The purpose-built house left vacant now is inhabited by amoral “housemates” who damage it and exhibit perverse behaviour. When they are ejected from the house, onlookers applaud their departure. Not the house on the “Big Brother” television show, but the one spoken of by Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Matthew.
Remarkably, the New Testament does not record a person who, having been set free from an unclean spirit, later asked for forgiveness. It appears that the evil spirits themselves were unclean, rather than those they inhabited. The house itself was not the problem but rather the tenant.
Jesus was referring to the spiritual condition of his people when he said that an unclean spirit, when cast out, seeks to return to its former home. The Lord, who had cast out numerous unclean spirits, prophesied their return in greater force than ever, after learning that their former home was now vacant.
“When the unclean spirit goes out of a man, he walks through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. Then he says, ’I will return to my house, from which I came out.’ And when he comes and finds it empty, swept and decorated, then he goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.”
Jesus then said, “Even so shall it be also to this evil generation.” (Matthew 12:43-45) Luke, who wrote his Gospel to non-Jews, omits this application to the siege and destruction of Jerusalem in AD70, but uses the analogy to illustrate the willfully destructive nature of demons that inhabit people generally.
We’ve all seen “tenants from hell” on the nightly TV news — families that trash rented houses and defy the owners’ increasingly frantic attempts to evict them. After finally being forced out (often while cursing police and neighbours alike) they leave houses in messes that defy description.
Unclean spirits are tenant from hell that corrupt those whom they inhabit, and destroy by their intrinsically filthy nature the lifestyle of those who’ve become homes to them. In commenting on the sad future condition of his generation, Jesus gave us a revealing insight into the nature and behaviour of unclean spirits.
The Lord also made clear how vital it is that after being set free and cleansed from unclean spirits, people should open themselves to The Homeowner from Heaven. The Holy Spirit is the Owner, not the tenant, because the believer’s body is His “temple” (1 Corinthians 3:16).
The “dry places” that the evil spirit “walks through” after being evicted are those experienced by demons of no fixed address — a picture of the unsatisfying, vagrant-like existence that is every demon’s dread. A homeless unclean spirit is a Nightmare on No Street. So, it returns, forlornly, to its former, once familiar home, hoping that reoccupation of its former residence might well be possible.
The unclean spirit finds the house “empty, swept and decorated” — not just vacant but completely “made over”. Such a house is every demon’s desire. It makes it happier than a pig in mud! The possibilities for pollution are endless!
We should remind ourselves that according to Jesus this “house” pictures a formerly filthy but now clean, yet empty, person. There may not be a “VACANT POSSESSION” sign out front, but The Tenant From Hell sees an opportunity to defile what has not only been been emptied and cleaned but also redecorated.
However the unclean spirit, though filthy, is not stupid and knows that the one who evicted it may do so again. So it seeks out “seven other spirits, more evil than itself” (the numeral seven symbolizing completeness). The result: there are now eight “tenants from hell” and the man’s last state is worse than ever! In other words, his life ends up far more trashed than ir was before being scrubbed clean.
Jerusalem was trashed by the Romans in AD70, just 40 years (a biblical generation) after Jesus had warned it would happen. The Roman armies destroyed the Temple (the heart of the Jews’ religion) and as Jesus had prophesied, not one stone was left upon another. One million Jews were put to the sword and 100 000 more were sent into slavery. The writings of Josephus, who witnessed the terrible event, leave us aghast. The awful cruelty! The barbaric ferocity! No wonder Jesus had wept over Jerusalem. The one who would have saved his people had foreseen it all clearly..
But the words of Jesus are a double warning, for what the Roman armies did to Jerusalem, unclean spirits seek to do to societies and to the individual today. They can only succeed if we remain complacent. The spiritual condition of our nation and its people calls for mass evictions of the unclean spirits that possess its institutions and pervade its once hallowed halls of equity and justice.
As for the individual, the rightful Owner and Occupier of the House not only wants it clean but also filled with His holy presence. God bought us with a price: the precious blood of His sinless Son, which makes Him – not the tenant – the Legal Owner.