The Evil Spirits

The Evil Spirits
Matthew 12:43-45

One of the Lord's briefest parables is
the one on evil spirits found recorded in
Matthew 12:43-45.

These three verses read as follows;
“When the unclean spirit is gone out
of a man, he walketh through dry
places, seeking rest, and findeth none.
“Then he saith, I will return into
my house from whence I came out; and
when he is come, he findeth it empty,
swept, and garnished. Then goeth he,
and taketh with himself seven other
spirits more wicked than himself, and
they enter in and dwell there: and the
last state of that man is worse than
the first. Even so shall it be also unto
this wicked generation.”

The key to this dreadful parable is the
last sentence: “Even so shall it be also
unto this wicked generation.”

Verses 38 and 39 of the 12th chapter
of Matthew declare very clearly to
whom Jesus was speaking. There we read,
“Then certain of the scribes and of the
Pharisees answered, saying, Master,
we would see a sign from thee.”
“But he answered and said unto
them, An evil and adulterous generation
seeketh after a sign; and there
shall no sign be given to it, but the
sign of the prophet Jonas.”

Religiously speaking, the scribes and
Pharisees were empty, swept, and garnished.
They put on a great outward religious
show, but inwardly they were empty
because they had rejected Christ and the
spirit of God. Jesus predicted that evil spirits would
take advantage of this emptiness, this
rejection of Christ, and thereby enter and
possess their minds and thinking just as
history shows they did.

The apostle Paul sums this up in two
verses in 1 Thessalonians 2, verses 15
and 16: “The Jews, who both killed the
Lord Jesus, and their own prophets,
and have persecuted us; and they
please not God, and are contrary to
all men; Forbidding us to speak to the
Gentiles that they might be saved, to
fill up their sins alway: for the wrath
is come upon them to the uttermost. "