The Danger of Empty Houses: Why Culture Needs The Kingdom

There's an unsettling reality about empty houses. Ask any city official and they'll tell you the same thing: vacant homes are magnets for trouble. They drive down property values, drain municipal resources, and worst of all, they attract criminal activity. Empty houses don't stay empty for long, and what moves in is rarely good news for a neighborhood.

But what if this principle extends far beyond real estate? What if the same truth applies to our hearts, our families, and even our entire culture?

The Beautiful House:

In Matthew 12:43-45, Jesus tells a parable about an impure spirit that leaves a person, wanders through arid places seeking rest, and then returns to find its former dwelling "swept clean and put in order" but empty. The spirit then brings seven more wicked spirits, and the final condition becomes worse than the first.

This isn't just a warning about personal spiritual hygiene. Jesus concludes by saying, "That is how it will be with this wicked generation." He's talking about nations, cultures, and the trajectory of entire civilizations.

The story begins with a beautiful house because that's what happens when the kingdom of God shows up. When God's presence invades a space, demons flee, darkness is driven out, and order is established. This is true individually—when Christ enters our hearts, He doesn't just forgive us, He transforms us. He carries out the trash. He teaches us how to be better spouses, parents, and friends. The gospel makes something beautiful out of our lives.

But this principle scales up. Western civilization, for all its imperfections, has been uniquely blessed because of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The very concepts we take for granted—human dignity, equal standing before the law, the worth of women and children, political liberty, modern science—these treasures emerged from cultures shaped by the message of Christ. Slavery existed in every ancient culture; Christian civilization ended it. Poverty was universal; Christian societies did more than any other to address it. The exploitation of the vulnerable was commonplace; Christendom was the first to call it evil.

The house was beautiful because the King was present.

The Empty House:

But Jesus' parable takes a dark turn. The spirit returns to find the house empty. The truth that drove out impurity and brought order is no longer there.

In our modern context, this emptiness has a name: secularism. It's the pervasive ideology that insists society can function perfectly well based solely on human reason, without any appeal to divine authority. It whispers the same lie the serpent spoke in Eden: "You don't need God. You can determine truth and morality on your own."

This isn't a neutral position. Secularism didn't remove religion from the public square; it simply replaced one religion with another. When John Dewey and others worked tirelessly to exile Bible reading, prayer, and the Ten Commandments from education, they didn't create a vacuum. They filled those classrooms with a different faith—one that teaches children they're nothing more than randomly assembled chemicals, accidents of blind evolutionary forces in a meaningless universe.

Carl Sagan's famous declaration—"The universe is all there is and all that there will ever be"—isn't science. It's a confession of faith in a cold, empty cosmos.

And here's what we know intuitively, even if we struggle to articulate it philosophically: if there is no God, nothing matters. Everything becomes arbitrary. If there is no God, everything is permissible.

Human souls were made to worship. We have a God-shaped hole in our hearts that demands to be filled. When we refuse to worship the true God, we don't stop worshiping—we just find false gods to serve instead. As Romans 1:25 puts it, we "exchange the truth about God for a lie and worship and serve created things rather than the Creator."

The Possessed House:

The parable reaches its conclusion: the demon returns with seven spirits more wicked than itself, and they move in together. The final condition is worse than the first.

Empty souls are dangerous because they won't stay empty. If secularism is a religion that asks people to believe a man can have a baby, that a baby in the womb isn't human, that biological sex is irrelevant to marriage—then we're clearly dealing with something beyond reason. These are articles of faith in a new dogma, and the house is being trashed.

Romans 1 describes the progression with painful accuracy. When people refuse to retain the knowledge of God, they're given over to depraved minds. Sexual anarchy follows. Violence erupts. The list of vices grows: wickedness, greed, envy, murder, deceit, malice, arrogance. And finally, the darkest stage: not only do people practice these things, they celebrate those who do.

Because we're made in God's image, we crave order. When we see our culture falling apart, we desperately want someone to fix it. But if we still refuse to submit to Christ, we'll surrender to any tyrant who promises stability. We'll accept any Caesar rather than bow to the King of Kings. And our house will be left desolate.

A Home for the King:

But here's the good news that transforms everything: the kingdom of God has come. Christ has conquered death, hell, and the grave. He sits at the Father's right hand, and He will reign until every enemy becomes His footstool. The same gospel that gave Western civilization its greatest treasures still has the power to save individuals and nations. We must recover the courage to bring the message of the King back to every corner of the house He has assigned to us.

This requires bold confidence in the gospel, the full anointing of the Holy Spirit, and a firm vision that every square inch of creation belongs to our God. When the church marches forward with this message, we take ground. We evict the forces of death and build a culture of life.

Empty houses are bad news. But filled with the presence of the King, they become beautiful beyond measure—swept clean, put in order, and occupied by the only One who can truly make all things new.

The question isn't whether your house will be filled. It's who will fill it.