Turn to Matthew chapter 17. We have this same narrative. Mark was a little more descriptive
about it than Matthew. I titled the message, Bring Him
to Me. Bring Him to Me. We have a desperate,
desperate situation here of a parent with a child and unbelief. Unbelief. The mountain experience is over
for now. It's time to get back to work.
It's time to come down off the mountain and to get back to work. I know that we would like to
stay on the mountain, those mountain, what I call mountaintop experiences.
We'd like to stay there all the time. Have you ever had a day
that you just had enjoyed something so much you wish that day would
never end? You just, well it has to because there's other
things to be done. There's other work to be done. There's work
to be done for the kingdom of God. It says, when they were come
to the multitude, the Lord purposely came down to the multitude. Now
what we will see here in this narrative is two problems. The
parents' son possessed with the devil and unbelief. Unbelief. Which of the two is
worse? I know this, unbelief is the
root of all our problems. It's the root of all our problems.
It's the root of this child, this parent's problem. It's the
root of this young man's problem that's possessed. It's the root
of all our problems. Unbelief, not to believe God. Can you imagine that? The scripture
says, God who cannot lie, and we put a question mark on what
he says, Put a question. That's what Adam did. That's
what Adam did. He put a question mark. God said,
the day you eat thereof, thou shalt surely die. And he put
a question mark on it. I don't know about that. Well, he died, didn't he? God's
good for his word. He's good for his word. Now verse one, our Lord did not
shun the multitude. He came to them. He never went
around trouble. He met trouble head on. He never
went around it. It says, when he came to the
multitude, there came a man kneeling down to him and saying, have
mercy on my son. This man's son was possessed.
It says there he was a lunatic, he was epileptic. But it's overmarked,
and then here, he was possessed. He was possessed with the devil.
And the case for this parent was desperate. This child, this
young man, I don't know what age he was at, he was young,
I know that. He would throw himself into the
fire and into the water. Overmarked, it said the spirit
would throw him into the fire and into the water. In this narrative, the father
says he would do it. They're in league together. They're
in league together. But it appears to me that this
man's son tried to commit suicide often. You throw yourself into
the fire or into the water, you're in trouble. I think he was trying
to commit suicide. And as I read this, I read this,
I tried to get some sense of this parent's dilemma, problem,
trouble. I can't imagine what him and
his wife was going through with this boy of theirs. Can't imagine. Some parents have
extreme trouble with their children. Some do. I never had extreme
trouble with mine. That doesn't mean they weren't
rotten. It doesn't mean that at all. It doesn't mean they
weren't sinful. It just means that the Lord constrained
and the Lord didn't let Satan have them like he could have,
like he did this one. Because I'm telling you, Satan
cannot touch anyone or possess anyone or take over anything
unless God allows it. It's not like Satan's on this
left hand and God's on the right hand and they're fighting each
other and Satan wins this battle and God wins it. No, God is on
the throne. And whether Satan likes it or
not, he's fulfilling God's purpose. And he takes this young boy over
But what happens? What happens? He's brought to
Christ. He meets the Savior. He meets
God. And he's cured. And if we read
over Mark, the Lord said, you come out of him and don't you
enter him no more. Don't you touch him no more. But this parent came and it says
he came, he ran to him and he kneeled down to him. You know,
the only real hope for our children is the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen, give them a good education. Give them a good home. Give them
a quiet home. Give them a safe home. But I'm
telling you, and you know this, the only real hope for them is
Christ himself. He's the only one who can truly,
truly save us. Listen, He's the only one who
can save us from the power of darkness, and He's the only one
who can save us from ourselves. I want God to save me from me
as much as anything else, or anyone else. I know what goes
on in the heart. Our children are born lost. Our children, now listen, they
don't become lost at a certain age. The scripture says they go forth
speaking lies. They go forth from the womb.
This is the scriptures. They go forth from the womb speaking
lies. They go forth from the womb,
first of all, crying lies. They start out crying, then they
put words to it as they get older and learn. They're born lost. And I know
that our children will not come to Christ on their own, for they
love darkness rather than light, just like we did. Just like we
did. There was a time I had zero interest
in Christ. I had zero interest in God. I
had zero interest in salvation. I know what I had an interest
in. And God was not in that picture. He was not into it. And that's
the way we're born. The way we're born. They don't know their real need.
Do they really know their need? No. They don't know their real
need. Their real need is our real need,
the Lord Jesus Christ, who can deliver them from the power of
darkness. From the power of it. They don't want to be delivered
from the power of it. They don't even know they're
under it. What's a parent to do? What is
a parent to do? Bring them to the Lord often
in prayer. Never give up on them. As long
as there's a breath in them, never give up. Never give up. Bring them to the Lord often
in prayer. Pray for them without ceasing.
He can save them as well as he can save me. I tell you, I believe
it was, I'm not sure, but I believe it was John Newton. Someone was
speaking to him about a person being saved. And he said, since
God saved that man, I'll never despair. And John Newton said,
since God saved me, I've never despaired. Since God saved me, I've never
despaired of Him saving anyone else. No case, no case is too hard
for our Lord to save. No case. I don't, it doesn't
matter how low, how far someone has fallen, that person has not
fallen so far that the Lord Himself can't reach down and lift him
out. It's not possible. He has power over all. He has
authority over all. And tell your children, or your
grandchildren, the truth. The truth. You know the scripture
says the truth shall set you free. Tell them the truth. Take the word of God and tell
them the truth. Now it's evident the disciples
here were in over their heads. They had not met one like this.
They were given power, if you remember earlier, they were given
power to cast out devils. to heal the sick, God gave the
apostles that kind of power, because they didn't have the
word written that we have right now. The Bible, you have the
Bible in your, you have the word of God in your lap. They didn't
have that, and the people they preached to didn't have it. They
couldn't say, turn to Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Corinthians,
they couldn't say that. So God gave them power to go
along with their message. to certify that what they're
preaching is the gospel, the truth. And they are approved
of God, the message approved of God. But here they were given power
over devils, but this one was more difficult. More difficult. I mean, I have no doubt that
among devils, demons, there are personalities like us. I have
no doubt. You remember that scripture when
the unclean spirit went out of the house and it left it swept
and garnished and he came back and it says he brought seven
other spirits more wicked than himself. I have no doubt they have personalities
that are a lot like what we have, like us. Some people are just
outwardly meaner than others. They are, and I have no doubt
that that's the same way in that spiritual realm that we can't
see. But here we see the disciples,
they were in over their head and they could not cure him.
They couldn't cure him. I thought of this verse in John
15, Christ said, without me, you can do nothing. I do believe
there is a time, and I have to be careful of this as a preacher
and as a pastor here. You know, I get in the study,
and I study, and I start looking for a message, and I start preparing
the message, and I start looking at commentaries. And the first thing to do is seek
the Lord for the message. and to recognize I need him for
the message. And not just say, well, it's
time to get another message. That's not how we do it. But
I have caught myself doing that. I have caught myself opening
a commentary before I opened the word of God. And I'm like,
oh, don't do that. Back off, back off. Open the
word of God first. Pray about it first. Henry told
us in the preacher school years ago, he said, you get the outline
first. When you look at a passage of
scripture, you get the outline first. Then you can go read other
good men that preached on this and see what they had to say
about it, but you get it first. Don't go to them to get it first.
You get it first. And these disciples, I think they had just gotten
to the point where they would heal this one and cast out devil
this one, and it was just like, I wanna say, use the word automatic. Well, it's not automatic. It's
not automatic. Getting a message for next week
is not automatic. And what they were doing was
not automatic. We rely on Christ. He said, without me, you can
do nothing. Don't forget that. Don't forget that. As you go
out this door and you go through the week, without me, you can
do nothing. It would have been better if
they had gone to Christ over this one instead of the Father
having to go. It's hard to admit when we're
in over our heads, isn't it? It's hard to say, especially
if you're a preacher. I don't know. I need help. I need help. But here's what
happened. They tried to cast it out and
he didn't go out. This one had some real resistance. They finally met one that was
mean. And he's like, I ain't going
out. And they gave up. They gave up. You see, the Lord took three
of them up on the Mount of Transfiguration. Nine of them were left. And here's
a real test. For the first time, the Lord
was not standing in their presence. And they gave up. And our Lord, he addresses the
problem. He addresses it here in verse 17. First thing he talks
to is that generation of people there. And he says, oh, faithless
and perverse generation. This unbelief started back in
the Garden of Eden when Adam did not believe God and he passed
it on to us. That's where we got it from.
You know, I inherited sin. I didn't do something to become
a sinner. I inherited it. I inherited the nature I have.
The nature I have and the nature you have by nature is a sinful
nature. Sin is what we are by nature. Sins, plural, is what we do because
of what we are. Stealing, and I've said this
before, stealing doesn't make me a thief. I steal because I
am a thief. That's the difference. I am a
thief at heart. It's just the things we do is
just the outward results of what's inward. And we got that from our father
Adam. He passed that on to us. Sin entered the world and death
by sin. And the scripture says, for all now have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. Unbelief, he says, unbelief.
Oh, faithless. You don't believe God at all.
Unless God, listen now, unless God gives faith, You know that
faith and repentance are the gifts of God. Paul said, or it's
overwritten over in Acts, that God had granted faith and repentance
to the Gentiles also. He granted it, he gave it. It
says over in Ephesians, look over in Ephesians chapter two. in Ephesians chapter 2. It says in verse 8, For by grace
are you saved through faith, and that not of yourself. That
faith is not of yourself. You didn't come up with that.
Listen, it is the gift of God. It's the gift of God. God gave
it to you. God worked it in you by the work
of the Holy Spirit. He gave you life. He gave you
life. He gave you understanding. You
believe. He gave you eyes to see, spiritual eyes to see, spiritual
ears to hear, and a heart to receive. It's the work of God. Salvation is the work of God. This is a true picture of the
whole human race under the power of darkness. under the power
of Satan. It's the picture of the human
race. He said, O faithless and perverse
generation, how long, how long, how long shall I be with you?
How long shall I suffer you? Here we see the long suffering
of our Lord with his world. The scripture tells us that his
mercy is over all his works. His sun and his rain still falls
and still shines on this God-hating world. It still does. But sooner
or later, sooner or later, that door will be shut. Long-suffering
will be over with. It'll be over with. And God's
wrath will fall. But until then, here's what we
are to do. Bring him here to me. Bring Him to me. No one can save but Christ. No one has the power to cast
out this kind but Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ. He has the
power to do both. Only Jesus Christ has power over
both worlds. Only He has power over both worlds. And it says in verse 18, and
Jesus rebuke the devil. And he departed out of him. Now
over Mark, it says he went out, but he tear him. He went out
with a vengeance. Satan doesn't want to give up.
He doesn't want to give up the house. Easily. Not easily. But when our Lord
speaks. They must go. When he speaks
in power, whatever the problem is, has
to go. Christ is the only one who has
the power and authority to tell him to go, and he goes. The nine
disciples together couldn't do anything with this one, but the
Lord with a word said, leave, and he left. And here's the result, and the
child was cured from that very hour. Immediate. Immediate. Once the Lord delivers a sinner
from the power of Satan and the power of sin, they can't take
him over no more. Once the stronger man takes over
the house, the stronger man being the Lord Jesus Christ, once he
takes over the house, He's never, he never gives it
back. As the Lord said over Mark, get
out of him and don't enter into him no more. Brethren, we're safe. We're safe. The Lord has given the command,
don't you enter into him no more. Don't you touch him no more.
In that kind of way. When the Lord saves, He saves
from the curse of the law, He saves from the power of sin,
and the power of Satan. And now these things are used
to teach us. He'll use Satan to teach us,
like he did Job. You know, Satan came to, he came
before the Lord, and the Lord spoke, they spoke over Job, and
Satan wanted Job, and he said, you can have, you can touch everything
he's got, but not his life. You can't touch his life. And
the reason he couldn't touch his life, because Christ is his
life. Your life is hid with Christ in God, that's what it says in
Colossians. But God used him to touch Job, to teach Job, to
instruct Job. And when it was over, Job said,
by the hearing of the ear, I've heard of thee, but now mine eye
seeth thee, and I abhor myself in sackcloth and ashes. He'll use these things to teach
and instruct us. Now the disciples, in verses
19 through 21, the disciples came to our Lord and they asked
this question. Why could we not cast him out?
What? Why did we fail? They had cast
him out before. Why could we not do this one?
They were given power to do it. I thought about this. Oftentimes
when we are given something, we often forget the source. We
forget the source of it, don't we? The Lord Jesus Christ is
the source of our power at all times, just like in preaching.
There's never a time that I give power to preaching. If there's
any real power in preaching, if you really get anything out
of this, God will have to give it to you. He'll give it to you. He's the real source of power.
And I think we forget that. We forget that. Then there are cases that are
more difficult than others. And he said, this kind of goes
not out but by prayer and self-denial. Prayer, coming before God, and
denying yourself. They just like tried to cast
him out. It didn't happen. It was like,
well, they quit. I tell you what, if
it's your child, you won't quit. I bet you anything, if it's your
child, that father didn't quit, did he? When the disciples quit,
he didn't quit, it was his child. And he brought that child before
the Lord and he said, your disciples couldn't do nothing. But Lord,
if you could do anything, help me. And the Lord challenged his faith. He said, if you can believe,
all things are possible to him that believes. And I love what
that father said, Lord, I believe. Help me to believe. Help me to
exercise that faith that you require. Help me to do it. Help
me to do it. Help me to keep praying. Help
me to keep pleading. Why could we not do this? Why
could we not cast him out? And the root of the problem,
our Lord gives the root of the problem. He said, because of
your unbelief. And then another translation
is because of your little faith. You notice earlier, he said,
oh, faithless and perverse generation. They were not faithless. He didn't
call them faithless. He's saying here, because of
your little faith. Unbelief is in the best of, I
don't know that I can say it this way, but I'm gonna say it
this way. It's in the best of God's saints. Abraham. Abraham. He left his family,
left his home. Him took his wife and they went
on a journey, not knowing where he's going. And on the way, he's
faced with this king and he's afraid that he's gonna get, he's
gonna be killed. And he said, you tell him you're
my sister. Gives up his wife to that king. Tell him you're my sister. Oh, unbelief, or too much of
it's still in us. Too much of it's still in us.
As sad as it is, unbelief is too often in the strongest of
saints. You know, if just one out of
that nine had faith as a grain of mustard seed, did it catch
that devil out? If just one out of that nine that was trying
to do it. None of them, they all just fell
apart. They fell apart. What's the cure for unbelief?
What's the cure for it? Well, here's the cure for it.
Believe. You say, that's just too simple.
Well, just do it. You think it's simple? Do it. He said, our Lord said, if you
have faith as a grain of mustard seed, which was the smallest
of all the seeds, You shall say to this mountain, remove hence
to yonder place, and it shall remove, and nothing shall be
impossible to you. You can say to this mountain,
be removed yonder, and it'll remove. You believe that? You
really? You really believe that would
happen? And you say, well, that really sounds
good, but doing it's a whole other matter. Do you believe what he just said?
If you just had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say
to that, well, there ain't no mountains around here, but you
could say to that mountain, be removed and it would be gone. Now, God may use means, I mean,
seriously, if, and I know what he's saying here, he's talking
about troubles and things that we meet with, but if there was
literally a mountain that needed to be moved, if you believe,
if you really believe God, God's a God of means, he'd send
his construction crew in and move that mountain if it need
be, if it need be. But here's what he's saying,
here's what he's saying. Let me put it down to where he's
saying. If you have faith as a grain
of mustard seed and exercise it in me, you will see great
results. You would see great results.
It's just a little, it's not the, listen, the disciple said
one time, Lord, increase our faith. It's like, I have this
much faith. Now, if you fill it up to here,
boy, I really believe. No, he said, why don't you just
exercise what's here? If you exercise what you do have, it'll
grow. It'll grow. It's like exercising
a muscle. You exercise a muscle, it's gonna
grow. It's going to grow. The Lord Jesus Christ never fails
to honor faith that is exercised in him. Never fails. Never. No matter how small the faith
is, if it's in him, he never fails to honor it. Now in closing, here's the message. All are lost, and I mean from
birth, and under the power of darkness, until the Lord Jesus
Christ saves. Until he saves them, until he
saves them, until he saves us. We are born under the power of
darkness. And secondly, Satan is a real
and powerful adversary, but our Lord is more powerful. He's far
more powerful. There's no comparison. There's
no comparison, really. And then faith exercised in Christ
overcomes all things. It does. It overcomes all things.
All things are possible to him that believes. Do you believe
that? You know, that works even in the natural realm. You take
a person who believes they can, they usually can. Take a person
who believes they can't, They can't. They don't believe they
can. And it just shuts them down.
It shuts them down. Makes me think of some of these
athletes, you know. The great ones, they believe
they can do it. Now I know the Lord has given
physical abilities and talents and things like that. But I tell
you what, talent, without believing you can do it, And without the
effort that it takes to do it, you're going to fail at it. But
I tell you what, you need to get out of the way of the man
who believes he's going to do it. Because he's going to do it, one way
or another, man or woman. Faith exercised in Christ overcomes
all things. And last of all, bring your children
before the Lord. Bring your loved ones before
the Lord often. often and never give up. Be like that woman who came to
that unjust judge. She wouldn't give up. She'd knock
on the door and he says, I don't fear God or man, but that woman's
driving me nuts. That's basically putting it in
my words. That woman is driving me nuts.
And he said, I'm going to give her what she wants, even though
I don't fear God or man. I don't have to, I don't need
to, but her importunity is is wear me out. And our Lord teaches
us, he uses that illustration to teach us to pray like that,
to come before him like that, and to never give up. The kingdom
of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force. He's speaking there of his children
coming before him in prayer and will not let go. Jacob said,
I will not let go till you bless me. That angel, remember he wrestled
with him till the breaking of the day. And he says, let me
go. And Jacob said, I ain't letting you go until you bless me. Bring him to me. All right.