Campbell Chapel
Bob Bradley, Pastor
Eternal Life
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Bob Bradley
Matthew 12
43 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and
findeth none.
44 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.
45 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.
That is not a familiar scripture. Most of us have never heard it preached on, maybe. Maybe one time in
my life I have talked about that scripture. It is probably nothing even close in comparison to the thought
that I have tonight, however, the Lord being our helper this evening; I want to talk about that. I want to
bring a thought to us from that tonight that I hope will be a help to you.
The first thing I want to say is tonight is that people that are following Jesus Christ have eternal life
today. If we are saved today, following Jesus Christ; we have eternal life. However, just because I say I
have eternal life does not mean I have eternal life. Many people say they have eternal life but they are
not following Jesus Christ. Since they are not following Jesus Christ they can’t have eternal life. Does
everybody agree with that? That is just the way it is. That is very simple. There is no way that a man
can have eternal life without following Jesus Christ.
A few days ago, a lady called me and said, “Preacher, I need to ask you a question about eternal life.
What do you think about eternal life?” I said, “I think it is a great thing. Thank God for eternal life. We
have it. If we are following Jesus Christ, we have eternal life.” She said, “I’ve got a question. My
husband says he has eternal life.” I said, “Okay, there is nothing wrong with that.” She said, “Here is the
problem. He commits adultery, drinks, lies, cheats, steals and does everything in the world; but yet he
tells me he has eternal life.” I said, “Look lady, he is lying to you. He may say he has eternal life. He
belongs to a Baptist church. He has his name on the book. However, that does not qualify you to go to
heaven just because you say you have eternal life, or just because you have your name on a roll
somewhere does not necessarily say you are going to go to heaven.” Does everybody agree with that?
I think we need to understand that today. In the world that we live in today, and especially dealing with
our young people, our young people are being taught a lot of different things today. Our young people
are being taught that it is okay to sin. Even some of our older folks are going to churches that their
pastors and church leaders are telling them that it is okay to sin and if you want to go out and sin just go
ahead and sin and when you get through sinning, come back and ask God to forgive you and everything
is fine. You know what? That is a dangerous ground to be walking on my friend. You are tempting
Almighty God. The books of the Bible says “…man shall not tempt the Lord thy God.” Eternal life means
more than that. Eternal life is not a license for you to go out and sin. Eternal life does not give you the
liberty to go out and live in sin. It does not do that.
Eternal life is something that we have today. We are following Jesus Christ. It does not mean that we
do not mess up from time to time but it does mean that we are not habitually sinning day after day. It
does mean that.
Here is the story that I want to talk to you about tonight. It is a very sad story, a tragedy. When we get
saved, when we come to Jesus Christ and we ask Jesus Christ to forgive us; we are honestly and sincerely
asking Him to forgive us. Do you know what He will do? He will save us. Does everybody agree with
that? He does that. When I got saved, I did not get saved because I did a lot of different things or
because I went through programs. I got saved because I asked Jesus Christ to forgive me of my sin. He
did not make me get saved. He did not make you get saved. He did not give you anything that you did
not ask for. Amen! As far as, salvation goes; if you did not ask for it you did not get it. If you have never
asked Jesus Christ to forgive you then you have never been forgiven. Amen!
The thought is this—a tragedy. When we get saved, or before we got saved; we had all kinds of issues.
Some people drink. Some people cursed. Some people were thieves. Some people did all kinds of
sinful things. They were caught up in drugs. They were caught up in pornography. They were caught up
in all kinds of sexual sins. They were caught up in all those things. Some more than others, however, we
all had problems, every one of us. All these things may not apply to all of us but some of these things do
apply to all of us. We all had problems. We all had vices that we needed to be forgiven from.
I want to talk to you about a tragedy tonight. This fellow here; he is a story of a tragedy. He is a story
here that is going on more and more as we go through life today.
43 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and
findeth none.
I don’t know all there is to know about this man. I don’t know his name. I don’t know where he lived. I
don’t know where he worked at. I don’t know anything about that, but the Bible says the unclean spirit
was gone out of this man. Does everybody agree with that? The Bible says that! Doesn’t it? The
unclean spirit has gone out of this man. As you go on down through here you will find out that his
house, his body is all swept and clean. It is garnished. The sin is gone out of his life. He is no doubt very
proud of that. That is all good, great and fine.
However, there is something here that I want us all to see tonight about what takes place, if we are not
very careful, in our life. There is no doubt in my mind, this guy is clean. He is clean on the inside. Do
you remember when you first got saved about how clean you felt? You felt forgiven. You knew that
your sins were gone. You knew that everything was just fine. You knew it was all gone. Didn’t you?
You quit your bad habits. You quit doing this and that. God helped you do a lot of different things. The
sin was gone out of your life. You were clean.
This guy here, there is no doubt in my mind, there was a time that he was like that. The unclean spirit
was gone. The spirits that were living on the inside of this guy were gone. The things that were
motivating him, directing him, empowering him, and possessing him to do all kinds of evil things,
whatever they were—whatever the vices were: stealing, committing adultery, lying, cheating, cursing or
whatever it was—these evil spirits were gone and his house was clean. He was spic and span on the
inside.
A lot of folks started out on their Christian life just that way. They get all cleaned up. God forgives
them. God saves them. The vices are gone out of their life. There is no question about that. I want to
tell you something. We need to move pass that. In our relationship with the God of heaven, we need to
move on. Not only do we need God to forgive us and cleanse us, and the evil spirits and vices that we
had or the sins we may have been committing; we need God to cleanse us from those things. We need
those things out of our life. We need all that to be put aside and out of our lives, but we need more
than that. If that is all we ever do, we are going to become a tragedy just like this fellow here became a
tragedy.
Get what I’m saying. I know you are probably thinking; the boy has bumped his head today. But I’ve not
done that at all. This guy here was clean. His vices; he had quit them. The things that he had been
doing he had quit. Our sister used the word “reform” a while ago. Many people think that cleaning up
their lives and getting the filth out of their lives is all they need to do. That is wrong folks. If that is all
you ever do then you have opened up your life and you are going to be a tragedy. It is great to have the
sin out of our lives. The question is “Have we really invited Jesus Christ to come in and fill our lives?”
That is the question we need to ask ourselves. Is the Lord occupying our lives, our body? Are we
allowing the Lord…have we asked the Lord to come in and fill us with His presence and power? Have we
done that? We can quit all of our bad habits. We can quit cursing. We can quit drinking. We can quit
whatever it is and that may make you a better person, but that won’t make you a Christian. Amen!
What makes us a Christian is “Christ in us.” Christ in us is the hope of glory. Christ is in us and when He
is in us then we have eternal life. When we allow Him to fill our hearts and our lives every day then and
only then will we not become a casualty.
Get this. Everybody sitting here tonight and everybody listening to me tonight, you are going to have to
agree with me that what I am telling you is truth. You might be saved tonight. Your vessel may be
overflowing tonight with the presence of Almighty God. He may be controlling your life. You may be
living at the foot of the cross. You may be living in His Will and you know that beyond any shadow of a
doubt. God is answering your prayers. You know you are saved. You know you are on your way to
heaven. He is doing great things in your life. However, you will have to agree with me on one thing.
Those vices that God forgave you of back there sometimes come knocking. Amen! Sometimes they
come knocking. Even though God may have forgave you from being an adulterer, drug addict, liar,
cheat, or thief or whatever the vice was; even though God may have forgave you of it that does not
mean that God eradicated or took it away and it is never going to raise its head again. As long as we are
on planet earth, there is going to be sin here. The things we have been forgiven for—God does not
remember…them anymore. We have been forgiven of those things but we have an enemy out there
that knows a whole lot about you and me. There were a lot of things that were comfortable in my life.
There are many things that I used to love to do. We used to love to sin. You did too. You use to love
that. There are times in your life when it comes knocking. It will come back. Do you know why it will
come back? It will come back because it wants to be back in your life. You made sin comfortable in your
life. You made the presence of the enemy, the evil spirit that was dwelling within you; they were
comfortable and they were at home in you. They want back in your life. They will come knocking. If we
are not very careful, we will make room for them in our lives.
This guy here did that. This guy here got rid of the negative, but he never allowed and filled his life with
anything positive. The Bible says…
43 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and
findeth none.
44 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.
The evil spirits are gone. They are restless. They don’t find any rest. They are looking for somewhere to
go. Do you know what they do? “Hey, I remember ole Bob. I remember him. I remember what he
used to do. I remember things he used to love to do. I remember the places he used to go and how he
used to love doing different things. We will just go back and see how is doing. We will ask him if we can
come back in and stay awhile.”
Friend listen. There is an enemy out there that knows a whole lot more about you than you may think
he knows about you. Just because God has forgiven you of something; God has forgotten about your
sin. Absolutely! Those sins that God has forgiven you for are never going to be remembered against
you anymore. Those sins are gone but there is a devil that is not gone. There is a devil that knows
exactly who you are and where you are at. He knows what energizes you. He knows what makes you
feel good. He knows what makes your clock go around. He knows all of that and he comes knocking.
I am going to tell you something. I say this a lot. I probably make many illustrations about this. I have
probably said so many times enough that you get tired of hearing me saying it. The reason that I want
you guys to read your Bible every day, the reason that I want you guys to study, the reason that I want
you guys to live close…and fill your body with His presence is because I know the enemy is going to
come knocking. The things that used to excite you will still excite you if you give them room in your life.
That is truth! You may not want to admit it. You may not want to admit it to me but you all will agree
that what I am telling you is the truth.
He comes knocking. The Bible says…
44 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.
The evil spirit when he comes back, the house is empty. There may have been a time in this guy’s life
when he used to be filled with praise to the God of heaven. He may have had a life where he was full of
commitment. He was full of doing great things for God—I don’t know. However, when the evil spirit
comes knocking, the house is empty. There is no praise there to God. There is no commitment there to
God. There is no dedication there to God. The house is empty. It is clean. There is not much going on.
It has been garnished. All the furniture has been polished. It all looks great. However, there is nothing
there to keep the enemy from coming back in.
The only way that I can overcome temptation when it comes is by having my life filled with the presence
of Almighty God. If you don’t do that, if you never read your Bible, if you never take time at home to
pray then you are a house with no tenant. You are a house that is not being occupied by any tenant.
You don’t have anybody living on the inside of you. I’m going to tell you something. The enemy is going
to come knocking. The same things that God has forgiven you for are the same things he is going to say,
“Come over. It is not going to hurt anything, come over for a while. Get involved in this. Do this or that.
It won’t you hurt to curse a little bit. It won’t hurt you drink a little bit. You can use some drugs here
and there. You can go out and commit adultery. God will forgive you.” He will come knocking. I want
to tell you something. He is a liar. He has one thing on his mind and that is to destroy you.
44 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.
45 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.
I did not write that in there. Jesus Christ himself spoke those very words. Listen. It is great to be
forgiven for things. It is great to have all these things put aside and have our lives all cleaned up.
However, are we being filled with His presence? Are we filled today with His power? Are we filled today
with praise? Is our life filled with that? If my life is filled with the word of God, if my life is filled with the
power and presence of Almighty God; then there is not going to be any room when the enemy comes
knocking. Do you know what he is going to do? He is going to go about his business somewhere else.
He won’t stay at your house. If your life is empty and not only is he going to come but he is going to go
get some of his buddies and bring them with him. He is going to go get some of his buddies that are
even more wicked than this one and he is going to come in and dwell there. Your life is going to be a lot
worse than it was before you ever tried to clean it up. That is what that says there. That is exactly what
that says.
Listen. Fill your life with the Word of God. Fill your life with prayer. Fill your life with praise unto the
God of heaven; if you don’t the enemy will come knocking. Your life is half empty. You will give him
room to get in. The sins that you used to commit and the things that you used to love to do are still yet
out there. He will come along and say “Come on over. It’s not bad. Everybody is doing it. The preacher
will never know. It does not really matter. God will forgive you.” A guy told me that the other day. He
told me the other day, “Preacher, if I want to sin I will just go ahead and sin.” This guy in his 60s. If I
want to sin I will just go sin. All I have to do is come back and ask God to forgive me; that’s grace. I said
listen friend: that is not grace at all. You misunderstood your Bible. It does not work that way my
friend.
Are you saved tonight? I hope that you are saved tonight. I hope that your life is filled tonight with the
presence and power of Almighty God. There is an enemy there and he will come knocking. You may
clean it up and you may put all the junk on the outside that you can but come to Jesus Christ and let Him
fill your life. When your life is filled with Him and full of Him then there will be no room for the enemy.
You need to do that tonight.
Come—