Wicked Demands and Stony Hearts

Three ways to celebrate your freedom today:

“Celebrate your freedom today from the burden of the law. What the law could not do for you, Jesus did for you by his perfect obedience and acceptable sacrifice.

Celebrate your freedom today but know that your freedom doesn’t mean you can lie however you want to live. Instead, you are now empowered to live how you were designed to live.

Celebrate your freedom today knowing that as one of God’s children, it is guaranteed that one day you will be eternally liberated from the burden of sin, suffering, and sorrow.”

-Paul David Tripp

Opening Revelation

Psalm 119:17–24 ESV

17 Deal bountifully with your servant, that I may live and keep your word. 18 Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. 19 I am a sojourner on the earth; hide not your commandments from me! 20 My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times. 21 You rebuke the insolent, accursed ones, who wander from your commandments. 22 Take away from me scorn and contempt, for I have kept your testimonies. 23 Even though princes sit plotting against me, your servant will meditate on your statutes. 24 Your testimonies are my delight; they are my counselors.

Introduction

Go ahead and open up your Bibles to Matthew 12 starting in verse 38.

As you do that, I want you to imagine having a child. You go on a family vacation down to Disney Land, expend countless dollars on rides, fun, and snacks.

You stay in a nice hotel, one with a pool themed like a medieval dragon, and the rooms themed like the Victorian era, with grand beds and a room all to this child’s self.

Every day for over a week you care for this child, nurturing their hurts, cultivating patience in them as you wait for rides but also celebrating the victories in screams and laughs.

Finally, the time comes where you are to head home. You pack up the car, there’s the normal struggle of not wanting to leave the place, but finally you’re all loaded with everyone you brought, and everything that you both brought and bought as souvenirs.

Then, as you’re driving north on I-5, the child looks says to you: “Daddy (or Mommy), I wish you’d just show me that you love me. I wish I could know and trust that you care about me. Show me a sign that you care about me.”

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This is similar to what we’re going to encounter in our text today. Jesus is going to be challenged by the Pharisees to prove His divinity again, and instead of playing the game of the hard-hearted Pharisees, He’s going to give us a parable of what happens when wicked people clean up their act, but remain wicked.

Let’s read:

Matthew 12:38–45 (ESV)

38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” 39 But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. 42 The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.

43 “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. 45 Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.”

Exposition (38-42) //God owes us nothing//

Jesus had already proven His position and power

Time and time again, Jesus proves Himself. Through:

Miraculous healings

Miraculous casting out of demons

Miraculous interventions

Miraculous control over elements and food

Miraculous wisdom and corrections of bad theology

Yet here in v. 38, we have the Pharisees demanding a sign from Jesus

They want to see something bigger than what has already been done

They just need “a little more evidence,” but they want to see it on their time, not God’s time

Have you ever met someone like that? Someone who hears you talking about God and goes: “You know, I would believe, but I want to hear from God in [this area] of my life. I’d really be dedicated and a believer IF God would do this one thing for me.

People who demand things from God act like God owes them something

This shows a selfish and hard heart

The person who has a hardened and “impenitent” or “unrepentant” heart is “storing up wrath for [himself] on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed” (Rom. 2:5)

Instead of trusting their own deceitful and wicked hearts (Jer. 17:9), they are in need of a new heart, a new spirit put within them. They need their heart of stone removed (Eze. 36:26)

People who demand “a little more knowledge” or “just one miracle” or the like are like the child in my opening illustration who just wants to know that their Daddy or Mommy loves them, even though they’ve been given ample evidence of the fact

There is no amount of proof or knowledge that will satisfy a stony heart

You can dress up a dog to look like a cheeseburger, but it doesn’t make them a cheeseburger

The Pharisees dressed up as righteous, knowledgeable, and in our verse humble! “Teacher…” (as if they valued what Christ said) “we wish to see a sign from you.”

In effect, they are exclaiming that everything Christ has done could’ve been a trick (I mean, He even said that He only did what His Father told Him)

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.” (Jn. 5:19, cf. Jn 12:49 and Jn 14:31)

They want to watch His hands wave, the power shoot forth from His fingers, and some grand display of miraculous explosion like a firework go in front of them

Such is the request of a heart of stone, not a heart being softened to the gospel

“Wicked and Idolatrous”

How does Christ respond to their request? “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign...”

Jesus is calling the group of Pharisees evil and “idolatrous.” That’s the meaning of the word “adulterous”

They had made God out to be a miracle worker at their command and had made their theological misconceptions into an idol

They were not only seeking proof of Jesus, but they were demanding that God show them that this was the Promised Time of the coming Messiah

They are part of an “evil generation” who are condemned in the last sentence of verse 45

Friends, God is not a gumball machine. You don’t put in your coin, turn the knob, and expect a prize to pop out the bottom. God is not at your beck and call; He is the sovereign ruler of all creation who knows what’s best for His plans universally and specifically.

He is not obligated to respond to your demands, just like He wasn’t obligated to respond to the Pharisees’ demands for a sign.

In not playing their game and doing a sign as they wish, He actually gave them the expectant words of what He had planned. “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights int he belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights int he heart of the earth” (12:40).

Ultimately, Jesus is referring to His death, burial, and resurrection here, relating Jonah’s existence in the fish’s belly to Christ’s existence in the grave

Some debate exists here because Jesus was not three FULL days and three FULL nights in the grave, but it was a common idiom in Jewish culture to refer to even part of a day as a “full day and full night.”

Jesus is also affirming the literal fact of Jonah in the belly of the fish (“Just as”). The Old Testament is not a mix of fables, but God’s actual interaction with humanity, fulfilling His purposes and plans. Since even Jonah and the fish are true, we can trust that all of God’s miraculous workings in the Old Testament are true.

Application (38-42) //Christ is Greater and we should trust Him//

Our God is in the heavens...

“Our God (the true God… the God who inspired and is testified of in the Bible) is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.” (Psalm 115:3)

God is not at our beck and call, but sits on His throne an does as He pleases… Not as we please

There are some who claim to possess miraculous powers themselves, that they can command God to give them special power when they want it. These people are dangerous and should be avoided and called out… But...

Many of us treat God the same way.

We pray and get mad at God when He doesn’t respond as we want Him to.

I just had a lady the other week call and ask for prayer. She said “the more people praying, the better chance I have.” I told her that however God desires to answer this prayer, He will, and to trust that God “works all things for the good of those who love Him” (Rom. 8:28). However, she implied that if God doesn’t answer her prayer just the way she wants, then it will be hard for her to believe in Him

Yes, it will be hard to believe. Because she is still in need of a new, trusting heart that looks past circumstances and delights in God’s perfect will for her life.

Trust Him and what He has planned

God has set up His own plans, works them into fruition, causes growth where He intends growth and decay where He intends decay

Christ is greater than Jonah and Solomon, and because He is greater those who who believed and trusted God through Jonah and Solomon will judge those who do not believe and trust Him through God’s Son.

The Pharisees were condemned by Gentiles in previous times who had less to go on than they did

So will people today be condemned in heaven by those who had faith, yet didn’t have God’s complete and full revelation in His Word

Christ has been revealed, He is recorded in the Scripture for our benefit. Trust Him, read His Word and grow in Him.

Never stop growing, never stop trusting, let your heart find rest in Him

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor. 5:21)

For our sake Christ took our sin, and for His glory should we ever live and strive to trust Him in all circumstances.

Do not be like the Pharisees who grow in wickedness, whose hearts grow ever-harder at the gospel of Jesus and as He presents and acts on His sovereign and perfect plan. Something greater than Jonah and Solomon has come, was here, is here, and will come again… Amen.

Exposition (43-45) //Wickedness grows where reform is only moral//

These next verses are of special difficulty, but they are a linked parable with verses 38-42. Many have implied that this is a declaration of how demonic powers work, that if they are exorcised then they will inevitably return with more demons and therefore with greater power. That is not what these verses are saying.

In fact, verse 43 explicitly says “When the unclean spirit has gone out,” which is not the word of “cast out.” This demon has left its home, gone on of its own volition, only to return and find that the place it had left a mess has been cleaned up.

It has not been cast out, but has simply left on its own.

We see this

We see this happen to people who have their lives become such a mess, they turn their lives around and clean up, but then they crack under the pressure of maintaining their lives, falling deeper into destruction than they previously were

Israel has seen this

Israel, too, had seen this with periods of restoration and repentance

I’ve been reading 1 and 2 Kings in my devotions for this last month. What we see is that there are tons of wicked kings in Judah, but some good ones. Israel (the other tribes) has nothing but wicked kings, but Judah has some good ones.

But after all the good kings who seek God, there is always greater apostasy as the generations continue

Reform that’s only skin-deep

What we can learn is that when reform is only skin-deep, that it’s only a form of cleanliness that is only maintainable until another temptation rolls in and corrupts it even worse than before, that it is worthless

“…the last state of that person is worse than the first,” Jesus says in verse 45

“So also will be be with this evil generation.”

The presumed theological and moral precision of the Pharisees was a form of cleaning up the house after an unclean spirit had left it

The first century presented itself with what most Jews, even today, consider the some of the most devout and devoted Jews. But O how far the Jews have fallen since then, writing rules upon rules of the Law, falling into what we now call “liberalism” which is really just excusing sinful and licentious behavior.

The generation of the first century Jews created a way for not just one demon to ruin them, but now for an entire multitude of demons to destroy them

How then can we apply this parable in our New Covenant context?

Application (43-45) //The Church pushes away the hard-hearted//

Misconception: You have to clean yourself up before you can come into church

First, we must recognize that this parable still holds true. People come to Christianity, even to church with stony hearts, demanding God show them a sign at their beck and call, and when they don’t get what they want how they wanted it, they leave

Very often, people use and abuse the church. They come in, get the help they need, and then take their benefits and blessings they’ve received and return to their former life thinking that they’ve reached recovery

They get a clean house, but their reform is only skin-deep. The house is vacant and swept, and they feel that sense of cleanliness… But they are walking toward a state that is worse than the first

They don’t fill their lives with Christ and His Word, but return to a Christ-less life, falling prey to the same addictions and temptations they formerly had.

In reality, their departure proves Proverbs 26:11: “Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his folly.”

There is a misconception about the church, that a person has to be clean before they enter the church doors.

But the reality is that the church is meant to be a hospital for sinners, taking in the weak and weary like our Lord does, compassionately caring for people in their struggles and pains

They don’t have to be clean to come for worship, but they should actually admit that their lives are dirty and messed up. They should walk through the doors with all their uncleanness and mess, because those are the people who really have need of Christ and His people

There will be many who abuse the church and Christ’s people this way, and it’s sad that they prove this parable

They are worse off than they were when they walked in. They leave not just the church, but they abandon Christ because they never really wanted Him in the first place, just the things that He could bring

The Pharisees didn’t want the true Messiah

They wanted the period of peace that He was promised to usher in

They wanted the peace they understood, not the peace that God intended

That’s how it is for those who take what they need from God’s people. They are blinded by their hard hearts and don’t want what God brings them, they only want what they think God should give them

Take from God what He gives, not what you want Him to give

So how do we apply this parable?

We come to Christ and His people, trusting Him and not being indignant and upset when God doesn’t give us what we want

We should not get our homes clean with moral reform, leaving our minds and hearts empty of affections for Christ and His providence. Unclean spirits and temptations should return to us as their homes, met with locked doors and the sounds of glorious praises of God and who He is, not who we wish He was… not what we wish He’d do for us

We apply this parable by standing in Christ’s righteousness, in Christ’s goodness, and by not being people who are satisfied by idols of our own fashioning. We trust Him in what His plan is, not in how He might fit our plans.

This is a difficult command, and one that even the Pharisees and experts in the Law were incapable of doing. Their idol was their concept of God and His plans, they couldn’t be corrected by God Himself because of their hearts of stone.

Conclusion

There’s been a consistent theme arising in our text for the past few chapters, and I’d like to summarize that like this:

God is not who we say He is, He’s who He says He is. God does not do as we think He will, but as He intends.

We apply our text today by not demanding signs or plans from God, because He knows what He has planned and its good. Instead, we should ask for the strength to be faithful until He fulfills His plans.

We apply our text today by not trying to look or sound holy, but to actually be holy and filled with awe and praise of God for who He truly is.

Sounds a lot like that theme that keeps arising, doesn’t it?