188. Explanation

Short Meditations in Mark’s Gospel: 188. Explanation   

Mk 9:28,29   After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer.”

First of all note here the benefit of being a disciple – you can ask Jesus things when they aren’t clear while the rest of the world remains in confusion. So after they leave the crowd the disciples ask Jesus why it was that they had struggled and failed.

Now the problem with Scripture sometimes is that it appears as only brief notes with little explanation so when Jesus says, “This kind” we don’t know whether he is simply referring to demons in general or to a specific type of demon.

One of the things that is clear though from his answer, is that driving out demons is not a mechanical things, with an a,b,c,  set of rules. When Jesus says “only by prayer” he is saying that you can only do this when you have a relationship with the Father and are being led by the Spirit. This should apply to the whole Christian life really, but it does so especially in the case of deliverance ministry. How does God want you to deal with this? How does the Holy Spirit want to guide you in dealing with this particular issue?

The assumption appears to be that the remaining disciples were sitting around at the bottom of the mountain while Jesus, Peter, James and John had gone up, when this man and his son came along and either recognised them or was told about them and naturally assumed that they could help because they were part of Jesus’ band and that is what had been happening. They likewise assumed they could help and just dived in and spoke words of apparent authority to get the demon out – but found they were being resisted. Too much assumption!

If they were like most of us, they would just try harder or shout louder but still they were resisted. Why? Because this demon was being attacked by human resources and one thing that is clear is that they do not respond to mere human authority. It is only the authority from heaven that they appear to respond to and that comes when the deliverer is in clear contact with heaven and becomes a channel of power and authority from heaven. Then and then only does the demon have to submit.

It is such a simple lesson that comes out here that we can hardly believe it is that simple. When confronted by a difficulty – pray – and listen to the Father. Find out how heaven wants to deal with this situation, receive the direction and authority from heaven to deal with it, and then perhaps, we will not be like the disciples, standing round and looking lost and defeated.