Luke 9 v 41. “O unbelieving and perverse generation. “Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you and put up with you? Bring your son here.”
This is a wonderful story of Jesus’ power delivering this poor demon possessed lad. But don’t forget that what Jesus was doing was pointing to a future when His power would be available to all who believed in Him and He would bring wholeness to their spirits. For now, His power over the devil and his power to heal were indications of the power of the eternal Kingdom breaking into time and showing what that Kingdom was like – glorious and whole in every way.
But notice that the father first asked the disciples for assistance but they were powerless to help. Why could they not help the boy? Because the whole nation of Israel was helpless before the craftiness, delusions and lies of the evil one – and this was the result of the nation departing from God. They were a far cry from the ideal nation living under God’s rule, as envisioned in the Old Testament.
Jesus describes their situation in v 41, by using a phrase from Deuteronomy 32 v 20, when Moses rebuked Israel for forsaking God and turning to idols. The boy’s father’s distress at seeing the contortions of his only son was a picture of the distress of God at seeing his people forsaking him and turning to other gods. They forsook God, ceased to love him and to obey him. Jesus mirrors this Old Testament event in his words to the crowd at the foot of the mountain, where this demon possessed boy lay helpless in the grip of demonic powers, right in the midst of the people who were supposed to be the people of God.
How were these people ever to see afresh who God was and that He loved them and wanted them to return to Him? There was one way, a fresh demonstration of His power. And that is what Christ did when he healed the boy. He was saying to them, “Can you not see? This is what your God is like – compassionate and full of love for you. Return to Him”.
The people were amazed by it all, but the effect was short lived. They would need to realise that Jesus had come from Heaven to go to Calvary so that lost and deluded people might see the light and the Glory of God. And how were they to see this? In the very person of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4 v 6).
If they saw and understood who Jesus was and what He came to accomplish on the Cross they would be redeemed and restored to God.
Be amazed people, not only at the power and compassion of Jesus in casting out the demons, but be amazed that He came from Heaven to go to the Cross so that the devil’s empire would be defeated forever. And the fact that you are reading this and that your heart responds to these truths is evidence that in your life, the devil’s hold has been broken.