'Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why
could not we cast him out? 20. And Jesus said unto them,
Because of your unbelief.'--MATT. xvii. 19, 20.
'And when He had called unto Him His twelve disciples, He gave them
power against unclean spirits to cast them out.' That same power was
bestowed, too, on the wider circle of the seventy who returned again
with joy, saying, 'Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through
Thy name.' The ground of it was laid in the solemn words with which
Christ met their wonder at their own strength, and told how He
'beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.' Therefore had they
triumphed, showing the fruits of their Master's victory; and
therefore had He a right to renew the gift, in the still more
comprehensive promise, 'I give unto you power--over all the power of
the enemy.'
What a commentary on such words this story affords! What has become
of the disciples' supernatural might? Has it ebbed away as suddenly
as it flowed? Is their Lord's endowment a shadow or His assurances
delusion? Has He taken back what He gave? Not so. And yet His
servants are ignominiously beaten. One poor devil-ridden boy brings
all their resources to nothing. He stands before them writhing in
the gripe of his tormentor, but they cannot set him free. The
importunity of the father's prayers is vain, and the tension of
expectancy in his eager face relaxes into the old hopeless languor
as he slowly droops to the conviction that 'they could not cast him
out.' The malicious scorn in the eyes of the Scribes, those hostile
critics who 'knew that it would be so,' helps to produce the failure
which they anticipated. The curious crowd buzz about them, and in
the midst of it all stand the little knot of baffled disciples,
possessors of power which seems to leave them when they need it
most, with the unavailing spells dying half spoken on their lips,
and their faint hearts longing that their Master would come down
from the mount, and cover their weakness with His own great
strength.
No wonder that, as soon as Christ and they are alone, they wish to
know how their mortifying defeat has come about. And they get an
answer which they little expected, for the last place where men look
for the explanation of their failures is within; but they will
ascend into the heavens, and descend into the deeps for remote and
recondite reasons, before they listen to the voice which says, 'The
fault is nigh thee, in thy heart.' Christ's reply distinctly implies
that the cause of their impotence lay wholly in themselves, not in
any defect or withdrawal of power, but solely in that in them which
grasped the power. They little expected, too, to be told that they
had failed because they had not been sure they would succeed. They
had thought that they believed in their ability to cast out the
demon. They had tried to do so, with some kind of anticipation that
they could. They had been surprised when they found that they could
not. They had wonderingly asked why. And now Christ tells them that
all along they had had no real faith in Him and in the reality of
His gift. So subtly may unbelief steal into the heart, even while we
fancy that we are working in faith. And a further portion of our
Lord's reply points them to the great means by which this conquering
faith can be maintained--namely, prayer and fasting. If, then, we
put all these things together, we get a series of considerations,
very simple and commonplace indeed, but all the better and truer
therefor, which I venture to submit to you, as having a very
important bearing on all our Christian work, and especially on the
missionary work of the Church. The principles which the text
suggests touch the perpetual possession of the power which conquers;
the condition of its victorious exercise by us, as being our faith;
the subtle danger of unsuspected unbelief to which we are exposed;
and the great means of preserving our faith pure and strong. I ask
your attention to a few considerations on these points in their
order.
But first, let me say very briefly, that I would not be understood
as, by the selection of such a text, desiring to suggest that we
have failed in our work. Thank God! we can point to results far, far
greater than we have deserved, far greater than we have expected,
however they may be beneath our desires, and still further below
what the gospel was meant to accomplish. It may suit observers who
have never done anything themselves, and have not particularly clear
eyes for appreciating spiritual work, to talk of Christian missions
as failures; but it would ill become us to assent to the lie.
Failures indeed! with half a million of converts, with new forms of
Christian life budding in all the wilderness of the peoples, with
the consciousness of coming doom creeping about the heart of every
system of idolatry! Is the green life in the hedges and in the sweet
pastures starred with rathe primroses, and in the hidden copses blue
with hyacinths, a failure, because the east wind bites shrewdly, and
'the tender ash delays to clothe herself with green'? No! no, we
have not failed. Enough has been done to vindicate the enterprise,
more than enough to fill our lips with thanksgiving, enough to
entitle us to say to all would-be critics--Do you the same with your
enchantments. But, on the other hand, we have to confess that the
success has been slow and small, chequered and interrupted, that
often we have been foiled, that we have confronted many a demon whom
we could not cast out, and that at home and abroad the masses of
evil seem to close in around us, and we make but little impression
on their serried ranks. We have had success enough to assure us that
we possess the treasure, and failures enough to make us feel how
weak are the earthen vessels which hold it.
And now let us turn to the principles which flow from this text.