December 23, 2025 -- Mark 3:27 -- The expulsive power of love

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 But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.
Mark 3:27 ESV
 
Dear readers, we have spent most of the month of December exploring the power of sin. Today is the final examination of it and then we’ll also turn to what defeats the sin of our hearts and mind and soul. Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), sometimes called Scotland’s greatest nineteenth century preacher. Several times in the last month or so, in sermons and readings, there’s been a reference to Chalmers. Thought it’d be good to explore. What I read was powerful indeed.
 
Why is sin so tenacious, keeping a stranglehold on us? Jesus offered the image of sin’s rule in as the reign of a strong man zealously guarding its hapless prisoner in bondage to sin, guilt, shame and hopelessness. If that is true, then, to summarize Chalmers, why not just give a stirring explanation of the destructive tendency of sin so that the hearer will hate his sin and leave it? Chalmers noted:
     It will now be seen, perhaps, why it is that the heart keeps by its
     present affections with so much tenacity- when the attempt is, to
     do them away by a mere process of extirpation. It will not consent
     to be so desolated. The strong man, whose dwelling-place is there,
     may be compelled to give way to another occupier- but unless
     another stronger than he, has power to dispossess and to succeed
     him, he will keep his present lodgment unviolable. The heart would
     revolt against its own emptiness. Page 4 The Expulsive power of a
     New Affection.
Basically, the heart abhors a vacuum. If one tried to kill the strongman of sin, he’ll fail because a man persuaded that his sin is bad, will not, unless he’s found a more powerful affection, let his heart stay empty.  Something else must take hold, something greater, all-together consuming.
 
Here we turn a corner and examine what has the power to evict sin. Again, read Chalmers:
     Neither they nor any one else can dispossess the heart of an old
     affection, but by the expulsive power of a new one- and, if that
     new affection be the love of God, neither they nor any one else
     can be made to entertain it, but on such a representation of the
     Deity, as shall draw the heart of the sinner towards Him.
     Page 8 ibid.
Basically, a man who thought he was in love, will, when he meets his true love, willingly leave the old love. When love is rich, deep, true, enveloping, everything else is forgotten. That is the work of the Strongman, Jesus. People won’t leave their comfortable sins and habitual rebellions for a mere moral value or new set of rules. However, one will lay down his life, and willingly take up a new affection when the expulsive power of the Father’s love, demonstrated in Jesus Christ, grabs his heart by the Holy Spirit.
 
Chalmers notes that preaching should stir the imagination. Descriptions of the knowledge of God and living in relationship with Him must be so graphic, and genuine, and glorious that the hearer knows, Jesus the Strongman, has bound the enemy and cast him out for good. Then the strong love one has for Jesus, Who is the rescue story, will capture the heart, move the mind, and touch every subsequent action.
 
Lord Jesus Christ, plunder my heart. Evict every squatter still lingering in it after sin’s expulsion. Spirit of God, so fill my imagination and my heart with the glorious rule of Jesus that all other affections, all old loves, are completely forgotten. Father in heaven, make my heart a fit dwelling for Your love. Amen.
 
https://youtu.be/Pr2RG-xR2lA?si=ldXm4bElQq1Nu7KA Prince of Peace
 
 
Microsoft Word - Chalmers, Thomas - The Exlulsive Power of a New Af
 

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