14+++When they came back to the disciples, they saw a large crowd around them, and some scribes arguing with them.
15+++Immediately, when the entire crowd saw Him, they were amazed and began running up to greet Him.
16+++And He asked them, “What are you discussing with them?”
17+++And one of the crowd answered Him, “Teacher, I brought You my son, possessed with a spirit which makes him mute;
18+++and whenever it seizes him, it slams him to the ground and he foams at the mouth, and grinds his teeth and stiffens out. I told Your disciples to cast it out, and they could not do it.”
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!”
20+++They brought the boy to Him. When he saw Him, immediately the spirit threw him into a convulsion, and falling to the ground, he began rolling around and foaming at the mouth.
21+++And He asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood.
22+++“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!”
23+++And Jesus said to him, “ ‘If You can?’ All things are possible to him who believes.” 24+++Immediately the boy’s father cried out and said, “I do believe; help my unbelief.”
25+++When Jesus saw that a crowd was rapidly gathering, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You deaf and mute spirit, I command you, come out of him and do not enter him again.”
26+++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!”
27+++But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him; and he got up.
28+++When He came into the house, His disciples began questioning Him privately, “Why could we not drive it out?”
29+++And He said to them, “This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer.”
The father of the suffering youth reflected on the want of power in the disciples; but Christ will have him reckon the disappointment to the want of faith. Very much is promised to our believing. If thou canst believe, it is possible that thy hard heart may be softened, thy spiritual diseases may be cured; and, weak as thou art, thou mayest be able to hold out to the end.
Those that complain of unbelief, must look up to Christ for grace to help them against it, and his grace will be sufficient for them. Whom Christ cures, he cures effectually. But Satan is unwilling to be driven from those that have been long his slaves, and, when he cannot deceive or destroy the sinner, he will cause him all the terror that he can. The disciples must not think to do their work always with the same ease; some services call for more than ordinary pains.
In His reply to their question our Lord impresses upon them a twofold lesson:
The omnipotence of a perfect faith (see Matthew 17:20-21);
that, as there is order and gradation in the hierarchy of blessed spirits, so is it with the spirits of evil (see Ephesians 6:12).
There are degrees of spiritual and moral wickedness so intense and malignant that they can be exorcised by nothing save by prayer and fasting, and the austerest rules of rigour and self-denial.
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