Evil Generation – Matthew 12:43-45

The opening paragraph to the Wikipedia article on evil reads, “Evil, in a general sense, is the opposite or absence of good. It can be an extremely broad concept, though in everyday usage is often used more narrowly to denote profound wickedness. It is generally seen as taking multiple possible forms, such as the form of personal moral evil commonly associated with the word, or impersonal natural evil (as in the case of natural disasters or illnesses), and in religious thought, the form of the demonic or supernatural/eternal.”

Jesus has been using the term evil quite a bit in his interaction with the Pharisees, especially describing this generation as evil. And now he makes a somewhat startling comparison of this evil generation to evil spirits.

“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. 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. 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.” (Matthew 12:43–45, ESV)

It is fascinating to hear Jesus describe something so foreign to us, something about the spiritual realm that we do not ever see, and about something that generally tends to terrify us. Demons are scary. Evil is scary. Evil is unpredictable, or maybe, too predictable. We cannot be safe around it. It keeps us always on edge. Jesus is describing demons as evil spirits, some more evil than others (that’s interesting) who can be “swept” out of a “house” (we presume “house” refers to a person’s soul around which demons seem to camp), but which can return for some reason in even greater numbers with greater evil and totally destroy a person.

But Jesus is talking about demons in this way to make a comparison to the evil generation he was ministering to, that generation that falsely asked for a miracle even knowing they were not going to embrace it as any kind of proof that Jesus is the Messiah. So did the generation include everyone who was alive at that time? It couldn’t, because there were many who were coming to Jesus, believing in him, and many, after his death, resurrection and ascension, who believed and turned the world upside down. Jesus seems to be focusing this remark on the generation of spiritual leadership present in Israel, including the Pharisees, Sadducees, priests and scribes.

What made them evil was that they used their religiosity as a shield against humbling themselves and receiving the healing they so desperately needed. They thought they were in good with God, that He owed them favor, that they could speak for Him when in fact their teaching led people away from God.

So if you manage to expel a demon from your life but there is no real repentance from sin that led to this infestation and many more demons return, that is bad news. And that is what this generation is like. They tidy up, morally speaking, but there is no real internal repentance about their rebellious spirit or their spiritual pride. They will devolve from bad to worse. They will be willing to kill their Messiah to justify themselves. Are we that kind of generation?