Luke 9:38-39 (ESV) And behold, a man from the crowd cried out, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child. 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.
Here we have the sad case of a young boy who has been oppressed by demons. The evil spirit causes the boy to scream and go into convulsions for a time. The father knew that this behavior was not due to a disease, but due to a demon. So, he came to Jesus’ disciples for help in casting out the demon.
Luke 9:40-41 (ESV) And I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.”
Earlier in chapter nine of Luke, we saw how Jesus gave his disciples power over demons and sent them out to deliver and heal people. Yet now, these same disciples were not able to cast the demon out of the boy and bring healing. So, now that Jesus had come down from the mountain, the father was begging Jesus for help.
Jesus’ answer begins “O faithless and twisted generation.” The question is, who is Jesus addressing as faithless and twisted? He is certainly not addressing the father or the son. So, Jesus’ answer was addressing his disciples who failed at healing the boy. We read more details about this failure of the disciples in Matthew and Mark. In those gospels, the disciples’ failure is due to lack of faith and lack of prayer. They should have been able to cast the demon out, but their lack of faith caused them to fail.
Luke 9:42-43a (ESV) 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. And all were astonished at the majesty of God.
As the father brought the boy to Jesus, the demon began to manifest again, throwing the boy into convulsions. Jesus cast out the unclean spirit by commanding it to leave. This deliverance was called a healing of the boy. Everyone around was amazed at the power of God bringing freedom to the boy. It requires faith to release kingdom power.
The first take away from this story is that even Jesus’ disciples failed at doing miracles. So, don’t be discouraged if you don’t see healing for every person you pray for. We need to learn from Jesus’ pinpointing the reason for the disciple’s failure. It was their lack and faith and prayer.
You see, faith and prayer are intimately connected. If you don’t pray much, you will have very weak faith. The more that you pray the more faith you will have. And, the more faith you have, the more you will pray. The prayer Jesus was talking about was not the prayer over the boy. The prayer the disciples lacked was their prayer time throughout life that would have prepared them to bring deliverance to the boy.
How much should you pray? The answer is that we should pray without ceasing or continually. Prayer builds faith and faith releases kingdom power.