This is taken from Andrew Wommack's book "God Wants You Well"  This is a follow up to yeseterdays post "Is it God's Will to Heal?"  The point was made in the comments that when we believe it's God's will to heal, but we are not experiencing it in our own lives, the issue is unbelief.  This post addresses that:

Chapter 14:  A Pure Strong Faith

 “And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If you have faith as a mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain.  Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing will be impossible unto you.”  (Matthew 17:20)

 Jesus was saying, “Guys, you don’t have a faith problem.  What you have is an unbelief problem.”  The parallel account in Mark 9 says that:

“They brought him unto him: and when he saw him, straightaway the spirit tare him; and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming.  (Mark 9:20)

Personally, I believe this is what caused their unbelief.  If you’ve ever seen an epileptic seizure, you know that it can be a frightful experience, especially if the person starts biting or swallowing their tongue.  It’s terrible.  I’m not trying to be cold hearted or cruel, but I’ve seen it before.  It can make the hair rise up on the back of your head.

These disciples had faith.  They had seen other demons cast out and people healed, but this time, when they went to pray for this boy, there was a physical manifestation of these demons.  That same thing happened to Jesus when He went to minister to the lad.  The difference was Jesus had zero unbelief to counter His faith, so He was able to go ahead and effect a cure.  These disciples, however, had responded to unbelief, which negated their faith.  As a result, when they asked the Lord, “Why could we not cast him out?  We know we are believing.  We’ve seen it happen before, but how come it didn’t work this time?  He told them, “It’s because of your unbelief.  Your unbelief negated, canceled out, and counterbalanced your faith.”

Then in Matthew 17:21, Jesus continues by saying:

Howbeit this kind [of unbelief] goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.

Contrary to much popular teaching, and now even erroneous Bible versions, the true subject of verse 21 is the unbelief mentioned in verse 20, not the demon(s) in verse 19.  Some people teach that certain demons are stronger than others, and you must pray and fast in order to be able to cast them out.  There all kinds of variations on this, but it is not what Matthew 17:21 is saying.  If you look carefully, you’ll see that the subject of the previous sentence (v. 20) was unbelief, not demons.  Unbelief was what stopped the disciples from casting out this demon and seeing the boy healed.  And since the Lord said, “This kind only goes out through prayer and fasting,” apparently there are different kinds of unbelief. 

Let me quickly mention that one of the translations that substitutes “little faith” for “unbelief” in verse 20, totally leaves out verse 21.  I’m not quick to criticize translations.  I’m aware that many people don’t like the King James Version that I use.  However, any translation that omits verses is not what I consider good.  You need a good translation of the Bible.  Check yours to see if Matthew 17:21 and Mark 16:17-20 are there. 

(To be continuted...)