Did Jesus Say I’d Be Healthier If My Faith Were Stronger?

00:00:00.000 | Well, if my faith was stronger, would I be healthier?

00:00:07.000 | If my faith was deeper, would I be more financially secure?

00:00:11.460 | And would I be happier and more comfortable?

00:00:13.840 | In other words, does Jesus say that our sorrow is traced back to a lack of faith on our part?

00:00:19.520 | Today's question is from a podcast listener named Scott.

00:00:21.960 | "Hello Pastor John.

00:00:22.960 | A question always arises for me when I read about Jesus' exorcism of the epileptic boy

00:00:28.200 | possessed by a demon in Matthew 17 verses 14 to 20, Mark 9, 17 to 29, and Luke 9, 37

00:00:36.320 | to 43.

00:00:37.800 | What does Jesus mean by 'because of your little faith'?

00:00:42.760 | What is it exactly that the disciples lacked?

00:00:45.180 | It seems like Jesus' answer gives easy fuel to suffering Christians who might be told

00:00:51.100 | that Jesus suggested if they just had enough faith, they could be healed.

00:00:56.140 | How is that not the takeaway?"

00:00:58.480 | Well, I'm going to try to deal with these words of Jesus, even though I do not fully

00:01:04.680 | understand them and find them in part baffling.

00:01:11.400 | And I choose to go ahead and try to answer this just so that our listeners will know

00:01:18.000 | that there are passages in the Bible that are baffling, at least there are to me.

00:01:24.960 | They leave me with questions, and I thought it might be helpful to just struggle out loud

00:01:31.720 | and invite others to join me and maybe go further than I can.

00:01:37.960 | And I should say here at the beginning that bumping into things like this doesn't undermine

00:01:44.260 | my faith, because Jesus has done so much and said so much that the glory of God in him

00:01:56.740 | has won me over to trust him and treasure him because of what I do see and I do understand,

00:02:05.620 | even if there are aspects of what he says that sometimes I don't understand.

00:02:10.740 | So that's how it works with my faith, in case anybody wonders, "Well, how do you even sleep

00:02:16.100 | at night if you can't understand Jesus?"

00:02:18.260 | Well, it's just one little part that baffles me.

00:02:22.300 | So here we go.

00:02:23.540 | Let's focus on Matthew 17.

00:02:25.500 | I can't deal with all these texts.

00:02:26.740 | Let's just take one, Matthew 17, verses 17 to 20.

00:02:30.940 | Jesus comes down off the Mount of Transfiguration.

00:02:33.920 | He finds that the disciples were unable to heal a boy and cast out a demon that the Father

00:02:41.180 | had brought to the disciples, and Jesus' response to their inability in the Father's statement

00:02:48.120 | they couldn't do it, he says, verse 17, "Oh, faithless and twisted generation, how long

00:02:55.600 | am I to be with you?

00:02:57.080 | How long am I to bear with you?

00:02:59.300 | Bring him here to me."

00:03:00.440 | And I think that that's a reference not just to the crowds, but to the disciples, because

00:03:06.880 | they're the ones who couldn't do it.

00:03:08.120 | They're the ones who didn't have the faith.

00:03:10.120 | So he's saying some pretty strong things.

00:03:13.640 | "Oh, faithless and twisted generation," keeps going.

00:03:17.560 | Verse 18, "Jesus rebuked the demon.

00:03:20.360 | It came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly.

00:03:23.040 | And then the disciples came to Jesus and said privately, 'Why couldn't we cast it out?'

00:03:28.600 | And he said to them, 'Because of your little face.

00:03:33.840 | For truly I say to you, if you have face like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this

00:03:39.160 | mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible

00:03:45.100 | for you.'"

00:03:46.100 | Now, here's what's baffling to me about these words.

00:03:49.880 | First, in verse 17, Jesus says to the disciples that they are faithless, apistea, they're

00:03:58.760 | faithless.

00:03:59.760 | That is, have no faith, at least no faith for this healing.

00:04:06.120 | And then in verse 20, when the disciples say, "Why couldn't we cast it out?"

00:04:09.960 | He says, "You have little faith.

00:04:11.880 | That's because of your little faith."

00:04:13.360 | I was like, scratching my head.

00:04:15.120 | Okay, no faith, little faith?

00:04:16.880 | Why does he say both?

00:04:18.760 | And then, to make matters even more perplexing, he says, "If you had faith as a grain of mustard

00:04:26.360 | seed, you could move mountains."

00:04:28.560 | Well, now, back in chapter 13, verse 32, he had said that the mustard seed is the smallest

00:04:34.240 | of all seeds.

00:04:35.240 | So clearly, the point here is, if you just had a mustard seed faith, you could move mountains.

00:04:43.120 | Well, if that's true, why is it that their small faith was the reason they couldn't

00:04:50.240 | cast out the demon?

00:04:51.240 | I mean, how small faith is what a mustard seed-sized faith is.

00:04:56.440 | And yet he's accusing them of having small faith, and that's why you can't cast out

00:04:59.920 | the demons.

00:05:00.920 | And then he turns around and says, "If you had a mustard seed faith, you could move a

00:05:04.560 | mountain."

00:05:05.920 | You see why I'm confused?

00:05:07.520 | I'm baffled by what Jesus is saying here.

00:05:12.400 | So, here's my stab to try to make some sense out of this and how it relates to the question.

00:05:19.760 | First, in saying that we all need a mustard seed of faith to move mountains, it seems

00:05:28.360 | to me that Jesus is saying quantity of faith is not the issue.

00:05:35.880 | Why else would he refer to mustard seed faith if quantity were the issue?

00:05:41.720 | So size of faith is not the issue.

00:05:46.080 | That's the point of mustard seed.

00:05:48.480 | Number two, second observation.

00:05:50.840 | In describing their little faith as virtually the same as faithlessness, he is saying that

00:05:59.720 | whatever little faith they're trying to have to heal this boy, it was the wrong kind

00:06:07.100 | of faith, not just the wrong size of faith, because size is not the issue anymore.

00:06:13.300 | It's the wrong kind.

00:06:15.040 | Faith as a grain of mustard seed seems to be not just an issue of size, but kind, something

00:06:22.940 | about this seed.

00:06:24.700 | Since they had small faith, but it was useless.

00:06:27.420 | It was as good as faithlessness, so it wasn't like this mustard seed of faith.

00:06:32.660 | Third observation, when we ponder not just how faith differs in quantity but kind, that

00:06:40.980 | starts to bring up issues like the condition of their hearts when they pray, and the discernment

00:06:48.740 | of God's will when they pray.

00:06:53.660 | There are other parts of Jesus' teaching and the other parts of Scripture that make

00:06:59.020 | answered prayer depend on the condition of the heart, like James 4, you ask wrongly to

00:07:04.740 | spend it on your passions, that's why you don't get answers to your prayer, and sovereign

00:07:08.820 | purposes of God in whether our prayers are answered.

00:07:12.660 | Like in 1 John 5, you have to pray according to God's will.

00:07:18.260 | So conclusion, but not a big solution.

00:07:22.820 | I would say to Scott, be sure to take into account all the teachings of the Bible regarding

00:07:32.240 | answered prayer, both in relation to the condition of the heart of the one who's praying or trying

00:07:39.180 | to do a work for God, and in relation to the sovereign will of God, rather than assuming

00:07:48.540 | that in every case of unanswered prayer, for healing's sake, the problem lies with defective

00:07:55.100 | faith.

00:07:56.380 | That was the case here.

00:07:58.780 | But given the way Jesus answers and the other things he says about prayer, I would not assume

00:08:05.340 | that's always the case.

00:08:07.340 | Well I love watching you sweat through hard text.

00:08:11.900 | Such an encourager to every amateur exegete like me.

00:08:15.700 | Thank you Pastor John, and thanks for listening and supporting the podcast.

00:08:19.300 | You can subscribe to our audio feeds and search our past episodes in our archive, and send

00:08:22.220 | us an email of your own, even hard Bible questions, just to watch John Piper squirm a bit.

00:08:27.860 | You can do all that through our online home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:08:32.740 | Well we Protestants don't use confessionals.

00:08:35.540 | Martin Luther apparently thought the confessional booth was a good idea, although he was very

00:08:39.580 | careful to make the practice voluntary, not binding.

00:08:43.340 | More recently it was John Stott who commended the regular practice of confessing our sins

00:08:47.820 | to a trusted pastor.

00:08:49.980 | There may be a rare Anglican church here or there that has a confessional, but on the

00:08:53.140 | whole Protestants don't practice auricular confession of our sins to a minister.

00:08:58.820 | So what place should private confession of our personal sins to others, fellow Christians,

00:09:04.500 | play?

00:09:05.580 | That is still a very open question, and it's on the table on Wednesday.

00:09:10.300 | Till then, I'm your host Tony Reinke, we'll see you then.

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Did Jesus Say I’d Be Healthier If My Faith Were Stronger?

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