Prayer and Faith: Overcoming Unbelief

Overcoming Unbelief Through Prayer

1. Our Lord Jesus Christ rebuked unbelief even in His own disciples, as we just heard when the Gospel was read. When they had asked, "Why couldn't we cast it out?" He answered, "Because of your unbelief" (Matthew 17:19-20). If the apostles were unbelievers, who then is a believer? What must the lambs do if the rams stumble? Yet the Lord's mercy didn't disdain them in their unbelief but instead reproved, nourished, perfected, and crowned them.

They themselves, mindful of their own weakness, said to Him, as we read in another place in the Gospel: "Lord, increase our faith" (Luke 17:5). "Lord," they say, "increase our faith." Their first advantage was recognizing their deficiency; even better was knowing from whom they should ask help. "Lord," they say, "increase our faith." See how they brought their hearts to the fountain and knocked so that it might be opened to them, from which they could fill themselves. For the Lord wants people to knock at His door—not to turn away those who knock, but to exercise those who long for Him.

2. Do you think, brothers, that God doesn't know what you need? He knows and anticipates our desires—He knows what we lack. When He taught His disciples to pray, He warned them not to use many words, saying, "Don't use many words, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him" (Matthew 6:7-8). Now the Lord seems to say something different here. If He dislikes us using many words in prayer, and says, "When you pray, don't use many words; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him," why do we need to use even a few words? What's the point of prayer at all, if "our Father knows what we need" before we ask?

He says to one person, "Don't make your prayer to Me too lengthy, for I know what you need." If so, Lord, why should I pray at all? You don't want me to use long prayers—you even advise me to use almost none. Yet what does that instruction mean in another place? For He who says, "Don't use many words in prayer," says elsewhere, "Ask, and it will be given to you" (Matthew 7:7). And lest you think this first instruction to ask was given casually, He added, "Seek, and you will find." And lest you think this too was given casually, see what He added further— "Knock, and it will be opened to you."

He wants you to ask so you may receive, to seek so you may find, and to knock so you may enter. Since our Father already knows what we need, why do we ask? Why seek? Why knock? Why trouble ourselves with asking, seeking, and knocking to inform One who already knows? In another place, the Lord's words are: "People ought always to pray and not lose heart" (Luke 18:1). If we "ought always to pray," how can He say, "Don't use many words" ? How can I always pray if I quickly finish? Here you tell me to finish quickly; there, "always to pray and not lose heart." What does this mean?

To understand this, "ask, seek, knock." The door is closed not to shut you out but to exercise you. Therefore, brothers, we should exhort both ourselves and you to pray. We have no other hope amid the many evils of this present world than to knock in prayer, to believe, and to maintain that belief firmly in our hearts. Your Father only withholds what He knows isn't good for you. You know what you want; He knows what's beneficial for you.

Imagine yourself under a physician's care, which is exactly our situation. All our life is a state of weakness, and a long life is nothing but prolonged weakness. Imagine yourself sick under a doctor's care. You want to ask the doctor for a glass of fresh wine. You're not prohibited from asking—it might not harm you and might even do you good. Don't hesitate to ask, but if you don't receive it, don't take it to heart. If you would act this way with a human being, a doctor of the body, how much more should you with God, who is the Physician, Creator, and Restorer of both your body and soul?

3. See how the Lord encouraged His disciples to pray in this passage when He said, "You couldn't cast out this demon because of your unbelief." Then, exhorting them to prayer, He concluded, "This kind doesn't go out except by prayer and fasting" (Matthew 17:21). If someone must pray to cast demons out of another, how much more to cast out their own greed? How much more to cast out their own drunkenness? How much more to cast out their own self-indulgence? How much more to cast out their own impurity?

There are many things in a person which, if persisted in, prevent entry into the kingdom of heaven! Consider, brothers, how a physician is entreated for physical health. If someone is desperately ill, are they ashamed or slow to throw themselves at a person's feet? To bathe a skilled physician's footsteps with tears? And what if the physician says, "You cannot be cured unless I bind you and use fire and a knife"? The patient will answer, "Do what you will, only cure me."

With what eagerness they long for a few days of health, fleeting as vapor, that they're willing to be bound, to endure fire and the knife, and to be kept from eating or drinking what they please! They'll endure all this to die a little later, yet they won't endure even a small hardship so they might never die. If God, the Heavenly Physician, says to you, "Do you want to be healed?" what would you say but "Yes"? Or perhaps you wouldn't say so, because you imagine yourself healthy—which means you're actually more seriously ill.

4. Let's imagine two sick people: one who implores the physician with tears, the other who in sickness laughs deliriously. The doctor will have hope for the one who weeps but will be concerned for the one who laughs. Why? Because the healthier the second person thinks they are, the more dangerous their sickness is.

This was the case with the Jews. Christ came to the sick; He found everyone sick. Let no one flatter themselves about their health, lest the physician give up on them. He found everyone sick. The Apostle's judgment is: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). Though He found everyone sick, there were two kinds of sick people.

The first group came to the Physician, clung to Christ, listened to and honored Him, and followed Him. They were converted. He received all without disdaining anyone, for He healed freely, cured by Almighty power. When He received these people and joined them to Himself to be healed, they rejoiced.

But there was another group of sick people who had become deluded through their sickness of wickedness and didn't know they were sick. They mocked Him because He received the sick and said to His disciples, "Look what kind of man your Master is, who eats with tax collectors and sinners" (Matthew 9:11). Christ, who knew both groups and their conditions, answered them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick" (Matthew 9:12). And He showed them who were "well" and who were "sick": "I didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners" (Matthew 9:13).

He was saying, "If sinners don't come to Me, why am I here? For whose sake have I come? If all are well, why has such a great Physician come down from heaven? Why has He prepared medicine not from His storehouse but from His own blood?" Those sick people with milder sickness, who recognized their condition, clung to the Physician to be healed. But those whose sickness was more dangerous mocked the Physician and abused the sick.

Where did their madness ultimately lead? To seize the Physician, bind Him, scourge Him, crown Him with thorns, hang Him on a tree, and kill Him on a cross! Why are you surprised? The sick killed the Physician—but the Physician, by being killed, healed the insane patient.

5. First, not forgetting His true nature on the cross and demonstrating His patience to us, giving us an example of love for our enemies, as He saw them raging around Him—He, the Physician who knew their disease and the madness that had overtaken them—immediately said to the Father, "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing" (Luke 23:34).

Do you suppose those Jews weren't malicious, cruel, bloodthirsty, violent, and enemies of the Son of God? Do you think that cry, "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing," was ineffective and in vain? He saw them all, but He also recognized among them those who would one day be His. In a word, He died because it was necessary that by His death He might kill death.

God died so that, by a kind of heavenly exchange, humans might not see death. For Christ is God, but He didn't die in the nature by which He is God. The same Person is both God and man—God and man is one Christ. Human nature was taken on so that we might be changed for the better; He didn't lower the Divine Nature. He took on what He was not; He didn't lose what He was.

Since He is both God and man, being pleased that we should live by what was His, He died in what was ours. For He had nothing of His own by which He could die, nor did we have anything by which we could live. For what was He, who had nothing by which He could die? "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). If you look for anything in God by which He might die, you won't find it. But we all die, who are flesh—people bearing sinful flesh. Look for something by which sin might live; it doesn't exist. So He had no means of death in what was His, nor did we have means of life in what was ours. But we have life from what is His, and He had death from what is ours.

What an exchange! What has He given, and what received? People who trade enter into business for exchange. Ancient commerce was simply an exchange of things. A person gave what they had and received what they didn't have. For example, one had wheat but no barley; another had barley but no wheat. The first gave the wheat they had and received the barley they didn't have. How simple that the more plentiful commodity should make up for the less valuable kind!

So one person gives barley to receive wheat. Another gives lead to receive silver, though they give much lead for a little silver. Another gives wool to receive a ready-made garment. Who can list all these exchanges? But no one gives life to receive death.

The Physician's voice from the tree wasn't in vain. For since the Word couldn't die, "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). He hung on the cross, but in the flesh. There was the humility that the Jews despised; there was the value by which the Jews were delivered. For it was concerning them that it was said, "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing."

That voice wasn't in vain. He died, was buried, rose again, and after spending forty days with His disciples, ascended to heaven. He sent the Holy Spirit upon them as they waited for the promised gift. They were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in the languages of all nations. Then the Jews who were present, amazed that unlearned and ignorant men, whom they had known to be raised among them speaking one language, should in Christ's name speak in all languages, were astonished. They learned from Peter's words where this gift came from.

He who hung on the tree gave this gift. He who was mocked as He hung on the tree bestowed the Holy Spirit from His heavenly throne. Those of whom He had said, "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing," heard, believed, were baptized, and were converted. What conversion? In faith, they drank the blood of Christ which in fury they had shed.

6. Therefore, to conclude this discourse with what we began, let us pray and rely on God. Let us live as He commands. When we falter in this life, let us call upon Him as the disciples did, saying, "Lord, increase our faith" (Luke 17:5). Peter both trusted in Him and faltered; nevertheless, he wasn't disregarded and left to sink but was lifted up and raised. For where did his trust come from? Not from anything of his own, but from what was the Lord's.

How? "Lord, if it's You, command me to come to You on the water" (Matthew 14:28). For the Lord was walking on the water. "If it's You, command me to come to You on the water." "For I know that if it's You, what You command will be done." "And He said, 'Come.'" Peter went down at His command, but in his own weakness he became afraid. Nevertheless, when he was afraid, he cried out, "Lord, save me!" Then the Lord took him by the hand and said, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" (Matthew 14:31).

He first invited him, then delivered him as he tottered and stumbled, fulfilling what was said in the Psalm: "If I said, 'My foot is slipping,' Your mercy, O Lord, supported me" (Psalm 94:18).

7. There are two kinds of blessings: temporal and eternal. Temporal blessings include health, wealth, honor, friends, home, children, a spouse, and the other things of this life in which we are sojourners. Let us therefore stay in this life's inn as travelers passing through, not as owners intending to remain.

Eternal blessings are, first, eternal life itself, the incorruption and immortality of body and soul, the company of angels, the heavenly city, glory that never fades, the Father and our true homeland—the former without death, the latter without enemies. Let us desire these blessings with all eagerness, ask for them with all perseverance, not with lengthy words but with the testimony of our groans.

Longing desire prays always, even when the tongue is silent. If you're always longing, you're always praying. When does prayer sleep? When desire grows cold. So let us ask for these eternal blessings with eager desire, seek those good things with complete earnestness, and ask for them with full assurance. For those good things benefit the one who has them and cannot harm them.

But those other temporal good things sometimes benefit and sometimes harm. Poverty has helped many, and wealth has harmed many. A private life has benefited many, and high position has harmed many. Again, money has helped some, and distinction has helped others—helped those who use them well. But from those who use them poorly, not taking them away has done more harm than good.

So, brothers, let us ask for temporal blessings too, but in moderation, being confident that if we receive them, He gives them who knows what's best for us. You have asked, and what you requested hasn't been given? Trust your Father, who would give it if it were good for you.

Judge in this case by yourself. Your small child who doesn't understand adult ways stands in the same relation to you as you, who don't understand God's ways, stand to the Lord. Look—your child cries all day for you to give him a knife or sword. You refuse, you will not give it; you disregard his tears so you won't have to weep over his death. Let him cry and throw himself on the ground to make you put him on horseback—you won't do it because he doesn't know how to control the horse and might be thrown and killed. You withhold a part to preserve the whole. But so that he may grow up and safely possess everything, you don't give him that small thing that's dangerous to him.

8. So, brothers, we say, pray as much as you can. Evils abound, and God has allowed evils to abound. If only evil people didn't abound, then evils wouldn't abound. "Bad times! Troublesome times!" people say. Let our lives be good, and the times are good. We make our times; as we are, so are the times.

But what can we do? We cannot, perhaps, convert the masses to good lives. But let the few who listen live well; let the few who live well endure the many who live badly. They are the grain; they are on the threshing floor. On the floor, they can have chaff with them, but they won't have it in the barn. Let them endure what they wouldn't choose, that they may come to what they desire.

Why are we sad and blame God? Evils abound in the world so that the world won't engage our love. Great people, faithful saints despised the world with all its attractions; we're unable to despise it even as disfigured as it is. The world is evil, and yet it's loved as though it were good.

But what is this evil world? For the heavens and earth, waters, and things in them—fish, birds, and trees—aren't evil. All these are good. But evil people make this world evil. Yet since we can't be without evil people, let us, as I've said, while we live, pour out our groans before the Lord our God. Let us endure the evils so we may attain the good things.

Let's not find fault with the Master of the household, for He loves us. He bears with us, not we with Him. He knows how to govern what He made; do what He has commanded, and hope for what He has promised.