Luke 9, 37. It came to pass that on the next
day, when they were come down from the hill, much people met
him. And behold, a man of the company
cried out, saying, Master, I beseech thee, look upon my son, for he
is mine only child. Well what a picture, there's
a lot of people everywhere. They were able to get away from
the crowds for just brief periods of time and then they come down
the hill and here's the multitude again and you know that was exhausting. But imagine a big throng of people
like that but there was one man who was so desperate that you
could hear him over everybody else. I hope that's me. I want him
to hear me, don't you? You don't have to yell real loud
for him to hear you. But he hears people that are
desperate, doesn't he? Desperate. And lo, look upon my son, he's my only
child, and lo a spirit taketh him. Verse 39. And he suddenly
crieth out, and it teareth him. that he foameth again, and bruising
him hardly departeth from him." There's hardly a moment of rest
or peace. What a horrible thing that would
be. And I besought the disciples to cast him out and they could
not. You remember I said last week that we'd see this week
what the other disciples, Peter, James, and John were on the Mount
of Transfiguration with the Lord. They were finding out who he
is. We're still finding that out, aren't we? They were finding
out who Christ is. They saw his glory. The other disciples were down
here at the bottom of the hill finding out who they were. Both
are important. And then they're all going to,
you know, the ones up there are going to find out what they are.
The ones down at the bottom are going to find out who he is.
But we've all got to learn all of that, don't we? They could
not. That's what we are. Failures. And Jesus answering said, O faithless
and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you and
suffer you? Bring thy son hither. And as
he was yet a coming, the devil threw him down and tear him.
And Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the child and
delivered him again. unto his father, and they were
all amazed at the mighty power of God. But while they wondered,
every one at all things which Jesus did, he said unto his disciples,
let these sayings sink down into your ears. This is so important. I've got probably 15 pages of
notes this morning, but if I could say, if I could speak for 10
minutes from my heart and impress upon us this morning, that while
everybody else was marveling at what happened, the Lord took
his people aside and said, here's what you need to understand about
what just happened. Not the spectacle of it, not,
oh, look at the mighty power, you know, that's wonderful to
see the power of God. But the power of God unto salvation
is Christ crucified. And that's what he's fixing to
say to them. The gospel is God's power unto true salvation. You
can have a demon in you and not have a demon in you. If you don't
have Christ, you're lost. You're lost. Let these sayings sink down into
your ears. This is what I just showed everybody.
And some of them are going to see it. Some of you are going
to see it. But you're going to have to get this if you're going
to see what just happened. If you're going to see God saving
sinners, which is what this picture is, you're going to have to understand
this. The Son of Man shall be delivered into the hands of men. But they understood not the same.
Do we this morning? You may marvel at the Word of
God and the power of God, but do you get it? Do you understand
what God is doing, what He did, and how He did it? And why? What was accomplished in picture
in casting the devil out of that poor little boy. What an accomplishment. What a horrible thing to watch
as a father. And what joy must have filled
his heart. But that's just a picture. The reality of God doing that
is his son being delivered into the hands of men and being crucified. Well, Chris, a man stripped naked
and whipped and beaten and bloody and hung on a cross to die doesn't
look like salvation to me. Keep looking. That doesn't look
like a win to me. Keep looking. As my pastor used to say is,
keep looking to him crucified until all that is on that cross
is in your heart. Now the grace of God. Do you see what our Lord is saying
there? Don't get caught up in the spectacle of the miracle
and miss the simple gospel of Christ crucified. This has got
to sink down into your ears or you've missed it. And they didn't understand what
he was saying. It was hid from them. They perceived it not. And they were afraid to ask him
about it. And then next thing you know
they're arguing about who's going to be the greatest in the kingdom
of heaven. That's what happens when you miss Christ. But they were his disciples.
They were his sheep. Eleven of them were anyway. And
they're going to understand. They just didn't yet. They didn't
yet. We have accounts of this same
story in Mark 1 chapter 9. Verses 14 through 29, if you
want to jot that down and read it later. And in Matthew 17,
14 through 21, there are parallel accounts of this same event that
happened. And all three reveal things that
the others don't. And so it is good to study things
that way, to look at what all the scripture says about that
event. And we'll refer to some things in the others today. But
as the Lord was coming down out of that mountain where he was
transfigured before Peter, James and John. They were met with a multitude
and among them. The other disciples. Were confronted
with this situation. He said, let these sayings sink
down into your ears when he got down there. He performed that
miracle. He said, let these sayings, and
that word is logos. It means let the word, let the
word sink down. And what he's doing here, and
this is the means that our Lord uses, he exhorts us, he warns
us. Through the apostle, he said,
Beware, let this be true of you. The prophet of old said that
God's going to do something marvelous before your very eyes and somebody's
going to tell you about it and you're not going to believe it.
Beware, lest that be you. Lest that prophecy be fulfilled
in you. We're warned, we're exhorted,
our attention is gotten. Solomon said take heed, give
diligence, apply your heart. That's what we must do when we're
here and when we're not here. Apply your heart to the wisdom
of God. It takes an effort and there's
a hold on a second here. The Lord is saying, they're delighting
with everybody. They're going, wow, look, this
is who we follow. Yeah, you know, they were proud
of Him to be following Him. This is God's Son. He did something
wonderful here. But they missed the point of
it. And He said, hold on now. He stopped them. He took them
aside. We've all done that with our children, haven't we? And
that's what he does with his children. He may be doing that
with you this morning. We take them aside. We say, you
know, yeah, it's okay for you to go spend the night at so and
so. They're all excited. Oh, we get to spend the night.
But you say, hold on a second. Now, y'all don't go into the
woods. There's a patch of forest over there by there. Don't y'all
go in there. That's not safe. And they're like, oh, yeah, daddy,
we understand. And then we're out the door and you say, hold on
a second. You're not hearing me. They're too excited to even
listen to what you say. All they heard was, yes. And
you say, hold it, stop, wait a minute. Don't you go in those
woods. Are you listening to me? We've
all done that in some form or another. That's what our Lord's
doing here. He stops them. He takes them
aside. Don't miss this. And they still didn't understand,
but that doesn't mean that it didn't affect them. The Lord
didn't waste his time here. Sometimes over years he keeps
doing that he'll keep reminding you and warning you and exhorting
you over years He said to Saul is it hard for you to kick against
the goats? He's goading them here out of
their nest of thinking that that the miracles is the be-all end-all
and He taught him that over and over he said don't rejoice that
you're able to do miracles Rejoice that your name is written in
heaven. Let's bring it back to the truth the gospel of christ
Your name is written in heaven because christ the eternal son
of god Is your surety and mediator the mediator of the everlasting
covenant? And his precious eternal blood is shed for you. That's
how your name gets in that book rejoice in him Rejoice in the election of grace
and the the covenant of grace and the fulfillment of that covenant
in Christ crucified And so you have this chaotic scene in this
multitude around and a little boy. He's a horrible Just a horrible case I can't
think of a whole lot worse than that to watch your children suffer
and And no doubt it was a great and wonderful
thing and I'd have been rejoicing right along with him. But just like when he fed the
multitude and they continued to follow him for the loaves
and the fishes, he said, don't be laboring for the bread. of this earth, of this life,
to just get a free meal. He cautioned them too, didn't
he? He said, the point of this whole thing is that I am the
true bread. Only I can give you that bread that will make it so that you'll
never hunger again. And he told them, I am that bread.
I am that bread. So here, so his own disciples
wouldn't completely miss out here. He stopped them and took
them aside and said, let this sink in. Listen to Matthew's account of
this. I think this is important, this part of it to read because
of the way it's worded. Matthew 16, 21, from that time
forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples how that he must
go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and
chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised again
the third day then Peter took him and began to rebuke him saying
be it far from the Lord this shall not be unto thee wait a
minute Chris that's not an account of what we just read it happened
right before Matthew's account of this text so he told him before
he did this miracle I've got to be delivered into the hands
of men I've got to suffer many things I've got to be crucified
I've got to be, I've got to rise again from the dead. All these
things have to happen. He began to show them these things.
And then Peter said, no, no, we don't want that to happen.
And that's when the Lord said, get thee behind me, Satan. And
then in Matthew's narrative, the next thing that happens is
this miracle. The transfiguration and him coming
back down and this miracle of casting out this demon. And he said, let this sink down
into your ears, what I had just said to you. And what he said
to them, we've seen it several times, haven't we, in our studies. This was not a secret. And he
said, that's what just happened. It looks to you like a demon
was cast out of a little boy. What this is, is a picture of
the salvation of God and the way he accomplishes that is in
what I've been teaching you, the gospel. of the Son of Man's
suffering in the stead of sinners, in the place of sinners for their
sins, that they might be made free. It was the same thing that
Moses and Elijah had discussed with the Lord on the Mount of
Transfiguration when it happened in between those two things.
What were they talking about? The debt that he should accomplish.
What are we talking about this morning? What else is there?
Paul said we preach Christ to crucify. If that's not the message,
and I don't care if it has the word church out in front, if
that's not the message, it's not the church of God. He sent
us with this message. And he said, don't miss it. Let
it sink down into your ears and take root in your heart and bear
fruit unto the glory of Christ. And this is the point, the entire
message taught by every type and picture in the Old Testament,
by every miracle performed in the new. The Son of Man must
be delivered into the hands of wicked men and suffer many things
and be killed and raised again the third day. Why? Because you
and I are victims of Satan. And not innocent victims, we're
willing victims. But we're in a horrible situation
like this little boy was. And that's why he must suffer. To deliver us, we're being torn
up by the devil. We're being thrown down. We're
self-destructive. In making us instruct those,
Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2, that oppose themselves, if
God, peradventure, will give them repentance to the acknowledging
of the truth, and that they may recover themselves out of the
snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him. At His will. And religious people are bragging
about their free will. Not in the Word of God. Not this
Gospel. No, you need the Son of God to
deliver you from the power of Satan. You're taken captive by
Him at His will. That's what happened in the garden,
and that's what's happening this morning. If you hate his son, if you've
despised and rejected his son. Ephesians 2 where in time past
you walked according to the course of this world, according to the
prince of the power of the air. That's the devil. You walk according
to his spirit, the spirit that now worketh in the children of
disobedience. Who are the children of disobedience?
Those who have disobeyed the gospel. Those who have rejected
Christ, refused him, do not believe on him, will not bow to him,
do not trust him, will not hear him. Among whom also we all had
our conversation in time past. We're all in that situation.
That's why he pictured the gospel that way. It is the gospel. It is what we are and it is how
we're delivered by him being delivered in our place. I hope
that's so clear. All the children of wrath And
that word disobedient, the children of disobedience, that means obstinacy,
deliberate and proud rebellion, rejection and unbelief in the
face of obvious, plain, clear truth. And he, Paul said right there
in Ephesians 2, 2, that what that is, the reason that you're
obstinate and willfully reject Christ is because Satan is working
in you. That's pretty clear. That's why
our Lord said to Peter, get thee behind me, Satan. When he said
that can't happen, that will happen, that must happen. Nobody
is ever saved unless that happens. Whenever and wherever the gospel
is preached and heard in sinners. I've preached a few times, not
here. And some of those times we're
in other gospel churches, and that's a pleasant experience.
There's a bunch of people sitting there just drinking it in. A real sinner, one of God's sheep
that hears the gospel, it's like a little deer with its ears laid
back, just with the breeze on its face, just drinking it in,
and that's obvious. I've preached at other places
that were not a group of believers. And it's a different story. I
preached at Tommy Robbins funeral and there were some believers
there and there were some people there that were visibly disgusted
by the gospel. They came there to hear me brag
on Tommy, but Tommy deliberately had told me, I want you to preach
my funeral because I know you won't do that as much as I loved
him. He said, I know you won't do
that. But I preached the gospel and
there were those there that just, you could see it on their face.
You see, we have a horrible misunderstanding. It's hard to shake of what demon
possession is. We see Hollywood picturing, you
know, someone with open wounds on their face and their face
has a green tint to it and there's black stuff coming out of their
mouth and they're spouting obscenities and things like that. Paul said what it looks like
is you rejecting the Son of God and hating his gospel. That's
what it looks like when Satan is on the throne in your heart. We see that picture, you know,
that we're like, oh, that's disgusting. They make it as disgusting as
they can. That's disgusting. You know what's disgusting to
God? A proud look. A heart that shows on your face
that hasn't bowed to his son. That's what's disgusting to God. So these disciples, they had
the power to cast out demons. We saw in the context of this
a couple of lessons ago, I believe, how that he that sent them out
with that power to preach the gospel. And those gifts of the
Spirit, of course, as we always say, were given to confirm the
Word. If you can do something that only God can do, and you're
saying something at the same time, and you're saying, this
is God's message, it's God's message. If God is working through
you to do those miracles, He's working through you to deliver
His Word. That's how He did it then. Nobody
would have listened to these fishermen and old tax collector
and bunch of losers otherwise. He confirmed his word by these
miracles and also to picture his gospel as we've seen. So they had the power to do that,
but they couldn't cast these devils out, this devil out. Why not? Well, the Lord said,
because of their unbelief, And we see why. What was it they
didn't believe though? That devils could be cast out?
No, they had already done that. When the Lord said, I must be
delivered into the hands of men. They didn't understand that.
That's the gospel. Christ crucified is the gospel.
And that's what unbelief is, is not understanding who he is,
who it is that died on that cross. And why he died there. He died
there to save his people, not to give everybody a chance. Not
to defer to the will of man. He died there to redeem somebody
and he redeemed them, whoever they are. Are you one of them?
Do you believe on him? Do you know him? Do you love
him? They couldn't cast this one out. And so this is an important lesson
for us. This is not just an interesting story, although it is. But we
who preach the gospel, this ministry, you who are witnesses of Christ,
you're in the business of casting out demons. Not like this. But what this pictures, the power
of the gospel, the gospel that we preach, Paul said, is able
to make sinners wise unto salvation. It's by the praise. He said,
I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it's the power of God.
unto salvation. What were they rejoicing in when
that demon was cast out? The power of God. Because he
saved that little boy. The power of God unto salvation
is this gospel. So we're in that business, are
we not? He said to them as you go, preach,
saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And heal the sick,
cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils. Freely
you have received, freely give. And we know why he gave that. He gave them signs and wonders.
And we have, though, the same ministry they did, not with the
physical ability to do those things, but what is pictured
by those things is accomplished the same way. The true power
of God to salvation is by this gospel. We don't perform these signs,
but we, just as they did, acknowledge that it is by Christ's power
that we do what we do. This is not me just presenting
an argument to convince you that I'm right and somebody else is
wrong. I do this because God said this is how I save sinners.
By the preaching of Christ. And I expect Him to do that.
I expect Him to do that. He's going to do that. I expect Him to because He said
He would. My sheep hear my voice and they
follow me. So it is by the preaching of
the gospel. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2, 7, we speak the wisdom of
God in a mystery which none of the princes of this world knew.
But God hath revealed them unto us. The wisdom of God is revealed
unto us. Our Lord said in Matthew 11,
25, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because
thou hast hid these things from the wise and proven and has revealed
them. He did that upon the occasion
of raising Lazarus from the dead. And what he's saying there is
God the Father revealed to some there what really happened there. Just bringing Lazarus back from
the dead physically, that's a great spectacle and that shows his
power to give life. It's a picture of that and we're
not to minimize that. But Lazarus, would he have been
better off on this earth or in glory? If that's all it was. He said, I thank you that you
revealed to some here what just happened. God the Son displayed
the truth that he has power on earth to give life to sinners,
to forgive sins, to raise the dead. The power of his word. He still has that power this
morning. He may just use it on you. If he hadn't already. Even if he has already, he may
use it on you. He's still saving me. Still saving me. So let's look at, turn to Mark
chapter nine and let's look at Mark's Part of Mark's account
too, verse 21, because I want you to see something else. Mark 9, 21. And he asked his father, let's
see, yeah, the Lord asked the father, how long is it ago since
this came upon him? And he said, of a child. Of a
child. And oft times it hath cast him
into the fire and into the waters to destroy him. I've witnessed with my eyes the
destruction of those that I love. I've watched them being destroyed
a piece at a time. And I cry out to the Son of God
as His Father did. By His grace I do. But if thou canst do anything,
have compassion on us, and help us. And look at what our Savior
said to him, and Jesus said unto him, If you can believe, all
things are possible to him that believeth. You know why that's
true? When the Lord sent the rich young
ruler away, the disciples said, who then can be saved in the
Lord? So with me it's impossible. But if you believe on him, If
you believe on Him, if He's your only hope, you have a good hope.
With God, all things are possible. Oh, if you can just believe.
In a straight way, the father of the child cried out and said
with tears, Lord, I believe. Help thou mine unbelief. And
when Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked
the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit,
I charge thee, come out of him and enter no more into him. And
the spirit cried and rent him sore and came out of him. And
he was as one dead in so much that many said he is dead. But
Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up and he arose. You see why the Lord did these
things to picture his salvation, to picture what he said, don't
miss, let it sink down into your ears now. The way that he does
that, the way that he gives life to sinners and lifts them up
from the dead and casts the devil out of us, the unclean spirit. It gives us a heart of faith
and love for him and submission to him. It's by him living for
us and dying for us. He's the one that we believe
on. The Son of God crucified for sinners. And God has ordained
means. I want to be brief this morning.
Let me make this final point or two here. God has ordained
means like He did for the casting out of devils. He gave them the
gift to do that. But more than means is required
if a devil is going to be cast out. They went through the means. I'm sure they said what he told
them to say. They did what he told them, but
it didn't come out. What was wrong? Our Lord told them this,
prayer and fasting are required. Did you see that in the text?
This kind only comes out. Listen to it in Matthew 17 14.
I want you to see this. When they were come, To the multitude
there came to him a certain man kneeling down to him and saying
Lord have mercy on my son For he is lunatic and sore vexed
For oft times he falleth into the fire and oft into the water
And I brought him to thy disciples and they could not cure him They
could not cure him And and you know Since our lord said The reason
this didn't happen the way it has before, prayer and fasting. It tells us something about these
disciples doesn't it? What is prayer? What is prayer? Prayer is not trying to change
God's mind. If you read this book one time
and never read it again you'll know that God has determined
everything that's going to happen. He has foreordained As we said
a while ago, every pair of dice that's rolled, every decision
that a king or a president makes, a man purposeth in his heart,
but the Lord directs his steps. He's running this universe and
you might as well bow to it now. We know that. But what is prayer? It's not
trying to change God. Why would you want to change
the mind of somebody that's perfect? and holy and right. You wanted
to get him to do something different than what he was going to do?
I don't. Lord, prayer is submission to Him and calling upon Him to
do something for us. It's that simple. It's praising
Him too and thanking Him. We pray with thanksgiving, but
He said, let your requests be made known. In other words, God,
if I'm going to have mercy, I'm going to have to get it from
you. That's what prayer is. It's submitting to Him. You reckon
these disciples got a little bit self-sufficient? The Lord
gave them the power to cast out devils, and as we've read before,
they rejoiced in that, and the Lord said, don't rejoice in that
power, rejoice in the gospel, the good news that your name
is written down in heaven. But they had this power, and
they were, boy, they were feeling it. Can you imagine having that
power? Would you get a little bit self-reliant and thinking,
maybe I'm doing something here? Boy, wow. Prayer the Lord reminds
him it ain't gonna happen unless I make it happen What does that
mean? You're gonna have to depend on
him. You're gonna have to call out on me call upon him. You
have to say Lord when we preach You if devils are going to be
cast out. You're gonna have to do it and it's not going to be
the religious fleshly spectacle of that you see in man-centered
free will religion where they're literally trying to cast out.
No, what it's going to be is quietly and secretly God is going
to break a sinner's heart and he's going to drive out your
free will. He's going to show you that there ain't no such
thing. and that he's sovereign, he's on the throne, and he's
your only hope. You're gonna bow. And everybody's
gonna know it, because you can't hide that. But God does that
in the heart. That's his work. The wind blows
where it listeth. And that's how it is with everyone
that's born of the Spirit. And so, he said, this kind only
comes out by prayer and fasting. And I just reckon they're like
us. They probably got to where they
felt like, well, we can cast out demons now. We'll just go
around casting out demons. And all of a sudden, it don't
happen that way. And the Lord reminds them, you
depend on me. Your power comes from me. Everything
you have comes from me. Might he remind us of that this
morning who are involved in this ministry? Are you in on this
ministry? Without him, we can do nothing.
Let's not forget that. Pray for me that I won't forget
that. And what else? What else did he say? Fasting.
What is that? What is that? Chris, do you fast? It don't
look like you fast. No, it don't. But I do. You do
too, if you know the Lord. You do too. I don't fast like I should. But I do fast. What are you saying, Chris? Sometimes
you quit eating for a while, but you don't do that as often
as you ought to? No, I'm not talking about that at all. Not
at all. Prayer and fasting are often
mentioned together in the Word of God. To depend upon God is
one side of it. To acknowledge Him, to bow to
Him, to submit to Him, cry out to him, what would the other
side of that be? Denying self. The thing that
he had just told him in the context of our passage, what did he say?
If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take
up his cross and follow me. That's what fasting is a picture
of. To quit eating for a while, sometimes it was done involuntarily.
When David's child was dying, You think he said, oh well I
better perform my fast so the child will live. No, he just
quit eating because he didn't think about anything else but
that child. He just neglected himself because
his heart was going out to God for that child. And then when
God killed the child, he got up and cleaned himself up and
went and ate something. But he was denying himself. for
the sake of somebody else. Like with prayer, there are outward
motions of that. You can kneel down and pray.
Most people think that's what praying is, is to get down on
your knees. Not at all. Not at all. Somebody said to Charles Spurgeon,
one of God's greatest preachers throughout history one time,
He said, I was on my knees all night, but it just didn't seem
like I could pray. I just couldn't pray. He said,
well, get up off your knees and sit down in an easy chair. It
might be easier to pray. Maybe that's why, because your
knees were hurting. It was distracting. Now, do I
sometimes get on my knees before God? Is that a bad thing? I don't
think so. Paul said, for this cause, I
bow my knees under the Father. Sometimes it's time to hit your
knees, isn't it? But that's not what praying is.
And sometimes you may not eat for a while. You may skip a meal
or two because you're troubled about something. Because your
heart is heavy before God. And that's fine if you do that.
But that's not what fasting is. That's just an outward symbol
of it. Fasting is denial of self. In Joel 2.12 it says, There also
now saith the Lord, Turn ye even to me with all your heart, and
with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning, and rend your
heart, not your garments. When they fasted and they repented
before God, there was an outward tearing. They tore their garments.
Because what they're saying by that symbol is, My heart is open
before God. I'm ripped apart. I'm sorry and I'm sad. But he
said, don't just rend your garment, rend your heart. And turn unto
the Lord your God. Don't just say, I repent. Actually
turn to him. Deny yourself and turn to him. For he's gracious and merciful
and slow to anger and of great kindness. And likewise, true
fasting is what our Lord had just said again in the context
of this passage. Let him deny himself. If that means you skip
a meal or two at some time or another when you're in trouble
and you're praying and fasting goes with prayer all through
the scripture. How are demons cast out this
morning? Let me just make it simple and close. I pray it will
be by God's grace. How are demons cast out this
morning in the true sense? We don't have that physical ability
anymore. Don't need it. And I'll say it again, if I could
cast a demon out of you this morning, if you didn't know Christ,
it wouldn't do you any good. It wouldn't help you. Not really. So how are demons really cast
out? How is that spirit of anti-Christ dealt a death blow in your heart?
Well, it's by the preaching of the gospel. But if it's going to happen,
there's got to be prayer in there. We got to depend on him to do
it. We can do nothing of ourselves. We got to get on our faces before
God. Is God going to cast the devil
out of my child? Do I have a sense of the horror
of that as this man did when this physical thing happened?
Do I see that the spirit of Antichrist has gripped the hearts of some
that I love? Can I cry out to God in so much
that I'd be heard over a multitude of people? And how's it going
to happen? How are they going to come to
know? Well, the means that God will use is this. We're going
to fall on our faces before God. Is He going to save our children?
Let's fall on our faces before Him. Let's cry out to Him. Let's say, God, if you can do
anything, if you will do anything, you can. If you will, help us. Save those that we love. Keep
us. Teach us. Everything that we
need comes from Him. That's prayer. That's prayer. And what about fasting? What about fasting? What does
that represent? How are we going to do that today? By stopping
eating? We could do that if we wanted to, but that's not going
to cause our hearts to be right with God. Prayer and fasting. If we're
gonna do this, if we're gonna be in on this, if God's gonna
use us, so that the result will be that a spiritual miracle will
take place, we're gonna have to deny ourselves,
aren't we? And that's gonna be Him doing that, and we can't
do that without Him. That's part of, that's the prayer
and the Lord calls us to deny ourselves. Calls us to own our
helplessness. There's going to have to be some
fasting in there. The dead are going to have to
bury their dead. And you and I are going to have to follow
him. That's to deny self now is to forget about earthly concerns. Let the dead bury their dead.
You follow me. Martha, you're doing a lot of
good things in there. And maybe even for the right
reason. But Mary has chosen that good part. Somehow it's all gonna have to
be about him and his glory. And not us and our comfort and
convenience. and our fulfillment in His flesh.
You see what fasting is here? If demons are going to be cast
out, we can't just be playing it, playing a game here. God's
going to have to bring us to the place where it's not I, but
Christ. Where it's He must increase and
I must decrease. That's fasting. Remember when
Moses He's up in the mountain. It says
that God spoke to him face to face as with a friend. And God wrote his law. Upon tables
of stone and and God said, when you break this law. When he gave the law, he said,
here's what also I want you to do. I want you to build a mercy
seat. Here's how I want you to build
it. And while Moses is up in that mountain receiving those
commandments from God, those instructions concerning the law
and the mercy of God, now that God's mercy is by the shedding
of innocent blood, by the spotless lamb, Moses heard a noise. And Moses' companion said, it
sounds like there's a war going on down there. We better get
back down there. And Moses said, it's not war. It's not the sound of war. And they went down there, back
down to the camp of the Israelites. And the people were worshiping
a golden calf. And we learn from the context
that they had gotten tired of Moses you know he's been up there
so long we don't know where this Moses fella is we need a God and they said to Aaron up make
us gods and they all gave their jewelry gold and silver jewelry
and they melted it down and they made a golden calf and they were
dancing around partying worshiping that golden calf and Moses you
remember he was mad he was angry and he cast those tables of stone
down and broke them. And later God wrote another set
and they put it in the mercy seat, put it in the ark under
the mercy seat. But that was a symbol of us. The law is broken. It's a disaster. We're in trouble. We're goners. God's holy. And we are so wretched
and vile and stupid that we would not only reject the God that
just delivered us from Egypt, But we would worship a stomp
of gold. And Moses, it's a long story,
but we'll have to just talk about just a couple of things. Moses
rebuked them. He ground that thing up and made
them drink it, didn't he? And then he stood at the gate
of the camp and he said this. Who is on the Lord's side? Let
him come to me. That's what he said. Who is on
the Lord's side? Let him come to me. And some
are standing there hanging their heads and thinking they were
ashamed of themselves. They're thinking God Almighty
delivered us and saved us and we're stupid and we are Ignorant
and we are evil And I just pray that God will have
mercy on us Some are standing there thinking that and when
Moses said who's on the Lord's side come over here How long do you
think it took him to get over there? But there were some standing
there that day that were so rebellious and so self-willed And hated
God so much that even when God called them on the carpet for
their great evil, they said, we'd do it again, we'd do it
again. And God killed them that day
and put them in hell. Let me ask you this in closing,
those who walked to Moses, God's man, And said, I'm with the Lord.
I don't know why he'd have me. I don't know why in the world
he'd have me. But I'm with him. They said, I'm on the Lord's
side. Let me ask you this. Who did they choose sides against?
When you take a side, you're rejecting somebody and choosing
somebody, right? Who did they choose sides against
that day? That's fasting. They chose God and rejected themselves,
their own will, their own way, their own idolatry, their own way of thinking, and said, I'm with him. That's
fasting, is to deny self and choose him. Moses chose the reproach
of Christ and counted it greater riches than all the treasures
of That's what you do when God gives you faith in his son. That's
why we pray, God, give us faith in your son, that we might choose
you and not ourselves. The rich young
ruler chose himself, and we'll do that every time. With men,
it's impossible not to, but by the grace of God, you might this
morning. You met this morning just be delivered. Saved. By the power of God through the
preaching of the gospel, I pray it be so. Let's pray together.