The Kingdom is Come
"But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you." Matt. 12:28.
When someone is free from past vices and sins, it is no proof of being in the Kingdom of God. It is not enough that the devils are cast out or lose their strength. Christ's Spirit must cast them out. Other things can expel certain sins. A man may lose his passions by becoming cold. He may grow dead to temptation by growing old. Many youthful lusts die with age. A dead sin is no proof of new life. Two kinds of calm are helpful to ponder. There is the calm of summer's heat and the calm of winter’s freeze. Both have a great stillness about them, but for entirely different reasons. The calm of one has come from nature's fullness, the other from nature's barrenness—the one from the warmth of love, the other from the paralysis of sleep.
The child of God wants sin removed by the Spirit of God, not age or the changes in life. The changes in life only mean the shifting of sin from shoulder to shoulder, exchanging one evil for the next. The believer is not freed from vice by being freed from impulse. We are not made pure by being made icicles. The believer would be pure as He is pure. Not by receiving less, but receiving more. Not by losing but by gaining. They would be holy as He is holy, not by the diminishing of impulse, but by the converting, sanctifying strength of new Christ-pulses. More love, His love, is what is needed. Not being made weaker in life but stronger through Christ.
Dear one, pray that your flight from sin and temptation is not in your winter. Not prompted by the icicles of time or old age, or wearing out a sin, or the mere inability to feel. Pray that your flight from sin might be in the summer of Christ's love. That you would be won from evil by being drawn to Christ. Sin is in our spirit, and spirit can only be conquered by Spirit.
The expulsion of Satan from my heart is worthless if Christ does not expel him and take up His abode. Come into my heart, Love unspeakable, and put Thy chains around my sins, and lead them captive to Thy will. If Thy Spirit casts them out, I will know that the kingdom has come to me.