Turn with me, if you would, to
Matthew chapter 17. Matthew 17, as I just mentioned
to you in the Bible study, all of the verses that we have looked
at and are looking at in this chapter, they have the same theme. Everything
from verse 1 to where we are today, it all has the same theme. The theme of the account of the
transfiguration was speaking of Christ, and the
Father said, Hear Him. The theme of John the
Baptist preparing the way of the Lord was, Behold Him. Look to Him. Alone. And that's the key here. When the Father said, Hear Him,
it was hear Him alone. Not Moses and Elijah and Him. Hear Him alone. Behold Him alone, look to Him
alone, alone, alone. The theme for our message this morning
is believe on Him alone, alone. Let's read what will be our text
beginning in verse 14. John 17 verse 14 says, And when they were come to the
multitude, they had come down from this mountain now, and 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. Then Jesus answered and said,
O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you?
How long shall I suffer you? Bring him hither to me. And Jesus
rebuked the devil, and he departed out of him, and the child was
cured from that very hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus
apart and said, why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said
unto them, because of your unbelief. For verily I say unto you, if
you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say unto
this mountain, remove hence to yonder place and it shall remove
and nothing shall be impossible unto you. How be it this kind
goeth not out, but by prayer and fasting. This man had a son
who was possessed with the devil. And this possession caused this
boy to act in a self-destructive way, and it grieved this father
so much. It grieved him. So this father
decided to bring his son to the disciples of the Lord. I'm sure
this man had heard of the Lord and of his disciples and the
ability that they had to perform miracles. Otherwise he wouldn't
have come to the disciples. And they did have the ability
to perform this type of miracle. If you'll hold your place right
here and look at Luke chapter 10, Luke chapter 10 verse 1 says, after these things the Lord appointed
other 70 also and sent them two and two before his face into
every city and place whither he himself would come. Verse
17 says, and the 70 returned again with joy saying, Lord,
even the devils are subject unto us through thy name. And he said
unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Behold,
I give unto you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions and
over all the power of the enemy. And nothing shall by any means
hurt you, notwithstanding in this rejoice not that the spirits
are subject unto you, but rather rejoice because your names are
written in heaven. He said, don't rejoice in the
miracles, Rejoice in the salvation that has been accomplished for
you. Rejoice in the fact that the Father chose you in his election. And the Son has sealed you in
his own blood. And the Spirit has quickened
you to spiritual life and called you to a knowledge of Christ
and a knowledge of his gospel. If you're going to rejoice, rejoice
in the Lord. That's what he said. Rejoice
in the Lord. But with all that being said,
they were given the power to perform those miraculous things. So back in our text, if you look
back at Matthew 17. This man brought his son to the
disciples and they tried to cast the devil out, but they couldn't.
So the man brought his son to the Lord. And this is what the
Lord said when he did. Look at verse 17. Then Jesus
answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how
long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you?
Bring him hither to me. O faithless and perverse generation. That sounds like the generation
we live in today. And the reason it does is because
that has been every generation since time began. Every generation
faithless. And perverse faithless means
unbelieving. Unbelieving that describes man,
doesn't it? Unbelieving perverse means distorted. Turned aside. Corrupted. It literally translates
misinterpreted. That's what it means, misinterpreted. That's what every generation
has done concerning the things of God. Distorted them, corrupted
them, misinterpreted them, turned aside from them. Verse 17, Then
Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, How
long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him hither to me. And Jesus
rebuked the devil and he departed out of him and the child was
cured from that very hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus
apart and said, why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said
unto them, because of your unbelief, For verily I say unto you, if
you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say unto
this mountain, remove hence to yonder place. And it shall remove
and nothing shall be impossible unto you. How be it this kind
goeth not out, but by prayer and fasting. Now let me jump
right in to the heart of this message. The disciples wanted
to know why they could not cast the devil out. Why could we not
do it? The Lord said it's because of
your unbelief. You did not have faith in doing it. That's the
reason why. You did not have faith in doing
it. We're going to look at the subject
of faith this morning. And I pray our Lord would truly
open our eyes to this. I pray He will truly open our
eyes to this. We just ended the Bible study
by saying, look to Christ. Look to Christ. Look to the Lord
Jesus Christ. And I said that we would see
in this message how to do that. How? You tell somebody, look
to Christ. How? Come to Christ. How? Have you ever thought of that?
How? How do you do that? Here's the answer. By faith. By faith. It is critical that
God's people have faith because faith is how we look to Christ. Faith is how we come to Christ. We come by faith. We come by faith. We know our election. God elected a people to save. God chose a particular people
to save. How can we know if we're one
of them? Through faith. Only through faith. We know our election. We have
peace in the blood. In Christ there is peace, peace. Outside of Christ they can cry
peace, peace all they want to. There's no peace. Under the blood
is peace. Outside of the blood is wrath
and anger and judgment and damnation. We can know our election, we
can have peace in the blood, we can have hope. Hope is not,
oh man, I really hope. Hope means expected anticipation. We can have hope in eternal life
by faith, through faith. Faith is the substance of things
hoped for. It is the evidence of things
not seen. Our brother just read that. Hebrews
11. Faith is what removes all obstacles
between us and Christ. Outside of Christ, there's a
great gulf fixed. Outside of Christ, there's a
mountain between us. Faith is what removes all obstacles
between us and Christ. Our Lord said in verse 20, if
you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say unto
this mountain, remove hints to yonder place. In another account,
it says be cast into the sea and it shall remove and nothing
shall be impossible to you. He said, if a mountain stands
in front of you, whether it's a mountain of sin, there are
some who are so wrecked and ruined by their sin, just torn all to
pieces over their sin. They look at all the sin that
they have committed and all the sin they expect to commit the
rest of their days on this earth. And it's a mountain of sin, just
a mountain of sin, whether it's a mountain of sin or a mountain
of self-righteousness. There are some in this world
who don't see themselves as being sinners at all. I have righteousnesses
on top of self-righteousnesses, just a mountain of them. Whether it's a mountain of God's
laws and commandments and requirements and demands, we keep turning
pages and God says, if you don't do this, it's condemnation. And we look at it and we say,
I don't do that. You better stop doing this or
else. We look at that and say, I don't
think I can stop. I'm trying, but I can't stop doing it. Isn't
that what the apostle Paul said? Romans seven. I can't stop doing
it. I wish I did, but I don't. Whether it's a mountain of worry
and a mountain of problems and a mountain of trials and a mountain
of sorrows, whatever that mountain is, our Lord said, if you have
faith. You can say to that mountain.
Get out of my way. You're standing between me and
my Lord. And he said it'll be removed.
Cast into the sea. I want faith. We need faith. We need faith. Lord, increase
our faith. Increase our faith. May God do
that this morning. That's my prayer for us. May
God do that. If we don't have faith, may God
give it to us. If He has given it to us, may
He increase it. Lord, give us faith. Increase
our faith. Now let me say two things about
faith first, turn with me to Galatians chapter 2. This is just one of many scriptures
that we can turn to to see this. But Galatians chapter 2 verse
16 says, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of
the law. but by the faith of Jesus Christ. Many of you hold a Bible right
now that was recently reprinted, all right? I have a Cambridge
Bible. And they stopped making these
Bibles, and some churches went together. We like this Bible
because of the layout and just some different reasons. But they
didn't print it anymore. So a few years ago, many churches
went together and had some of these Bibles reprinted. And a
lot of you now are holding copies of them and you can get them
again. And when we had this printed, the printer asked us concerning
Galatians 2.16. He rattled off quite a few scriptures.
He said, do you want to change the word of to in like so many
of the, you know, Translations or whatever interpretations
have gone to, we said, absolutely not. Absolutely not. It's so important that we see
what this is saying, verse 16 says, knowing that a man is not
justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Christ. Even we have believed in Jesus
Christ. What do we believe in Jesus Christ? Here it is that we might be justified
by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law for by
the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. The flesh
can't perform. It's not good enough. Can't do
it. Faith is of Christ. Faith is
not of us. It does not originate in us.
It originates in Christ. That's the first thing. It's
of Christ. That's where it starts. That's
where it comes from. And the second thing is, if we are going
to have any of it, He's going to have to give it to us. Turn
over to Ephesians chapter 2. Verse 8 says, For by grace are you saved through
faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. So we
are at the mercy of him giving it to us. Therefore, we need
to be begging him for it. We need to beg him for it. Faith is not something we can
conjure up on our own. It's his. It's his. It's his to give. And when He
gives it, this is what it produces in His people. All right, look
back at our text, Matthew 17. It's His, and when He gives it
to His people, this is what it produces in them. Matthew 17, look at the last
three words of verse 21. Prayer and fasting. Prayer and fasting. That's what
faith is. Prayer and fasting. The disciples
wanted to know why could we not do this. He said it's because
you didn't do it in prayer and fasting. Prayer is a spiritual
thing. It's not a physical thing. Prayer
is not a physical thing. We can attach some physical things
to prayer. We can bow our heads. We can
close our eyes. We can get down on our knees
if we want to. We can say some words out loud. We could attach all of these
physical things to prayer. But prayer is not a physical
thing. It's a spiritual thing. I could
be praying right now and you could have no idea. You could
be sitting in that pew right now begging God to open your
heart, open your soul. Please speak the word to me.
I could have no idea. Prayer is a spiritual thing.
Prayer is directed to God. It's calling on God, it's crying
out to God, it's acknowledging God in the soul. And fasting is the result that
happens in the soul when true prayer takes place. Fasting and I'm talking about
a spiritual thing. All right. Now, let me tell you
about a physical thing for just a second. Fasting is very popular
right now. Very popular by doing it for,
you know, health reasons and weight loss and all that kind
of stuff. That's not what the Lord is talking about. That's
not what he's talking about, he's not talking about a physical
thing, he's talking about a spiritual thing. Now with that being said,
what fasting is physically? That does describe to us, and
that is an illustration to us, of what our Lord is saying spiritually. Just enter into this with me
for just a second. Fasting is a denial of self. That's what it is. It is a rejection. Would you like some? No thank
you. It is a rejection of anything that would gratify and nourish
and strengthen self, this flesh. Fasting is directed to self. It's a willing denial and emptying,
that's what it is, it's an emptying of self. And our Lord said, spiritually
speaking, talking about spiritual matters here. He said when these
two things happen that's faith, that's faith. I believe this
is one of the best scriptures we could look at on this subject,
turn with me to Philippians chapter 3. Philippians chapter 3, verse 3. It says, For we are the circumcision,
the people of God, the elect. We are the circumcision which
worship God in the Spirit. and rejoice in Christ Jesus and
have no confidence in the flesh. That's faith. That's what faith
is. That is the heart of a believer.
That's the description if you want to know what is a child
of God. That's the description of a child of God right there.
We worship God. We don't worship His flesh. We
worship God, no matter what. By His grace, we worship God. We acknowledge who He is. We
acknowledge His holy wisdom in all things. We acknowledge that
everything He does is right, and we trust Him. We trust Him. If I could say anything to us,
honestly, it would be this. Trust this man. Trust this man. Trust the word of this man. You
have all these politicians. You can't trust a word that comes
out of their mouth. Trust this man. Every word that
has come out of his mouth. Trust this man. Worship this
man. We trust him. Therefore we worship
him. This is what Job said. This is
tough to say. Only by His grace, only by His
Spirit, His working in us, His doing, this is what Job said,
though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. We worship God in the spirit
and we rejoice in Christ Jesus. Oh, we rejoice in who he is as
our advocate and mediator before God. Just think about what it
is and what it means to know that we have an advocate and
a mediator who will stand there and appease God for us. We rejoice
in what he came to do for us and what he did for us. We rejoice
in His salvation. We rejoice in His sovereignty. We rejoice in His goodness in
all things. We rejoice in what He's covered
us in. This was last Wednesday night's
message. I wrote all the points down. We rejoice in His salvation. We rejoice in His sovereignty.
We rejoice in His goodness. We rejoice in what He's covered
us in, blood to cover our sins. Righteousness to make us acceptable
with God. Holiness so that as he is, so
can we be. We rejoice in the fact that he
is right now in the midst of us. We rejoice in his return. We rejoice at the thought of
glory and eternity with him. We rejoice in the promise of
happiness. Health. Rest. Don't we rejoice in that? Never to be touched by sin ever
again. None of the effects of sin ever
again. We worship God in the Spirit.
We rejoice in Christ Jesus. And we have absolutely no confidence
in this flesh. None. We don't look to this flesh for
anything. We look to Christ alone. We look
to Christ alone. We deny this flesh. I deny my
flesh. We reject everything that would
bring gratification, spiritually speaking. We reject everything
that would bring gratification and strength and honor and glory
to this flesh. We willingly, consciously reject
it all. We don't even look to this flesh
for our evidence of salvation. I tell you, that's where men
and women go wrong. Honestly, it's when they want to know,
am I saved? Well, let's see. Let me look at my flesh. Wrong. We missed it. We missed it. Good deeds from this flesh is
not the evidence of salvation. Looking to Jesus Christ is. Looking
to Jesus Christ, looking to his good deeds. looking to his righteousness,
his perfection, trusting in his finished work. That's the evidence
of salvation. Faith in him. That's the evidence
of salvation. Physically speaking, according
to the all wise Internet, OK, I googled this and I'm wrapping
up. According to the all-wise internet,
you know, you can trust everything that's on the internet, right?
But according to the internet, if you put one calorie in your
body, you have broken your fast. You'll hear a lot of people say,
this is a good illustration of false religion. You'll hear a
lot of people say, now as long as you keep it under 50 calories,
I heard that and I've said that before, as long as you keep it
under 50 calories, you won't break your fast. Or you'll hear
people say, as long as your calories come from fat and not from carbohydrates,
you won't break your fast. If you put one calorie in your
body, you have broken your fast. And if we put one molecule of
confidence in this flesh, we have ruined our faith. We ruin
it. In our story here, the disciples
needed to stop looking to themselves. You know, you know the flesh,
you know man. You know they went out the first
time that they cast a devil out of somebody, they were thinking,
I hope this works. And then they did. And they were
casting devils out of people. You know they saw, well, you
bring him to me. You can't do it? Well, bring
him over here. They needed to stop looking to themselves. That
man needed to stop looking to the disciples. Everybody needed
to look to Christ. Everybody needed to look to Christ.
The Lord set everything straight again when he said this right
here, bring him hither to me. You bring him to me. That's the
very word that you and I need to hear concerning our sin, concerning
our salvation, concerning every circumstance we have in this
life. We need to bring it all to the Lord Jesus Christ. Bring
it all to Christ. We can take our burden to the
Lord and leave it there. Leave it there. Saying in our
souls, not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, unto thy name, I give
all the glory. All the glory. We worship you. We honor you. We praise you. We rejoice in you. We bow to
you and to your will concerning all things. May God increase
our faith, may he increase our looking to Christ, our believing
on Christ. May he do that for us, because
if he does, if he does cause us to truly look to Christ, he
will increase our comfort, he will increase our peace, he will
increase our happiness. Look to the Lamb of God, look
to the Lord Jesus Christ.