It is the part of a wise teacher to endeavour both to elevate and to humble his disciples. He will not discharge his whole duty nor realize his full opportunity unless he imparts elevating aspirations and unless he promotes a deep humility of heart; he will thank God and congratulate himself when he knows that his hearers are happily sensible of progress, and also when he learns that they are profoundly dissatisfied with their attainments. Both these results ensued from the teaching of our Lord.

I. THE DISCIPLES' DISSATISFACTION WITH THEMSELVES. Evidently the apostles of our Lord felt that there was something lacking in their souls which they would gladly possess. The doctrine of the great Teacher, perhaps, was not so clear to them as they could have wished; or perhaps they felt themselves a painfully long distance behind their Leader in their spirit and bearing; or it may be that they found themselves unable to do such works as they judged they ought to be able to do, in and through the Name of the great Healer. But whencesoever their source of dissatisfaction, they agreed that they were in spiritual want.

II. THEIR CONCLUSION AS TO THE REMEDY THEY NEEDED. They agreed that what was wanted was an increase of faith. And they were perfectly right in their judgment.

1. They wanted to believe in Christ in a way not then open to them. They became "greater in the kingdom of heaven" afterwards, more enlightened, more spiritual, more devoted, more useful, because afterwards they had a deep and a firm faith in Jesus Christ as their almighty Saviour, as their Divine Lord. But they did not know him yet as such; for as such he had only begun to reveal himself to them.

2. But they needed a fuller faith in him as they did then know him. A more complete and implicit confidence in him

(1) would have led them to eject from their minds all their own oh! prejudices and prepossessions, and so have made way for the reception of his truth in its fulness and in its power;

(2) would have evoked a profounder reverence and a more fervent affection, and thus have led to a nearer likeness to him in spirit and in character;

(3) would have given them power over the forces of evil outside them, and made them equal to the emergencies to which they were unequal (see Matthew 17:19, 20), They did well, therefore, to make of their Lord the request they made, "Increase our faith,"

III. THE TRUTH CONTAINED IN OUR LORD'S REPLY. "If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed," etc. This truth is surely not that the possession of a faith as slight as the mustard seed is small will suffice, but that the faith which is full as is the mustard seed of life and power of appropriation will avail for all occasions. For it is not true that a slight and feeble faith does suffice. It failed the apostles on one memorable day (Luke 9:40). It has been failing ever since. Only a faith which is a living and a growing power, like the mustard seed in the soil, will triumph over the difficulties to be met and mastered. The fact is that:

1. A formal faith is worth nothing at all; indeed, less than nothing, for it deludes and misleads.

2. A feeble faith will accomplish little. It sinks in the hour of trial (Matthew 14:30); it shrinks from open avowal, and makes feeble fight in the hour of battle (John 3:1; John 7:50; John 19:38); it enters upon, but abandons, the goodly enterprise (Acts 13:13).

3. A living, appropriating faith is the only effective power. A faith that, like the mustard seed in the soil, puts forth the power of life, and appropriates to itself the riches that are around it in order that, further on, it may bear fruit - this is a power that will be felt. It will accomplish great and even wonderful things; it will surprise the unbelieving as much as if it actually did the very thing which the Master speaks of in his illustrative language.

(1) It will uproot great evils in God's Name and strength.

(2) It will upraise noble structures of good, when inspired at the same source.

1. Is there anything seriously lacking in our spirit, character, life, work?

2. May it not be traced to the absence or to the feebleness of our faith? If we believed more truly in Jesus Christ, if we realized more thoroughly what we accept, should we not be more to God and do more for him?

3. Shall we not come to our Saviour, unhesitatingly, earnestly, perseveringly, with this prayer of the apostles? - C.

We must not imagine that these words give any encouragement to an idle and childish expectation of any startling and ostentatious outcome of a true faith in Jesus Christ; as though God's grace could ever be used to win for any one the wonder and admiration of His fellow-men, or displayed in any abrupt and fruitless miracle, for our excitement or aggrandizement. It is a far higher and nobler power which is really promised by our Lord even to the least measure of true faith in Him: a power which is far more fruitful and more mysterious than the mere working of a wonder which would only be like a conjuring trick on a large scale. For what He really here teaches us, as though in a short and vivid parable, is this: that since His coming upon earth, there is a new kind of force astir in the history and in the souls of men — a force which in the speed and certainty of its action can surpass all the ordinary means by which men scheme and work — a force which is effective far beyond all likelihood that we can see in it, so that even its least germ is able to achieve results of inconceivable difficulty and greatness: and for the secret, the character, of this new force He points us to the one spring and motive of the Christian life — to faith. Now, before we leave the outward form in which this truth is taught us, let us notice one point in it: that it is to a seed that our Lord compares the beginning of faith in a man's heart: to a grain of mustard seed: which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown it is the greatest amongst herbs, and becometh a tree, etc. He seems thus to teach us that all true faith is ever and everywhere growing: not a dead, self-contained thing, but a seed, filled with an almost infinite power of growth in strength and range and beauty. However poor and mean and worthless it may seem, there is that in it which will in due time and with due care force its way into the light and strive towards heaven itself, till the little speck of hope becomes a branching, fruitful wealth of life and beauty, a resting-place and shelter for those who hover round its boughs and find refreshment and protection in its gentle strength. Now I ask you to consider whether we ever meet with any character which does thus seem to escape from the ordinary restrictions of cause and effect: to exert a force far beyond all the likelihood that we can discover: and to achieve results which sober and practical men would never have expected from it? Is there any temper of mind and will which makes a way through insuperable obstacles, and forces mountainous difficulties to yield it service and obedience? Well, in the first place, do we not see a strange foreshadowing of such supernatural effectiveness, and a wonderful contrast between what might reasonably have been looked for and what is actually achieved, in the life and work of men who have a large degree of faith in themselves? Do we not see in what we know of history and politics, and in our own experience too, that the men who do great deeds, who leave a mark behind them, who bend stubborn circumstances to their will, who influence other men (bearing into their hearts the passions or the policy which they have themselves conceived), are always the men who have a firm faith in their own judgment, and a resolute conviction that they will achieve what they have set themselves to do: so that they are not always explaining and apologizing and qualifying and standing on the defensive, but rather going straight forward and fearlessly calling upon others to follow them? But, secondly, there is a nearer reflection of that which the text means, and a higher and more mysterious efficacy, in the power which some can wield by faith in their fellow-men. I trust we all know something of the strange influence by which some men seem able to discover and draw out and strengthen all that is good and hopeful in those with whom they have to do. The change which is wrought by one who meets his fellows with a simple, earnest trust and hope is just the contrary of that miserable atmosphere of dingy mist and cold in which a cynic lives and thinks and acts: distrusting and depreciating others till they cease to show him anything but those meaner, harsher elements in their character which he seems resolute and glad to find. There can hardly be a happier or more fruitful and wonder-working life than his in whose company men are always stirred to brightness and unselfishness just because he always believes that they are purer and better than they are: by whose trustful expectation they are reminded of what they once desired and hoped to be, so that the long-forgotten ideal seems again to come within their reach, and they live, if only for a while, by a light which they never thought to see again. For thus this quickening and enlightening power of faith in our fellow-men changes the whole air and aspect of a life: and he who is thus trustful and hopeful draws out in one man the timid and hidden germ of good, and engenders in another the grace and warmth which his faith presumes; and the dullest heart is startled into sympathy with the charity which believeth all things, and hopeth all things: so that everywhere this faith is greeted by the brightness which itself calls out, as the sun is welcomed by the glad colours which sleep until he comes. (F. Paget, D.D.)

Jesus, Noah, NoeGalilee, Jerusalem, Road to Jerusalem, Samaria, SodomBlack-mulberry-tree, Command, Faith, Grain, Instantly, Mulberry, Mustard, Mustard-seed, Obey, Obeyed, Plant, Planted, Plucked, Replied, Root, Rooted, Roots, Seed, Sycamine, Sycamine-tree, Sycamore, Tear, Tree, Uprooted1. Jesus teaches to avoid occasions of offense;
3. and to forgive one another.
5. The power of faith.
6. How we are bound to God.
11. Jesus heals ten lepers.
22. Of the kingdom of God, and the coming of the Son of Man.

Luke 17:6

     4847   smallness
     5776   achievement
     8024   faith, and blessings
     8722   doubt, nature of

Luke 17:5-6

     4484   mustard seed

May 7 Evening
They persecute him whom thou hast smitten.--PSA. 69:26. It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come!--Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.--They did spit in his face, and buffeted him; and others smote him with the palms of their hands, saying, Prophesy unto us, thou Christ, Who is he that smote thee?--Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

June 5 Morning
When ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants.--LUKE 17:10. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.--What hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?--By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

June 18 Evening
Faith as a grain of mustard seed.--MATT. 17:20. Barak said unto [Deborah], if thou wilt go with me, then I will go: but if thou wilt not go with me, then I will not go. God subdued on that day Jabin the king of Canaan.--Gideon . . . feared his father's household, and the men of the city, that he could not do it by day, . . . did it by night. And Gideon said unto God, If thou wilt save Israel by mine hand as thou hast said, . . . let me prove, I pray thee. And God did so. Thou hast a little strength, …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

Where are the Nine?
'And it came to pass, as He went to Jerusalem, that He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. 12. And as He entered into a certain village, there met Him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: 13. And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. 14. And when He saw them, He said unto them, Go show yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. 15. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

God's Slaves
'Doth He thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him! I trow not. 10. So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.' --LUKE xvii. 9-10. There are two difficulties about these words. One is their apparent entire want of connection with what precedes--viz., the disciples' prayer, 'Lord, increase our faith,' and the other is the harshness and severity of tone which …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

Thankfulness for Mercies Received, a Necessary Duty
Numberless marks does man bear in his soul, that he is fallen and estranged from God; but nothing gives a greater proof thereof, than that backwardness, which every one finds within himself, to the duty of praise and thanksgiving. When God placed the first man in paradise, his soul no doubt was so filled with a sense of the riches of the divine love, that he was continually employing that breath of life, which the Almighty had not long before breathed into him, in blessing and magnifying that all-bountiful, …
George Whitefield—Selected Sermons of George Whitefield

On the Words of the Gospel, Luke xvii. 3, "If Thy Brother Sin, Rebuke Him," Etc. , Touching the Remission of Sins.
Delivered at the Table of St. Cyprian, in the presence of Count Boniface. 1. The Holy Gospel which we heard just now as it was being read, has admonished touching the remission of sins. And on this subject must ye be admonished now by my discourse. For we are ministers of the word, not our own word, but the word of our God and Lord, whom no one serves without glory, whom no one despises without punishment. He then the Lord our God, who abiding with the Father made us, and having been made for us, …
Saint Augustine—sermons on selected lessons of the new testament

The Necessity of Increased Faith
It is a matter of dispute as to the occasion when these words were uttered. Some think that we must look at the connection of the chapter for the explanation. Jesus Christ had been teaching his disciples that if their brother should trespass against them seven times a day, and seven times a day turned again to them, saying, I repent, they were to forgive him, and that constrained the apostle to say "increase our faith." They conceived it to be so hard a duty incessantly to pardon and constantly to …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 1: 1855

Li. Gratitude.
14th Sunday after Trinity. S. Luke xvii. 18. "There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger." INTRODUCTION,--There is nothing that the merciful God desires more from man than thanks, and there is nothing of which He receives less. In the Gospel for to-day we have an example. Christ performs a notable miracle. He heals ten lepers, and only one returns to thank Him. The disease from which He delivered them was disgusting, and it was one which cut the sufferers off …
S. Baring-Gould—The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent

The Ten Lepers
(Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity.) Luke xvii. 17, 18. Were there not ten cleansed, but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. No men, one would have thought, had more reason to thank God than those nine lepers. Afflicted with a filthy and tormenting disease, hopelessly incurable, at least in those days, they were cut off from family and friends, cut off from all mankind; forced to leave their homes, and wander away; forbidden to enter the …
Charles Kingsley—Town and Country Sermons

The First Degree of Prayer
The First Degree of Prayer Those who have not learnt to read, are not, on that account, excluded from prayer; for the Great Book which teacheth all things, and which is legible as well internally as externally, is Jesus Christ Himself. The method they should practice is this: They should first learn this fundamental truth, that "the kingdom of God is within them" (Luke xvii. 21), and that it is there, only it must be sought. It is as incumbent on the Clergy, to instruct their parishioners in prayer, …
Madame Guyon—A Short and Easy Method of Prayer

Answer to Mr. W's Second Objection.
I pass, says Mr. W. p. 15. to a second observation.--What became of these three persons after their resurrection? How long did they live afterwards? And of what use and advantage were their restored lives to the church or to mankind? The evangelical and ecclesiastical history is entirely silent as to these questions, which is enough to make us suspect their stories to be merely romantick or parabolical; and that there were no such persons raised from the dead; or we must have heard somewhat of their …
Nathaniel Lardner—A Vindication of Three of Our Blessed Saviour's Miracles

Of the Fewness of those who Love the Cross of Jesus
Jesus hath many lovers of His heavenly kingdom, but few bearers of His Cross. He hath many seekers of comfort, but few of tribulation. He findeth many companions of His table, but few of His fasting. All desire to rejoice with Him, few are willing to undergo anything for His sake. Many follow Jesus that they may eat of His loaves, but few that they may drink of the cup of His passion. Many are astonished at His Miracles, few follow after the shame of His Cross. Many love Jesus so long as no …
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ

Of the Inward Life
The kingdom of God is within you,(1) saith the Lord. Turn thee with all thine heart to the Lord and forsake this miserable world, and thou shalt find rest unto thy soul. Learn to despise outward things and to give thyself to things inward, and thou shalt see the kingdom of God come within thee. For the kingdom of God is peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, and it is not given to the wicked. Christ will come to thee, and show thee His consolation, if thou prepare a worthy mansion for Him within thee. …
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ

Are You Willing to be a Servant?
Nothing is clearer from the New Testament than that the Lord Jesus expects us to take the low position of servants. This is not just an extra obligation, which we may or may not assume as we please. It is the very heart of that new relationship which the disciple is to take up to God and to his fellows if he is to know fellowship with Christ and any degree of holiness in his life. When we understand the humbling and self-emptying that is involved in really being a servant, it becomes evident that …
Roy Hession and Revel Hession—The Calvary Road

Journey to Jerusalem. Ten Lepers. Concerning the Kingdom.
(Borders of Samaria and Galilee.) ^C Luke XVII. 11-37. ^c 11 And it came to pass, as they were on their way to Jerusalem, that he was passing along the borders of Samaria and Galilee. [If our chronology is correct, Jesus passed northward from Ephraim about forty miles, crossing Samaria (here mentioned first), and coming to the border of Galilee. He then turned eastward along that border down the wady Bethshean which separates the two provinces, and crossed the Jordan into Peræa, where we soon …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Unprofitable Servants.
"Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come! It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones. Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt …
William Arnot—The Parables of Our Lord

His Passion and Crucifixion.
AS all active virtues meet in Jesus, so he unites the active or heroic virtues with the passive and gentle. He is the highest standard of all true martyrdom. No character can become complete without trial and suffering; and a noble death is the crowning act of a noble life. Edmund Burke said to Fox, in the English Parliament, "Obloquy is a necessary ingredient of all true glory, Calumny and abuse are essential parts of triumph." The ancient Greeks and Romans admired a good man struggling with misfortune, …
Philip Schaff—The Person of Christ

The Conflict with Evil
The Kingdom of God Will Have to Fight for Its Advance The great objective is the Kingdom of God. In realizing the Reign of God on earth three recalcitrant forces have to be brought into obedience to God's law: the desire for power, the love of property, and unsocial religion. We have studied Christ's thought concerning these in the foregoing chapters. The advance of the Kingdom of God is not simply a process of social education, but a conflict with hostile forces which resist, neutralize, and defy …
Walter Rauschenbusch—The Social Principles of Jesus

The Two Classes.
"Two men went up into the temple to pray."--Luke xvii. 10. I now want to speak of two classes: First, those who do not feel their need of a Saviour who have not been convinced of sin by the Spirit; and Second, those who are convinced of sin and cry, "What must I do to be saved?" All inquirers can be ranged under two heads: they have either the spirit of the Pharisee, or the spirit of the publican. If a man having the spirit of the Pharisee comes into an after-meeting, I know of no better portion …
Dwight L. Moody—The Way to God and How to Find It

Whether a Man Can Merit Anything from God
Whether a Man can Merit Anything from God We proceed to the first article thus: 1. It seems that a man cannot merit anything from God. No one merits a reward by repaying what he owes to another. But we cannot even fully repay what we owe to God, by all the good that we do. For we always owe him more than this, as the philosopher says in 8 Ethics 14. Hence it is said in Luke 17:10: "when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that …
Aquinas—Nature and Grace

Whether Charity is Prior to Hope
Whether Charity is Prior to Hope We proceed to the eighth article thus: 1. It seems that charity is prior to hope. For on Luke 17:6, "If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed . . .," the gloss by Ambrose says: "From faith issues charity, and from charity issues hope." But faith is prior to charity. Hence charity is prior to hope. 2. Again, Augustine says (14 De Civ. Dei. 9): "good movements and affections are derived from love, and from holy charity." Now to hope, as an act of hope, is a good movement …
Aquinas—Nature and Grace

The Boasted Merit of Works Subversive Both of the Glory of God, in Bestowing Righteousness, and of the Certainty of Salvation.
1. After a brief recapitulation, the question, Whether or not good works merit favor with God, considered. 2. First answer, fixing the meaning of the term Merit. This term improperly applied to works, but used in a good sense, as by Augustine, Chrysostom, Bernard. 3. A second answer to the question. First by a negative, then by a concession. In the rewarding of works what to be attributed to God, and what to man. Why good works please God, and are advantageous to those who do them. The ingratitude …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

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