Luke 11:14

THE EFFECT OF PERMITTED SIN

‘And he was casting out a devil, and it was dumb. And it came to pass, when the devil was gone out, the dumb spake.’

Luke 11:14

The word here translated ‘dumb,’ means, in its first use, blunt, obtuse; and so a blunted or lamed man in tongue. Mark the lesson enshrined in this little word. The power of speech was in that tongue, but that power was not presently available. The machinery of articulation was perfect, had once been used, but an intruding hand had grasped the driving-wheel, and the machinery was still. We are shown beyond all question

I. The man was under the possession of an intrusive force.—The once invited guest had at length become the domineering tormentor. The once permitted suggestion had in course of time changed into the tyrant habit of a captive life. It is always so with permitted sin. The incarnation of the blessed God has greatly weakened the force of evil. And yet, is there not here an accurate picture of what is going on around us? Allowed sin always masters a man in time. The man may loathe his master, yet he obeys him; he may fear his master, yet still he does his hateful bidding.

II. The change wrought by the tempter is threefold; a blunted tongue, a defective hearing, a dulled mind. All these are implied in that one Greek word. The silencing process employed by Satan is a gradual process—a slight impeding of the freedom of action—a little poison of sin which gently impedes the circulation of the spiritual life. So surely as the unused muscle or the long-bandaged limb loses strength, so does the impeded soul lose its power of communing with God, a neglected faculty becomes a withering faculty. A religion that becomes mechanical stops of itself.

III. What is the cure?—The old heathen philosophy honestly confessed that it could find no cure. ‘Plato,’ said Socrates, ‘perhaps the gods can forgive deliberate sin, but I do not see how.’ In the life and death of Christ the Saviour the mystery is solved, and the cure is made plain. We can look up to Christ even when our spirits are most dull, even when our prayers are most heavy, even when the whole soul seems weighed down, oppressed, silenced by the sin in our nature. We can look up to Him when we begin to struggle for the mastery with the bad habit of a lifetime, with the coldness of years, with the carelessness of a long duration. We can bring ourselves before Him, relying on His words of faithful promise, ‘Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.’

—Archdeacon Wilberforce.

Illustration

‘Do we suppose, because bodily possession by Satan is not so glaringly manifest as it once was, that the great enemy is less active in doing mischief than he used to be? If we think so we have much to learn. Do we suppose that there is no such thing as the influence of a “dumb” devil in the present day? If we do, we had better think again. What shall we say of those who never speak to God, who never use their tongues in prayer and praise, who never employ that organ, which is a man’s “glory,” in the service of Him Who made it? What shall we say, in a word, of those who can speak to every one but God? What can we say but that Satan has despoiled them of the truest use of a tongue? What ought we to say but that they are possessed with a “dumb devil”? The prayerless man is dead while he lives. His members are rebels against the God Who made them. The “dumb devil” is not yet extinct.’