When Jesus came down the Mount of Transfiguration, he encountered a father with an unclean spirit-possessed son. Jesus said the following words to the spirit: “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” (Mark 9:25) When reading this recently, the last phrase of the command caught my attention, “and never enter him again.” I immediately thought of a parable of Jesus given in Matthew 12:43-45,
“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first.”
How often do we cast out sin from our lives, only to allow it to enter again but with greater intensity? What we need to do is have a Home Security system in place. The Holy Spirit is the one system that works every time. We cast out the evil spirits while inviting the Holy Spirit to come into our hearts and dwell therein.
When we keep Jesus as the center of our lives, through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, there is no room for unclean spirits to enter and dwell. When we let Jesus come into our lives, it is like posting a sign that says,
“And Never Enter Him Again!”