The Fundamentals of Fasting XIV

Although I am reticent to answer the questions that start with “What did Jesus mean?” I will make an exception in this case and attempt to dissect the circumstances around the boy with epilepsy being healed and Christ rebuking his disciples for their unbelief, stating that such a kind of demon only goes out by prayer and fasting.

It’s not as simple a thing to unravel as it may seem at first glance because if I have to preface what I say with “I think this is what Jesus meant,” or “I feel this is what Jesus was trying to say,” I’d rather avoid the topic altogether and pretend as though the question was never asked. Jesus said what He said, and within His words, we find all the clues and inferences necessary to conclude some critical aspects of this encounter.

Jesus wasn’t being ambiguous, He wasn’t trying to be vague or mysterious, and He wasn’t just giving away a teaser so His disciples would buy His course on casting out demons. Everything we need to know is contained within a handful of verses if we allow for the reality that Jesus knew more about the demonic world than His disciples did and understood it in far greater depth than they had any reason to up until that point.

Matthew 17:14-20, “And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying, “Lord have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him.” Then Jesus answered and said, “O, faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me.” And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”’

Chances are, up until they encountered the boy and the demon that troubled him, the disciples were not aware of the fact that there are demonic hierarchies. Up until that moment, they’d dealt with a certain level of demon, able to cast it out in the name of Jesus, and assumed they would all be as easy to command and cast out.

I make this inference because when they came to Jesus privately, His disciples were confused and in need of clarification as to why they could not cast this particular demon out. They’d succeeded at other times, so it’s not as though they hadn’t seen it done or hadn’t had the requisite faith to do it to the lesser ones, but this one refused to budge even though they’d done as in the past, and commanded it to go out.

The first lesson we must draw from this text is that there are different types of demons with varying degrees of power. Some require a greater authority and only come out with the protracted fasting and prayer of the individual attempting to cast them out. It’s not as though the disciples did not possess power; they did not possess sufficient power for that kind of demon, and Jesus admonished them that to stand against this sort, they needed to increase their faith, they needed to fast, and pray so that the power and authority they possessed would grow in intensity.

What was not possible for the disciples to do, Jesus did by nothing more complex or time-consuming than rebuking the demon in the boy and the demon coming out of him. The difference was in the concentration of power one possessed over the others. Jesus was Jesus; they were His disciples and did not yet possess the same level of concentrated power or authority.

In His goodness, Jesus gave them the remedy for their deficiency and said, " This kind does not go out except by fasting and praying. " The implied message to His disciples was to get to fasting and praying and build up their faith so that they could do as He had done the next time they ran across this kind of principality.

During this time, Jesus was also preparing His disciples for the soon-coming season when He would no longer be among them. He knew His time was near and that His disciples needed to grow and mature so they could stand against the darkness and be effective in making it flee.

He likewise knew that the Comforter would come once He left, but even so, He did not eliminate the need for them to fast, pray, and grow in faith. Another lesson well learned for those who have ears to hear.

The strength of the enemy you vanquished yesterday might not be on par with the strength of the enemy you will have to confront tomorrow. The enemy knows you overcame your enemy yesterday, so he will send something stronger against you tomorrow. What the enemy is banking on is that your strength, maturity, and authority levels will be the same tomorrow as they were yesterday. That’s the only way he can land a blow. The only way he can leave a mark is if you’re not daily growing, maturing, and expanding your knowledge of God, your obedience to God, and your authority in God.

If you feel the enemy you faced today was harder to defeat than the one you faced yesterday, the first thing you must ask yourself is if you grew. Some kinds, including the kind in the little boy, do not go out except by fasting and prayer. Who is supposed to do the fasting and the praying? The boy? The Father? The community? The church? Those who came to watch what the disciples or Jesus could do, or the disciples who needed a greater anointing than what they had? Jesus was speaking to His disciples and no one else. It was to them that He said this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.