Matthew 17:10-21
“How to Live in a Faithless Generation”
Translation
& Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 09 Dec 2012
Translation
17:10 Then His disciples asked Him
saying, “Why then are the scribes saying that it is necessary for Elijah to
come first?”
17:11 And in answer, Jesus said to them,
“Elijah does come first, and will restore all things,
17:12 yet I’m telling you that Elijah
already came and they did not recognize him.
Instead, they did to him whatever they wished.
The Son of Man is also about to suffer in this way under them.”
17:13 Then the
disciples put it together that it was concerning John the Baptizer that He
spoke to them.
17:14 Now as they came toward the crowd, a man approached Him,
kneeling before Him
17:15 and saying, “Lord, have mercy on my son, because he is lunatic and is
suffering terribly,
for often He falls into the fire and often into the water,
17:16 so I
brought him to your disciples, yet they did not have power to heal him.”
17:17 Then, in response, Jesus said, “O faithless and wayward
generation,
how long will I be with y’all? How long will I hold y’all up?
Continue bringing him to me here.”
17:18 And Jesus reprimanded it,
and the demon went out from him, and the boy was healed from that very hour.
17:19 Then the disciples approached Jesus privately saying,
“For what reason did we not have the power to cast it out?”
17:20 And Jesus said to them, “It’s because of y’all’s
faithlessness,
for really, I’m telling y’all, if you have faith like a mustard seed,
you will say to that mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it
will move,
and nothing will be unempowered for you!
17:21 but
this kind doesn’t go out except with a prayer and a fast.”
Introduction
Well, from the heavenly glory of Jesus Christ in His Transfiguration on
which we meditated last time we were together, we descend to the pain and
confusion of the groaning, sin-sick earth below.
The great renaissance artist Raphael captured these extremes in his
painting entitled “The Transfiguration” – his last work before he died in April
of 1516. In this oil-on-wood painting, Jesus is depicted at the top with lots
of light and joy and simplicity, while at the bottom of the stylized mountain
are the apostles in confusion over what to do with the demon-possessed boy that
has been brought to them, while the scribes chide them for believing in a false
messiah, and the poor boy’s father is standing in the middle of it all looking
dazed and hopeless, uncertain of what to do next.
This is the world we live in. Actually, we as Christians are walking in
both worlds, having had a taste of the glory of heaven in what we know about
Jesus, and yet living in a fallen world where there is fear and unbelief and
suffering all around us. How do we navigate this? How do we live in a “faithless
and perverse generation”? What do we do when we see some of that faithlessness
and perverseness in our own selves? Let us look at what Jesus taught and at the
examples He offers us in the Gospel of Matthew:
Exposition
After
having just seen the prophet Elijah on the mountain with Jesus, Peter, James,
and John are reminded of Malachi’s prophecy that Elijah would come before the
Messiah:
17:10 Then His disciples asked Him saying, “Why then are the
scribes saying that it is necessary for Elijah to come first?”
Και
επηρωτησαν
αυτον ‘οι
μαθηται αυτου
λεγοντες τι'
ουν ‘οι
γραμματεις
λεγουσιν ‘οτι Ηλιαν
δει ελθειν
πρωτον;
- Here
is Malachi’s actual prophecy: Malachi 4:1-6 “Behold, I am going to send you Elijah
the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD. He will restore
the hearts of the fathers to their
children and the hearts of the children to their fathers; otherwise I will
come and strike the land with a curse.”
- It is thought that
the Pharisees who opposed Jesus were using this prophecy as a proof against
Jesus being the Messiah, for there had been no appearances of Elijah
before Jesus started His ministry. (Chrysostom, Calvin, Henry, Hendriksen)
17:11 And in answer, Jesus said to them, “Elijah does come
first, and will restore all things,
‘Ο
δε [Ιησους]
αποκριθεις
ειπεν αυτοις
Ηλιας μεν
ερχεται πρωτον2
και
αποκαταστησει
παντα
- Jesus picks up on another word in the same prophecy “Elijah, who
shall turn again [or “restore”] the heart of the father to the son...”
(Mal. 4:6, Brenton – LXX)
- What does it mean to
“restore”?
- The Greek word is a
combination of the preposition “from” plus the preposition “down” plus
the verb “to stand” so the picture is that something has fallen down and
then gets stood back up again.
- We already saw this
word in Matthew 12:13 when Jesus “restored” a man who had a withered
hand. It includes healing and returning to original abilities and use.
- This word was also used in
the Bible to speak of restoring honor, wealth, and employment that a
person used to have but which, for some reason, they had lost, such as
the “restoration” of Pharaoh’s cupbearer after he had the dream that
Joseph interpreted, or later when King David “restored” Prince Jonathan’s
land to his son Mephibosheth.
- This
word is also used several times in the books of the prophets to speak of
the end of the Babylonian captivity and the restoration of the nation of Israel under Cyrus and Ezra and Nehemiah in the Promised Land.
- But there is
also restoration of hearts, as Malachi prophecied, which is done
by renewing faith in the One True God, confessing sin and
finding forgiveness from God, and returning to a right standing
with God after falling into rebellion against Him. This is what John the
Baptizer did with vast numbers of Israelites.
17:12 yet I’m telling you that Elijah already came, and they
did not recognize him. Instead, they did to him whatever they wished [listedKJV/pleasedESV]. The Son of Man is also about to suffer in this way
under them.”
λεγω
δε ‘υμιν ‘οτι Ηλιας
ηδη ηλθεν και
ουκ επεγνωσαν
αυτον αλλα
εποιησαν εν
αυτω ‘οσα
ηθελησαν, ‘ουτως
και ‘ο ‘υιος του
ανθρωπου
μελλει πασχειν
‘υπ’ αυτων
17:13 Then the disciples put it together that it was
concerning John the Baptizer that He spoke to them.
Τοτε
συνηκαν ‘οι
μαθηται ‘οτι
περι Ιωαννου
του βαπτιστου
ειπεν αυτοις.
- The actual historical
Elijah did not appear before Jesus’ first coming, as attested in John 1:21,
but God had given John the Baptizer the same Spirit
and the same mission as Elijah to call people to repentance
and make straight the way of the Lord, so he was figuratively
called Elijah because he was the same type of minister.
- Jesus
had already told His disciples once, according to Matthew 11:14, that John
was the Elijah who was to come.
- And,
long before that, the angel of the Lord had told John’s father Zechariah
that this child would “go as a
forerunner before [the Lord] in the spirit and power of Elijah,
TO TURN THE
HEARTS OF THE FATHERS BACK TO THE CHILDREN, and the
disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready a people
prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:13-17, NASB)
- Just as John’s
calling to be the forerunner of the Messiah was not recognized by
everybody, and just as John was murdered, so also Jesus would not be
recognized by everybody to be the Messiah (Mt. 11:27, Mk. 9:12),
and Jesus too would be murdered.
- Certainly
the blame of these murders could be placed upon the civil leaders (Herod
and Pilate) who assented to the execution of these two righteous men, but they
couldn’t have gotten away with it if the people really didn’t want them
to, so the people share the blame.
- So Jesus’
advent fit perfectly with the prophecies of the Messiah after all, and
Jesus would continue to fulfill messianic prophecy as the suffering
servant. In this way He also identified with our own suffering and
left us an example of suffering in this sin-sick world (1 Pet.
2:21).
17:14 Now as they came toward the crowd, a man approached
Him, kneeling before Him
Και
ελθοντων [αυτων]
προς τον οχλον
προσηλθεν αυτω
ανθρωπος
γονυπετων
αυτον
- The parallel
passages in Mark (9:14-15) and Luke (9:37) give more context, picturing
Jesus arriving with Peter, James, and John the next day to find some
scribes and crowd of people gathered around the rest of the disciples.
When they see Jesus, they run up to Him, perhaps relieved to see Him as
they are frustrated with their own inability to help the dad and boy that
came to them for help – and they are probably being sneered at by the
scribes. Jesus is aware of the situation and is steamed enough at those
scribes that He’s ready to light into them for messing with His disciples,
when this striking figure emerges from the crowd.
- The way the
Greek grammar of this sentence works,
it appears that the man approached Jesus by moving forward while on his
knees – an obsequious way to show respect, but perhaps it was borne out of
desperation. This man is truly humbling himself in a last-ditch effort to
get help for his son. Sincere grief etches his face as he begs Jesus for
mercy.
17:15 and saying, “Lord, have mercy on my son, because he is
lunatic and is suffering terribly, for often He falls into the fire and often
into the water,
και
λεγων Κυριε ελεησον
μου τον ‘υιον ‘οτι
σεληνιαζεται
και κακως
πασχει
πολλακις γαρ
πιπτει εις το
πυρ και
πολλακις
εις το ‘υδωρ
- The Greek word in
this verse, σεληνιαζεται gets translated various ways – epilepticNKJ,ESV/
lunaticKJV,NAS/ moonstruckATR/ has seizuresNIV
- Jesus had already
healed people in this condition back in chapter four: Matt. 4:24 “And the hearsay about Him
went out into the entirety of Syria, and they led to Him everyone who was
bad-off, having various illnesses and being held fast by deep pain, and
demonized, and lunatic, and paralyzed – and He healed them!” (NAW)
- The parallel passages in the other Gospels give
us more detail of this boy’s condition: Mark 9:17-18 “Teacher, I brought You my son, possessed
with a spirit which makes him mute; and whenever it seizes him, it slams
him to the ground and he foams at the mouth, and grinds his teeth and
stiffens out...” (NASB)
- Luke
9:38 adds it was his “only child” and that these fits
only “departed with difficulty” and left him “badly bruised.”
- Marvin
Vincent, one of the foremost authorities in Classical Greek wrote in his Word Studies of the New Testament
that, “[E]pileptic gives
the true character of the disease.
- Now while the
seizures may have resembled epilepsy, we must believe the scriptures that
they were the result of demonic attacks rather than mere physical
deficiencies in the boy’s brain. (“Satan can… mix his attacks with
natural means.” ~Calvin)
- These fits were
life-threatening, as indeed it is the character of Satan “to steal and to
kill and to destroy” (John 10:10). “Not a few times,” the boy had almost
burned himself to death by falling into a fire and lying there in a fit,
or falling into the lake and passively drowning, only to be barely-in-time
rescued by his father before his life was extinguished. Suicidal thoughts and actions can be an
indication that demons are influencing the thought life of a person.
- This boy was sore vexedKJV/
very illNAS/ suffers greatlyNIV/ severelyNKJ/
terriblyESV – κακως πασχει In our world which is plagued by sin, suffering is all around us.
- Some
of the suffering that we all experience is because we have sinned –
and the consequences of our sin are painful.
- Some
of the suffering we all experience is simply because the sin of our first
father Adam has subjected all of creation to decay, so that many things
are painful, no matter what we do (Rom. 8:18ff).
- And some of
the suffering we may experience we suffer voluntarily by shouldering the
pain of another person who is hurting due to the effects of sin.
- Since this boy had
experienced this phenomenon since he was a baby (Mark 9:21 –
παιδιοθεν) it was probably not
due to him dabbling in witchcraft but rather because God had permitted
this demonic activity in him so that Jesus would be glorified by healing
him and so that Jesus’ disciples could grow in their faith.
- Jesus, on the other
hand, suffered vicariously for our transgressions “the righteous for the
unrighteous” (1 Pet. 3:18, NIV). The word used of the boy’s
suffering was also used by Jesus up in v.12 to describe the suffering He
would experience on the cross in Jerusalem when he took our sins upon
Himself and suffered God’s punishment for us.
- At any rate, in the
Dad’s petition, the word “my” is placed emphatically in the Greek sentence
as if to say, “Lord, you’ve healed other men’s sons, now please heal MY
son!”
17:16 so I brought him to your disciples, yet they did not
have power to heal him.”
και
προσηνεγκα
αυτον τοις
μαθηταις σου
και ουκ ηδυνηθησαν
αυτον
θεραπευσαι
- Imagine
the man’s excitement, upon hearing of Jesus’ healing ministry, at the
prospect of release from this terrible bondage, and then finding that
Jesus was gone for the weekend and His disciples were unable to effect a
cureKJV,NAS. If Jesus’ own disciples couldn’t help, would Jesus
be able to help?
- There was indeed no
innate ability in any of the disciples to do miracles. The power to heal
supernaturally had to come from outside of themselves, from God.
Mercifully, this man turned to the source of that power, to Jesus Himself.
- How often do we turn
to human help when we should be turning to the source of all healing, to God
Himself? And, if He doesn’t answer right away, are we willing to wait on
Him until He considers it to be the right time?
- Don’t get me wrong,
I’m not saying that we should never get medical help from professionals;
what I am saying is that we should begin with prayer to God,
and we should also consider possible spiritual causes when
evaluating health problems, rather than starting with the
assumption that spiritual things are irrelevant. We may well arrive
at that conclusion, after searching the scriptures and searching our
hearts, that our particular experience of suffering is not due to demons
or personal rebellion against God, and in that case, it’s perfectly valid
to focus on the physical causes.
- “We are more than
stupid if our wretched state does not move us to pray. But the
incomparable goodness of God shows itself in the way that, although we are
exposed to so many different evils, yet He guards us by His help –
especially if we consider how fiercely our enemy burns to destroy us. But
there ought to come to our minds this comfort, that Christ came to bridle
his raging, and that we remain safe among so many perils because
the heavenly medicine is greater than our ills.” ~John Calvin
17:17 Then, in response, Jesus said, “O faithless and wayward
generation, how long will I be with y’all? How long will I hold y’all up?
Continue bringing him to me here.”
Αποκριθεις
δε ‘ο Ιησους ειπεν
Ω γενεα
απιστος και
διεστραμμενη, ‘εως
ποτε εσομαι
μεθ’ ‘υμων, ‘εως
ποτε ανεξομαι ‘υμων;
Φερετε μοι
αυτον ‘ωδε.
- To whom is Jesus
speaking? Who is this γενεα
– generation?
- Jesus all along has
said negative things about what He called “this generation.”
- “But to what shall
I compare this generation?” Matthew 11:16a
- “An evil and
adulterous generation seeks a sign…” (Matthew 12:39a & 16:4a) and it would be fitting for
the gentile Ninevites and the Queen of Sheba to condemn “this generation”
(12:41-42).
- The last mention of
“this generation” in Matthew 12:45 may be even more relevant to what was
going on with this boy, “Then [the demon] goes and takes along with it
seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there;
and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. That is the
way it will also be with this evil generation.” (NASB)
- However, Jesus seems
to be including even His own disciples in the “faithlessness/ unbelief”
of this generation, using the same word to describe them in
v.20.
- “[I]t
would be to change the whole nature of the rebuke to suppose it addressed
to those who had no faith at all,
and were wholly perverted.
It was because faith sufficient for curing this youth was to be expected
of the disciples, and because they should by that time have got rid of
the perversity in which they had been reared, that Jesus exposes them
thus before the rest. And who does not see that this was fitted, more
than anything else, to impress upon the by-standers the severe loftiness
of the training He was giving to the Twelve…” ~Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
- Jesus also
calls this generation διεστραμμενη
– waywardWycliffe/ crookedTyndale/ perverseKJV,NIV/
pervertedNAS/ warpedVincent/ distortedATR/
twistedESV
- This, by the way,
is a quote from the Greek Septuagint translation of Deut. 32:5, Where
Moses calls the Israelites a “faithless and perverse generation.”
- The underlying
meaning of this word “perverse” is that the subject “turns” unexpectedly in
ways that it shouldn’t go.
- It is often
used in the Bible to describe people who know that they should put
their trust in God, yet they “turn back” to their old ways of trusting other
things besides God. I
think it is in this sense that the word is used here.
- Later on, the
Jewish leaders would hypocritically use this same Greek word to accuse
Jesus Himself of turning people off in wrong directions: Luke 23:2 “We found this man misleading
our nation and
forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar, and saying that He Himself is Christ,
a King.” (NASB) Well, Jesus is the Christ, but He did not forbid
paying taxes; he was correcting the bad influence on the nation of
religious leaders who had become wayward/ perverse!
- Now, just as Jesus
applied faithlessness/unbelief to His own disciples, we also
need to watch out for waywardness/ perversion/ twisting of our own minds
today, just as the Apostle Paul warned:
- Acts
20:30 and from among your own selves men will arise,
speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. (NASB) Watch out!
- Philip.
2:14-15 Do all things without grumbling or disputing; so
that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of
God above reproach in the midst of a crooked (σκολιός)
and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights
in the world, (NASB)
- Combatting
perverseness or waywardness involves knowing the right way to go
– the way God says in the Bible to live – and obeying Him without
grumbling.
- Jesus
realizes He is working in the context of unbelief and perversion of
God’s ways, and He asks, “How long will I be with you… and bear
with you?”
- His second
question has a key word translated
sufferKJV/bear withNKJ,ESV/
put up withNAS,NIV.
- The Greek
word is ανεξομαι,
a compound of the verb “to have” and the preposition “up,”
so it could be literally translated “hold up.”
Then by extension, the word is used figuratively to mean “endure/ persevere
through,” or
in a negative sense “to tolerate/ put up with.”
- Most of the
commentators I read (Chrysostom,
Calvin, JFB, Hendriksen)
interpreted these questions as a sign of annoyance. However, I do
not believe that Jesus was browbeating His disciples (as in “[Sigh] How
long am I going to have to put up with you?”); that is not His
character.
- As the Prophet
Isaiah said, “…until you have grown old, I am he: I bear you up, [The
Greek translation of this verse in Isaiah uses the same word that Jesus
did about “bearing up” the generation of His time in Matthew: I bear you up,] I have made you,
and I will… take up and save you.” (Isaiah
46:4, Brenton)
- Jesus’
two questions seem to be sincere, and I take them to mean, “Wow, how much
more time do I have to work with you and cultivate the faith you need so
that you can stand strong on your own faith without me having to hold the
standard for you?”
- And, in keeping
with His character, Jesus proceeds to affirm that the Dad is on the right
track by bringing his son to Him. (And incidentally, by issuing His command
in the present tense, Jesus indicates that this Dad should keep
on bringing his son to Jesus in every parenting difficulty that
arises in the future.)
- Here, Mark inserts a little more of the story: “They brought the
boy to Him. When he saw Him, immediately the spirit threw him into a
convulsion, and falling to the ground, he began
rolling around and foaming at the
mouth. And He asked his father, ‘How long has this been
happening to him?’ And he said, ‘From childhood. It has often thrown him
both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do
anything, take pity on us and help us!’ And Jesus said to him, ‘“If
You can?” All things are possible to him who believes.’ Immediately the
boy's father cried out and said, ‘I do believe; help my unbelief.’” (Mark 9:20-24, NASB)
- The demon’s extreme reaction to the nearness of Jesus may have
given the dad some hope to believe that Jesus indeed had the spiritual
authority to end this torment of his boy.
- I like the way Jamieson Fausset, and Brown’s commentary unpacks
this dialogue: Jesus, in effect says, “My doing depends on your
believing.” And as the beleaguered dad recognizes this, he says in effect
to Jesus, “It is useless concealing from Thee, O Thou mysterious, mighty
Healer, the unbelief that still struggles in this heart of mine; but that
heart bears me witness that I do believe in Thee; and if distrust still
remains, I disown it, I wrestle with it, I seek help from Thee against
it.” A good example to us all!
- How could Jesus bear
to watch this boy suffer so and continue talking to his dad and not immediately
cure all his ills? I suspect that Jesus wanted the crowds to see the
severity of the boy’s affliction for themselves and that He wanted them to
hear the dad’s testimony that it had been a lifelong affliction. Then when
Jesus did heal the boy, nobody could say that it was a fake, staged
healing, and it would give fuel to the faith of all present to trust Him
all the more in all things.
17:18 And Jesus reprimanded it, and the demon went out from
him, and the boy was healed from that very hour.
Και επετιμησεν αυτω ‘ο Ιησους
και εξηλθεν απ’
αυτου το
δαιμονιον και
εθεραπευθη ‘ο
παις απο της ‘ωρας
εκεινης.
- As we saw in Matt.
8:26, a superior can “reprimand/rebuke” an inferior. Jesus,
as a superior to the unclean spirit, had the authority to “call it down”
and tell it where it was going.
- The KJV renders the
Greek word for “demon” as “devil” with a lower-case “D,” as in not The
Devil but a devil.
- Mark
tells us what Jesus actually said in His rebuke to the demon: Mark 9:25-27 “You deaf and mute
spirit, I command you, come out of him and do not enter him again.” After
crying out and throwing him into terrible convulsions, it came out; and the boy became so much like a corpse
that most of them said, ‘He
is dead!’ But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him; and he got up. (NASB)
- The healing
was immediate. The phrase Matthew uses to describe the swiftness of the
healing is απο της ‘ωρας εκεινης
– literally translated “from that [very] hour.” The NIV follows closely with a more specific meaning
for the word “hour” based on the context, rendering it, “from that moment.”
The NAS and ESV uncharacteristically render it as a paraphrase: “at
once/instantly.” This
phrase only occurs two other times in the New Testament, both in Matthew
and both to indicate how quickly someone was healed (Matt. 9:22
& 15:28).
- Jesus came to destroy
the works of the devil (1 John 3:8).
Just one command from Jesus and the problem evaporates. What authority!
What power He has! Do you believe it?
17:19 Then the disciples approached Jesus privately saying,
“For what reason did we not have the power to cast it out?”
Τοτε
προσελθοντες ‘οι
μαθηται τω Ιησου
κατ’ ιδιαν
ειπον Δια τι' ‘ημεις
ουκ ηδυνηθημεν
εκβαλειν αυτο;
- Earlier, Jesus had pulled Peter, James and John “apart”
(κατ’ ιδιαν)
to be alone and get a private audience with Him as He was transfigured.
Now the disciples pull Jesus apartKJV from the crowds in
order to ask Him a question “privately.” Mark explains that this was “in
the house.”
- Perhaps the
disciples were afraid they would be embarrassed by the answer, so they
didn’t want to ask when the crowds were around, but the ensuing lesson that Matthew learned from
Jesus was so important that he spilled the beans for everyone who would
read his gospel – at the risk of embarrassing himself, and relates Jesus’
diagnosis of the problem – the
disciples didn’t have enough faith!
17:20 And Jesus said to them, “It’s because of y’all’s faithlessness,
for really, I’m telling y’all, if you have faith like a mustard seed, you will
say to that mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will
be unempowered for you!
‘Ο
δε λεγει
[Ιησους]
αυτοις δια την
απιστιαν
‘υμων, αμην γαρ
λεγω ‘υμιν εαν
εχητε
πιστιν ‘ως
κοκκον
σιναπεως
ερειτε τω ορει
τουτω μεταβηθι
εντευθεν
εκει και
μεταβησεται
και ουδεν
αδυνατησει ‘υμιν,
- There are a couple
of ancient Greek manuscripts which uses the Greek word oligo-pistos “little faith,” instead
of what the vast majority of Greek manuscripts read here: a-pistos “no faith” or unbeliefKJV,
so English translations have some variation there, but either way the
disciples’ faith was “less than a ‘grain of mustard seed.’”ATR
- This is an allusion to the simile-parable Jesus related back
in chapter 13:31ff “The kingdom of the heavens is like a mustard seed
which a man got and then planted in his field, which is [among] the
smaller of all the seeds, but whenever it has been grown, it is [among
the] larger of the herbs and becomes a tree, such that the birds of the
sky come and nest in its branches.” (NAW) If the
faith is like a mustard seed, it may be small, but it grows; that’s the
key.
- In Greek, the word
translated “impossible” in most English translations has the same root as
the word translated “able” in the previous verse. Jesus is coming right
back at His disciples with their own words: “We were not able…” they say,
and Jesus replies, “But you will not be disable… if you have faith.” If you can’t say “Amen,” you can say “Ouch!”
- This language of “moving
mountains” is reminiscent of the Prophet Isaiah,
who wrote in chapter 40 about “every valley being exalted and every mountain
and hill made low” as part of “preparing a highway for the Lord” and
making it straight. Now, maybe there will be some literal
fulfillment of that, but I am certain that there is a figurative
fulfillment in it, that obstacles to faith in people’s minds will be
removed, and people throughout the world will trust in Jesus to save them,
in accordance with His Great Commission (Mt. 28:18ff). That’s the kind of mountain-moving that prepares
the way of the Lord.
- You know, God can do
anything, and, if we are properly connected to His power (and His will),
there is no such thing as a lack of power to do anything.
- ILLUSTRATION:
A month ago, my wife noticed that our food was not very cold when she
pulled it out of the refrigerator. She also noticed that the refrigerator
light didn’t turn on when she opened the door. What was wrong? She tried to plug it in to a different
electrical outlet nearby, and it still didn’t work. We looked to see if
there was a tripped GFI outlet, but there were none on that circuit. Must be the electrical switchbox. We
checked for a tripped breaker, but all the breakers were in their normal
ON position. Meanwhile the food in the
fridge was getting closer and closer to room temperature. The
lights and appliances worked fine in other rooms of the house, so I
finally ran some extension cords to nearby rooms to power our kitchen
appliances. But why wouldn’t the
kitchen outlets work? I started tracing the electrical wires
from the switchbox to the kitchen but eventually gave up. I was thinking
we were going to have to run a whole new circuit and fish electrical wires
through the walls. I couldn’t get the
power to work. Finally, Paula and Amos got the bright idea of
taking each electrical outlet out of the wall to inspect them, and Amos
finally hit upon the problem: The main wire coming into the kitchen that
fed all the other electrical outlets had become disconnected from the
first outlet in the series, and as soon as he reconnected that wire, Voila, we had power again! It’s like
that with faith: God has the power; we
just need to be connected properly to it!
- Later, Jesus
says in Matthew 19:26, “With God, all things are possible.”
- And the Apostle Paul
said the same thing in Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Him
who strengthens me.”
- But could you actually move a mountain? Well, there is a
legend of an ancient African king who was a pagan and who hated the
growing number of Christians in his country. This pagan king heard about
this saying of Jesus and decided to publicly embarrass the Christians in
his country by telling them that if they could not actually move a
nearby mountain on a certain date, then they would have to renounce their
faith in Jesus or be killed. On the appointed day, the Christians fasted
and assembled before the mountain with the king and a crowd of spectators,
and the Christians prayed. Suddenly an earthquake occurred which caused
the mountain to move enough to satisfy the most hardened skeptic, and the
Christians kept their heads that day.
- Now, understand that
this promise does not extend to using God’s power frivolously
for things that would merely make life more convenient for us – or for
things which would merely entertain others. In the case of those
African believers, they really had no other choice but death and
the discrediting of Christianity before their whole nation.
- Jesus then concludes
with a final instruction:
17:21 but this kind doesn’t go out except with a prayer and a
fast.”
τουτο δε το γενος ουκ εκπορευεται ει μη εν προσευχη
και νηστεια.
- This verse has been generally
considered part of the Bible for over 1,700 years. Then in the mid-1800’s,
three ancient Greek manuscripts33 were found which didn’t have
this verse in them, and within a few decades, modern Bible editors had
chopped this verse out of the Bible. The curious thing is that the three
ancient Greek manuscripts which omit verse 21 are not considered to be
100% accurate by those same modern scholars. For instance, they reject the
reading of two of those ancient manuscripts in v.15 above and the reading
of the third manuscript in v.20 above. Besides, the text of this verse (with
the exception of “and fasting”) is undisputed in the Mark account. Now, I
do believe that those ancient manuscripts are valuable, and I often agree
with modern scholarship, but at this point in time concerning this particular
verse, I’m siding with the traditional Greek text and considering it to be
God’s word, so I’m going to preach on it:
- As is the case with
many aspects of the spiritual battle in which we find ourselves, “this
kind” of demon and its influence could not be treated casually.
- There may be some sins that you don’t find tempting, so it is easy
to resist them, but there are other sins feel like a powerful
electromagnet, and it’s a real fight to resist them.
- The instructions we
have at the end of Ephesians to “put on the full armor of God that we may
stand against the Devil” were not a throw-away postscript; this is
important!
- “The meaning
therefore is that, when we have to fight earnestly against Satan, just any
sort of faith is not enough. Strenuous efforts are required. As the remedy
for a languid faith He prescribes prayer, to which He adds fasting as an assistance
[to prayer].” ~Calvin
- “[T]hough
nothing is impossible to faith, yet such a height of faith as is requisite
for such triumphs is not to be reached either in a moment or without
effort – either with God in prayer or with ourselves in self-denying
exercises.” ~JFB
- But it’s
possible to go overboard and err on the opposite extreme of excessive
fasts and giving the enemy more credit than he is due. Note that Jesus
does not prescribe a lot of rigmarole. The word for “prayer” and the word
for “fasting” are both singular, so it could be legitimately be translated
“a prayer and a fast.” One simple fast and one earnest prayer should do.
Conclusion
There are a lot of lessons to be learned from this passage in how to
live as followers of the glorious Christ in the midst of a fallen world; let me
review three of them: Endure, Entreat, and Expect:
- ENDURE suffering for the
glory of God.
- Not that we should bring needless suffering upon
ourselves, just don’t expect perpetual comfort.
- Godly people throughout the Bible suffered: John
the Baptizer suffered, Jesus suffered, the Apostles suffered. It is just
a part of following Christ and dying to yourself.
- Sometimes God allows us to suffer in order to
draw us closer to him. As Matthew Henry put it, “Sometimes He keeps the
cistern empty that He may bring us to Himself, the Fountain.”
- We can bear any suffering with the knowledge
that our Lord is near, that Jesus suffered all of God’s wrath for us, and
that we will enjoy eternal life without suffering when our earthly
mission is accomplished.
- ENTREAT - Take your problems to
Jesus.
- The disciples took their theological puzzle
about Elijah to Jesus. Likewise if you ever find it hard to figure out a
Bible passage, pray for God to open your understanding and patiently wait
for Him to lead you into all truth.
- The dad took his sick son to Jesus. Likewise we
should pray to God concerning our health problems – and also bring the
needs of our children (and our parents) before the Lord in prayer to see
what He will do. Jesus loves to answer
prayer!
- And, by the way, fasting from time to
time is a good discipline to help us “put an edge” on our prayers. (Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible,
p.1072c)
- EXPECT - Trust Jesus to bring
Transformation
- Realize, O Christian, that the problem is not
God, it is your own lack of faith. Are you having a bad day? It is because of your lack
of faith! Do you have needs?
It is because of your lack of faith! Please understand, I’m not saying
that you’ll one day become a Super-christian that can command Little
Debbie cakes to fall from the sky whenever you want a snack, but as you
mature in faith, you will see more and more how your own faithless attitudes
turn good days into bad days, and you will be quicker to take things to
the Lord in prayer, and you’ll know what to pray for.
- “[T]he first
foundation of faith is to embrace the infinite power of God… so that we
are firmly convinced that our praying will not be in vain… [I]t is not the Lord’s fault
if a great abundance of blessings does not flow from Him to us, but it
must be imputed to the narrowness of our faith, that it only comes drop
by drop – sometimes, indeed we do not feel even a drop, because unbelief
blocks up our hearts… Now, nowhere is there a perfect
faith, and therefore it follows that we are partly unbelievers. Yet in
His kindness God pardons us and reckons us as believers in account
of our small portion of faith… God
will never fail us so long as we open the gate to His grace.”
~Calvin
- What is the “mountain” that you see needs to be
moved? Maybe it’s not a mountain, maybe it’s something else, but if it
would truly bring glory to God, then trust God to bring transformation
in that area and act with expectation!
Twenty-five years ago, after reading this same passage of scripture, I
wrote a prayer in my journal that I would like to use as a closing prayer now. Let us pray: “Lord… let me have the
attitude toward You that the dad had who fell on his knees and said, ‘Have
mercy!’ You are so awesome that I must be utterly humble before you, and I
don’t deserve anything good, so when I ask, I am truly asking for You mercy! And,
Lord, give me a strong faith so that by your power, nothing will be impossible.
As You work through me, give me, by Your mercy and grace, the faith to change
the world!”