H. Michael Brewer
Crescent Springs Presbyterian Church
19 September 2004
NO VACANCY
Ephesians 4:25 - 5:2
“Never go to bed angry,” my mother used to tell me. “Make up with people before you go to
sleep.” I heard that advice frequently in my childhood (since my brother and I were always getting
mad at each other over one thing or another), and it made sense to me even before I found out that
my mother was quoting loosely from the letter to the Ephesians. “Be angry but do not sin,” says the
apostle. “Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil.”
Now it’s that last part about the devil, the part my mother never told me about, that really lies
at the heart of this passage. The Letter to the Ephesians tells us that we Christians are engaged in a
great, unseen spiritual battle. We have enlisted in the cause of Christ, we march under the sign of the
cross, and we are at war with the powers of sin and evil.
Now frankly, it doesn’t much matter to me what you choose to call the enemy that we struggle
against. Call it fallen human nature. Call it corrupt social systems. Call it sin. Or use the language
found in Ephesians: the cosmic powers of this present darkness; the spiritual forces of evil; in short,
the devil. Now as I said, I really don’t care what you call it, because we all know it’s out there.
Everywhere you look there is resistance to the will of God, rebellion against God’s reign.
The daily headlines are proof enough that there really is a war raging between innocence and
depravity, between compassion and destruction, between love and hatred, between the Kingdom of
God and the Kingdom of Evil. Oh, yes, it is definitely out there (whatever you want to call it), and
what’s worse, more often than we want to admit, it is also in here. The spiritual war that the apostle
warns us about is not only waged around us in suburban neighborhoods and downtown streets; the
battle also goes on within us.
So I don’t care what you call the enemy, as long as you don’t give up the struggle. Even if you
tell me you don’t believe in the devil, I still hope you’ll take the apostle’s advice seriously when he
tells us, “Don’t make room for the devil.” In that phrase the word for room comes from a verb that
means “to settle in.” We might paraphrase the verse something like this: Don’t invite temptation to
move in. Don’t prepare a guest room for the enemy. Don’t invite the devil to come and bring his
toothbrush.
For instance, when you get angry, don’t nurse your anger to keep it going. Set a limit on anger.
Be done with it before the day is out. Make your peace before the sun goes down. Why? Two
reasons come to mind. Resentment is like a weed -not too hard to deal with when it first sprouts, but
the longer you let it go, the deeper the roots will sink, the tougher the weed will become, and the
more seeds will fall.
And the second reason to make peace before sunset is that when good intentions get delayed
they often end up waylaid. How often have you intended to do the right thing as soon as you could
get around to it, but you never did get around to it? To let a quarrel smolder, to leave an injury
unforgiven, to leave an apology unspoken, is simply to make room for the devil.
The apostle offers other examples, as well. Don’t steal, he says. And don’t let evil talk come
out of your mouth. Notice that the apostle is concentrating on the kind of sins that will destroy a
community and set friends against each other: anger, gossip, abusive language, and thievery. I
remember attending a church camp when personal belongings began to disappear. Pretty soon
accusations were flying and nobody trusted anybody. It was hardly an atmosphere that lent itself to
becoming a family. These are sins that separate us from one another, and anything that alienates us
from sisters and brothers also weakens us.
But the apostle has a prescription for dealing with these problems - replace the harmful thing
with a healthy thing. He doesn’t say, Never get angry again! Instead, he says, When you do get
angry, don’t let anger set up housekeeping in your soul! Replace your anger with peace making and
reconciliation. If you have been a thief, go to work to support yourself, and from your earnings give
freely to the poor. In other words, replace greed with generosity. Replace taking with giving. If you
are in the habit of hurting other people with your words, then begin saying kind things, encouraging
things, uplifting things. If your mouth is busy with good words, you won’t have the opportunity for
bad words.
In every case, the principle remains the same: don’t make room for the devil. Not in your
relations, not in your words, not in your habits. Fill in your life with good things, Godly things, and
there won’t be room for so many harmful things.
When we apply this principle in our back yards we call it groundcover. Let’s say you’ve got
some nice tilled soil beside your porch. You can plant something pretty and hardy, an ivy or some
ajuga and once it takes hold and spreads out, there’s not much room left for weeds to sprout. Or you
can leave the ground bare, and watch the weeds take over. Nothing in the world remains empty for
long, not a patch of soil or a purse or dresser drawer or a closet or the nooks and crannies of a
person’s life. If there’s empty room something will move in, probably something you’d rather do
without. So we need to fill our empty places with something worthwhile.
In southeastern England there is a well on the coast of St. Margaret’s Bay. At every high tide
the well is covered over by the ocean, and yet when the tide goes back out the well still contains fresh
water. That’s because the well is fed by underground springs, and the flow of the springs keeps it so
full of sweet water that there’s no room for the salt water to come in.
Paul carries this advice to its logical conclusion when he urges us to be like Christ, who gave
himself up as “a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” In other words, Christ gave himself
altogether to God, and therefore left no room in his life where evil could make a home. If we follow
the example of Jesus, we will be so filled with the love of Christ, and the Spirit of God, that there will
be no room left for any false gods or enslaving sins.
Someone once asked the Fascist dictator Mussolini how he had risen to so much power in
such a short time. Mussolini laughed, and he said, “I found Europe full of empty throne rooms, and I
simply walked in and took one of them.” Beware the empty throne room. Beware the uncommitted
heart. Beware the life that lacks a purpose. Something will move in, sooner or later. Something will
take command. Something will sit on that throne, with or without your invitation.
Martin Luther, the great reformer, had a knack for dressing his theology in colorful words.
What I’ve been trying to say in many words, Luther expressed in a few. He once said, “When the
Devil comes knocking upon the door of my heart, and asks, ‘Who lives here?’ the dear Lord Jesus
goes to the door and says, ‘Martin Luther used to live here, but he has moved out. Now I live here.’
The Devil, seeing that there is no room for him, takes flight immediately.”
We all have our devils, don’t we? The temptations, the whispered enticements, the secret
resentments, the rationalized acts of selfishness, the idols, the stumbling blocks, the things we trust
instead of trusting God... There’s scarcely a day that goes by without the devil knocking on my front
door, or scratching at my back door. He’s a hard guest to get rid of once he settles in. Better if he
doesn’t get in. Better if he finds there’s no room for his kind, and goes on his way.
Soli Deo Gloria!