The Faithless and Perverse Generation
“And when they were come to the multitude, there came to Him a certain man, kneeling down to Him, and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatic, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water. And I brought him to Thy disciples, and they could not cure him.” Matthew 17:14-16
Jesus, Peter, James, and John were descending the mountain on which the transfiguration of Jesus had taken place. There was a crowd of folks waiting at the foot of the mountain because they had heard He was in the area and wanted to see Him. His other nine disciples were also among the crowd, and there was one man who had a very urgent and pressing situation in his family concerning his son. When Jesus arrived, the man fell to his knees before Jesus and began to describe the tormenting condition of his son. The boy or young man (we do not know his age) was called a lunatic, out of his mind due to being possessed by a demon. I believe that people who are not believers in Christ can also be possessed by demons. Most modern scientists do not recognize a divine Creator, and thus neither do they recognize Satan as a tormentor. Because of their refusal to believe in God or believe that there is a devil, they cannot attribute mental derangement in a human to anything other than an environmental anomaly or some type of disease. They fail to acknowledge that disease is a result of sin entering the world in the garden of Eden. Not everyone’s malady is caused by some sin that they have committed, however, diseases and afflictions can simply be the result of living in a sin-cursed world.
Imagine the constant fear in which this father lived. He had sought the help of the nine disciples who were waiting for Jesus and the other three disciples to return, but they were not successful in casting out the demon of the boy. In Matthew 10:1, Jesus had given all twelve of them the “power against unclean spirits, to cast them out”. Jesus became exasperated at His disciples and the multitude and said, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer (put up with) you? Bring him (the boy) hither to Me.” In my mind’s eye, I can see Jesus looking at His disciples, dropping His head suddenly, and letting out a big sigh. He called them faithless because having been given the power to cast out demons, they had to believe that they could do this without a doubt.
Jesus also called His followers a “perverse generation”. Perverse doesn’t just refer to someone who has deviated from the standard of morality. According to Webster’s Dictionary, “perverse” also means to “persist in error or fault, stubbornly contrary, or obstinately disobedient or difficult”. A person who has little to no faith will inherently be stubborn, contrary, and disobedient. Their ideas will be distorted from what God says in His word. Jesus then asked all of them how much longer would He have to be with them, holding their hand, and instructing them over and over again. He would be gone soon. Would they be ready to carry on without Him? He also asked how much longer was He going to have to endure their lack of faith and their misunderstanding of His mission?
Perhaps from this event, we now have the saying, “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself”. In this case, because of the unbelief of the people and the lack of faith upon the part of the disciples, Jesus had to step in and do what only His power could do. Even though His disciples had been given the power through Him, they did not know how to appropriate it. The lack of faith among the people also limited the disciples’ ability to use their gift. Jesus was certainly not going to let the child continue to suffer because of the unbelief of the people or the lack of trusting faith of the disciples. In Mark 9:20-27, we have a more detailed account of what happened. When the boy stood before Jesus, the demon caused the boy to fall on the ground, wallowing in the dirt, and foaming at the mouth. The crowd must have been horrified. The father had been dealing with this for several years.
The father also had his doubts about Jesus’ ability to cure his son because he said, “IF you can do anything, have compassion on us, and help us”. Jesus said to the father, “IF you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes”. Jesus was waiting on the boy’s father to reach out in faith and receive the healing that his son so desperately needed. The boy’s father began to weep with tears rolling down his face and said, “Lord, I believe; Lord, help my unbelief”. Jesus ordered the demon to come out of the boy, and it had no other option but to do as Jesus commanded. The boy appeared lifeless. Everyone thought he was dead, but Jesus took him by the hand, pulling him up from the ground, and he got up whole and healed.
Later, as Jesus and His disciples were inside a house, the disciples asked why they couldn’t heal the boy. He replied, “This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting”. We know that the disciples had come to believe that Jesus was the Son of God, and that He had given them power over unclean spirits, but their faith was not strong enough nor mature enough to permit His power to flow through them. This immaturity in faith was like a roadblock in this particular case. A person’s faith must not only have quantity, it also must have quality, an unwavering and trusting faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.