<p>9:19 <em>And he answered them saying: O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I tolerate you?- </em>As noted on :17, the &quot;faithless&quot; here were the disciples, not the man; for he had some measure of faith. The disciples were at this point caught up in the faithless spirit of their generation, the world around them; just as we can be. When the Lord returned from the Mount of Transfiguration, He found that the disciples had failed to do a cure because of their lack of faith. He describes them as part of a &ldquo;faithless generation&rdquo; again indicating how the disciples were all too influenced by Judaism, the &ldquo;generation&rdquo; or world around them. The disciples and Judaism / the Jewish world are paralleled in Jn. 7:3,4: &ldquo;Let your disciples see your work&hellip; show yourself to the world&rdquo;.</p><p>An example of the Lord&rsquo;s perhaps unconscious usage of His Father&rsquo;s words is to be found in this exasperated comment.&nbsp; Of course the Lord would have spoken those words and expressed those ideas in Aramaic- but the similarity is striking with His Father&rsquo;s Hebrew words of Num. 14:27: &ldquo;How long shall I bear with this evil congregation&hellip;?&rdquo;. As a son comes out with phrases and word usages which &lsquo;Could be his father speaking&rsquo;, so the Lord Jesus did the same thing. What I am saying is that the Lord was not merely quoting or alluding to the Father&rsquo;s Old Testament words, in the way that, say, Paul or Peter did. As the Father&rsquo;s Son, He was speaking in the same way as His Father, no doubt saturated with the written record of the Father&rsquo;s words, but all the same, there were those similarities of wording and underlying thinking which are only seen between fathers and sons. And His words of Mt. 17:17 = Num. 14:27 seem to me to be an example of this. It was the disciples who were faithless. In Matthew chapters 12 and 13, the Lord had drawn a clear difference between the disciples, and the unbelieving surrounding generation. It seems that He now despaired of whether that distinction was valid; He sees them, in the heat of that moment of bitter disappointment, as no better than the masses who did not believe. The &quot;faithless&quot; will be condemned (Lk. 12:46 &quot;his portion with the unbelievers&quot;, s.w.), and this is the term used about the world generally (1 Cor. 6:6; 7:12); or as the Lord puts it, this &quot;generation&quot;. And yet the Lord uses it here about the disciples and again in Jn. 20:27. The very phrase &quot;perverse generation&quot; is used by Paul about the unbelieving world (Phil. 2:15). To use this term about the disciples is therefore significant; the Lord really felt that His faith and hope that they were different from the Jewish world had been misplaced. After His encounter with Elijah and Moses, he doubtless expected more of God's people.</p><p>This fits in with a Biblical theme- of people being confronted with acute spiritual temptation immediately after a highly spiritual experience. And this is true to life- so often, merely hours after a highly intense spiritual experience e.g. at a breaking of bread meeting we find ourselves assailed by temptation and spiritual depression. It's not that we are encountered by a physical person called 'Satan' immediately after our spiritual 'high'; rather it is a feature of human nature that the closer we come to God, the stronger is the tidal backwash of&nbsp;<em>internal</em>&nbsp;temptation immediately afterwards. Consider some examples:</p><p>- Noah walks off the ark, a superb triumph of faith, into a cleansed and pristine world, with the rainbow arch of God's grace above him- and gets dead drunk (Gen. 9:21-24).<br />- Moses renounced greatness, stood up for God's people and then left Egypt by faith, &quot;not fearing the wrath of the king&quot; (Heb. 11:27); and yet ended up fleeing in fear from Pharaoh (Ex. 2:14,15).<br />- Moses returned from the awesome meeting with God on Sinai and gave in to a flash of anger, during which he smashed the tables of the covenant- a covenant which had also been made with him personally.<br />- Israel were ecstatic with joy and confidence in God as they stood on the other side of the Red Sea- but very soon afterwards they were giving in to temptation in the wilderness, accusing God of intending to kill them and being careless for them.<br />- Judas went from the spiritual height of being present at the first &quot;breaking of bread&quot; meeting with the Lord Jesus, just prior to His death, directly into temptation from &quot;the Devil&quot; and then went out into the darkness of that night (Lk. 22:3).&nbsp;<br />- Soon after his spiritual triumph on Carmel, Elijah is to be found suicidal and bitter with God, and considering that the other faithful in Israel are in fact also apostate (1 Kings 19:4-11).<br />- Samson's life was full of giving in to spiritual temptation immediately after he had been empowered by God to do some great miracle.<br />- Immediately after having been saved by God's grace from a huge invasion (2 Sam. 11), David sins with Bathsheba and murders Uriah (2 Sam. 12).<br />- After the wonder of having a terminal illness delayed by 15 years in response to prayer, Hezekiah gives in to the temptation to be proud and selfish in the events of Is. 39.<br />- Soon after the wonder of the miracles of the loaves and fishes, the disciples hardened their heart to it and accused Jesus of not caring for them (Mk. 4:38; 6:52).<br />- Paul straight after his wonderful vision of &quot;the third heaven&quot; finds himself struggling with a &quot;thorn in the flesh&quot;, a term I have elsewhere suggested may refer to a spiritual weakness or temptation (2 Cor. 12:7).<br />- After the wonder of baptism and the confirming voice from Heaven, Jesus was immediately assaulted by major temptation in the wilderness.</p><p>This is surely the most graphic and intense expression of frustration in the entire recorded history of the Lord Jesus. His frustration was with how His disciples were not living up to their potential, and how faithless they were. And we daily exhibit the same terribly disappointing characteristics. But&nbsp;<em>how long</em>&nbsp;may not necessarily be a cry of exasperation- although it could be that. There can also be the sense of 'Until when?', and the time in view was the Lord's death. John's Gospel records the Lord several times speaking of how His hour or time had not yet come, and how He agonized until it did. That end point was clearly the moment when He cried from the cross &quot;It is finished&quot;.</p><p><em>Bring him to me</em>- The man had brought s.w. &quot;bring&quot; his son to the disciples, they couldn't heal him, and so the Lord asks for the child to be brought to Him personally. And yet He had taught that in their witness, the disciples were Him to this world. Coming to them was coming to Him. But He despaired that in this case, there was now a difference between them and Him. They were unable to manifest Him as they should because of their lack of faith. And there are times when our status as 'brethren in Christ' likewise fails, and we fail to be Him to this world and He has to intervene and reveal Himself more directly to men.</p><p>Mk. 9:19 records how He asked for the son to be brought&nbsp;<em>pros</em>&nbsp;Me, literally, 'here with Me'; but this is the same term used in the Lord's lament: &quot;How long shall I be with <em>pros</em> you?&quot;. The Lord's physical presence was required for this miracle- the son must be &quot;here&quot; (Mt.), &quot;with Me&quot; (Mk.). But the Lord was making the point that He would not always be literally with them, and then such cures would have to be done by the disciples without His physical presence. And it seems He despaired as to whether they were ready for this.</p>