<p>17:21&nbsp;<em>But this kind</em>- This kind of demon? In this case, the Lord is again using their wrong ideas (in this case, about some demons being stronger than others) without really believing them, talking to them in terms which they understood.</p>
<p><em>Will not go out-&nbsp;</em>Angels are of course active in answering our prayer, obeying the commanding voice of God Himself in Heaven- answers to prayer &quot;go&hellip; out&quot; by prayer and fasting (Mt. 17:21). The answer to prayer is therefore likened to a 'going out'- of the&nbsp;Angel and command from the throne of grace? This language of 'going out' is frequently used in the Old Testament&nbsp;about&nbsp;the&nbsp;going&nbsp;forth&nbsp;of the cherubim Angels. See Is. 37:36 for another example.</p>
<p><em>Except by prayer and fasting</em>- Which evidently, the disciples should have done but had not. The Lord wasn&rsquo;t naive, although He was so positive. He told the disciples quite frankly here that they were full of &ldquo;unbelief&rdquo;, and couldn&rsquo;t do miracles which He expected them to because they didn&rsquo;t pray and fast (:19-21). And yet when quizzed by the Pharisees as to why His disciples didn&rsquo;t fast, He said it was because they were so happy to be with Him, the bridegroom (Mt. 9:15). Here surely He was seeing the best in them. They come over as confused, mixed up men who wanted the Kingdom there and then and were frustrated at the Lord&rsquo;s inaction in establishing it. But He saw that they recognized Him as the bridegroom, as Messiah, and He exalted in this, and saw their lack of fasting as partly due to the deep-down joy which He knew they had. Perhaps they tried to do this miracle without even praying about it (Mk. 9:29). Or maybe they prayed only on a surface level, and it was not counted as real prayer. Only intense prayer could send forth this kind of answer from God; He does not act on emotional grounds, just because He feels sorry for somebody. It needs to be noted that initially the man's child was not cured because the disciples didn't have the faith to do it. This teaches that God's activity for others is partly dependent on the prayers of a third party. These words are applied to us all in 1 Cor. 7:5, the only other place in the NT where they occur together; we are to give ourselves to prayer and fasting in domestic married life with the passion and intensity required to perform a miracle.</p>