Parallel passage: Luke 11:24-26, almost verbally, but omitting the application at the end of our Luke 11:45. A solemn warning against a merely negative improvement. External preparation, mechanical religion, is insufficient; a definite acceptance of my teaching is required. Our Lord's primary thought Would appear to be the relation in which those to whom he was speaking stood to himself. But he frames his words so as to include the whole of that generation of Jews (Luke 11:39, Luke 11:45) For his present hearers truly represented their contemporaries.
Observe