The Healing of a Boy With a Demon
14 When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. 15 “Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. 16 I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.”
17 “O unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.”18 Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed from that moment.
19 Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”
20 He replied, “Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
Once again MacArthur had some great insights into this passage that were new to me.
As Jesus and the three disciples who had been with Him during the transfiguration come down the mountain, they meet a crowd that included (according to Mark) scribes, a multitude of people and the remaining 9 disciples. A father comes and pleads with Jesus to have compassion on his son who was suffering excruciating torment due to demon possession. The disciples had evidently attempted to cast out the demon but had also evidently quit after their attempts failed. And Jesus was frustrated by their faithlessness and perversity/crookedness. He couldn't wait to go back to the Father. So Jesus heals the boy of the demon possession and all the torment that had come with it. The disciples were confused now because Jesus had given them authority to cast out demons and they hadn't been able to do it. What went wrong?
There faith was too little - it was not persistent enough.
Having little faith (which is obviously better than no faith) was something that Jesus had accused the disciples of several times in Matthew. In 5:30 they had faith that God would provide...the food they already had, but were worried about their food for tomorrow. In 8:26 they had faith.... until the storm hit. In 14:31 Peter has faith....until he begins to sink. In 16:8 they had faith....until they didn't have enough food to feed the multitude. And now here again, they had faith...until they couldn't heal as quickly as they thought they should. They have faith in what they already have, but not in what is supernaturally required. Which isn't much faith. After all, Hebrews 11:1 says Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
Great faith has faith in God in the midst of the storm, when the cupboard is bare, when your last coat is worn out. That's great faith.
In each of the preceding instances, Jesus was there with them, and He ended up taking care of it. But this time, He had not been there. He was testing their faith. And the test did not go well.
If Jesus answered every prayer request we ever had instantly, our faith would be shallow indeed. And Jesus is not our personal request genie.
The key to understanding v20 is to realize that Jesus was not focusing on the fact that the mustard seed is small - he does not mean that even if your faith is super tiny that you can move mountains.
Remember the parable of the mustard seed? Matthew 13:31-32 He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. 32 Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.”
Faith that is like a mustard seed, faith that starts small but grows, increases and becomes great. That is faith that can move mountains.
And the mountains are certainly not literal mountains. It's talking about moving mountains of difficulty. This phrase, moving mountains, was a common Jewish saying that referred to someone who could remove difficulties. Besides, I don't know about you, but I seldom need a mountain moved. But sometimes I need to survive an emotional storm, someone I love needs healing, someone else I love needs saving faith - those are the mountains. And how do we grow our faith? Through persistence in prayer. And that prayer obviously also has to be within the framework of God's will, God's promises. But persistence is the key.
And when greater trials come that require greater persistence in prayer, our faith grows greater.
James 5:16b The effective, fervant prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
Here's a great illustration of this kind of man....
More than half a century ago, George Mueller prince of intercessors began to pray for a group of five friends...five friends. After five years, one of them came to Jesus Christ. After ten years two more of them came to Christ. He prayed for twenty-five years and the fourth man was saved. And for the fifth he prayed until the time of his death and that fifth friend came to Christ a few months after George Mueller died. For that fifth friend he prayed fifty-two years, perseverance.
Tomorrow's scripture focus: Matthew 17:22-27
1 comment:
Great post. I really like the explanation about faith growing from a tiny seed into a large tree. Great illustration at the end of the post, too. I definitely need to persevere more!
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