Doctrine of the Angelic Conflict, part 65 – The essence of God – Omnipotence (miracles). Mar 9:14-29; Luke 13:10-17; 14:1-6; 17:11-19.

Title: Doctrine of the Angelic Conflict, part 65 - The essence of God - Omnipotence (miracles). MAR 9:14-29; Luke 13:10-17; 14:1-6; 17:11-19.     

 

26. Healing epileptic boy with demon: God’s power will manifest itself even were weak believers fail. There is no point hiding your doubts from God, MAR 9:14-29.

 

MAR 9:14 And when they came back to the disciples, they saw a large crowd around them, and some scribes arguing with them.

 

MAR 9:15 And immediately, when the entire crowd saw Him, they were amazed, and began running up to greet Him.

 

MAR 9:16 And He asked them, "What are you discussing with them?" 

 

MAR 9:17 And one of the crowd answered Him, "Teacher, I brought You my son, possessed with a spirit which makes him mute;

 

MAR 9:18 and whenever it seizes him, it dashes him to the ground and he foams at the mouth, and grinds his teeth, and stiffens out. And I told Your disciples to cast it out, and they could not do it."

 

MAR 9:19 And He answered them and said, "O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him to Me!" 

 

The father is not out of luck because the disciples are still weak in faith. They have successfully cast out demons before.

 

LUK 10:17

And the seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name."

 

But this is apparently a much stronger demon than they have faced, either that or their faith peaked earlier.

 

MAR 9:20 And they brought the boy to Him. And when he saw Him, immediately the spirit threw him into a convulsion, and falling to the ground, he began rolling about and foaming at the mouth.

 

He doesn’t do anything yet because He is concerned about the faith of the father.

 

MAR 9:21 And He asked his father, "How long has this been happening to him?" And he said, "From childhood.

 

MAR 9:22 "And 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!"

 

He’s fallen to a hopeless place much like the Syro-phoenician woman with the demon possessed daughter, except she did actually bow down and call Him Lord. This man still lacks faith and it is wonderful to see the Lord help him with His faith. Wonderful because He’s going to do the same for you and I.

 

MAR 9:23 And Jesus said to him, "'If You can!' All things are possible to him who believes." 

 

It’s not that all things are possible for the man to do if he believes enough but that Christ will do based on his faith.

 

MAR 9:24 Immediately the boy's father cried out and began saying, "I do believe; help my unbelief."

 

Christ helps our unbelief and when we still harbor doubts there is no point in hiding them. In humility we approach the throne of grace to find mercy and receive grace in time of need.

 

MAR 9:25 And when Jesus saw that a crowd was rapidly gathering, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, "You deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him and do not enter him again." 

 

MAR 9:26 And 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!"

 

MAR 9:27 But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him; and he got up.

 

MAR 9:28 And when He had come into the house, His disciples began questioning Him privately, "Why could we not cast it out?"

 

MAR 9:29 And He said to them, "This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer."

 

Some manuscripts, and good ones, have “prayer and fasting.” Although there are a few interpretations to this, as you might imagine, the basic principle is that the disciples couldn’t do it and they couldn’t do it because of a lack of belief.

 

MAT 17:19-20

Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?" And He said to them, "Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it shall move; and nothing shall be impossible to you.

 

It is likely that they took their past successes for granted and started to believe that the power was from the source of themselves rather than from God. A very strong demon makes that clearer to them.

 

Often we relish in past victories only to fail in present ones. The longer we dwell on past victories the easier it will be to start taking credit for them.

 

Dreamers always do this. They are always full of power in their dreams, like the guy who can’t stop talking about his high school football success, and he’s 52. :) Power in imagination doesn’t translate into the reality of power. Only the flow of the word of God under the power of the fully influencing Spirit will produce God’s power in the life of the believer.

 

27. Healing of the woman bent double. God’s power will set us free from sin, sorrow, and suffering, LUK 13:10-17.

 

LUK 13:10 And He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath.

 

LUK 13:11 And behold, there was a woman who for eighteen years had had a sickness caused by a spirit; and she was bent double, and could not straighten up at all.

 

If I had been crippled for eighteen years, I wonder if I would be faithful to worship God week after week in the synagogue? Surely this woman had prayed and asked God for help, and yet she was not delivered. However, God's seeming unconcern did not cause her to become bitter or resentful. There she was in the synagogue.

 

LUK 13:12 And when Jesus saw her, He called her over and said to her, "Woman, you are freed from your sickness." 

 

The power of God is more than sufficient to set us free.

 

GAL 5:1

 It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.

 

LUK 13:13 And He laid His hands upon her; and immediately she was made erect again, and began glorifying God.

 

Being bowed down is a theme in the Psalms.

 

PSA 38:6

I am bent over and greatly bowed down;

I go mourning all day long.

 

PSA 42:5

Why are you in despair [bent over], O my soul?

And why have you become disturbed within me?

Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him

For the help of His presence.

 

PSA 42:11

Why are you in despair [bent over], O my soul?

And why have you become disturbed within me?

Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him,

The help of my countenance, and my God.

 

PSA 44:25-26

For our soul has sunk down into the dust;

Our body cleaves to the earth.

Rise up, be our help,

And redeem us for the sake of Thy lovingkindness.

 

LUK 13:14 And the synagogue official, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, began saying to the multitude in response, "There are six days in which work should be done; therefore come during them and get healed, and not on the Sabbath day."

 

False teachers are always finding excuses to not teach to the truth.

 

LUK 13:15 But the Lord answered him and said, "You hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the stall, and lead him away to water him?

 

LUK 13:16 "And this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for eighteen long years, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day?" 

 

LUK 13:17 And as He said this, all His opponents were being humiliated; and the entire multitude was rejoicing over all the glorious things being done by Him. 

 

28. Healing of man with dropsy. God’s power silences man’s traditions, LUK 14:1-6.

 

Sabbath Day hospitality was an important part of Jewish life, so it was not unusual for Jesus to be invited to a home for a meal after the weekly synagogue service. Sometimes the host invited Him sincerely because he wanted to learn more of God's truth. But many times Jesus was asked to dine only so His enemies could watch Him and find something to criticize and condemn. That was the case on the occasion described in Luke 14 when a leader of the Pharisees invited Jesus to dinner.

 

LUK 14:1 And it came about when He went into the house of one of the leaders of the Pharisees on the Sabbath to eat bread, that they were watching Him closely.

 

LUK 14:2 And there, in front of Him was a certain man suffering from dropsy.

 

Instead of bringing them to repentance, Jesus' severe denunciation of the Pharisees and scribes (Luke 11:39-52) only provoked them to retaliation, and they plotted against Him. The Pharisee who invited Jesus to his home for dinner also invited a man afflicted with dropsy. This is a painful disease in which, because of kidney trouble, a heart ailment, or liver disease, the tissues fill with water. How heartless of the Pharisees to "use" this man as a tool to accomplish their wicked plan, but if we do not love the Lord, neither will we love our neighbor.

 

Evil people will want to use you, but God’s power always delivers us.

 

This afflicted man would not have been invited to such an important dinner were it not that the Pharisees wanted to use him as "bait" to catch Jesus. They knew that Jesus could not be in the presence of human suffering very long without doing something about it. If He ignored the afflicted man, then He was without compassion; but if He healed him, then He was openly violating the Sabbath and they could accuse Him, but they’ve added to the Scripture. Their silly Sabbath rules were not God’s Sabbath rules. Jesus already violated their Sabbath rules several times, but they’re at it again.

 

They put the dropsied man right in front of the Master so He could not avoid him, and then they waited for the trap to spring.

 

LUK 14:3 And Jesus answered and spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?" 

 

LUK 14:4 But they kept silent. And He took hold of him, and healed him, and sent him away.

 

LUK 14:5 And He said to them, "Which one of you shall have a son or an ox fall into a well, and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?"

 

Luk 14: 6 And they could make no reply to this.

 

29. Healing of the 10 lepers. God’s power will result in thankfulness for the one who has faith, LUK 17:11-19.

 

The flip side of this is the person who is delivered by God but continues in self-absorption and only expects more. You can do a lot for a person and they only come to expect it, while someone else may see the truth resulting in thanksgiving.

 

LUK 17:11 And it came about while He was on the way to Jerusalem, that He was passing between Samaria and Galilee.

 

LUK 17:12 And as He entered a certain village, ten leprous men who stood at a distance met Him;

 

The account begins with ten unclean men, all of whom were lepers. The Jews and Samaritans would not normally live together, but misery loves company and all ten were outcasts. What difference does birth make if you are experiencing a living death? But these men had hope, for Jesus was there, and they cried out for mercy.

 

The word translated "master" is the same one Peter used and means "chief commander."

 

 “master” - evpista,thj [epistates] = chief commander, master, overseer.

 

They knew that Jesus was totally in command of even disease and death, and they trusted Him to help them.

 

LUK 17:13 and they raised their voices, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!"

 

LUK 17:14 And when He saw them, He said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And it came about that as they were going, they were cleansed.

 

Jesus commanded the men to go show, themselves to the priest, which in itself was an act of faith, for they had not yet been cured. When they turned to obey, they were completely healed, for their obedience was evidence of their faith.

LUK 17:15 Now one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice,

 

LUK 17:16 and he fell on his face at His feet, giving thanks to Him. And he was a Samaritan.

 

LUK 17:17 And Jesus answered and said, "Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine —  where are they?

 

We are quick to pray but slow to praise.

 

GQ - gratitude quotient. The ratio of thankfulness to the amount of gifts from God.

 

PSA 107:8 [chorus - repeated 4 times]

Let them give thanks to the Lord for His lovingkindness,

And for His wonders to the sons of men!

 

“Now Thank We All Our God” (1636)

 

Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices,

Who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices;

Who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way

With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

 

O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,

With ever joyful hearts and blessèd peace to cheer us;

And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed;

And free us from all ills, in this world and the next!

 

All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given;

The Son and Him Who reigns with Them in highest Heaven;

The one eternal God, whom earth and Heaven adore;

For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore

 

Martin Rinkhart [German Lutheran pastor] wrote it during the Thirty Years' War when his pastoral duties were most difficult. He conducted as many as forty funerals a day, including that of his own wife; yet he wrote those beautiful words as a table grace for his family. In spite of war and plague around him and sorrow within him, he was able to give thanks to the Lord from a grateful heart.