Boy with Evil Spirit Healed
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This term I've been taking a New Testament Greek class. It's an unnerving experience being back in the classroom learning something which I'm not very good at - a natural linguist I am not. It's tiring too feeling like I'm only just keeping up. A couple of weeks ago I thought I'd cracked it - I could confidently conjugate one type of Greek verb. I turned to the exercise at the end of the chapter: exercise a 8/8, exercise b 2/8 and that was being generous.
Perhaps you can relate to that feeling of having almost grasped the key concept and then having it slip through your fingers. It's tantalising close like the remote control which has been kicked under the sofa which you finger tips can touch but you can't quite grasp it.
I think that's about where the disciples are at here in the middle of Luke 9. They've finally grasped that Jesus isn't just a good teacher or an incredible miracle worker - he is the Christ, God's chosen king - they've got it and yet at the same time they can't seem to grasp at all the real reason why Jesus has come.
This morning we see Jesus acting in compassion to heal a boy with an evil spirit. It's a glimpse of God's greatness but as we'll see it's not yet enough for the disciples to see the big picture.
God's true greatness is revealed in the mystery of Jesus' death and resurrection.
1. God's greatness amazes the crowd (v37-43a)
P732 Luke 9.37... Jesus comes down from the mountain after his transfiguration, after being revealed as the Son of Man, the one who will return again to judge the earth, the one who has all of God's authority and power and immediately, the next day v37 says, he is thrust back into day to day ministry. Jesus is back in front of the crowds, in front of a desperate father who calls out in v38:
Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child. 39A spirit seizes him and he suddenly screams; it throws him into convulsions so that he foams at the mouth. It scarcely ever leaves him and is destroying him. 40I begged your disciples to drive it out, but they could not.
This father is in a heartbreaking situation; his only son is being destroyed by an evil spirit. The language Luke uses suggests the boy is around primary-school age - he'd be in climbers or explorers. He is almost without respite tormented by something that looks like an extreme version of epilepsy. In fact Luke here chooses to use the word from which we get our word epilepsy. But this isn't epilepsy it's clear from passages like Matthew 4.24 that the gospel writers understood a distinction between those who had 'seizures' as with epilepsy and those who were demon-possessed. This suffering has a spiritual underpinning. The boy is thrown into convulsions and foams at the mouth. Matthew adds that he would often fall into the fire or water. The gospel writers give us quite a bit of detail, they want us to imagine the father's situation imagine if it was your only son.
No one can help him not even the disciples who despite the man's begging are unable to drive the spirit out and so the boy is brought before Jesus, look at v42:
42Even while the boy was coming, the demon threw him to the ground in a convulsion. But Jesus rebuked the evil spirit, healed the boy and gave him back to his father.
Even now as the boy is brought to Jesus, the spirit continues to try and bring suffering to this young boy. There is a war being fought here. A war between those who are good; God and his son against those who are evil; Satan and his allies. It's almost as if Satan is now trying to undermine the transfiguration itself. Jesus is the Son of Man, the one who will come in judgement - really? Well how come his followers do anything with this boy I'm destroying?
But this spirit is no match for Jesus. Jesus shows compassion for the boy and his father and instantly, the boy is delivered, completely healed and returned to his father. The disciples were not able to cast out this demon, no matter how much the father begged, no matter what they tried. But at the authoritative word of the Son of God the spirit is rebuked and the boy is instantly and completely saved.
Jesus is Satan's victor. Luke wants to make a very clear and stark contrast in these verses between the disciples inability and Jesus ability. It is only through Jesus that Satan is defeated and that this boy can be delivered. Jesus is the victor over Satan; not religion, morality, education or spirituality, Jesus.
Satan is the destroyer, his goals are suffering and death because they are the opposite of joy and life the things that God gives. Let us be clear, there is nothing except suffering and death available to you from Satan. Nothing but lies and the same type of suffering here inflicted on this young boy.
So first, let me tell you and I mean this that it will do you no good to sit here each week if you do not, like this desperate father, call out to Jesus. He is where salvation and hope and meaning and wisdom and rescue and life itself are found and no where else. John says in 1 John 5.12:
12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
Make sure you have Jesus. If you're not sure about what that means then find out. Speak to the person you came with or to me here, today.
Second, those who are trusting in Jesus can have great confidence because they have been united to the one who has defeated Satan. Satan is our enemy; he loves to accuse us, to sow seeds of doubt in our minds, to fill us with guilt. But he is a defeated enemy, he cannot stand in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christians are not to be fear demons they are held fast by someone far more powerful. Christians are not to be trapped by guilt but are to confess their sin and enjoy forgiveness. Christians are not to feel ashamed for they have been purified by the blood of Jesus. Jesus has freed us from all this.
And yet some of you want to mess around with the occult, with witchcraft and even call it good. It is not good, it is wretched and wants nothing more than to destroy you. Satan is evil and he is real, don't have anything to do with him.
Jesus is the conquering Lord, the king of kings, the destroyer of Satan. Good overcomes and casts out evil. What a day of joy! The father has his only child back with him again, completely restored, completely free. The crowds join in the celebration, instantly understanding that Jesus is no great physician but one from God v43 tells us that they are: 'amazed at the greatness of God'. Jesus is God's Son and acts again with God's ultimate authority in this the thirteenth and final miracle that Luke records Jesus did whilst in the Galilean area. And yet Jesus is frustrated with them. Why? That's what I want to look at in our second point...
2. God's true greatness is revealed by Jesus' death and resurrection (v41 and 43b-45)
I hope you noticed that we skipped verse 41 as we made our way through v37-43a it kind of stands out like a sore thumb. Sandwiched between the father's desperate begging for help and Jesus' compassionate and authoritative healing of the boy are these words:
41"O unbelieving and perverse generation," Jesus replied, "how long shall I stay with you and put up with you? Bring your son here.
Jesus echoes God's rebuke to Israel in Deuteronomy 32 in which Moses is told that he will not enter the promised land. Jesus calls the disciples and the crowd 'unbelieving' and 'perverse' He is frustrated with them asking how long will he have to put up with them?
What have they done to deserve this? Well simply put they lack faith. The crowds are amazed by Jesus' healing of the boy v43 says they marvelled at all that he did. The spirits cast out, the seas stilled, the thousands fed, the paralytics healed and the dead children raised all these are incredible to the crowds and to the disciples, they can barely believe what they are seeing.
Jesus rebuke comes because if they knew who he really was, if they had faith in him as God's son then they wouldn't be surprised by these miracles. The implication seems to be that even the disciples had quickly stopped trusting in and relying on Jesus. Jesus had enabled them to drive out demons and cure people of diseases as we saw at the beginning of Luke 9 but now the disciples unbelief makes them impotent.
Unbelief has real consequences and so Jesus calls the disciples out, publicly. The disciples are normal, they are human, they have weakness. They fail to rely on Jesus' power just as we fail to cast our cares before God and are therefore anxious, just as we fail by caring more about our reputation amongst our friends' than Christ's. And Jesus is frustrated, Jesus calls them out sharply, he calls them 'unbelieving' and 'perverse' and they are and we are. It's not ok to not trust Jesus, to not listen to his voice.
God has just said in v35 "This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him." The disciples didn't get a pass on that in fact much of the rest of chapter 9 and then chapter 10 are instruction and correction to the disciples about listening to God's son and we have to listen to him too.
Jesus rebukes the disciples for their lack of faith but he doesn't stop there. While the crowds were marvelling at all that Jesus had done in the course of his Galilean ministry; spirits cast out, seas stilled, thousands fed, paralytics healed and dead children raised. Jesus calls his disciples aside to tell them what they should really be marvelling at...
44"Listen carefully to what I am about to tell you (Literally: 'let these words sink into your ears') The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men.
Jesus wants the disciples to trust in him but he doesn't point them to what the crowd has seen, the incredible healings and miracles he has performed, rather, he points them forward to the cross. The crowds are marvelling at Jesus' miracles and rightly so for they are incredible but they are not the full story. Jesus wants the disciples to focus on the fact that he is now turning to go to Jerusalem, to willingly suffer and die: 'The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men' that's the message that Jesus wants to sink into the disciples ears. These miracles are glimmers of God's greatness. They act like the early pencil sketches of a master artist. They are like previews, beautiful in their own right and helpful in helping us understand the finished work, but not the masterpiece itself: Jesus' death and resurrection.
God works in many incredible ways through fruitful ministries and talented speakers, through generous acts of mercy and through incredible miracles but all of them rightly fade in the light of Jesus' resurrection.Too often we can be like the crowd marvelling at the sketches themselves rather than letting them explain, reveal and point us back to the masterpiece.
45But they did not understand what this meant. It was hidden from them, so that they did not grasp it, and they were afraid to ask him about it.
The disciples cannot understand, it is hidden from them. How could The Son of Man, this incredible figure we have just seen transfigured, changed in front of them and commended by God be betrayed into the hands of men? How could the Son of God die?
And yet that fact is the crowning jewel of Christianity that in Jesus God would give up his only Son, place the weight of our sin on him and have him destroyed by death so that we could be freed from the sin that seeks to destroy us. So that we can be cleansed, healed, forgiven and restored to our father even God himself. That is the glorious reversal of the gospel. The disciples do not understand it yet. The true extent of God's greatness was a mystery to them, they had yet to grasp the incredible height and breadth of Jesus' mission not just to heal a demon-possessed boy but to free a sin-possessed world from sin and shame and death.
Grasping this is beyond us. Just like for the disciples it's too incredible for us to know it apart from God's help. The disciples were afraid to ask Jesus what his prediction meant we mustn't make the same mistake. God has painted a masterpiece for the world to see; a cruel cross and an empty tomb. It's there that we must go if we are to understand anything of God's greatness indeed to understand anything real at all. It's there that we must ask God to reveal to us the full extent of his love and greatness.
So as we come to communion in a few moments let's marvel again at God's greatness and goodness. Let's ask God to reveal his greatness to us, to let our the gospel sink into our ears and into our hearts so that we can believe and trust in that great reversal that the Son of Man, the Son of God would die for us.
And can it be that I should gain An interest in the Savior's blood? Died He for me, who caused His pain— For me, who Him to death pursued? Amazing love! How can it be, That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me? Amazing love! How can it be, That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
And Can It Be? Charles Wesley 1739
Let's pray...