Read and Believe in Jesus.
“I believe. Help my unbelief.” Mark 9:25
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REVIEW – Last time, three of Jesus’ closest, believing disciples got to view “the Son of Man coming of His Kingdom” before they died. Peter, James, and John were wowed to see Jesus transfigured before them. It was as if He had pulled back His outer physical body so they could catch a glimpse of the Second Person of the Trinity, the holy, righteous Son of God.
Brilliant white, dazzling, sparkling white beyond any earthly white light is what shone out from Him, as He spoke with the glorified Moses and Elijah about His “exodus” from planet Earth.
It was too much. Peter began speaking like a fool. And God Almighty cut him off with a “shut up, this is MY SON, listen to HIM,” just seconds before the big fisherman hit the ground.
Later, Jesus, clothed in earthly garb again, gently woke the disciples and led them back down the mountain. “Tell no one what you saw until after I am resurrected from the dead.”
What a hard command to obey! What an amazing experience to have to keep to yourself! And what did He mean by His resurrection? Was that when all believers rose at the end of the age? Though they had more faith than the other nine disciples, they did NOT understand Jesus having to die, be buried, and then be raised from the dead.
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Matthew 17:14-16 (with Mark 9:14-29) (I want to include this passage in Mark because it tells more than Matthew’s account. (Remember, the Gospel of Mark was probably dictated to Mark by Peter himself.)
As Jesus and the three came down the mountain, they saw a large crowd around the rest of the disciples, including some religious leaders who had obviously followed them this far north. The Scribes were arguing hotly with the disciples. Why?
Remember how Jesus had rebuffed them when they asked for a “heavenly sign” to PROVE He was the Messiah?
Remember that Jesus had said they’d only get the sign of Jonah, before turning and leaving Galilee altogether?
Well, it seems they had found the rest of the disciples and had demanded a sign from THEM. And those misguided, weak-in-faith disciples had tried to exorcise the demons from the pathetic young man … to PROVE they followed the true Messiah (who, by the way, had left them down below to show Himself glorified to the other three).
The crowd was greatly surprised to see Jesus and ran to HIm. But Jesus looked straight at the disciples and asked, “What are you arguing with them about?” (Hadn’t Jesus just told them on that boat ride, “Beware the teaching of the Scribes and Pharisees”?)
Before they answered Jesus, a man, a desperate father, called out from the crowd, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, because he has an evil spirit in him and cannot talk. Whenever the spirit attacks him, it throws him to the ground, and he foams at the mouth, grits his teeth, and becomes stiff all over! I asked your disciples to drive the spirit out … but they could not…”
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Matthew 17:17-18,
You can sense the ‘fire of holy indignation’ in Jesus. “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you?”
Yes, Jesus was referring to His nine disciples, the “faithless” disbelieving ones. (Remember, it wasn’t until a week after Jesus was resurrected that He appeared to “doubting” Thomas, revealing His wounds, and told him, “Do not disbelieve, but believe!”
(We may mock them, but what would Jesus say of our faith, MY faith?)
“Bring the boy to me.” And as soon as the demon in the boy saw Jesus, he threw the poor lad into a powerful seizure, wracking him till he was almost dead.
“How long has he been like this?” Jesus asked the father.
“Ever since he was a child. Have pity on us and help us … if you possibly can.” Well, this man didn’t have much faith either. “If you CAN?” he’d said. This was Jesus. He had already healed and delivered thousands upon thousands, including a man who’d run through the tombs with 2,000 demons inside.
Oh, and remember the leperous man who came to Jesus, saying, “You CAN heal me, if You will.” No doubt there!
“Yes, if YOU, yourself CAN,” Jesus said to the man. “Everything is possible for the person who has faith.”
‘I do believe. Help my unbelief!”
Jesus noticed the crowd getting bigger and closing in on them. He commanded the demon. “Deaf and dumb spirit, I order you to come out of the boy and never go into him again.”
The demon obeyed (it had to), but it wrenched the boy one last time, leaving him almost dead. But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him up.
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Matthew 17:19-21.
Later, in a private place, the nine disciples asked Jesus, “Why could WE not cast it out?” (Why indeed? For they had done miracles of healing and exorcism when Jesus had sent them out earlier, two by two.)
Jesus answered them with words that probably cut them to the core. “Because of your little faith. For, I tell you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to THIS MOUNTAIN, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
1 John 5:14
“And this is the confidence that we have toward Him,
that if we ask anything according to His will, he hears us.
And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask,
we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him.
True faith always involves surrender to the WILL OF GOD.
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So….. How many truths or lessons do WE learn from this “very different” passage?
- About obedience. (from the three as well as the nine disciples)
2. About faith. (from the one in need as well as the ones who minister.)
3. About answered prayer. Or UNANSWERED prayer.
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