A DEMON CAST OUT.
Matthew 12:22-50.
The spiritual blindness of the people opposed to Jesus is demonstrated in their reaction to His good works. Their refusal to hear His message is echoed in their speaking out against Him.
MATTHEW 12:22. A demon-possessed man, who was physically both blind and dumb, was brought to Jesus: and He healed him. The positive impression which our Lord was making upon the ordinary people of Israel was growing, as was the negative reaction of the religious leaders.
MATTHEW 12:23-24. Now the people were beginning to question, “Could this be the Son of David?” To which the Pharisees retorted, “This fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of demons.” The name Beelzebub translates, Master of flies.
Here was Jesus in full attack against the devil’s kingdom, and yet the Pharisees had the audacity to suggest that He was doing this in league with the devil!
No doubt the religious leaders were concerned about this country Rabbi, who was causing such a commotion. ‘What right had He?’ they reasoned. ‘He did not come from any of our schools. He must be casting out devils in league with the devils!’
In accusing Jesus, the Pharisees were in fact condemning themselves. They did not doubt that a miracle had truly happened, that the demons were cast out. But by calling the work of God by the name of the work of the devil, they were blaspheming the Holy Spirit!
MATTHEW 12:25-26. In His first little parable, Jesus explained that a kingdom or a house that rises up against itself will ultimately fall. So if Satan is divided against himself, then he is at his end. Satan would not destroy his own kingdom.
MATTHEW 12:27-28. Jesus further explained that even their own exorcists would agree that demons are not cast out by demons, but by the power of God. This was the Spirit of God at work amongst them. The kingdom of God had come to them, yet they could not recognise it because it challenged their own religious authority.
MATTHEW 12:29. A second little parable looks at things from another angle. Jesus illustrates Satan as a strong man guarding his house. Now a stronger than he has come, and is in process of binding Satan, and spoiling his house.
MATTHEW 12:30. Jesus had come to bind Satan before destroying the evil one’s hold upon the kingdoms of the world. And whoever is not in favour of Jesus is His enemy!
MATTHEW 12:31-32. It is in this context that Jesus speaks of the unpardonable sin. Jesus’ damning indictment against stubborn unbelief has a preface which must not be overlooked. All sins and blasphemies are capable of forgiveness, He says. Pause and ponder such grace!
The accuser of the brethren is more concerned with the exception, and troubles poor souls with worries about whether they might have committed the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. The answer to such concerns is that - in the context of this text - the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost appears to be stubborn, relentless, unbelief.
MATTHEW 12:33. There was a certain inconsistency in the Pharisees’ acknowledging the miracle as a good work, and yet saying that Jesus was doing this in league with the devil. “Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.”
MATTHEW 12:34. Jesus addressed the Pharisees as a “generation of vipers.” It was they who, after all, were in league with the devil! How could they “being evil” speak “good” things? For “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.”
MATTHEW 12:35. Good things come out of good hearts – like the heart of Jesus. Evil things come out of evil hearts – like those of the Pharisees, whose hearts were full of malice against Jesus.
MATTHEW 12:36. The Pharisees would eventually be held accountable for their “idle words.” They had put themselves in an impossible situation. As long as they looked on the work of the Holy Spirit - manifested in the life of Jesus - as a work of the devil, there was no hope for them. Unbelieving religious bullies, who view every new movement within Christianity as ‘the work of the devil’ are also putting themselves in a dangerous position.
MATTHEW 12:37. All manner of blasphemy might be forgiven, but to attribute the work of God to Satan is unpardonable. Can good fruit come from a bad tree? Their very words condemned them!
MATTHEW 12:38. In their continuing malice against Jesus, the scribes and Pharisees next asked for a sign. (Interestingly, the word which the Apostle John chooses to use for the miracles in his Gospel is the word for signs.) What had the religious leaders just seen if not a sign, both of Jesus’ authority, and of the presence of the kingdom of God amongst them?
MATTHEW 12:39-40. Jesus granted them a sign. It was the sign of the prophet Jonah. Just as Jonah was three days in the belly of the whale, so Jesus would be three days dead in a tomb. Just as Jonah came out of the belly of the whale alive, Jesus would rise from the dead. The tomb could not hold Him, and death would lose its sting.
MATTHEW 12:41. Continuing to relate the history of Jonah, theirs would be a sign of judgment. The men of Nineveh who had repented at the preaching of Jonah would rise up in judgment against them, because the scribes and Pharisees refused the preaching of one greater than Jonah.
MATTHEW 12:42. Likewise, the Queen of the South testified against the perversity of their unbelief. She had travelled many dangerous miles to hear the wisdom of Solomon, yet now a greater than Solomon was here in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The ignorant Gentiles believed the prophet Jonah, and the Queen of Sheba sought out the wisdom of King Solomon, yet the Scribes and Pharisees failed to recognise Jesus as their expected Prophet and King!
MATTHEW 12:43-45. After all the trials and lessons of the wilderness, the judges, the Kings, and the exile, Israel had at last come to realise that there is just one God, and that the worship of idols is nothing less than demon worship.
However, having swept away the evil spirit of outwardly false religion, the scribes and Pharisees represented a legalistic form of religion which still, by their own denial of Jesus, excluded the true and living God! They were blind to the truth, deaf to the message of Jesus, and their voices spoke blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
Those among whom the Lord was walking were being enticed by evil spirits to the greatest of madness: enmity against God! Thus “this wicked generation” (MATTHEW 12:45) of Israel stood condemned.
A person might not think themselves to be possessed of an evil spirit, but to be living their lives without Christ puts them in a similar plight. It is the very height of madness to rush into eternity without having found peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. All have sinned, and all sinners need repentance.
Repentance is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it is a turning away from sin. On the other, it is turning to good. It is out with the old, in with the new.
Yet this is not just turning over a new leaf, amending our lives. To ‘cease to do evil’ and to ‘do good’ is impossible unless there is also a spiritual change: a spiritual emptying, and a spiritual infilling.
It is well that the demon is cast out: but when the demon goes, there is no native goodness to rebuild life, there is only a void. Unless that void is filled with God Himself, the demon will return with seven others worse than itself, and the patient will be rendered worse than before (MATTHEW 12:45). Thankfully, in His mercy, the Lord not only casts out the evil, but gives His Holy Spirit.
When we first come to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, confessing and turning away from our sins, and worshipping God only through Him, we become members of a new family. It was so for the twelve Apostles, and for the women who provided for Jesus out of their substance: among whom was Mary Magdalene, ‘out of whom had come seven demons’ (cf. Luke 8:1-3).
MATTHEW 12:46-50. Whilst speaking to the multitudes, Jesus was told that his mother and brothers were outside, seeking to speak to Him. He stretched out with His hand towards His followers, both men and women saying, “Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.”
So when we listen to and obey our Lord Jesus we are received into a new spiritual family, the family of God. Our membership of this family is seen in the fact that we accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, and do the will of God.
Jesus’ redefining of ‘family’ is still shocking to this very day. Our relationship to Jesus must transcend all other relationships.
