He’s the Son of God, We Have Nothing To Fear
Luke 9:36 And when the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen.
Luke 9:37 ¶ On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him.
Luke 9:38 And behold, a man from the crowd cried out, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child.
Luke 9:39 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.
Luke 9:40 And I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.”
Luke 9:41 Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.”
Luke 9:42 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.
Luke 9:43 And all were astonished at the majesty of God.
Jesus used a lot of colloquial sayings and idioms to say that He was the Son of God, but He didn’t flat out say those words. There is a sort of humility in that. In this section, though, God said it Himself! James and John and Peter heard it, and we can only imagine what that did for their hopes, dreams, and expectations from that point onward.
Verse 40 says a lot more than it says. The nature of a Rabbi and his disciples was that eventually, all of the disciples would be able do do exactly what their Rabbi could do. When the guy says “I begged our disciples to cast it out, but they could not,” it’s not just the disciples’ power that is in question — it’s Jesus’ power!
For whatever reason, the disciples just couldn’t do it. They aren’t there yet, but Jesus said that every student will become like his teacher. They almost got this little lesson to see that they weren’t all that just yet.
It could also be a signal for James, John, and Peter. They just came down from the MOUNT OF TRANSFIGURATION for goodness sakes. As they are trying to grasp what that event means, an unbeatable evil spirit would make them question this stuff even more. It’s like the more the glory of God shows up, the tougher the demons get.
(If you just nodded your head with a sigh, you took the bait I was sending out.)
WHO CARES IF THE DEVIL SENDS STRONGER DEMONS? Did you see what Jesus did here? It wasn’t stronger or tougher or harder or more difficult for Jesus.
Jesus gives a mild rebuke to all of them because He is ‘bearing with’ them and their disbelief. A 3 foot tall evil spirit is as subservient and defeated to Jesus as 6,000 ninety-foot tall evil spirits! He’s the Son of God! Like Captain America to Iron Man, Jesus says “I could do this all day.”
So we have no reason to fear evil at all. Even the most heinous act of evil — killing an innocent man on a cross — is weakened by the Lord Jesus in a matter of days.
He defeated that over a weekend. We have nothing to fear.
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