SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/7/2022 9:42 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-4 “The Power of Faith”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
17:19-21
Message of the verses: “19 Then the
disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it
out?" 20 And He said to them, "Because of the littleness of your
faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you shall
say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it shall move; and nothing
shall be impossible to you. 21 “But this kind does not go out except by
prayer and fasting.’”
I continue to quote from MacArthur’s
commentary as what he writes in explaining this section of Scripture brings new
meaning to me.
“It must also be clearly understood
that Jesus was not talking about moving a literal mountain. Neither the apostles nor the Lord Himself
ever performed such a feat—nor has anyone else in the nearly 2,000-year history
of the church. That would have been the
sort of grand but pointless miracle the scribes and Pharisees expected of the
Messiah but which Jesus refused to perform (Matt. 12:38-39).
“The expression ‘able to move
mountains’ was a common figure of speech in that day that represented the
ability to surmount great obstacles. As
William Barclay has observed,
A
great teacher, who could really expound and interpret Scripture and who could
explain and resolve difficulties, was regularly known as an uprooter or
even a pulverizer of mountains.
To tear up, to uproot, to pulverize mountains were all regular phrases
for removing difficulties. Jesus never
meant this to be taken physically and literally. After all, the ordinary man seldom finds any
necessity to remove a mountain. What He
meant was: ‘If you have faith enough, all
difficulties can be solved, and even the hardest task can be accomplished. Faith in God is the instrument that allows
men to remove the hills of difficulty which block their path. (The Gospel of
Matthew [Philadelphia: Westminster,
1959], pp. 184-185)
“Jesus was talking figuratively
about mountain-size difficulties, such as the nine disciples and just
experienced in not being able to cure the demonized boy.
“The promise nothing shall be
impossible to you is conditional, valid only within the framework of God’s
will. Mountain-moving faith is not faith
in oneself, much less faith in faith, but faith in God. It is not faith itself, nor matter how great that
moves mountains, but the God in whom the faith is grounded. Faith has only as much power as its
object. When Jesus said to the Samaritan
leper and the blind man of Jericho, ‘your faith has made you well’ (Luke 17:19;
18:42), He did not mean that their faith in itself healed them. That would mean they healed themselves,
which, of course, they did not do.
“Jesus’
point was that ‘nothing shall be impossible to you when you prayerfully and
persistently trust in Me.’ The disciples
could not heal the demonized boy, even though they had Jesus’ commission and
promised power, because they did not persist in dependent prayer.
“Throughout
the ages believers often have failed to receive God’s promised joy, freedom,
forgiveness, guidance, fruitfulness, protection, wisdom, and countless other
blessings simply because, like those disciples, they have not persisted in prayer.
“This
kind of demon does not go out except by prayer,’ Jesus declared. Although that phrase is not found in the best
manuscripts of Matthew (indicated by brackets in some versions), it is a
genuine saying of Jesus and is found in Mark’s account (9:29), from which an
early scribe probably picked it up and added it to Matthew. However, the last two words of the verse, and
fasting, are not found in the best manuscripts of any gospel.
Jesus’
emphasis was clearly on prayer. As James
wrote some years later, ‘The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish
much’ (James 5:16). Dedicated, fervent,
passionate, persistent prayer gets results, because such prayer is honored by
God.
During
one point of his ministry, the nineteenth-century Christian leader George
Mueller began to pray for five personal friends. It was not until five years later that the
first one of them came to Christ. After
five more years, two more of them became Christians, and after twenty-five
years the fourth man was saved. He
prayed for the fifth friend until the time of his death, a few months after
which the last friend came to salvation.
For that friend George Mueller had prayed more than fifty years.”
I hope and pray that these last few SD’s
that have come right from MacArthur’s commentary will be used by the Lord to
accomplish much for the cause of Christ.
11/7/2022 10:12 AM
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