Matthew 12:43-45...43) “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. 44) Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. 45) Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation.”

First I would like to point out that if you haven’t read and understood my Study on Healing , you may want to read or re-read that first, because without some knowledge of healing, this reading will most likely prove fruitless to you.

The above Scripture holds a lot of weight in reference to healing prayers that have appeared to be manifest in a person, only to fall back into sickness in a matter of time. There are a lot of reasons that this may happen—one reason being that God never intended us to live in these physical bodies forever. If a manifestation of a healing prayer in an elderly person eventually reverts back to sickness and results in a physical death, it could just be that the life-cycle for that person has just come to an end.

Physical death for any one person, especially at the end of ones life-cycle is normal and actually a victory for that person who may have lived a full life in relationship with God. Death in itself is not an end, it is a new beginning of a life that we were created for—a life in Christ for all eternity. If you can fully grasp this concept, and this only can be done through the Holy Spirit, you will not fear death as so many do.

As a matter of fact, fear, used correctly by directing it toward God is a good thing—Deuteronomy 6:2, tells us, “so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life.” (bold letters mine.)  Isn’t that interesting, when you fear God, you may enjoy long life. So, what that is telling us, is that if you are fearing God and living in His Spirit (the Holy Spirit which resides in you) you are living in health and prosperity of life. God promises that! When God says something in the Bible, He means it! To people, talk is cheap—many people talk a good talk and don’t follow-up with action, but God ALWAYS keeps His Word.

The only time you should fear death is when you are not in relationship with the Father. But when one is in relationship with the Father through Jesus, the fear of death in this instance, is a product of Satan. This type of fear is contrary to God, and anything contrary to God is sin. I know that may be hard for many of you to accept, but it is true. When your mind is focused on this type of fear, you do not think rationally, because if you were thinking rationally, you would not have taken your eyes off of Jesus, because that’s what you are doing.

A good example of this is when Peter walked on the water—you can find this in Matthew chapter 14. When Peter saw Jesus on the water and called out to Him and said, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.” Jesus, than said, “come”, and Peter stepped out of the boat and began to walk on the water. As Peter became aware of the circumstances around him, his physical senses began to reason how ill-logical it was what he was doing, and his focus turned from the power of faith (that a focus on Jesus will produce, and in his case was manifest, because he was walking on the water) to the limited physical nature that has been corrupted since the Garden of Eden.

This limited physical nature made Peter rationalize with his physical five senses, thus, concluding that what he was doing was not possible. On Peter’s own powers and ability, his conclusion was true, but there is a greater force at work here, that force being of Jesus in the spiritual realm. Peter’s five physical senses cannot detect, comprehend, nor can it agree with spiritual things (nor can our own). Only when we focus totally on Jesus and train our physical bodies to relinquish authority to the Holy Spirit, can we experience the spiritual blessings that we receive through the power and authority of Jesus.

This takes us back to healing of sicknesses and diseases. The verses above in Matthew chapter 12, Jesus speaks of a situation where an unclean spirit goes out of a man. He is not talking of any specific situation here, but this can be translated into a lot of different scenarios. In this study I am going to relate it to healing.

As we learned from my study on healing, the “prayer of faith” is the prescription for healing any sickness or disease. We find this in James 5:15, “And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up.”  There are no “ifs” about it— the Lord will raise you up and make you well. We can relate this back to Deuteronomy 6:2, where I said, “God always keeps His Word.”

Keep in mind that we are not discussing in this study prayers that go unanswered, we are discussing prayers that get answered for healing, yet the person who has been healed falls back into the sickness, and possibly even a more severe case.

Let’s do this by dissecting Matthew 12:43-45. In verse 43, Jesus starts out, “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none.”  What Jesus is saying here is that, if an unclean spirit (demon) is cast out of someone by prayer, that spirit needs to find another body to take residence in. Demonic spirits can only be effective if they take up residence in a persons body. If they cannot find one to possess, they cannot rest.

In verse 44, Jesus says, “Then he (the demonic spirit) says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order.” Here we find that the demonic spirit could not find another person to take residence in, so he decided to go back to the one he was cast out of to see if he can find his way back in. Spirits are well aware that if they are cast out of a person through prayer, and that person they were cast out of does not fill the void left by this spirit with the Holy Spirit, they can easily find their way back in— because this spirit will know the weaknesses of the person and chances are, if the person does not fill the void with the Holy Spirit, he will be susceptible to that weakness all over again.

But, after being cleansed spiritually, it is our responsibility now to recognize that our miracle came from God, and now it is time to seek a relationship through Jesus with God the Father. If we do not fill that void left by the demonic spirit with the Holy Spirit, you would have been better off being left alone from the beginning, because as we read in Matthew 26:24, “The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.”  In our case you can replace “born” in verse 24 with “healed”.

Why is that? Let’s take a look at verse 45, “Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.” What has happened is that the demonic spirit sees that this person, although receiving a miracle from God, has not accepted to live according to the Holy Spirit—he has rejected it. He rejected it maybe not with words, but by his actions. He has gone back to living his life, his way according to the ways of this world and not according to God’s Holy Spirit.

Upon doing that, the world (Satan) gladly accepted him back. If a person receives this kind of miracle from God and still doesn’t see the error of his ways, because all God’s blessings are for His own glory for people to see the truth, but carelessly rejects that, Satan knows that this person will very likely never accept God’s way of life, thus making him vulnerable to demon possession again.

On the contrary, if one were to accept this miracle and diligently seek the one from whom the miracle came, God, then he will fill that void with the Holy Spirit and he will resist the demonic spirit from entering back in him. James 5:14 says, “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”

In conclusion, you can be healed by God through faith in Jesus, but you must follow-up and fill yourself with the Holy Spirit, if you had not already been filled prior to your healing. And if you did have the Holy Spirit in you from the acceptance of Jesus as your Savior, than be diligent in keeping it active in your life. How do you do that? By staying active in seeking God and building your knowledge and understanding on the firm foundation of Jesus Christ our Lord and our Savior! If you do not, “it would have been good for that man if he had not been born.”

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