Your so funny all 2 of you....LOL  I believe you have a fan club even if they are silent.  Not only that, those that don't believe now....your still sewing seed...it just depends on the kind of ground it falls on....some will produce a harvest others will act like they have never heard this before.... 

Michael, I believe the truth sets us free....these things that your teaching on are the very things that set me free.  I have come to see that very few will honestly take God up on Who He is in this life...it certainly does not make Him any less powerful or any less God...

O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you?

I think God is saying the very things right now...As much as things change is as much as they stay the same...

Prayer and fasting...after fasting for 40 days....God so turned me during that time I was able to grab hold of  healing...the thing is, that was available to me all along, I just didn't know how to receive it....I can't say enough of prayer and fasting...it is just necessary at times...

Hi Michael!

I like Andrew's take on this verse too and tend to agree with him that Jesus was speaking to their unbelief not the demon.  It is also very interesting to note the fact that Jesus never prayed for the sick or the demon oppressed.  He spoke to the mountain.

Since I have it firmly in my heart that Jesus did not due a single miracle of himself (see Acts 2:22!) and God in Christ could not do many miracles in Jesus' hometown because of their unbelief, I also know that faith in God is more essential than we tend to think it is.  Most people blame God saying that the lack of a result is because it wasn't his will…the problem is we won't find a single instance of that in anything that Jesus demonstrated and taught.

It is very interesting to compare the different accounts of this incident!

Matthew 17:14-20
14 And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and, kneeling before him, 15said, "Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly. For often he falls into the fire, and often into the water. 16And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him." 17And Jesus answered, "O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me." 18And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly. 19Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?" 20He said to them, "Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you."

Mark 9:17-29
17And someone from the crowd answered him, "Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. 18And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able." 19And he answered them, "O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me." 20And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. 21And Jesus asked his father, "How long has this been happening to him?" And he said, "From childhood. 22And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us." 23And Jesus said to him, "'If you can'! All things are possible for one who believes." 24Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, "I believe; help my unbelief!" 25And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, "You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again." 26And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, "He is dead." 27But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. 28And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, "Why could we not cast it out?" 29And he said to them, "This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer."

Note: that Jesus did not ever pray to cast out a demon or heal the sick so he is speaking to something else and I think Andrew Wommack has it correct here.  This unbelief cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.  A word moves mountains, etc. and all the sudden we believe that he is speaking about a spirit that must be prayed out?  That isn't consistent with the other 25 healing miracles he did.

Luke 9:37-43

37 On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. 38And behold, a man from the crowd cried out, "Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child. 39And behold, a spirit seizes him, and he suddenly cries out. It convulses him so that he foams at the mouth, and shatters him, and will hardly leave him. 40And I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not." 41Jesus answered, "O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here." 42While he was coming, the demon threw him to the ground and convulsed him. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. 43And all were astonished at the majesty of God.

So all three accounts are true and are speaking to slightly different perspectives of the truth.  It is interesting to me to note that in one account the demonic spirit throw the boy to the ground after Jesus spoke for it to come out.  I believe that when we put this together with the other account we get a clear picture that the same thing happened to the disciples but they did what we tend to do!  They said, in their hearts, "It didn't work!"  Looking at the second account we also see that Jesus first, by the leading of the Spirit, dealt with the unbelief that was in the father's heart—not in the disciples!

So we really need to put all these accounts together to get a clear picture of the fact that there were several issues that were dealt with not just the faith of the disciples: but the unbelief of the father as well.  In fact, in Greek, the word interpreted "little faith" is Oligopistos. Oligo being slight or little and pistos being faith.  Therefore it doesn't say "unbelief" in Greek with respect to the disciples; but it does say Apistia (unbelief) with respect to the father of the boy.

Anyway, lots of great things to ponder and meditate upon.

Craig

If you're not abiding in Him or His word is not abiding in you, the implication is, you simply won't ask what you will.  If you are asking whatever you wish from God it is a good indicator that you are abiding in Him and His word is abiding in you.  Otherwise, you wouldn't dare ask whatever you wanted.  If you're not asking, you're not abiding.  It's all very logical.  This thing is perfect!

Rob

Yes Rob!  We have to love our neighbor...as yourself.  If you hate yourself please don't love me!  :-)  LOL!

Craig 

OK, the commentary on this blog is beginning to get out of hand. Praise God! I was afraid it wouldn't!

It needs to get out of our hands and into God's, amen?

Lori, Jimmie, Craig and Rob, you guys really are a great bunch. Your comments are much appreciated, I assure you. I can see so very much Godly wisdom not only in these comments, but the comments you posted on the other 47 blogs I posted in this series. OK, so it's only been 4....but who knows.....we're not done yet!

Seriously, thanks so much for all your input. Much of what has been said helps tremendously to fill in some of the gaps and bring to an even greater light some of this teaching. Who knows? I may even choose to use it in the sequel, only with your written consent, of course.

I realize that I have not been the best moderator and have failed, to some degree, in responding, but please know that I take the things you say to heart, at least most of it.

Rob, in Part 5 I am going to talk some more about fasting. I have fasted quite a few times, some of them were in fact a forced fast. As you know I was on the streets for a couple of years and at times went days and sometimes weeks without anything substantial to eat. God's voice was vibrating my ear drums during that time.

In fact, I am about due for another fast. If you want, I'll fast right along with you my friend. In the meantime, you may want to check out the blog I have relating to a cleansing fast that I do a few times a year. Here's the link.

Gotta run for now my friends but definitely wanted to say thanks. I may try to write Part 5 later and then, after this is all said and done, hopefully there will be more done than said. I'll be sure to come back and mull over all these great comments again too. They, your comments, I will cherish for years to come.

Adios!

I also thank God for Andrew. You guys know him and therefor you also know that just about everything I say comes from him. But that's who God set before me to learn from and the truths that I have gained through his ministry have truly revolutionized my life.

Considering that just 4 short years ago I was a homeless, helpless, and hopeless crack addict walking the streets, and today I am 100% convinced that God chose me and yanked me out of that mess, I am more than grateful, first of course to Jesus, but also to Andrew.

Yes, of course I study the Word on my own but Andrew really helps to bring clarification and simplicity to things which may otherwise prove themselves complicated, at least to my peanut brain.

I have listened to every message he has multiple times in the last 2 years. I have over 300 messages on my PC and I would say that each one is at least an hour or an hour and a half in length. So, if I have listened to each message at least three times and the average message is, let's say, 75 minutes long, then that totals approximately 67,500 minutes of church in the last two years. Divide that by 2 and then again by 60 and you get 562 hours per year. If you figure that at a typical church you get about 30 minutes worth of actual preaching then that would equate to approximately 1,125 times I attended church this year. Considering there has only been 11 months gone by so far this year, you could say that I have been to church an average of 3.36 times per day, or approximately 21.6 years of church, this year!

Have I earned  my righteous yet? You know I am kidding and I know that all of the above is really irrelevant, that's just how much the message of God's Unconditional Love & Grace has touched my life! Praise God!

Anyway, like all that was necessary, I wanted to suggest an excellent follow-up to this lesson for those of you who have not heard it. It's called "Hardness Of Heart" and I highly recommend it.

Later!

:-)

Craig