Unoccupied Houses

From 2000 to 2016, we lived in Ooty, India, a hill station in South India, nearly 2,200 meters or 7,300 feet above sea level. We lived outside the center of the town, adjacent to an old fort and palace that one of the palace guards had built for himself a hundred years ago. It was a beautiful old house built in European style, but no one wanted to live there because they thought it was isolated and possibly haunted. So, we were able to rent it for a reasonable price. We slowly fixed the front and back yards and the insides of the house, including broken wooden floorboards, painted room by room, and restored it to its former beauty. By the time we left Ooty, Bollywood was interested in the house and produced a movie or two in that house.

Nearly ten years later, we went to see that house. It was completely unoccupied. The gates and doors were broken into. The yards were filled with thorns and thistles. Robbers have taken everything from the house, including copper from the electric wires! Our hearts were broken. The house was so dilapidated because the owners didn’t occupy it, rent it to proper people, or employ watchmen to care for it.

After chasing away demons from people, the Lord Jesus gave a parable.

“When an unclean spirit goes out from a person, it wanders through waterless places, seeking rest. Not finding any, it says to itself: ‘I will return to the house from where I came out.’ Coming to the house, it finds it swept and organized [but unoccupied]. So, it goes out and invites seven other more evil spirits than itself and dwells in that house. The final stage of that person has become worse than the first.” (Luke 11:24–26)

The Lord’s exhortation was simple: occupy empty houses unless you want unwanted guests or squatters who would ruin their dwellings. In this parable, Jesus presents people as houses or dwelling places where evil spirits can live. This was a normal Hebrew understanding. Saul, for example, was constantly tormented by evil spirits until David played hymns and chased them away. Jesus and his disciples often changed evil spirits from people. Mary of Magdalene once had seven evil spirits living in her, and the Lord chased them away.

Further, the Lord taught that the spirits always looked for other “houses” to live in. In one example, they wanted a herd of pigs to stay in. And upon entering them, they drowned them.

In this parable, the Lord cautioned that when he chased away evil spirits from people, they shouldn’t leave that space swept and well-organized but empty. Surprisingly, the Lord didn’t say by whom or what to fill that empty space. Nevertheless, the warning was real: Don’t leave your houses (indwelling places) empty for other evil spirits to return and indwell.

Since later Scriptures say things like “be filled by the Spirit” (Eph 5:18) or “be filled with the Word of Christ” (Col 3:16), we can say that when God chases away evil spirits from us – e.g., addiction to pornography, drunkenness, lying tongue, greediness, etc. – we shouldn’t leave our indwelling places empty. We should fill it with Scriptures and Spirit. An empty house is an easy target for uninvited guests or squatters.