In Institute today, we read about Jesus miraculously casting out devils and unclean spirits and whatnot, and one thing that we picked up on is that some of these devils might not have been devils at all. With modern medical science, we have discovered that some people have epileptic seizures, and we have discovered some of the reasons these things happen and how we can treat them, but these advancements have nothing to do with devils or exorcism. In His time, Jesus was able to cure all sorts of maladies, including those that hadn't been identified yet and might have been misdiagnosed as demonic possession.
The main takeaway from this lesson is that God knows us wonderfully well, better than anyone else, even ourselves. When we have a problem, God knows exactly what that problem is, what caused it, and how we can treat it, even if we don't know any of those things.
Recently, I thought I was sick, and I probably was at first, but one of the symptoms of my sickness has lasted a lot longer than the other symptoms and may actually be a symptom of allergies rather than illness. Whatever's causing my congestion and occasional coughs, God knows what's wrong, and He knows what sort of medicine I would need to treat it.
Perhaps that was why He was able to cast out a particular devil, even when His disciples couldn't. Maybe they were applying the wrong cure. Maybe they were trying to cast out an evil spirit, when the actual problem was some sort of illness that Jesus was able to miraculously diagnose and cure. The disciples probably didn't know about seizures, except for those caused by demons, so when they saw someone who suffered from seizures, they probably treated them in the only way they could think off, by trying to cast out the "demon." But of course, because there was no demon there to cast out, their attempt to do so failed, so they turned to Jesus, who quickly identified and solved the problem.
We all have problems in life, and some of those problems are complex and/or misunderstood. But the good news is that God knows what all of our problems are and He knows how to solve them. If we follow Him, He can ultimately cure all our ailments, even the ones we don't understand ourselves.
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