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19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?" 20 So Jesus said to them, "Because of your unbelief; 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. 21 However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.'" ~ Matthew 17:19-21
Today, we return to our study of Matthew 17 where the Lord Jesus had been up on Mount Hermon with three of His disciples. While up there, the Lord Jesus had a conversation with Moses and Elijah after which the Lord Jesus alone was enveloped in the glory of the Lord. It was then that God the Father spoke out of heaven saying, "This is my Beloved Son, listen to Him." Listening to the Lord Jesus is the emphasis in this chapter. The presence of Moses and Elijah emphasized the idea that the Lord Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. While this was happening, down in the valley the other nine disciples could not fulfill the request of a desperate father to deliver his son from a demon. Perhaps this happened because the disciples were not listening to the right One.
In v.19 of today's passage we read, "Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, 'Why could we not cast it out?'"
Mount Hermon illustrated the bigness of God while the disciples' inability to deliver the boy from the demon illustrated the smallness of their faith. It was their failure that prompted the disciples to ask the Lord why they couldn't "force the demon out?" Faith is not a substance, meaning the more we have the more power we have. Nor is faith a kind of magic to be manipulated. God is not a servant who does man's selfish biddings. Faith is confidence in the God of the Bible to do what He has promised in His Word. In Psalm 37:4 we read, "Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart." As we delight ourselves in the Lord His will becomes more and more important to us. This is why the Psalmist wrote in Psalm 40:8, "It is my delight to do your will, O God." When we pray to God we find ourselves finding more delight in His word as we bend our will to His. After all, even though prayer is conversation with God, it is ultimately the bowing of our will to His will. When we position our will in accordance with God's will, His will will comes to pass. C.S. Lewis once said, "We say that we believe God to be omniscient; yet a great deal of prayer seems to consist of giving him information."
In v.20-21 of today's passage we read, "20 So Jesus said to them, 'Because of your unbelief; 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. 21 However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.'"
Earlier the Lord Jesus sent His disciples out and gave them power to deliver people from demons. The disciples saw great results but here they had gotten to a point where they lacked not quantity of faith, but quality of faith. The frustration and the fear of the disciples prevented them from placing their full trust in the Lord Jesus. Due to the fact that the disciples encountered a task that seemed to them to be impossible, they waned in their faith. This was clearly the meaning the Lord Jesus intended, because he concluded for those who have the faith of a mustard seed, all things are possible.
Through the use of the illustration of the mustard seed, the Lord Jesus was not saying if the disciples had more faith, they could pray and impossible things would happen. The disciples failed to cast out the demon because they lacked faith in the Lord. Their problem was unbelief. When the disciples encountered this demon and were not immediately successful, their faith wasn't qualitatively up to the challenge. Their initial lack of success ushered in the sin of unbelief.
God can and will move mountains when we have faith in Him and we seek Him according to His will. The parable of the mustard seed illustrates that something small like the faith of the disciples in the Lord Jesus which was known to waver has the ability to overcome impossibilities. The emphasis must be on the power and the will of God rather than the disciples' faith. The disciples didn’t need an abundance of faith, all they needed was just a little bit placed in the Lord Jesus. It was clearly the Lord's will to deliver the boy from the demon. God moves most powerfully when we believe and place our trust in Him in accordance with His will. The key is that our faith is placed in Him which demonstrates we desire His will to come. All we need is mustard seed faith in a big God.
The Lord Jesus then said that prayer and fasting is the way of interceding for those who are demon-possessed. But the disciples didn't have the time to fast. The primary goal of fasting is intimacy with God. This intimacy enables us to be more sensitive to Him and His will. This intimacy enables us to recognize the false from the real. The idea of fasting has always been a voluntary restraint from food in order that we might give our hearts to the Lord more fully. It has never been about our performance, it has always been about our yieldedness to the Lord and His will. So, rather than being driven by the need for food, we do well to be led by God's Holy Spirit in our everyday lives. When we do this, we position ourselves to be defined by God most. This is the eternal life the Lord Jesus came to deliver to us. As a result of learning to tap into this life through our growing intimacy with God, we will begin to understand life in the way He intended it to be.