The cry for the southern lands to be spared from the bitter frost is not cast before a deaf heaven. The clouds and the sun, the wind and the hail are all the messengers of our God, and He does according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. Yet would I remind you that the child of God must not settle all his heart upon the weather of a single season, when his own inward sky is so often overcast with the fogs of spiritual bondage. You plead for a fair summer, and it is well; but your letter breathes a far deeper groan, a craving to be delivered from the haunting sounds of a bewitching music and from the foul spirits that dog your steps.
When the soul is haunted by evil memories, as if a melody from the pit kept ringing in the ear, it is the specialty of Satan to turn the past into an engine of torment. He will bring back the vivid sights and sounds of our former folly until he makes the very thought a scourge. Yet remember this: a perfect cleansing is not the erasure of recollection, as though God would scoop out a chamber of the brain, but the removal of guilt and the breaking of its power. The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses from all sin every one who believes, not by making the scar invisible, but by draining its poison. If you seek a magical blank where those notes once played, you may ask for a thing that would take away your gratitude. For when the Lord saves a man from great darkness, the memory of the pit becomes a background for the brightness of His grace. David never forgot his crimson sin, but he sang, “Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” He did not say, “Remove the knowledge of my stain so that I may strut as if I never fell,” but he sought a thorough purging that would leave him clean in the sight of God.
You ask to be delivered from demonic and satanic spirits. This is a holy request, and God has made provision for it. The fountain opened for sin and uncleanness is not a cistern that runs dry; it overflows to cleanse the conscience from dead works and to snap the chains of hellish habit. Only see to it that you do not fall into the error of calling good evil and evil good, dreaming that a child of God may juggle with what another man dare not name. That music, whatever tune it lilted, was a snare because it was wedded to evil. Renounce it utterly; tear its root out by forsaking all company and all thoughts that echo its contagion. The cleansing of guilt is followed by a reformation of life. You are not to be a haunted house; Christ enters and casts out the usurper. When the evil spirit is driven forth, fill the chamber with the songs of Zion, the wholesome music of praise, so that he may return and find the house swept and garnished indeed, but garrisoned by the Holy Ghost.
There is an immediate and effectual way of cleansing: it is to look anew upon the crucified One who said, “It is finished.” Every black memory was laid upon Him; every syllable of that tempting air was atoned for in His grief. When you feel the fiery dart of an old thought, do not begin to reason with the devil or to scrub your own imagination with the rags of your resolve. Run to the Cross. Hide there. The Lord says, “I have found a ransom,” and He bids you go free. The chain of those memories is broken, however much it clatters about your feet; believe it, and act as one freed. If you wait for some inward surgery that makes you forget a face or a strain, you may wait while the smoke of hell darkens your way. The deliverance is by faith, not by sensation.
Do not mistake the war within for defeat. That you hate the intrusion of these thoughts, that you cry out for deliverance, proves the new nature is alive. The evil you would not, that proves the presence of a mighty Deliverer. He shall purge you from the demonic influence, and the very memory that now stings shall become a spur to watchfulness and a chalk-stone to mark how far the grace of God has brought you on the road. At the cross, the clock of mercy strikes; the hour of your deliverance was decreed from eternity. Receive it now by resting in the finished work, and as you do, the sound of that music shall fade from its throne, and the spirits that trouble you shall flee like chaff before the wind. Wash, and be clean; then look forward, for the southern hemisphere itself shall yet feel the smile of the Creator, but far more, the soul of His elect shall know the eternal summer of His love.