QUESTION #28 O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you?

  QUESTIONS JESUS ASKED BIBLE STUDY

 

   Read Mark 9:17-29 KJV: 

 

  O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? (Mark 9:19)

 

HELP THOU MINE UNBELIEF

Reference: Matthew 17:1-23; Mark 9:17-29; Luke 9:38-45

 

On the mountain, Jesus revealed his divine glory to Peter, James, and John. The four had just rejoined the rest of the disciples and the ever-present crowd when a desperate father whose son had a demon, threw himself before Jesus and pleaded for Jesus to help his son, because His disciples had not been able to help. Jesus’ response must have caught everyone off guard, He said, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bare you? Bring him to me.”

 

Those are some searing words. Who was Jesus calling faithless and perverse? These words were aimed at the disciples, the crowd, Israel, and us. All these are wrapped into the Greek word geneá meaning generation: a group, a nation, or an entire age.

 

Later when they were alone the disciples asked Jesus, “Why could we not cast him out?” In Mark’s account, He answered, “This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting. But in Matthew’s account, Jesus said, “Because of your unbelief”. 

 

But like all of Jesus’ rebukes to his disciples, his reproof is not intended to condemn us but to exhort us to press in further. If we currently have little faith, it is possible for us to have more faith. If we failed yesterday and today, we don’t have to continue to fail. Having “little faith” is not a permanent label, Jesus means it as a catalyst for our transformation. For this is what Jesus followed up with, “For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”

 

How differently we would live if we believed nothing would be impossible for us! We were meant to move mountains! 

 

I consider myself a woman of faith. I believe with every ounce of my being that God can do whatever He wants, whenever He wants, however He wants. I believe with every ounce of my being that God is the one and only God, that He is the creator of the universe, and that He is almighty and all-knowing. But there have been plenty of times that I didn’t think God would do what I know He can do. That is simply a lack of faith.

 

A lack of faith is not trusting God to keep His promises, believing He can do something, or believing that He wants to bless us, and direct our lives. 

 

James 4:3 explains that we ask, and receive not, because we ask improperly or wrongly. We want what we ask for due to our own fleshly lust - and sometimes it’s due to our own unbelief. In verses 23-24, Jesus asked the boy’s father if he believed, he said, “I do believe, help me with my unbelief!” When the man asks Jesus to help him with his unbelief, he is asking Jesus to give him more faith. He knew Jesus could do it, but he needed faith to believe He would.

 

How can we have more faith? Our initial introduction to faith is small. “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God” (Romans 10:17), this scripture gives us knowledge on how faith comes, by taking in God’s Word, reading God’s Word, hearing God’s Word, which also means the preached Word of God. It is a faith that comes from hearing and believing the Word of God. 

 

We can ask for more faith. We can pray for more faith. We can ask Jesus to help us with our unbelief. The man with the demon possessed son asked Jesus to help him with his unbelief. The disciples asked Jesus to increase their faith in Luke 17:5.

 

After that, however, the only way our faith can grow is to use it. Act upon it. Faith is an action verb. Take the opportunity to see faith in action. It is not enough to say you have faith or believe God is God, you must show your faith. Faith without works is dead.

 

James 2:14-17 asks, “¹⁴What does it profit, my brethren, though a man says he has faith, and have not works? Can faith save him?” And then James goes on to explain. “¹⁵If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food. ¹⁶And one of you say unto them, ‘depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding you give them not those things which are needful to the body; what does that profit? ¹⁷Even so faith, if it has not works, is dead, being alone.”

 

When I was a little girl my daddy would hold out his arms for me to jump into - was I scared? Of course, but I had faith my daddy would catch me so I would leap out to him. Ever heard the saying “take a leap of faith” - well take a leap! God is there to catch you!

 

James then goes on to explain how Abraham and Rahab was justified in their works of faith in 2:20-26, “²⁰But will thou know, oh vain man, that faith without works is dead? ²¹Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? ²² See how his faith was active along with his works, and by his works his faith was made perfect (meaning complete)? ²³So scripture was fulfilled when it said, Abraham believed God, and it was credited unto him for righteousness: and he was called the friend of God. ²⁴You see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith alone. ²⁵Likewise was not Rahab also justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? ²⁶For as the body without the spirit is dead, so is faith without works is dead also.” They showed their faith by the action they took. Their works.

 

True faith grows when you trust God to do what He does best - the amazingly and seemingly impossible! 

 

Jesus uses the mustard seed to illustrate the kind of faith we need because that tiny mustard seed grows into something much, much bigger than its original size. In other words, our faith is meant to grow - a lot!

 

A mustard seed kind of faith is faith that isn’t content to stay small, but one that buries itself in the soil of God’s Word, takes root, and grows and grows and grows…

 

Notes: