April 14, 2010

• Matthew 17:14-21 by Dona Williams

  Pastor Dona came to teach at our Friday Bible study on 2/5/09 and it blessed us greatly.

  Matthew 17:14-21 And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic^d]’> for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”

  At this point Jesus’ ministry was winding down and He was making His final journey to Jerusalem. Jesus is wanting to impart final teachings to His disciples.about the Word and the power of the Word. Two times he has predicted his death but His disciples will forget those predictions until He reappears to them.  On the road to Emmaus, He caused the disciples finally realized it was Jesus with them, and later they said that their hearts burned within them. Distractions caused them to forget what Jesus had said to them.  We forget that with God all things are possible.

  The story from Matthew 17 is also found in Mark 9 and Luke 9.

  The disciples should have been able to heal this boy. They had been sent out in Chapter 10 and instructed to go into Israel, town to town, and minister to people. They had the commission from Jesus to do that, and yet in this case they were unable to heal the boy.  Why?

  The epileptic spirit is a tough spirit to command to leave.  To have his son throwing fits was frightening for the father and for the disciples. The son kept trying to harm himself, and the enemy was trying to kill him.

  Jesus speaks “O faithless and perverse generation…”  Notice, Jesus did NOT SAY “O faithless and perverse disciples”  Jesus was speaking to the GENERATION.  All humans, and this generation  looked at the circumstance with fear.

  The dad sought people to help and prayed but in an ineffective way. 

  Notice in verse 16, the man tells Jesus that he brought his son to the disciples BUT they could not cure him.

  Dona said something so profound:

  WHATEVER FOLLOWS “BUT” IS GREATER THAN WHAT PRECEEDES IT.

  We can think, I’m going to pray for him BUT he’s pretty bad off.  Remember: YOU WILL HAVE WHAT YOU SAY.

  People make excuses such as: But you don’t know my situation.

  We don’t need to have answers up front for that is working by sight.  If we are working by sight, we are not operating in faith. If we are not operating in faith we won’t get our answers.

  The disciples were looking at what happened to the boy, and thus they were not operating in faith, so the child was not healed.

  We need mustard seed faith. Jesus told us to go and heal the sick, to do the things that Jesus did.

  In severe situations we may feel we do not have enough faith, or that we need greater faith. We can lean on another’s faith, thinking we need people to shore us up. At some point, though, we need to realize that God gave us enough faith and that what we need to do is stir up our faith.

  With our children, when they are little we pray for them and cover them, but when they become young adults they have to stand on their own faith, they can’t depend on our faith for them.

  God hears and answers our prayers. We need to stand on our own feet and pray for ourselves. Yes, we disciple a new believer or a convert and begin to show them how to pray and stand in faith. But the disciples had spent three years with Jesus.  They were comfortable walking with Jesus, and knew that Jesus could heal.  When they were commissioned they were able to heal the sick, and now they were puzzled, and asked Jesus why it didn’t work this particular time.

  We need a closer look at Jesus in our walk in faith.  We are given mustard seed faith. When we are considered faithless it is because doubt disconnects us from our faith.  The word “perverse” speaks of sin.  Distractions and comforts of the world can distract us.  We can get distracted by family, friends, life. 

  The disciples were so used to relying on Jesus that they fell into SPIRITUAL LAZINESS.

  1 Timothy 6:5 useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppress that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself

  It is our tendency to fall back on previous knowledge and experience, to think of the situation in material terms or as part of humanity.  But we are not to do that, we need to see things as God sees them.

  Matthew 17:18 And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour.

  Jesus rebuked the demon and the demon came out of the child from that hour. The enemy comes to kill, steal and destroy.  Jesus came to bring life.  The enemy saw the disciples not believing in their authority to cast the demon out.  The man heard about Jesus and came to Jesus’ disciples for help. The demon sought to destroy the boy before the boy could be healed.  There were two kingdoms at war.

  Matthew 17:19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?”

  The disciples privately came to Jesus to ask why they couldn’t cast the demon out. They got disconnected through their unbelief and connected to the world. Jesus needed to show them how to reconnect to God and disconnect from the world. When connected to the world they became full of unbelief and faithlessness.

  Matthew 17:20 So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief;^YouToMe