¹⁴And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying, ¹⁵“Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. ¹⁶So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him.” ¹⁷Then Jesus answered and said, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me.” ¹⁸And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour. ¹⁹Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” ²⁰So 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. ²¹However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”  

Having coming down from the Mount of Transfiguration with His inner circle of three disciples, Jesus met a distraught father with a very sick son. Jesus gave special principles for living in the kingdom, from 17:14 through chapter 20.

17:14

And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying,

The distraught father acknowledged who Jesus was by kneeling before Him. This shows the father’s dependence on Jesus.

17:15

“Lord, have mercy [compassion] on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water.

The son suffered epileptic seizures causing him to fall into fire and water. He did not deserve healing, but the father made the appeal based on “mercy.”

17:16

So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him.”

Jesus’ disciples were powerless to heal the son, yet He had given His disciples special powers to heal.

17:17

Then Jesus answered and said, “O faithless and perverse [bent out of shape, difficult, distorted, or misguided] generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me.”

Jesus addressed the disciples’ lack of faith

17:18

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

The son was instantly cured.

17:19

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

The disciples asked privately about the difference between Jesus’ healing power and their lack of power to heal.

17:20

So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if [hypothetical] 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.

Jesus’ answer was about the nature of their belief. Faith the size of the smallest of seeds could cast a mountain into the sea. The “mountain” was a common metaphor for a major difficulty.

17:21

However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”

Some manuscripts omit this verse, but it is found in the majority of manuscripts.

The qualification of this kind of faith rests on knowing the will of God. God does not give the power of spectacular stunts to fulfill personal power lust.

PRINCIPLE:

Faith must always rest on a promise or command.

APPLICATION:

Personal power lust is not the same as trust in God’s promises. There are those who love to be spectacular for the sake of being impressive. True faith always rests on authentic biblical resources. If we do not make the promises of God the object of our faith, our faith is vain.

Hebrews 11 is the believer’s Hall of Fame. The central idea is that each believer in the chapter lived by faith. When God brings us to a sense of powerlessness, we need to exercise faith in God’s promises for us. God will meet any mountain-sized difficulty we have by trust in His promises.