43“When an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert, seeking rest but finding none.44Then it says, ‘I will return to the person I came from.’ So it returns and finds its former home empty, swept, and in order.45Then the spirit finds seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they all enter the person and live there. And so that person is worse off than before. That will be the experience of this evil generation.”This reading at first seems to offer us no hope. Imagine being freed from a demonic possession, cleaning yourself up, only to end up worse than before! But here is the key: the person who was freed of the evil spirit was empty. He was NOT full of God.
Not many of us will ever be demon possessed, but this principle applies to all of our lives. Most people do not simply stop the evil in their lives. Most of the time we cannot stand a void and we will replace that evil with something, and that something will either be from God or from Satan. The key to stopping a habitual sin is to replace it with a good action like prayer, scripture memorization, or a act of kindness. Just stopping and leaving a void will usually fail miserably.
I once heard it explained that we are like a bucket full of sand with a hole in the bottom. If we are holy, we are full of white sand. If there is room in the bucket, Satan will try to dump black sand in it. Sand is always leaking from the bottom, thank God, so we can change. But if we want to be full of white sand, we need to take in so much of God’s white sand that the bucket is overflowing. We need to control what we read, listen to, and who we associate with, so we are surrounded by mostly white sand. We all take in some black sand, but we can overwhelm it with white sand it we try. In heaven, there is only white sand!
Lord, fill me with your Holy Spirit, you white sand, so when others are around me, I am a source of white sand, not black sand. I know I have a long way to go Lord. I can see the images you are showing me right now of times my example has been a source of black sand and so have my words. I am sorry Lord. Help! Beginner’s Online Bible Study *obbs*