Luke 9:37-43 Powerlessness and Almightiness- part infinity
Good morning! Turn with me in your Bibles to Luke chapter nine and verse 37, that’s page 867 in the pew Bibles.
I hope that hearing from the men with Teen Challenge was an encouragement to you. It’s always a blessing to me when they come and it’s always a real life reminder of the lesson of our text for this morning, namely, powerlessness and almightiness, our powerlessness and Jesus’ almightiness.
I’ve entitles this morning’s message, “Powerlessness and Almightiness- part infinity,” because it just seems like we are getting this lesson over and over. My prayer is that it would not be a discouragement to you but an encouragement and your faith and trust in Jesus.
Let’s look at our text, Luke 9:37-43, page 867.
37 On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. 38 And behold, a man from the crowd cried out, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child. 39 And behold, a spirit seizes him, and he suddenly cries out. It convulses him so that he foams at the mouth, and shatters him, and will hardly leave him. 40 And I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” 41 Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.” 42 While he was coming, the demon threw him to the ground and convulsed him. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. 43 And all were astonished at the majesty of God.
Let’s pray.
I’ve said it before that I don’t look for secret codes or hidden messages, I’m not into numerology and giving special significance to the numbers mentioned in Scripture. I like to take an idiot’s eye view to the Bible, because, let’s face it, that who the Bible was written for.
So with that in mind, as we look at this text, it seems to me that the most important thing, at least for our study today not for all time, but the most important thing in our text is probably the most noticeable thing.
What is that? The verse written in red.
So let’s set the stage. Jesus, Peter, James, and John had spent the night on the Mount of Transfiguration. You may remember that from our study two weeks ago. Peter, James, and John witnessed Jesus being transfigured before them, glowing face, clothes like lightening, and then Moses and Elijah show up and are talking with Jesus. It was quite a night!
Now Jesus and those three disciples come back down the mountain to the rest of the guys and a crowd is there to meet them.
And out of the crowd comes the voice of a desperate father.
38 And behold, a man from the crowd cried out, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child. 39 And behold, a spirit seizes him, and he suddenly cries out. It convulses him so that he foams at the mouth, and shatters him, and will hardly leave him. 40 And I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.”
So here we have a desperate dad. His only son is suffering with what sounds to me like epilepsy compounded with demon possession.
This brings up an important point, which is true though it may not be the intention of the author in this particular account. The point is that the power of Satan can reach into illness but that reach is never beyond the restraint of God.
But when we think about the power of Satan reaching into illness we have to consider the purpose of illness and difficulties, which does steer us back towards the one point of this sermon.
When something bad happens to us or to someone we love we often wonder why.
Sometimes our troubles are just the natural consequences of our choices. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Most of this time troubles are a test of our faith and obedience and opportunities to recognize our powerlessness and the Lord’s almightiness.
This makes me think of John 9:1-3, which says,
As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.
Ever think of it that way, that your troubles are designed that the works of God might be displayed in you?
As you consider that, think of the words of John Calvin, “We are worse than stupid, if a condition so wretched does not arouse us to prayer.” Let your troubles drive you to the arms of Jesus!
Let’s get back to our scene in Luke.
38 And behold, a man from the crowd cried out, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child. 39 And behold, a spirit seizes him, and he suddenly cries out. It convulses him so that he foams at the mouth, and shatters him, and will hardly leave him. 40 And I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.”
How does Jesus respond to this request?
41 Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.” 42 While he was coming, the demon threw him to the ground and convulsed him. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. 43 And all were astonished at the majesty of God.
In my Bible most of verse 41 is written in red. That means that it’s Jesus speaking. That’s not to discount everything that is not written in red as those are the words recorded by the Holy Spirit so don’t get confused.
But this statement sticks out to me. Why would Jesus say that, who was He rebuking?
Matthew and Mark both record this incident in their Gospel accounts and fill us in a little bit on who was there. Jesus, Peter, James, and John were just coming on the scene and coming to this crowd that was made up of the nine remaining disciples, the scribes and Pharisees, the nameless crowd that seems to pop up sometimes and then go away and then pop up again, and then from out of the crowd this father and son.
So out of that group, who does Jesus rebuke?
It may be the crowd, this nameless mob of a mixture of curiosity, superstition, and desperation. Matthew and Mark both record Jesus having compassion on the crowd because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. These folks were victims of bad teaching and legalistic oppression, faithless and twisted.
It may be the Scribes and the Pharisees as they were always concocting some test to trap Jesus to say the wrong thing or to heal on the wrong day so that they could accuse Him. They were certainly faithless and twisted.
It may be the nine disciples. I say nine because three were with Jesus as He arrived.
The father had asked the disciples, who, right back in the beginning of this very chapter had had great success in casting out demons and healing people but were now powerless to help.
Maybe they didn’t have enough faith to cast out this demon maybe their understanding of where that power came from was wrong, they seem to be qualified as faithless and twisted.
Maybe Jesus was rebuking the father. Mark records this interaction in Mark 9:21-23.
21 And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. 22 And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” 23 And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.”
John Calvin wrote, “We see how little honor he renders to Christ; for, supposing him to be some prophet, whose power was limited, he approaches to him with hesitation.”
Maybe the father didn’t have enough faith for his son to be healed. Maybe he’s the one who was faithless and twisted.
Maybe, just maybe, it’s everybody.
I’d like to read for you Galatians chapter five, verses twenty-two and twenty-three out of the New King James version of the Bible. King Jimmy uses a word in this version that really nails the point here.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control.
The word is, “longsuffering,” the ESV says, “patience.” Jesus is the ultimate longsufferer. We tend to think that Jesus’ suffering is confined to the cross, but I don’t think so. We could go on and on about how the disciples just don’t get what’s going on, they never understand what Jesus says as if we are any better!
What is on display in this scene is the powerlessness of people and the almightiness of Jesus.
The disciples were powerless to fix the problem, the crowd was powerless to fix the problem, the father and son were powerless to fix the problem, but at the end of the day the right thing happened: they brought the problem to Jesus.
I use the word, “almightiness,” the theologians use the word, “sovereignty.”
God is completely sovereign, He has power and control over all things, and He does all things for His glory alone. He uses the conniving of the Scribes and Pharisees, the ignorance of the crowd, the failure of the disciples, and the desperation of this father to bring people to faith in Christ. That’s sovereignty.
Alistair Begg said, “Don’t you have a large enough view of the sovereignty of God, that even when the disciples are a bunch of cloth-eared nincompoops that people still come to Christ? Because that’s exactly what happened there!”
When we start to get a grasp on the sovereignty of God, like everybody there that day, we too will be astonished at the majesty of God.
Amen.
