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43 When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. 44 Then it says, "I will return to the house I left. When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. 45 Then it goes and takes with it 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. That is how it will be with this wicked generation." ~ Matthew 12:43-45
Today, we continue our study of Matthew 12 where on the heels of delivering a man from demon-possession, the Lord Jesus taught the religious people that morality was not enough to be right before God. Religion is self-defined morality, not Savior-defined morality. Certainly morality is better than immorality, but morality is more dangerous than immorality, especially if one has not been born again. The moral are harder to get to the point where they see their need for a savior. Our morality often prevents us from embracing the brokenness that is needed for us to come to faith in the Lord Jesus.
It is quite dangerous to embrace moral reformation without regeneration. The moral successfully clean up their lives on the outside, but neglect their heart, and as we have seen, the real issue is the condition of our heart. In Proverbs 4:23 we read, "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." Throughout the Bible we learn the condition of our hearts matters most to God because our hearts are the very foundation of our relationship with Him. And, the only way the heart is changed is when we have given it to Him. A broken heart precedes a transformed heart. And, if our heart is not broken, arrogance has a way of getting in the way. This is why the Lord gave us the Law of Moses which reveals our sin. The law requires complete obedience, but when we do not comply, hidden rebellion is brought out into the open. The rebellion of the human heart is identified when it meets up with the law. This must be dealt with and it is why the Lord Jesus told us that we must be born again.
In v.43-44 of today's passage we read, "43 When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. 44 Then it says, "I will return to the house I left. When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order."
The Lord Jesus had just cast a demon out of a man and here He taught the people metaphorically. Through His words He reminded them that after the demon left the man and the man did not invite God to come to dwell within him, he had remained neutral regarding the Lord. This is what happens when we depend upon our goodness and morality to be made right with God. The religious leaders had cleaned up their lives but they remained prey to the enemy because they had not been delivered from him by being born again.
According to v.44, the demon returned to the house from which he came and he found it unoccupied, cleaned out and put in order. And therein, my friend, lies the problem with depending upon our morality to make us acceptable before God. The problem in the moral person's heart is it is unoccupied. The Spirit of God is not there to make his heart toward God alive. Morality without the Lord Jesus 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 that all is well with God when it is not. When a person comes to believe in his own righteousness, he is not redeemable because he sees not his need for the Savior.
Throughout the Bible 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, when the demon came back to find the whole place cleaned up, it was also empty. And if the living God is not present in a heart, therein we have a disaster. There really is no more serious danger than the danger of morality that blinds us to our need for the Savior. 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.
When the demon left the man, he looked for an arid place, a place where there is no water. And throughout the Scriptures water is compared to the Word of God. We often read of the water of the Word. It is the word of God that reveals our self-righteousness for what it is. It is the Word of God that defines things according to God's righteousness. This is why the demon searched for a waterless place. The demon wanted rest but he sought it apart from God. We are the same and we can only find rest in a personal relationship with God. Apart from God's Word and His will we will never find rest. We only discover this rest in coming to the Savior who is the only Righteous One. He is the only One who can provide for us real life.
In v.45 of today's passage we read, "Then it goes and takes with it 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. That is how it will be with this wicked generation."
This teaching of the Lord Jesus was a reference to the ministry of John the Baptist, where in a sense, the cleaning up of the life and the demons go out when that moral reformation takes place, because a vile, wretched, evil, unclean spirit might not be at home in a person trying to live a moral life. And so, the demon leaves initially. But if Christ isn’t invited in, that place stays empty. It is always an invitation for the demon to return. Then eight demons come back, and it will be worse. The empty house, then, speaks of the spiritual vacuum that is created when people get moral but don’t invite the Lord Jesus Christ to be their Savior. The reason morality is more dangerous than immorality is because the sinful person who is aware of his sinfulness has more vigilance than the moral person who has no such awareness. When a person becomes self-righteous and moral, he feels himself beyond the activity of Satan so that Satan can come in en masse, without that individual ever being prepared to deal with Him.
