24 “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ 25 When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. 26 Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.” 27 As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.” 28 He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” ~ Luke 11:24-28
Spirituality is not the same as morality. Certainly morality is better than immorality, but morality is more dangerous than immorality. Our morality has a way of getting in the way of God's expression to and through us. There is serious danger in moral reformation without regeneration. Reformation without transformation puts us in a very dangerous position. The moral successfully clean up their lives on the outside, but neglect the heart. You see, the only way the heart is addressed is when we give it to Him. The only heart that we give Him is a broken heart. And, if it is not broken, arrogance has a way of showing up.
The Lord Jesus had just cast a demon out of a man and the Jewish religious leaders accused Him of casting the demon out by the power of Satan. In v.24 we read, "When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left." The demon passes through waterless places seeking rest. The Lord Jesus is speaking metaphorically for the barrenness of a demon floating around without an abode. And if the demon can't find any other place, it says, "I will return to the house I left."
When the demon left, the man’s condition improved immediately, but the man did not invite God to come and dwell within. In other words, the man remained neutral. This is what happens in legalism. This is what happens when we try to be good, try to be moral, try to clean up our own lives by moral effort and religious activity. We temporarily see the dismissal of the demonic power that was so accommodated in our sinfulness, only to be put back in the box that it once lived.
According to v.25, the demon finds the house from which he came, swept and neat. In Matthew 12:44 we read, "Found it swept and unoccupied." And therein, my friend, lies the problem of morality. The problem in the moral person's heart is it is unoccupied. The Spirit of God is not there to express the life of the Lord Jesus to and through him.
Morality makes us double sons of hell. It is better to be immoral than moral without Christ. It is better to be irreligious than religious without Christ, because morality and religion are a seduction. Morality and religion give the deception of all is well with God when it is not. Morality and religion is a soul-numbing deception. When a person comes to believe in his own righteousness, he is not redeemable.
It was never the immoral people who blasphemed the Lord Jesus. It was always the moral ones. It was never the harlots, prostitutes, or tax collectors. It was the religious people. It was the self-righteous people. When we are religious, moral people we are confident in our own righteousness. We are utterly deceived into believing that we have been delivered from the powers of Satan because we live moral lives.
So, in v.25, the demon comes back to find the whole place cleaned up but empty. And if the living God is not present in a heart, we have a disaster. There really is no more serious danger than the danger of morality. An attempt to clean up our lives without Christ is to be exposed to an even greater danger. There is no benefit in reformation without regeneration, and this is exactly what happened in this story.
On the other hand, in v.27-28 we read, "27 As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.” 28 He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it."
In this illustration, here is a woman who says in a beatitude, "Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you." This was the highest compliment she could pay to anyone in that part of the world at that time. She is calling the Lord Jesus blessed. She is affirming that He is the Messiah.
In v.28, "He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it." The Lord Jesus is saying it is not enough to complement Me. Being with Him means we hear the Word of God and we do it. To be morally religious is to be against Him. The difference is the heart, a broken heart where His heart enters.
This is the difference that God makes when we turn to Him with our understood need of a savior. And, the "change" in our lives is often visible only to Him. His presence yields a different way of understanding Him, and His ways. When we first believed, an inner birth took place.
This inner birth liberated and is liberating us not only from sin, but from our old way of viewing God. It is yielding intimacy with Him rather than morality or religion. This new found relationship with Him is yielding an ability to see Him with our inner being. It is yielding a faith that is characterized more by a passionate pursuit of Him more than just religious belief. And, the emphasis will be increasingly more of Him and less of us.
