he doesn't just say that it's possible that this principle of demonic activity being delivered, cast out, but then returning, that this could be the case of individuals.
[00:13:49]  He doesn't just say now that it's collective, corporate, that it could be the case of an entire generation, but he actually predicts and prophesies and says that it will.
[00:14:00]  Again, so also will it be with this evil generation.
[00:14:05]  And it was.
[00:14:07]  It was.
[00:14:09]  Look at Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
[00:14:11]  Look at the ministry of Jesus.
[00:14:13]  First and foremost, it's a ministry of proclamation, it's a ministry of preaching.
[00:14:19]  Jesus goes to all these various towns and preaches the gospel of the kingdom.
[00:14:26]  Jesus, the preacher, he preaches.
[00:14:29]  That's first.
[00:14:30]  But beyond that, it's first, but it's not only.
[00:14:34]  Beyond his ministry of preaching, he performs many signs and wonders.
[00:14:39]  He feeds the 4,000, he feeds the 5,000, he walks on water.
[00:14:44]  He also performs many miraculous healings healing the sick, the lame walk, the blind see, the deaf hear, the leper is cleansed of all his infirmities.
[00:14:59]  Jesus even raises the dead.
[00:15:01]  But it's not only that Jesus preaches and then also performs miracles and healings, but lastly, he casts out devils.
[00:15:12]  Jesus cast out devils.
[00:15:15]  And he cast out devils in Israel.
[00:15:19]  And we should pause for just a moment.
[00:15:22]  Think about that for a moment.
[00:15:24]  Think about how many instances there are throughout the four gospel narratives of Jesus in his ministry of exorcism.
[00:15:34]  Israel, in other words, what I'm saying is Israel at the time of Jesus is infested with demons, it's infested with demons.
[00:15:45]  Jesus is casting out a ton of demons all the time because Israel is infested with demons.
[00:15:53]  In fact, not only is there just all these dozens of cases where Jesus is casting out a demon of this guy or that guy, in some of these cases, when he casts out demonic entities with a singular man, the entity is not just one demon, but legions.
[00:16:11]  There's thousands of demons just in one guy.
[00:16:15]  So, Jesus appears in his earthly ministry on the scene in Israel, and there's a ton of people who are sick, a ton of people who are poor and oppressed, a ton of unbelief, a ton of hypocrisy, but also a ton of demons.
[00:16:33]  A ton of demons.
[00:16:34]  And I do believe at the end of our text, essentially what Jesus is saying is this He says, So also will it be with this evil generation.
[00:16:42]  And again, will what be?
[00:16:44]  Well, the principle that he's just espoused, which is.
[00:16:48]  What happens in the case of an individual person when a demonic spirit is cast out, but the house is swept clean and put in order, but not filled?
[00:16:59]  What happens?
[00:17:00]  That demon goes to arid places, waterless places.
[00:17:03]  Eventually, when it finds no rest elsewhere, it says to itself, I will invite seven other friends worse than myself, will return to the original host, and the latter state of that man will be worse than the first.
[00:17:17]  And Jesus says that's what it will be like for this generation in Israel.
[00:17:24]  And so it was.
[00:17:25]  In what sense?
[00:17:27]  Jesus comes on the scene, he casts out all the demons in Israel.
[00:17:31]  I think that's the implication.
[00:17:33]  Jesus is going around town to town to town, systematically, geographically expelling every demon in Israel.
[00:17:45]  But what Jesus tells us at the very end of our text, Is it at least in a broad sense?
[00:17:51]  I'm not saying in every individual case.
[00:17:54]  Certainly, there were disciples who chose to follow Jesus.
[00:17:57]  And in their case, the house, in fact, was filled.
[00:18:01]  And we know that later, with the ministry of the apostles, there were many Gentiles and there were many Jews who believed the gospel and who were indwelt with the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
[00:18:14]  In other words, filled with the ministry of the Holy Spirit, who exudes the ministry of the risen Christ.
[00:18:20]  So there were many Christ filled.
[00:18:22]  Christ filled Gentiles and Jews in Israel.
[00:18:26]  But according to Christ, at the very end of our text today, Matthew 12, verse 45, there were still many who were not.
[00:18:35]  There were many cases in Israel where demonic spirits were cast out by Christ, but the house was never filled.
[00:18:43]  And we know that that was prevalent, that was normative enough to where Jesus felt comfortable.
[00:18:50]  He's Jesus, he never lies.
[00:18:51]  He felt comfortable saying, It will be this way with this evil generation.
[00:18:57]  It will be this way with this evil generation.
[00:19:00]  I am going around, first and foremost, preaching.
[00:19:03]  I am preaching the gospel of the kingdom.
[00:19:06]  Some will believe, many will not.
[00:19:10]  I'm also, in addition to my preaching ministry, performing many signs and wonders, predominantly healings.
[00:19:19]  I'm preaching the gospel, I'm healing the sick, but I'm also, lastly, casting out demons.
[00:19:26]  And Jesus goes town to town, casting out demons, eradicating demons.
[00:19:31]  Israel of its demon infestation.
[00:19:36]  But that same Jesus tells us in our text today that this principle of demons being exercised, but the house being empty but not filled, cleaned, tidied but not filled, that that would, in a general sense, be true of Israel.
[00:19:53]  Not just individual people, but that it has and will have a corporate fulfillment, a corporate collective application in the case of the nation of Israel.
[00:20:05]  Of Israel, and that is what comes to pass.
[00:20:09]  The heart can be swept but not filled, the house can be tidied but yet remain vacant of the Master.
[00:20:20]  When I think of our situation as Christians here in America in 2025, and I think of this principle, what was going on in Israel, what Jesus teaches in our text today, I cannot help but think of Christless conservatism.
[00:20:36]  That's immediately what comes to the forefront of my mind.

=== America Faces Corporate Fulfillment (05:35) ===

[00:20:40]  The idea that you can be radicalized politically, you can be radicalized morally, and you could say, Whoa, we really have a problem.
[00:20:52]  How did we get so far off the rails?
[00:20:54]  How did we allow all this to happen?
[00:20:58]  Right?
[00:20:58]  Turns out my libertarianism from 2016 wasn't enough.
[00:21:04]  Turns out that you actually have to seize power and wield it righteously.
[00:21:11]  What happened?
[00:21:13]  We've got to make some big changes.
[00:21:15]  We've got to do something extreme.
[00:21:19]  Now, not in a vigilante kind of way, but America.
[00:21:23]  We need people to lead.
[00:21:26]  And we need them to lead righteously.
[00:21:28]  We've got to right the ship.
[00:21:30]  We've got to get back on the rails.
[00:21:32]  And I think for a lot of people in America right now, that's what's going through their minds.
[00:21:37]  They're thinking, whoa, America is demon infested.
[00:21:44]  It is.
[00:21:47]  Demon, that's, I mean, that sounds a bit intense.
[00:21:51]  A gay furry is someone who's demon possessed.
[00:21:55]  All right, make it real simple for you.
[00:21:58]  That is demonic oppression.
[00:22:00]  It is.
[00:22:02]  70 million dead babies in their mother's womb in the last 50 years.
[00:22:06]  That's demonic activity.
[00:22:08]  It's not just hashtag the science TM.
[00:22:13]  No, that's spiritual.
[00:22:15]  That is literally spiritual worship of a demon god called Molech.
[00:22:21]  It's spiritual.
[00:22:22]  There's a spiritual element.
[00:22:24]  So, whether it's sexual perversion or whether it's the murder of babies or a host of other wicked activity, it is a spiritual problem.
[00:22:38]  It is.
[00:22:39]  There are demonic entities, there are spiritual enemies alive and well.
[00:22:46]  In these United States.
[00:22:48]  And many people, many conservatives are waking up.
[00:22:51]  And I praise God for that.
[00:22:53]  They're waking up and saying, Whoa, what have we done?
[00:22:57]  How did we get here?
[00:22:59]  We've got to make some changes.
[00:23:02]  And that's great.
[00:23:04]  I think that right now, in the wake of so many things that have happened, so much violent activity, you see every single day on social media the video of this riot, the video of this murder.
[00:23:20]  The video of this assassination, and a lot of people are red pilling and waking up and being radicalized and realizing we've got to get rid of this demon problem.
[00:23:33]  We've got about, I don't know, it seems like half of our population that we can't live with.
[00:23:40]  This is not America in the 1950s anymore.
[00:23:43]  It's not like, well, you know what, we'll have reasonable discourse, and some people think that, you know, you should do this, and some people think that you should do that, and Our disagreements matter, but at the end of the day, we're all fellow Americans.
[00:23:55]  You know, we can reach across the aisle.
[00:23:57]  No, we can't.
[00:24:00]  What fellowship does light have with darkness?
[00:24:03]  What union is there between Christ and Beelzebub?
[00:24:07]  Now, you can't share a country with these people.
[00:24:10]  You can't.
[00:24:12]  You can't share a country with people who hate you and hate your children.
[00:24:16]  You can't share a country with people who record videos laughing with glee, smiling when one of you is murdered.
[00:24:25]  You can't.
[00:24:27]  Well, we just need more reasonable discourse.
[00:24:29]  We had reasonable discourse.
[00:24:30]  We quite literally had reasonable discourse.
[00:24:33]  And as someone was exercising reasonable discourse, he got a bullet in his neck in front of his kids.
[00:24:41]  That America is gone.
[00:24:43]  You need to be aware of that.
[00:24:45]  The country you grew up in does not exist, it's gone.
[00:24:50]  It's gone.
[00:24:51]  You voted it away.
[00:24:55]  You voted it away.
[00:24:57]  You gave it away to foreigners.
[00:25:00]  You gave it away to limitless invasions of immigrants.
[00:25:06]  You gave it away to sexual predators.
[00:25:11]  You gave it away to big government and institutions and the Board of Education.
[00:25:18]  You gave it away.
[00:25:19]  That America does not exist.
[00:25:23]  And the point, as it pertains to our text today, is that many people are coming to this realization.
[00:25:29]  And they're realizing, whoa.
[00:25:31]  We're in big trouble.
[00:25:34]  We are way off the rails.
[00:25:37]  We have deep problems.
[00:25:40]  Deep problems.
[00:25:40]  We need conversion.
[00:25:42]  But America also needs an exorcism.
[00:25:47]  America has a demon problem.
[00:25:50]  That seems like statistically about half the population is worshiping demons.
[00:25:58]  And so we've got to reform, right?
[00:26:02]  We need governmental reform.
[00:26:04]  Political reform, social reform, cultural reform.
[00:26:09]  And we've got to push back against the demons.
[00:26:12]  And, you know, you can think the demons sometimes they make it easy on you.

=== Exorcism Without True Repentance (11:33) ===

[00:26:15]  I mean, right?
[00:26:17]  It's like, that's really hard.
[00:26:17]  How do I identify who worships, you know, false gods and who's completely lost their mind?
[00:26:23]  Well, they have purple hair, right?
[00:26:26]  They have metal bars in their nose.
[00:26:28]  You know, I mean, they make it easy.
[00:26:30]  They make it easy.
[00:26:31]  Might as well just be wearing a shirt that says, I worship Satan.
[00:26:34]  Some of them actually do that too.
[00:26:37]  So they've made it easy on us.
[00:26:39]  You can identify.
[00:26:41]  And yes, we need change.
[00:26:43]  Radical change.
[00:26:45]  Here's the point, though.
[00:26:47]  You can have all that.
[00:26:50]  And then down the line, a couple decades later, America can be filled with seven other demons worse than we are right now.
[00:26:58]  It cannot be Christless conservatism.
[00:27:02]  It can't.
[00:27:03]  It can't just be us from a logical perspective.
[00:27:06]  It is logical, right?
[00:27:07]  Christ is the logos, the logic.
[00:27:09]  Logic is not against.
[00:27:11]  Logic and Christian faith are not at odds with one another.
[00:27:15]  So it is logical, but it cannot be merely logical.
[00:27:19]  You cannot just come to some of these conclusions as a country logically without bowing the knee to King Jesus and inviting him in.
[00:27:29]  Behold, I stand at the door and knock.
[00:27:31]  If any man let me in, I will come and dwell with him, and dine with him, and sup with him.
[00:27:39]  America needs communion with Christ.
[00:27:43]  We need communion with Christ.
[00:27:44]  We need to invite him.
[00:27:46]  Him in, and it can't just be the political logical solutions, it can't.
[00:27:54]  And if you think that there's no way to right the ship or make some reforms, uh, without it being staunchly Christian, I think you're naive, right?
[00:28:08]  Because I have heard so now on the other side of the equation, I have heard people say, Well, you know, um, if things get better, if we make improvements, if we make changes, it's uh.
[00:28:20]  That'll only happen because of devotion to Christ.
[00:28:25]  That's not true.
[00:28:28]  China is a communist atheist state.
[00:28:34]  Now, there are millions of Chinese Christians meeting in underground churches.
[00:28:39]  So, I'm not speaking so much about the Chinese people themselves, but I'm speaking about China's government, right?
[00:28:47]  The CCP, a communist state, an atheist state.
[00:28:53]  The Chinese government does not recognize the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:28:56]  They are not Christian.
[00:28:58]  And yet, even they, apart from any devotion or love for Christ at all, even they recognize oh, you know what?
[00:29:07]  We're about to go extinct.
[00:29:11]  Like, our entire population, like 80% of our population, is elderly.
[00:29:20]  How did that happen?
[00:29:21]  Oh, yeah, we killed all of our babies.
[00:29:24]  That's right.
[00:29:25]  The one child policy.
[00:29:27]  In China, we hated children and we didn't let our people have children.
[00:29:32]  We hunted down children.
[00:29:34]  Now, here's my point China doesn't love Jesus, an atheist government, and yet they're making political reforms.
[00:29:43]  China is actually going to very, very far lengths to say, no more abortion, no more killing children, we need to repopulate, we need to make this change, we need to make this change.
[00:29:56]  There's a lot of political reform.
[00:29:58]  Social reform, cultural reform in China.
[00:30:02]  Because the government there has repented and loves Jesus?
[00:30:06]  No.
[00:30:09]  No, you actually don't have to be a Christian to say no to suicide.
[00:30:15]  There's lots of non Christians that every single day they make it through a full 24 hour day without killing themselves.
[00:30:24]  Oh, they must be Christian.
[00:30:25]  They must love Jesus.
[00:30:26]  No, they're just not ridiculous.
[00:30:30]  You can be a non Christian and still care about self preservation.
[00:30:36]  How do we know?
[00:30:37]  Well, because there have been non Christian societies for thousands of years that still had kids, did basic logical things to not in their society, to continue.
[00:30:49]  Pagans for thousands of years who hated Christ, they still knew hey, we should harvest, we should hunt, we should.
[00:30:59]  Eat food and plan for winters and build shelter.
[00:31:02]  And oh, children are a good thing and not a bad thing.
[00:31:08]  No love for Christ, but a love for self.
[00:31:11]  Just love for self was sufficient at a national level for a society as a whole to preserve.
[00:31:20]  And so, my point is right now in America, it is quite possible that America goes from being suicidal, that the West at large goes from being suicidal to self preserving, and yet in that transition, nowhere along the way do they ever actually repent and love Jesus.
[00:31:38]  That's my point.
[00:31:41]  Countries have done this.
[00:31:42]  Historically, countries have done this.
[00:31:44]  This has happened several times that a nation realizes we're idiots, we are destroying ourselves, we're going to make some radical changes, and they do all of it but skip Christ.
[00:32:03]  And that's entirely possible for us.
[00:32:05]  It is possible that America, over the coming years, undergoes an exorcism, and the demonic furries and blue haired demons.
[00:32:19]  Are pushed out.
[00:32:21]  They're at least no longer prominent.
[00:32:22]  They're no longer given cabinet positions in presidential administrations.
[00:32:28]  They're no longer given speaking tours at Ivory League universities, right?
[00:32:34]  They're cast out.
[00:32:36]  They're at least, you know, pushed to the margins, no longer given prominence, no longer given influence.
[00:32:43]  And we can do all that from the motivation exclusively of self preservation.
[00:32:50]  And yet there'd be.
[00:32:52]  No filling the house.
[00:32:54]  In this sense, the national house, these United States, no filling the house with Christ.
[00:33:02]  That is Christless conservatism.
[00:33:06]  And according to Jesus, and I for one believe Jesus, according to Jesus, the final state will be seven times worse.
[00:33:16]  America has a chance right now to not just embrace political reform.
[00:33:21]  We must do that.
[00:33:22]  Can't be less than that.
[00:33:24]  Social reform.
[00:33:25]  Cultural reform.
[00:33:26]  We must do that.
[00:33:27]  Can't be less than that.
[00:33:28]  But in addition to all that, America has a chance to recognize Christ as King.
[00:33:35]  And to do so publicly, unapologetically, nationally.
[00:33:40]  America has a chance to have national days of repentance and national allegiance pledged to King Jesus.
[00:33:50]  And if we make all the changes, but without that, we will be just like Israel.
[00:33:59]  Notice the point that I'm making is from our text today, what Jesus describes in the individual case of an individual man who was demonically possessed, and then the demons were cast out, but the house, that one singular man, was not filled with communion with the triune God.
[00:34:16]  The demons come back.
[00:34:18]  The point that I'm making, the point that Jesus makes, is that that doesn't just happen at times with individuals, but it could happen, and according to Jesus, it would happen with Israel corporately as a whole.
[00:34:32]  And if it happened with Israel corporately as a whole, that there's a corporate application of this demonic principle, if it could happen with Israel, it can happen with us.
[00:34:44]  It can happen with us.
[00:34:45]  And when I think of the West at large, I feel like in many ways we're already there.
[00:34:50]  In many ways we're already there.
[00:34:51]  What I mean by that is that if you look at our history, there was a time where paganism was quite common for Europeans.
[00:35:05]  But Christ came and he swept the house and he put it in order.
[00:35:12]  And for a thousand years at least, if not longer, Europeans worshiped Christ.
[00:35:20]  They were unapologetically Christian.
[00:35:23]  And we built great cathedrals in his name and did great, incredible exploits in his name.
[00:35:29]  And then we abandoned Christ.
[00:35:33]  In other words, what I'm saying is that historically, in the case of Europeans, you could argue that a lot of these things have already happened.
[00:35:40]  Christ came in and cast out all the demons, cleaned the house, swept it, and put it in order.
[00:35:47]  But then we said, you know what, the house is in order now, and we no longer need Christ.
[00:35:52]  And so we got rid of him.
[00:35:55]  But the demons are still out there in arid places, and they can, in fact, return.
[00:35:59]  And according to Jesus, they will.
[00:36:03]  And with this house now swept clean and put in order, No longer just pagans throwing axes and shooting bows, but no, a house of a former Christendom with all the innovations and the wisdom that came about from a thousand years of Christendom.
[00:36:25]  Now you have an empty house swept clean and put in order that has nuclear access.
[00:36:35]  Demons would love that.
[00:36:38]  Right?
[00:36:39]  They used to have battle axes.
[00:36:42]  Now they have nuclear weapons.
[00:36:45]  We embraced Christ, got all the benefits of Christ, then kicked Christ out.
[00:36:51]  We kicked him out of our schools, we kicked him out of our homes, we kicked him out of our government, we kicked him out of our nation.
[00:36:59]  But we still have all these benefits of all the developments that came about from a people who worshiped Jesus for a thousand years.
[00:37:08]  And now, all those benefits can be taken over not by Jesus, because we sent him packing, but by demons.
[00:37:15]  And it's something to be aware of, something to fear, and something to stand against.
[00:37:24]  Going on in your notes, I've written this Let no one think that Satan retreats from his prey without resolve to return.
[00:37:31]  He is tireless in his malice and relentless in his schemes.
[00:37:35]  The evil spirit, finding no rest, returns to the soul it once occupied, and finding it empty, Brings with him a company more wicked than himself.
[00:37:46]  Thus, the last state becomes worse than the first.

=== Turning From Vice To Virtue (03:31) ===

[00:37:49]  Here, Christ shows us the desperate folly of resting in temporary deliverance without seeking lasting union with himself.
[00:37:59]  It is not enough to expel sin, it must be replaced with righteousness.
[00:38:04]  It is not enough to cast out the devil, the spirit of Christ must dwell within.
[00:38:11]  So, now a personal application.
[00:38:14]  And familial application for your homes, your marriages, your children.
[00:38:19]  It is not enough to merely expel sin, it must be replaced with righteousness.
[00:38:27]  You can't just get rid of bad habits, you must develop spiritual disciplines of righteousness.
[00:38:36]  Repentance is two parts it is to turn from sin and to turn to Christ.
[00:38:46]  A man can hate Christ and still recognize that alcoholism is killing him.
[00:38:53]  It's destroying his health, it's destroying his livelihood, it's destroying all of his relationships, his family.
[00:38:59]  There have been countless cases of people without ever turning to Jesus, still turning from certain vices.
[00:39:10]  You can turn from a vice without turning to Christ.
[00:39:16]  But true repentance is always both, it's not just the first, it's the first and the latter.
[00:39:25]  True Christian repentance is to turn from sin and turn to Christ.
[00:39:31]  And turning to Christ is not just private repentance.
[00:39:34]  Personal emotional affections for Christ turning to Christ is not just turning to Jesus, your boyfriend.
[00:39:41]  Turning to Christ is turning to Jesus, who is King.
[00:39:45]  In other words, turning to Christ is not just turning to Him with heart and soul and affection, but with hands and feet in discipline.
[00:39:54]  When you turn to Christ, you turn to Him in obedience not just love, but obedience.
[00:40:01]  Christ Himself said to His disciples, If you love me, you'll obey me.
[00:40:06]  So, what does repentance look like?
[00:40:08]  It looks like turning from sin and turning to Christ in affection.
[00:40:12]  But if that affection for Christ be true, if you really love Him, you will obey Him.
[00:40:18]  So, all the time and all the habits and all the behaviors and all the rituals devoted to vice, devoted to sin, devoted to those things which destroy are not just translated to private, you know, love, affections, and sweet emotions to Jesus.
[00:40:37]  But no, the things you did that were wicked with your hands and your feet, you are now replacing with new habits, new obedience, practical outward obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ that stems from a love for Christ from the heart.
[00:40:54]  Reject sin, embrace Christ in heart, but if you embrace Him in heart, in love, then that will be manifest, demonstrated in actions with hands and feet in your lives.
[00:41:13]  You want to stop doing destructive habits?
[00:41:16]  Love Jesus, but also obey Jesus.

=== Public Submission And Obedience (04:57) ===

[00:41:21]  That time has to be filled.
[00:41:23]  The time you spent doing things that destroy, that time now has to be filled with things that build up.
[00:41:33]  So, my family, we're going to stop sitting in front of the TV all the time.
[00:41:37]  Great.
[00:41:39]  What are you going to do instead?
[00:41:42]  It's not enough to just stop one thing.
[00:41:45]  You must, by grace, begin another.
[00:41:49]  New and better patterns and habits have to take hold, begin to form.
[00:41:59]  To truly repent is to reject sin and embrace Christ.
[00:42:02]  And to embrace Christ is not just to embrace Him in love from the heart, but obedience from our lives.
[00:42:10]  That's what it means to repent.
[00:42:12]  Revelation chapter 3, verse 19 through 20 says this.
[00:42:16]  As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.
[00:42:20]  Be zealous, therefore, and repent.
[00:42:24]  And I think many in our nation right now are feeling that sense.
[00:42:29]  They're feeling the rebuke.
[00:42:31]  They're realizing, whoa, what have we done?
[00:42:34]  We went way too far.
[00:42:35]  In the name of tolerance, in the name of a pseudo love, we allowed the orcs to come in and run the town.
[00:42:45]  And so many are feeling this sense of zeal.
[00:42:49]  They've been rebuked.
[00:42:50]  They've been chastened.
[00:42:51]  Be zealous, therefore, and repent.
[00:42:54]  And many, I think, right now are willing to do so.
[00:42:57]  That's Revelation chapter 3, verse 19.
[00:42:59]  But now look at verse 20.
[00:43:01]  Here's the next part, and it's vital.
[00:43:04]  Behold, I stand, this is Christ speaking, I stand at the door and knock.
[00:43:11]  If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him and will sup with him, that is, dine, commune with him, and he with me.
[00:43:24]  America cannot merely say no to devils.
[00:43:29]  It must say yes to Jesus.
[00:43:33]  And it must do so not just privately.
[00:43:35]  It's not just, oh, if we can only get, you know, 50% of the nation plus one privately in their hearts and in their families and in their homes.
[00:43:45]  No.
[00:43:46]  No, you embraced the devil publicly.
[00:43:50]  That's the last aspect of repentance that we need to talk about.
[00:43:54]  Last point of the sermon today.
[00:43:57]  Wherever the sin was, that's where the repentance must be.
[00:44:01]  In whichever context you sinned, that's the very same context you must repent.
[00:44:07]  You don't get to sin publicly in front of 330 million people and then repent privately.
[00:44:15]  No.
[00:44:17]  You sin publicly, you repent publicly.
[00:44:21]  You embrace Beelzebub as a nation publicly, then you must reject him and embrace Jesus publicly.
[00:44:29]  These United States, yes, we need solid Christian families at an individual level.
[00:44:35]  Heart level.
[00:44:36]  Yes, not arguing for anything less than that.
[00:44:39]  We also need politically and nationally for our leaders to come out in front of everyone on national television and say, We reject the demons.
[00:44:51]  We reject the demons.
[00:44:54]  No more Islamic invasion.
[00:44:57]  No more literal demon statues in Houston, Texas, 90 feet tall.
[00:45:02]  No more demonic gay furries.
[00:45:05]  No more demonic Antifa, no more demonic Zionism, all the demons, all of them, we reject them all and we publicly, politically, and nationally declare Jesus Christ Lord of these United States and we pledge our allegiance to him.
[00:45:24]  If that doesn't happen, then you can get radicalized and motivated for two weeks, maybe if you're really, really, really, really motivated, two years from watching Charlie Kirk.
[00:45:38]  And seeing what happened from watching this event and watching that event.
[00:45:44]  But all it'll ever be at the end of the day is demons going out into waterless places and coming back with seven more worse than themselves.
[00:45:55]  America is a house.
[00:45:59]  And the house is filled with demons.
[00:46:01]  They must be expelled, the house must be cleaned, but it also must be filled.
[00:46:07]  It must be filled with the Spirit of God.
[00:46:10]  And that doesn't get to happen privately, where people get to keep their dignity and never have to really admit how bad they messed up.

=== Fill The House With Spirit (04:50) ===

[00:46:18]  No.
[00:46:19]  You messed up publicly.
[00:46:22]  So now you submit to Jesus publicly.
[00:46:26]  You locked the whole country in their homes.
[00:46:31]  You forced children to have an untested foreign substance injected in their arms just to be able to go to school.
[00:46:42]  You burnt down cities.
[00:46:45]  Because a thug overdosed on fentanyl.
[00:46:53]  You used technology and Discord servers to orchestrate political assassinations.
[00:47:03]  No, you don't get to quietly back away.
[00:47:08]  No.
[00:47:11]  You did it all publicly.
[00:47:15]  So now you have to repent of it all publicly.
[00:47:19]  And you must pledge allegiance to Christ.
[00:47:22]  Publicly.
[00:47:23]  Until that happens, America is cooked.
[00:47:27]  And you just need to be aware.
[00:47:29]  We've got some momentum right now.
[00:47:33]  That's good.
[00:47:34]  We can celebrate.
[00:47:35]  I'm not saying you're not allowed to ever celebrate anything.
[00:47:38]  That's good.
[00:47:40]  But I'm just telling you ultimately what has to happen.
[00:47:44]  Right?
[00:47:45]  Apart from what we're seeing in our text today, apart from that, apart from public repentance, public exorcism of all the demons, And then public allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ coming to fill the house of these United States.
[00:47:58]  Apart from that, it would be like a cancer patient having a good day.
[00:48:04]  There's some good days.
[00:48:06]  Got a little bit of appetite back, a little bit of strength.
[00:48:11]  And you and your spouse and your children, you can celebrate that.
[00:48:14]  I'm not giving anybody a heart.
[00:48:15]  That's great.
[00:48:18]  Dad's having a good day.
[00:48:19]  Mom's having a good day.
[00:48:20]  This is awesome.
[00:48:21]  We're going to go for a walk in the park.
[00:48:23]  Praise God.
[00:48:23]  We thank you for this blessing.
[00:48:25]  But know that ultimately, The cancer's not done.
[00:48:30]  It's not done until you go back to the doctor, you get all the x rays, and you find out that it's all been removed.
[00:48:39]  It has to be removed.
[00:48:41]  A little bit of cultural momentum, even a lot of it of cultural or political momentum, is good.
[00:48:48]  Not telling you to black pill and be a pessimist all the time.
[00:48:51]  Celebrate it.
[00:48:52]  But don't celebrate in such a way that you forget the ultimate solution.
[00:48:57]  That's my concern as a pastor.
[00:49:00]  I want you to celebrate whatever God might be doing, but I don't want you to celebrate it in a way that's naive.
[00:49:05]  To where you're like, hey, the symptoms have lessened, and so I'm going to celebrate the symptoms lessening at the expense or to the degree that I no longer think that we actually have cancer at all.
[00:49:20]  I'm going to embrace self delusion and I'm going to celebrate the lessening symptoms to the extent that I'm going to start saying, you know what?
[00:49:30]  Peace, peace.
[00:49:32]  When there is no peace, we're cured when we're not cured.
[00:49:40]  America loves Jesus when they don't love Jesus.
[00:49:47]  We've got Muslims preaching and praying at the RNC.
[00:49:53]  But no, America doesn't love Jesus.
[00:49:56]  We're not even close, guys.
[00:49:58]  Not even close.
[00:50:00]  So celebrate the victories.
[00:50:03]  Praise God for the victories.
[00:50:05]  Do not despair.
[00:50:07]  One of the most frequent commands that Jesus gives over and over throughout the gospel narratives is this do not fear.
[00:50:14]  So I'm not advocating for fear.
[00:50:16]  I'm advocating for sobriety.
[00:50:19]  Be watchful, be sober minded, be honest about the true depth of the problem.
[00:50:23]  And you can do all that by the grace of God without being given to despair, without being given to fear.
[00:50:29]  You're allowed to celebrate the victories as they come.
[00:50:32]  But know in your heart of hearts that the solution, we're not even close.
[00:50:38]  There's a lot more work to be done.
[00:50:40]  Remain vigilant.
[00:50:43]  Start at home.
[00:50:45]  Start in your marriage.
[00:50:47]  Start with your children.
[00:50:49]  Get rid of the vices, but fill that space with virtue.
[00:50:56]  That's what we need to do.
[00:50:59]  That's what we need to do.
[00:51:00]  Let's pray.
[00:51:01]  Father, thank you for your word.
[00:51:02]  Bless it to your people and bring about for yourself great, great glory.
[00:51:07]  We ask this in Jesus' name.
[00:51:09]  Amen.