If you find out that someone you trust has lied to you, the immediate response is that of doubt, you will wonder “What else have they lied to me about?”
Doubt, when it comes to the Word of God, is one of our adversaries’ greatest tools, from questioning Eve in the garden about the validity of the words of God concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, to the words put forth to Christ Himself twice, “If thou be the Son of God.”
This poorly written letter to you today is not meant to create doubt within you about the Scriptures, but to some I fear it might, and so I am hesitant to even attempt to expound upon it, but I am led by the Holy Spirit to write, and so write I will.
“And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking.” (Mark 8:24) And so the Lord Jesus Christ, the Great Physician, healer of untold millions of every possible malady of soul and body, had to try again.
There is another verse and I ask that you would look at it in its entirety of context. “(For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For oftentimes it had caught him: and he was kept bound with chains and in fetters; and he brake the bands, and was driven of the devil into the wilderness.)” (Luke 8:29) Legion disobeyed, the unclean spirits did not come out of the man of the Gadarenes at the Lord’s first statement to do so.
How you look at these two incidences in context will tell you much about how you view the entirety of the Word of God, do you see contradictions, or do you view the Scriptures as completely inerrant, written by men inspired by the Holy Spirit, without any mistakes or incongruities?
I will add a third incident in the life of the Savior, “And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.” (Mark 6:5) Those that had faith needed to simply believe, all the woman needed to do was touch the hem of His garment, their faith healed them, Christ healed them, and so as in His hometown, perhaps the man’s faith was not strong enough, if you will, and the Lord had to repeat the action so that his sight could be restored properly.
As I stated, this letter is not to incite doubt within you, so I will let you contemplate the need to repeat the action for the blind man. But as far as I can recall there is no place in the Scriptures when Jesus told the unclean spirits to leave that they did not immediately leave, save for Legion.
A lack of power in the Lord Jesus Christ in these two accounts?
I think not.
Doubt causes people to lose faith, not their salvation, but their trust in the Almighty in certain circumstances, doubts end up saying when the person is not healed, “Well, it must not have been the Lord’s will.”
“But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.” (James 1:6)
Some prayers my friends are not answered because they are asked amiss, but because there is doubt behind them.
The centurion knew that Jesus could heal his daughter, the woman who touched the hem of His robe knew, there was no doubt. Was there latent doubt in the man who saw people as trees? Why was Legion able to disobey the commandment of the Lord Jesus Christ.
“And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” (Romans 14:23)
I will give you my answer to these questions, and I would suggest that if they ever come up in conversations with others that you give them the same answer.
“I don’t know.”
If they want to doubt, if they want to see the Lord Jesus Christ as less than who He truly is, God Almighty, let them.
I have no doubts that will cause me to see Him as less than who He says He is.