Sermon Tone Analysis

Overall tone of the sermon

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Anger
Disgust
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Social Tendencies
Openness
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Anger
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14-16
Down the mountain Jesus and His three disciples, Peter, James and John came.
They literally had a mountaintop experience.
But they must have heard the melee as they got closer to the bottom.
This reminds me of when Moses and Joshua had been at the top of the mountain to get the Ten Words from God and coming down they could also hear noise in the camp.
They had been up the mountain for 40 days and in that time the people had become restless and faithless and had made a golden calf and were partying like there was no tomorrow.
I’m not sure how long Jesus and His disciples had been up the mountain - a day and a night or maybe a week.
At the bottom of the mountain were the remaining nine disciples and the lack of contact with Jesus had also made them faith-less as we shall see.
The responsibility for the ministry had been left in their hands whilst Jesus had been away, a true delegation on His part and also a test of what the disciples had actually learned.
Unfortunately, they failed.
But it did become another learning experience for them.
When Jesus arrives back He rejoined the remaining disciples and there had been some heated discussions going on.
So, Jesus asked what was going on.
He addressed this to the scribes rather than to the disciples but there was no answer from them.
They had travelled all the way up from Jerusalem to keep an eye on Him and His disciples.
In fact, they were there to be discordant, to disrupt, to abuse.
They were ridiculing the disciples for their failure.
They were belittling their credentials to minister no doubt saying that exorcisms should be done their way and by them alone.
Why do the servants of God fail?
Why do they often lack power?
Why does their faith weaken?
This experience of the disciples reveals much about spiritual failure and lack of power.
1.
A sense that Christ is far away and out of reach makes one ineffective.
The indwelling presence and power of Christ are just not felt—not to the extent that they need to be available.
In the above situation Christ was absent, but His power was still available.
The disciples were just not all that aware of His power.
2. The lack of leadership causes the faith and loyalty of some to weaken.
The nine disciples apparently had no leader to stand forth as a champion of faith and power.
I’m sure that there are other reasons why we can become powerless such as a believer living a sinful life, a life so sinful that his faith becomes weak, and therefore, his ministry becomes powerless.
What happens when the servants of God have no power?
What are the results of a powerless life and ministry?
⇒ No power causes embarrassment and shame.
⇒ No power causes the world to question and ridicule and belittle.
⇒ No power questions the deity (validity) of Christ and God.
⇒ No power causes the questioning of God and His ability to deliver.
The answer to no power is given by Christ.
Power comes (1) by seeking and (2) by prayer
17-18
Well, the silence of the Scribes to His question was instead answered by a man in the crowd, the father of the one that seems to have caused everything that was now happening around them.
Demon possession and epilepsy were cursed diseases, diseases that caused isolation and rejection by society.
Because of society’s reaction, families were often embarrassed when a member was afflicted.
Just imagine this scene.
The child and father were right in the midst of a shameful experience.
They were the subject of the questioning and ridicule.
Imagine their embarrassment in being the focus of the crowd’s attention, their problem of demon possession, and their having sought help from apparent frauds.
We find out that the father had come to see Jesus, instead he met his disciples.
Furthermore, his disciples had not been successful, they lacked the power to cast the evil spirit out.
As a result his faith had practically been destroyed.
Perhaps this is the case with British Christianity that Christians have also lost faith.
They are used to a powerless Christianity and therefore their faith is shallow rather than enlarged in a God who created the universe.
19
The trust that Jesus placed in His nine disciples seems to have been misplaced.
Hence His despair: O faithless generation, how long must I be with you.
To whom is He talking?
Was it to those around?
The crowd?
The Scribes? Jesus certainly include them for He says similar things to the Pharisees in other places.
But it was, at least in part, to those nine disciples.
These disciples had seen Jesus at work and perform so many miracles.
Yet, on this occasion they did not believe.
This is very much like the Israelites when they came out of Egypt.
They saw God's power against Pharaoh; they saw God's power in crossing the Red Sea; they did not believe He was able to provide for them in the desert and even thought that maybe God had brought them there to destroy them, which, in the end, became a self-fulling prophecy for those over the age of 20.
Even after God provided manna they doubted about water, about meat and about many other things.
In the time it took Jesus to go up and down the mountain the disciples had become lax in their faith.
Though, even now, Jesus had not lost patience with His disciples.
20
Now the true lesson begins…Bring the boy to me.
The father is now on his knees according to Matthew and Luke has the father saying to Jesus: I beg you to look at my son, he is my only child.
22
After such a difficult and disheartening beginning the father’s faith was weak and needed strengthening.
Jesus asked him about his son.
In drawing the man out, Jesus allowed him to unburden himself, and to again recognize the desperate extremity of his boy’s plight.
Think how the father felt seeing his maimed, burnt son wallowing in the dirt, staring up with an unearthly look through terror-filled eyes.
Because of his convulsions, he could not even talk or hear.
He cared as no one else ever had, and the father could see it in his eyes.
There never has been compassion like that of Jesus!
This divine compassion is what drew out the father’s desperate cry: “But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.
It is not so much our faith as it is our cry for mercy and compassion that arouses God to help us.
It is not so much our faith as the object of our faith (God Himself) that saves us
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Now, what do we make of Jesus response?
If you can, Jesus says.
How did Jesus say it?
Did He say it roughly or gently?
As a statement or a question?
Remember Jesus was trying to draw his faith out, not destroy it.
Anything is possible to those who believe.
This is one of the most abused verses in the Bible today.
People have ripped it from its context and made it the rationale for saying that their wishes will come true if they can just mount enough faith!
There are some who even teach that faith can control God, that if you believe enough, God has to do it!
That is man-made, man-centered religion.
The fact is, faith must never go farther than God’s clear promises, for “whatever goes beyond God’s Word is not faith, but something else assuming its appearance.
say a parent is greatly concerned over a sick child’s health and longs for the child’s recovery.
So he says to himself, “I believe that Christ can heal him.
I also believe that he will.
I will pray in faith, and I know that I will certainly be answered.”
Wrong!
Such a prayer goes beyond God’s Word.
Certainly Christ can heal his child, but Christ has not told him that his child will indeed be healed.
Our faith can be misplaced.
This is where so many believers fall short.
Yet there are times when we do not believe God can do anything!
There are souls we consider impossible.
There are healings we think are beyond his power.
In this we also sin!
We fail to believe the promises of his Word, or to pray in faith for their fulfillment.
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