All right, thank you. I started working on this message
several weeks ago. And actually, I had finished
preparing to preach some time ago. And just when it came time, it didn't
hit, it didn't strike me. I didn't feel comfortable bringing
it, impressed by it. That's not to say that it's not
vitally important. It's in the scripture. And it must have been with me,
my understanding of it, or lack of understanding. Completely reworked it started
over again and. One thing that struck me and
we've already read this and you see that this is the whole portion
we read is concerning devil. And it's amazing to me how much
this has been coming up in our studies in the past long time. Has that struck you? We're going through the revelation,
which is just permeated with false religion and dealing with
Satan and so forth. And if anything, this is important
to us to study. Because I think we are seeing
clearly that Satan's chief work is in religion. We're seeing
that. And here we'll see this very
clearly in Luke chapter 11, all right? We're going to see the
difference in a Well, we'll see the difference in true salvation.
Salvation is off the Lord. And just reformation. Reformation. Or I've entitled this message
cast out or gone out. Cast out, devils cast out or All right, look at verse fourteen. He was casting out a devil, and
it was dumb. It was dumb. Now, and when he
cast it out, it says the devil's gone out, the dumb spake, and
that is the man spoke, and the people wondered. Every man, by nature, is a devil. It's in us. The son of, or under
the influence of, do you know that, naturally speaking? Paul
talked about that to Timothy. He said that we need to be recovered
from the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him
at his will. You remember when our Lord said
to some, you're of your father's the debtor. And until God adopts
us, gives us new birth, we've got the propensity or the ability
in us to be another Charles Manson or whatever. That's right. And every man or woman by nature
is dumb. I don't talk about dumb here. Dumb means speechless. Over in
another account, I believe it's Matthew's account, yeah, Matthew's
account of this, it says that the man was deaf and dumb. Because generally those who can't
speak, why? Why can't they speak? Can't hear. Right? So the two go together. You'll rarely find someone who
cannot speak who can hear. They usually go together. And over there, Matthew said
that he was deaf. and dumb, or he had a speech
impediment. Have you ever heard someone try
to speak who is deaf? And they have an impediment.
It's not very clear and plain at all. And this is the case
with all who are born who haven't heard the word of God. They haven't heard the Word of
God. We're talking about being thankful a while ago. Men are
dumb in that respect, aren't they? They don't give thanks
to God. They're dumb. Their mouths are dumb. They cannot
speak praise, cannot speak thanksgiving. It's just not in them. Why? They
haven't heard it. Or at least they are willing
to ignore it. And the speech impediment. Everyone who has not heard the
truth of the gospel has a speech impediment, and it's generally
always like this. I. Me. My. I. I. Are you saying? Yeah, I. Speech impediments. I, me, my, I think. I think. God says, I believe, I
accept Jesus, I love Jesus, my faith, my work, isn't it? That's a speech impediment. That's a serious problem because
they haven't heard the salvation of the Lord yet. But when God
sends the Word, like this man, Christ is the Word, is he not?
Christ must come and Cast out that devil. What's the devil
that we're all full of? The one that reigns supreme in
every man and woman's heart. Self. Self. That big God Self. And when Christ
comes out, he casts out that devil. where you hate yourself. Formerly you loved yourself,
now you hate yourself. And the dumb speaks. When Christ
comes and opens the ear to the Word of, the dumb speak. What's
the first thing out of their mind? The wondrous works of God. God. Who saved you? Christ. What's
your hope ahead? Christ. Christ, Christ, Christ dominates
the speech. Speech becomes seasoned with
grace, not I, I, me, and myself. With grace, grace, grace, grace,
grace. Now the speech is in order. Now you're talking right. Now
the tongue is doing what God intended for it to do. When grace, so that is God's
grace, rolls off the tongue, the tongue is being used rightly.
Well, it says that people wondered. When they heard this fellow speak,
they wondered. And folks now wonder about us, too, if that's
all we can say. I think we have a speech today,
but now don't you, Martha? Is that all you can talk about?
Seems like every time I hear you all, when you say something
about elections, yeah, you're wonderful. Seems like every time
you open your mouth, it's something about sovereignty. Every time
you open your mouth, you say, Christ, Christ, Christ. That's
right. They wondered that. Well, verses
15 and 16, some of them say, well, he cast out devils through
Beelzebub, the chief of devils. And I don't know if you've ever
had this told to you, but I have. They call this, and this is how
they refer to it, that election, that old election stuff and predestination
stuff, that's doctrine of devils. That's what they call it, doctrine of
devils. Yeah, he cast out devils by Beelzebub. Well, the Lord's going to deal
with that. He's going to deal with them
on this. And he spends the next sixteen
or more verses Not just the ones we read, but all the way through
here, dealing with these two things. They said he cast out
devils by Satan, the chief of devils, in verse 16. Others tempted
him, tested him, sought a sign out of him. A sign. Casting out devils and signs.
That's Abilene. And the Lord's going to spend
the rest of Well, a great deal of this chapter is dealing with
these two things. But tonight, we're just going
to look down to verse 26. All right, look at verse 17 and
18. He, knowing their thoughts, said
unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to
desolation. The house divided against the
house fallen. Is that the Virginia State motto?
I think it is. It's a Kentucky statement. Don't
any of you good Virginians know your state motto? I think it's on the flag, is
it not? United we stand, divided we fall.
It's a paraphrase of that. That's Kentucky's state motto. Well, that's where it came from,
right here. A perversion of this. That doesn't
have anything to do with the United States or whatever. All right, read on, verses 17. A house divided against the house
falls. If Satan also be divided against himself, how shall his
kingdom stand? Because you say that I cast out
devils through Beelzebub. All right? All right, he's saying
here that Satan is not divided. Satan is not fighting Satan.
Not at all. His kingdom won't stand if it's
divided. And that does hold true for any,
anything. If there's division, it won't
last, whatever it may be. Kingdoms, homes, whatever. But in religion now, you know,
we're talking about spiritual things. The kingdom of Satan. What is the kingdom of Satan? Prince, the power of the air,
the rulers of the spiritual wickedness and high places, and the kingdom
of this world. He's called the God of this world. Is he not? We've seen in Revelation
how that he was sent here to this earth, and he has a little
season here. He has a kingdom here. This is
his kingdom. Right? That's what we've been
seeing. All right. What does he use to keep his
kingdom together? How does he keep his kingdom
together? People being divided against
each other, huh? Let's not fight, let's love,
let's love one another, let's love. Oh, let's not fight. I know we've got different faces,
but let's join together. Let's unite. Right, Henry? Why
are you smiling? It's so true, isn't it? It's
so plain to us that it's comical. One-world religion. You know,
there's a one-world religion. People, fundamentalists, are
all up in the air about this New Age religion. It's called
about one-world order. There always has been one-world
order. And there is. There always has been one-world
order. This whole world, life and wickedness,
John says, one-world order. That order. There's always been
just two religions. Truth. And this one world religion, that
which Satan is behind, is a religion of unity. And we're seeing this
more and more today. Unity. Isn't there a great worldwide
cry now? You ever heard the big word ecumenical?
Ecumenicalism, that's a big word that means let's join together. Let's compromise for the sake
of unity. All the different, you've heard
this, has different fates. Well, you'll drive down the road,
if you drive down, I think it's 122, you'll see a place down
there that says Lutheran Presbyterian, Lutheran Presbyterian Memphis. You know, if you trace those
back to where they started, John Calvin going to get with John
Wesley? Uh-uh, I don't think so. I don't
think so. And all in all, John Knox will
have anything to do with Catholicism. Well, they're united now. They sure enough are. Church
of England united with Roman Catholicism. They signed the
pact. Lutheranism and Hescapianism
united races signed the pact. They're all signing up. Giant
enough? What about you Shadrach? Meshach? Abednego? No? Are you a rebel? And Satan's not divisive. False
gospel cries for unity. And they're willing to compromise
anything and everything for the sake of unity. All right? True
religion. Turn with me to Matthew 10. True
religion is divisive. Matthew chapter 10. True religion
is divisive. It's violence. You know that? Our Lord has said it. It's not
my thoughts. It's not John Knox's thoughts.
It's Jesus Christ's thoughts. True religion, he says, brings
a sword and absolutely divides a son. Look at Matthew 10, verse
34. I've never heard this quoted
in my generation. Never, ever. Not once. Think
not that I have come to send peace on earth, I have come,
I came not to send peace, but a sword. He came to make
peace, Barbara, for his people, didn't he? By the sacrifice himself,
by shedding of his blood, to obtain peace for them by the
blood of his cross, but not send peace on the earth. He came to
make war. Look at it. Verse 35, I've come
to set a man at variance. That means to divide a man against
his father. Well, who ever heard of such
a thing? Lord, you mean you want a man
to hate his father? He said that, didn't he? Didn't he say that very word?
Didn't he? Did a man turn to him in hate?
Not his father, his mother, his son, his daughter, husband, wife,
and his own life also. He cannot be like that. When
you say that Steve, you've read it. Oh, he doesn't mean that.
Well, it sure appears that way to the world, I mean. love him
so much that you're not willing to accept or compromise anybody,
not even flesh and blood. You make no exception to flesh
and blood. They'll think you hate them. Well, Bert read on.
A daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her
mother-in-law, a man's foes should be those of his own household.
Now what is it that divides us? What is the divisive factor here?
What was it the Lord said I've come to bring that's going to
divide? You just read it. Sword. You ought to know that. A sword. That's what divides. Sword. Sword of truth, which
divides asunder flesh and blood relatives. The joints even, those
that seem vitally connected by genes and so forth, just splits
them right down the middle. Especially this sword, this word,
divides God's elect from the world at large. And the sword is the truth, the
sword of truth, the sword of God's word. Didn't he say the word of God
is quick, powerful, sharp as a two-edged sword? He's got my
word like a fire and a hammer. All those things that are so...
A fire. A fire is a raging, is a consuming
thing. There's nothing... A gentle award. A fire, boy, when it goes through,
it just consumes everything that's passing. So does the Word of
God. It just burns up all man's notions about God and himself
and religion and all that. It just burns it up. The ashes
start all over again. A hammer, bam, bam, just bust
that hard, hard rock, hard brain to pieces, you know, just crush
it, break, break, break, break, break into it and crumble it. The smithers, where does that
verse talk about smithers? Oh, crushing the smithers. Well,
and a sword. Back in the day, we don't know
anything about swords today because nobody uses them. That's all
the way they used to fight back in the old days of, you know,
William Wallace, Scotland, places like that. Boy, it was no romantic
thing. It was headsail, arms, legs,
I mean, written, seated, hideous thing. Just cut and sundered. Something beautiful and lovely
and romantic about that isn't it? These are the words, the
word of God. And these preachers talk about, well, I'll get in there and then I'll
sneak the truth up on. How are you going to sneak a
sword up on somebody? Huh? How are you going to sneak
a sword up on somebody? How are you going to hit somebody
over the head with a sword real gently like that? To where they'll
accept it. To where they'll disrespect it.
So that's good. Those are compromisers. People that say that. They haven't
felt the sword themselves. But you see what I'm saying?
The sword, what our Lord says, divide us under. Come back to
the text. Satan's kingdom is not divided. Satan's kingdom is not divided.
If you'll closely look at all the religions of this world,
you'll see a common bond. And that's what they're appealing
to now, aren't they? Sure are. I was telling Who was
I speaking to today about the oath? Somebody. That miserable piece of wrinkled
flesh called a poke over there is going to die real soon. He's
just right on the verge. I saw him on TV the other day.
He was literally drooling on his mouth, slurring his speech.
He couldn't hardly keep his head propped up. People were hanging
on his every word, millions of people. He's going to die soon, and it's
going to be really interesting to see who ends that candle. The world is going to need that. I guarantee every major Protestant
leader, so-called Protestant leader, church, so-called church
leader is going to need that. They're not divided. They're
not divided as a common bond. We love God. We love one another.
Isn't that it? Isn't that what the Lord says
is the fulfillment of the law? He says to his people. But they're very united. Psalm
2 says how united they are. Psalm 2 says they're united. All the people are gathered together.
Both the people and the heathen are gathered together against
the Lord and against his anointing. Now look at this, verse 19. The
Lord asked this question, verse 19. He said, If I, by Beelzebub,
if I, by Satan, cast out devils, as you say, my, by whom your sons cast them
out. Now do you understand what he's
saying here? He said, now no one could find
fault with Christ. They tried to. Satan tried. Satan's ministers, all the most
wicked, vile lawyers, doctors, pharisees, sages, scribes, that
all, every one of them kept asking him questions, trying to tempt
him, trying to catch him in a word, find some fault in him. When
it was finally over, they had to drum up some false witnesses,
and even they didn't agree. And Pilate knew he stood to solve
it all. He said, I don't find any fault
in him. They could find no fault in him.
Even one of the Pharisees was forced to say, no man can do
what you do except God be with you. We know your man comes from
God. We all know it. All the Pharisees
know it. They just don't like it. So you
see what he's saying here? If I now, holy, spotless, pure,
Good, righteous, perfect, holy Son of God, cast out devils.
By Satan, who in the world are you? What about your sons? Sons of
Seba. Incidentally, there were seven of them, weren't there?
Not by coincidence. Seven of them. I started to sit
down and name seven of them today. It wasn't worth the time. You
know some of them, don't you? Like Jim Bakker, he backed Benny Hinn, Robert Shuler, on
and on, you could name 70 times 70, 700, 700, 700. What about
these sons of Siba? But if I now, he said, verse
20, if I with the finger of God, now the word finger there is
the Spirit of God. That's what it reads in another passage.
If I, with the finger of the Spirit of God, cast out devils,
no doubt the kingdom of God has come upon you, if I'm really
casting out devils. Now, you remember the Sons of
Seba, don't you? I love that story. I wish that
happened today. You remember those fellows? The
Sons of Seba were casting out devils, and one of those demons
turned to them and said, You know, I guess they were devil
bashing like these fellas do today. And one of them finally
turned on us and said, now, Jesus we know, and Paul we know. Just who are you? And says, Steve,
they went running out of there naked. He churched their pants
down. And they went running out naked,
all seven of them. Oh, I wish that happened on National
Television. But they just say, they just attributed it to the
Spirit. They really got the Spirit now, the women that really think
so. And our Lord's saying, this is
what He's saying here, He's mocking them, He's taunting them, He
says, and the fire is casting out death. What about your sons,
your wicked, evil, rotten sons? Now they are obviously of the
devil. People knew it, and they knew it. But if I cast out devils,
and I, by the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit of God, cast
out devils, the kingdom of God is right here, isn't it? Right
here. Now, the Lord's going to tell
us in these next few verses how salvation is accomplished. And
it's going to put to rest all this doctrine of devils. You
know what doctrine of devils is? John, it's easy belief. It's Decisional Regeneration.
That's Doctrine of Devils, Ed, Decisional Regeneration. Doctrine
of Devils is making salvation some little easy, simple decision
by a man, when our Lord says, here's what it's going to take
to cast the devil out. This is what it's going to take to save
a man. A mighty act of the Son of God,
of Christ, by His almighty power, conquering our foe. It's like
a roaring lion. A mighty act of the Son of God,
the only one who's mightier than the one who has us captive. Only
one. And He's going to have to do
it by Himself. It's no cooperative effort. We're captive. We're
in prison. We're bound by sin, Satan himself. It's going to take a mighty conqueror
to come in, like Lazarus and Lucy. You see, we're taken, listen
to this, here's what's different. It's salvation and reformation.
Well, true salvation. We're taken captive by Satan's
will. We're going to have to be saved
by God's will. See that? Right there, salvation. And man makes it a little decision
of man's will. All right, let's look at it.
Now, here's what he said. Now, look, see if you can't,
can't spot this here. Verse twenty-one, when a strong
man, now he's talking about Satan, when a strong man armed keepeth
his palace, his goods are in Strong man, Satan is strong. As we say, a roaring lion. Stronger
than any man, he was obviously stronger than the first man,
Adam. What? More subtle? Paul said, I fear that Satan
is subtle to deceive you. He's armed. What's he armed with?
Ephesians 6 tells us, wild devil. fiery dark, wild deceptions. He's crafty. He's been working
against human nature for thousands of years. Charles, he's an expert
at it. He's an expert at human nature. It says he keeps his palace,
as we noted. He's the god of this world. I
love John Bunyan's book, Holy War. If you want some good reading,
if you'll just take the time to read it carefully, it's wonderful. But that whole book is about
the conquering of the town of man and soul, and the way that Diabolus, or
the devil, conquers that town. There's two main gates into the
town, ear gate and eye gate. And the way he conquers that
is not through threats and fear and all that, but by wiles and
craftiness and trickery, he disguises himself, he makes himself very And so it says, when they saw
it looked good, it's pleasing to the eye. And they heard he sounded good
and all that. And he offered all kinds of dainties and all
that tasted good. It says they just opened the
eye again. Opened the ear again. And he
just came on in. And they set him up, and he set
up his kingdom right in the middle of town, on the throne in the
middle of town. Where's that? On the heart. All right? First thing he did
was command them to shut the gates. Shut the gates. He took Mr. Recorder, which was
a conscience. of the town of Mansoul, a fellow
kept saying, It's not right. It's not right. It's not right.
Obey God. He said, Put him in a dark room. So nobody, put him
in a soundproof room so nobody can hear him. He shut him up. And every other faculty of man
just made the town, all right, Immanuel. God's son. I'm not careful. I don't want to preach bad. But it's good preaching. But
the king, you see, this was his town. Mansoul belonged to him. The king was determined to have
it. And he gave it to his son, Emmanuel, the prince. He gave it to him to come and
conquer, to take back for the king, for the glory of the king,
and to set himself up on the throne in the middle of town,
Mansoul. You know how he had to do it? He didn't come to the ear gate
and plead, and ask, and beg, and entice, and make offers of
reward and all. You know what he had to do? He
took a huge battering ram. Boom! Went and knocked those
gates down. They didn't want him in there.
The diabolists in the center of town said, there's your enemy,
there's your enemy, don't let him in. He's coming in. Make a long story short, he came
in. He had to force escape now. Violence. Took captive, took back captive.
He led captivity captive. And that's the story, remember,
when I tell you about Emmanuel walking down the streets of Mansoul
after he had redeemed and set them free. You remember? Says
all the people were so happy, happy. They didn't even know
they were captive before. till they began to be put under
bondage by Satan and all that. And then when Emmanuel set them
free and began walking down through that town, they were all so happy
and so glad, and they liked the sight of his love, the looks
of his way, the walk, the way he talked, so they all got in
line and tried to step into his stead. Where am I? In Luke 11. Peace, peace, peace, when there
is no peace. And isn't this the cry? Isn't
this the universal cry of all preachers that, is it not, love,
love, peace, peace? There's no peace. God is angry
with the world every day. If you'll think closely now,
if you'll stop and consider, you won't hear words like this
anymore. They misconstrue and take out
of context verses like a perfect love can't sit out fear. You won't hear words like that.
Fear, bow, repent. You won't even hear that
anymore. Repent. Sin. Let's not talk about that. Love, peace, peace. Satan wants
you to be at peace with yourself, with the world, with one another.
He'll write up a peace agreement and have you take it to God.
It always begins with an I. Well, Christ, you know what Christ
does for His people? He puts a rope around their neck.
And sends them to the king crying, mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy, God
be merciful. And so a man under Satan's power
is in peace. This is what the Lord is saying
here. All right, let me hurry. A man under Satan's power is
in peace. The religious people that you
work with, do they seem to be having any problems? Huh? I mean, really, do they? Do they seem to struggle with
sin like you struggle with sin? Huh? I'm talking about religious
people. Do you have them, Steve, on preacher's air? Do they seem
to struggle with sin or have any problems? There's a psalm
that says, because they have no changes, therefore they fear
not God. I wish I'd have written that
down. A psalm says that because they have no changes, In other
words, they're always saying, everything's okay, it's always
all right. Life's good, the Lord's blessing me. Oh, he may have
left you alone, like we're going to see in a minute. Man, no change is going to occur
before they don't fear God. Believers do, they're up, down,
up, down, up, down, they're down in the dust, dirty, sinful, and
so they fear God. Okay. And when a stronger than he,
this is what's going to take, this is what's going to take,
a stronger than he shall come upon him and overcome him, overcome
him. Salvation is for the Lord Jesus
Christ to come upon us and overcome us. Yes, it is. What does it
say about Jacob? What happened to Jacob happened
to every son of Jacob. There's a man that wrestles with
him. You remember that? You ever wrestle?
You know, the hardest thing I've ever done is wrestle. You ever wrestle? I mean, back
when I played football, they made us wrestle, and that's the
most... Andrew, your hair hurts after
you get finished. You're not smiling, your body's
not bruised. Especially, I weigh about 120
pounds. And wrestling with 180. Wrestling,
you know. And that wrestling match, that
man. People talk about Jesus knocking on hearts door. Well,
if that be the case, you'll be in the back. That heart's
going to break. Jacob limped from that day forward.
And when you limp, you're kind of hovered over, aren't you?
He was bowed, is what he was, Barbara. He was bowed from that
day forward. He was never restrained. Because
a man rests, laying hold on you. You ever want to do that to your
children? That's what God does to His children.
Pays hold on, wrestles with them, wrestles down to the ground.
Say, Uncle! Ever had that happen to you?
How many times? Both of my big brothers. It's
the biggest part of my adolescence. Underneath my bigger brother.
Say, Uncle! Am I stronger than pigs? Just
ask who that may be. There's only one stronger than
Satan, only one. And just like old Jacob, the
Lord comes and wrestles with his people, lays hold of us.
Yes. And it says that Jacob wrestled
with him, too, didn't he? I love what Jacob said. I won't
let you go until you bless me. So he did. What'd he do? He gave
him a limp. Blessing? He crippled him. He didn't heal him, he crippled
him. Boy, that's confusing to the world, isn't it? Well, so
it is with all the sons of Jacob. The Lord never saves anyone against
their will. People say this, the Lord never
saves anyone against their will. Don't they? That's what they
say. When the fact is, the Lord saves
everybody He does save, He saves against their will. He comes upon us, overcomes us,
wrestles with us, subdues us. What's it take to tame a wild-ass
colt? It must be ridden, right? A bit in the mouth, saddle on
the back and cinch it up. They just don't like that. They
just don't like that. They buck and kick and fight.
They don't like that. They cinch them up harder. and tie them up and get on their
back and ride until they come out. And then you ease a bit. Push the girdle. Now, you gonna cooperate? Uncle. Then it gets easy. Lord saves
everyone against their will, takes things away from us. That's
what he said here. Look at verse 22. Took all his
armor, wherein he trusted. Satan and the sinner here are
synonymous. He took all his armor, wherein
he trusted. What's that? Breastplate of self-righteousness. Breastplate of self-righteousness. Got to break the heart. To get
to the heart, you got to take away that covering. Helmet of personal opinion. Helmet of knowledge. Got to break
it. He got to absolutely split that helmet. Divides his foils. And again,
Christ divides. See that? He divides. Satan's
subjects. He divides men. Draws a line
in the sand. Satan spoils me and me. Now let's
hurry, verse 23. He that is not with me is against
me. Who's he talking about? He's
talking about Satan and those who work for him. He
that gathereth not with me scattereth. And oh my, there's so much here. Right after this, our Lord said
in Matthew's account, he said, All manner of sin and blasphemy
shall be forgiven men, but sin against the Holy Spirit. This
is in that context. And so what he's saying here
is that whoever and whatever is not completely 100% for, for
the glory of, in the name of attributing all,
everything to Christ and Christ alone. No matter what it says, Jesus,
whatever, is against me. It's anti-Christ. Did you get
that? Let me repeat it. He that is
not with me is against me. Everything is preached is not
absolutely 100% for the glory of Christ, giving him all the
praise, all the credit, attributing all of salvation, I mean, from
start to altar and the finisher. Righteousness imputed and imparted. If it's not all 100% Christ,
he's in it. And if he does not gather, That is,
if he is not pointing men to Christ and Christ alone, if he's not, if his disciples
or whoever's listening to him do not go away looking to Christ
and Christ alone, he's scattering. He's not a shepherd. Now do you
see what that means? And Satan is so wily, so crafty,
that he can scatter in such a way that you think
he's gathering. Well, he'll go door to door,
compass fee and land to scatter. He's not only gathering, he's
scattering. Does that make sense, Brother
John? That's what he said. All right, let me close with
these three verses. And our Lord gives the difference
between reformation And salvation right here, these three verses.
Bear with me. He said, now, when the unclean
spirit has gone out of a man. He walked through dry places. When the unclean spirit goes
out. Do you see the difference, Brother Stan, in that verse?
The unclean spirit goes out in verse 14. It says he was casting
out. But there's a difference. But
there's a difference between salvation and mere decisional
regeneration or reformation or turn over a new leaf or getting
religion. Right there it is to you. Salvation comes when the
Lord Jesus Christ casts out difference. Merely getting religion is when
it just goes out. He leaves you alone. And what this is, look at it,
it says he goes out, he walked through dry places seeking rest
and finding none. Spirit goes out. This is a former
sinner, wild man made, all manner of vices, corrupt. Satan leaves
him alone, withholds temptations from him. Withholds all temptations
from him. And since the man has no temptations,
he thinks, hey. And I'm saved. Right? I have no more desire for rejection. I must be saved. I don't have
any real desire for Christ, but I must be saved. I don't feel,
I threw away my cool. I must be safe. No, I'm just
there to look at it. He said that the unclean spirit
said, I'll return unto my house, which I came out. He just decided
to go out. Leave him in, you know, leave
him alone a while. And when he comes, what's he
find? He finds it swept and garnished. Oh boy, all the vices are gone,
swept and garnished. Now it's decorated. It's got
pictures of Jesus all over the place. Crossed with statues and
statues and got away with his TV and radio and all that. Now the place is really adorned
religiously. All right, now look at verse
26. Here's what happened. Then go with thee, this unclean
spirit, and take it to him seven other spirits more wicked than
himself. This, he was an unclean spirit.
The man was a, just lived like a devil. He was unclean. He lived like a devil. And he
left, cleaned up, swept, garnished, decorated. Unclean spirit comes
back, brings seven other spirits, different kind of spirits, different
kind of demons, and they come more wicked than himself. What
could be more wicked than a drunk? A fellow who says, I ain't liquor,
never touch my alcohol. That's worse. That's worse. Seven other spirits
like self-righteousness. Oh, he's a evil fellow. Pride. Mr. Pride, really, he
comes in, boy. Boldness, haughtiness, they're
more than seven. Blasphemy. In the name of God,
when they're in truth, blaspheme in God. Blasphemy. Guile. hypocrisy,
self-love, a form of godliness, and all in all. And it says,
at the end of that man, the last day of that man is worse than
the first. Worse than the first. And there's
another passage of Scripture that says, if the light that is in you be
darkness, oh, how great is the darkness. I think that's just
I believe it is. If the light was in you, it would
be darkness. Oh, how great is that darkness. Yeah, that's it. And the man that just merely
gets religion, and you run into him all the time. And now God saved some of them. Such were some of you. Such were some of you, but God. He can cast out seven devils. He sure can. That's Mary Magdalene. Seven
devils. And what's it going to take to
save a human being? An act of violence by the Son
of God on a soul, a pounded man's soul. All right, I hope that's been
of some benefit to you. It's difficult to deal with,
but I hope you got something to come back with. If we didn't,
it's our fault. All right, let's think. Just understanding others, and
we do not need to do that. We are always here. We are here. We would be glad to know our friends. We would be glad to know our
friends. We would be glad to know our friends. We would be glad to know our friends. We would be glad
to know our friends. We would be glad to know our friends. We would be glad to know our friends.
We would be glad to know our friends. We would be glad to know our friends.
We would be glad to know our friends. We would be glad to know our friends. We would be glad
to know our friends. We would be glad to know our friends. We would be
glad to know our friends. We would be glad to know our friends. We would be glad
to know our friends. We would be glad to know our friends. We would be glad
to know our friends. We would be glad to know our friends. We would be
glad to know our friends. We would be glad to know our friends.
We would be glad to know our friends. We And so when we ask, if you were present
at us, when you were present deep in our faith, if you've
been with us during the presence of the Lord, know that we will
often be drawn towards this passage we just looked at. It was trying
to give science students a chance to look at my area and say, you're
stronger than the people of Oman. We have to keep up. And he kept,
he kept, he treated us as captives, because we were living on slaves,
we were slaves. Whatever I said before you were,
that's no different than any other thing. We were slaves. But glory to God, the Father,
in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.