While you're turning to the gospel
of Mark chapter 9, Mark 9, let me say it's very nice to be back. We have missed you and we've
missed our own and missed the little one. So nice to get to
be with you. So nice to see you again. So
glad that the gospel continues to be preached here and loved
here and that Christ is adored here. There could be a whole
lot of bad things happening. If those were happening, we'd
still be all right. Mark chapter 9, let's begin reading with verse
14. And when He came to His disciples,
He saw a great multitude about them, and the scribes questioning
with them. And straightway all the people,
when they beheld Him, were greatly amazed. And running to Him, they
saluted Him. And He asked the scribes, What
question you with them? And one of the multitude answered
and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son, who has a dumb
spirit. He could not speak. And wheresoever
he taketh him, he teareth him, and he foameth, and he gnashes
his teeth, and pineth away. And I spoke to your disciples
that they should cast him out, but they could not. He answered
them and saith, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you?
How long shall I suffer you? Bring him to me. And he brought
him unto him. And when he saw him, straightway
the spirit tore him, and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming.
And he asked his father, the Lord Jesus asked his father,
how long is it ago since this came unto him? And he said, of
a child. And oftentimes it has cast him
into the fire and into the waters to destroy him. But if thou canst
do anything, If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help
us. And Jesus said unto him, in the
original there's a little, a little T-H-E before this if. Jesus said
unto him, this if you can, he turned it right back on him,
this if you can. If you can believe, all things
are possible to him who believes. Straightway, the father of the
child cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe, help
my unbelief. And when Jesus saw that the people
came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto
him, you dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him
and enter no more into him. And the spirit cried and rent
him sorely and came out of him. And he was as one dead in so
much that many said that he died. Jesus took him by the hand, lifted
him up, and he arose. And when he was come into the
house, his disciples asked him privately, why could we not cast
him out? And they said unto him, he said
unto them, this kind can only come forth by nothing but by
prayer and fasting. Let's pray. Lord, I am Privileged to speak
your word, Lord, to a house full of natural unbelievers. I understand them well, for I
am one as well. It is our nature. It's the way
we were born all down to the line, Lord, since Adam, and we
cannot fix it. We don't try to fix it. Lord,
for thou hast taught us that it's not to be fixed here, it
will be fixed later. And Lord, we do mourn it nonetheless,
how we mourn our hearts of unbelief, how we despise our unbelieving,
faithless nature. And we would pray this morning
that you would speak to us through this glorious passage and that
you would remind us where our faith comes from. and that you
would strengthen it, that you would glorify yourself through
it, and that we might be true believers. God made true believers
in the Lord Jesus Christ, and may we be faithful in that. For
it's in his name we pray, Amen. Unbelief is the conclusion that
we reach as descendants of Adam every time we're confronted by
an obstacle or a problem or a sickness or Any kind of setback which
we're not capable of overcoming by our own strength. The outcome
is always that. It's always the same. It's always
unbelief. Do you live that life? I live
that life. It's just as natural as walking. That when things go wrong, the
first thing that goes off in me is unbelief. Isn't that a
shame? Isn't that a shame? The Lord's
been nothing but kind to me. He's been nothing but gracious
to me. He's given me life in Christ.
And the first thing goes off in my head when something bad
happens is unbelief. Oh no, what's going to happen? What are we
going to do? Don't you find it interesting that no matter how
many insurmountable problems that God Almighty delivers us
from, and he does so every day, that whenever we're faced with
an obstacle bigger than we are, that's about all that it takes,
our initial response is always unbelief. Unbelief has been,
excuse me for this long word, but I'm going to use it anyway
for all we're in the computer age. Unbelief has been undeletably
programmed into our fallen nature. You can't get it out. It's in
the program. It's going to be there. It won't go away. True
faith is not part of our natural humanity. And that's why the
Bible calls faith the gift of God. You can't make it. I can't
make it. We can't even keep it going.
Those of us who are inclined toward the timid side, as I am,
find it humanly impossible to suppress that rush of adrenaline
that accompanies our fear and despair whenever the Lord sends
us a trial. You know what it tastes like
in the back of your throat, that fear that has no foundation,
has no real reason to be even in your mind. And it's still
there. It tingles on the back of your neck sometimes. Sometimes
it just makes you shake. We should never be like that.
We're shameless. We're shameless. God is our Father. The Lord Jesus Christ is our
Savior. The Holy Spirit is everything
we need in life and we fear. What's wrong with us? What is
wrong with us? Every time something happens,
our hearts race. Our minds look frantically for
some kind of escape route, a solution, anything to get us out of what
we think is going to be a colossal mess. And our subconscious mind
automatically panics. In the back of your brain, it
says, we're going down this time for sure. I just feel it. I could wish for you that you
had no frame of reference. It would be Wouldn't it be a
glorious thing if I was speaking about all these things and you
had no way whatsoever to understand what in the world I was talking
about? That'd be a very nice thing. But my experience tells me otherwise.
That all God's children are all too familiar with that feeling
of despair and unbelief in our gut that springs up in our souls
every time that the problem that threatens us threatens to undo
us, overpowers the weakness of our feeble faith. Such behavior is shameless. It's uncalled for. We have no
reason to be this way. It's unbelieving and it's downright
sinful. I couldn't begin to list all
the times in my life that I have feared that I was going to be
swallowed up by some impending doom. and whether that monster
was real or imaginary. And every time, my gracious savior
has rescued me from the problem. And he's looked me in the eye,
and with sadness and pity, he says, oh, you of little faith. Why'd you doubt? Why'd you doubt? It was just a trial. It was just
to strengthen you. It was just to help your faith
move along and be stronger. Why'd you doubt? And we felt
it every time. Too many times to count, he's
given me that lecture. I've had to bow my head in shame
and ask again and again. Lord help my unbelief. Now before we get into the message,
allow me to address a word to you who may be in the congregation
today, you naturally brave-hearted souls. who may have no real concept
in your confident frame of mind by which to interpret what I've
been describing. I would like to make two requests
of you who are naturally bold. First, that you have patience
with those of us, your brothers and sisters in Christ, who were
simply born with a heaping helping of timidness by God's sovereign
design and for his all wise purposes he made us this way. We can't
help being naturally timid any more than you can help being
naturally self-confident. It's just what the Lord made
us to be. And secondly, I'd like to warn you to be careful not
to mistake your naturally positive mental attitude if you're that
way. Please don't mistake that for the faith that only God can
give. You know, there's an infinite
difference between the two of those, true faith always finds,
only finds, its object in Christ alone. But natural confidence
is just a human personality trait. One that incites those who have
it to rely on their own ability. It's just the way they live.
Me on the lower side of of having confidence. I watch people do
things like that and I think, how in the world do they get
the gumption together to do stuff like that? It's just the way
they are. But if it sounds like you to
have plenty of gumption, plenty of self-confidence, let me speak
this word to you. If that sounds like you, be careful
that your faith is not actually a delusion of self-reliance.
There's a world of difference between faith and confidence. They're not the same. And I am
confident in that. In this message, I'm not interested
in discussing the psychology of the human mind. I'm not interested
in knowing how that works that makes some of us bold and some
of us timid. I don't want to do that any more
than I want to waste these moments exploring the sociology of human
behavior. I'm not interested in that. I'm
only really concerned about one thing. That is that we find help
for our natural unbelief. Someone might object, but Mark,
I've been a believer in Christ for 20 years. Then you should
know by now that there's no such thing as a believer who doesn't
deal at some point in their life with unbelief. All believers
deal with unbelief. As long as believers have two
natures, a wicked, fleshly, unbelieving nature received from our forefather
Adam, and a new, holy, trusting, believing nature received through
Christ's gracious and merciful union with us, as long as we're
in these bodies, in that condition, we will remain two things. We'll
remain true believers in Christ who at the same time still drag
around our dead, fallen nature. which is as sinful and unbelieving
as it ever was. Has yours ever gotten any better?
Mine's never gotten better. Seemed like every time it flares
up, it's worse than it was last. Therefore, the plea, that plea,
Lord, help my unbelief. Help my unbelief. That plea is
as appropriate for you and I as believers as it is for sinners
still held prisoner by their sin. Help thou mine unbelief."
There's nothing wrong with that prayer. Now, to give the setting of the
passage leading up to verse 14, the Lord Jesus had taken Peter,
James, and John early in that chapter up onto a high mountain
that they might witness his transfiguration. And while they were away, a very
desperate father with a demon-possessed son who was searching for the
Lord Jesus, he was looking for Christ, and he found the rest
of his disciples and had asked them to cure his son. And apparently
they had proceeded to try to do so. The details of the boy's condition
really in this particular passage that we read are not elaborated
on, but his case represents very well the case of all of Adam's
descendants. On his best day that little boy
could neither hear nor speak. Is that not a picture of us by
nature? Deaf by nature to the sound of
the gospel. Can't understand it if we'd heard
it. I was a sinner halfway around
the world and heard a message by Henry Mahan. It was a fine
message. It was a good message. I remember
listening to that several times. It was really good. But I didn't
hear anything different than that from the free willism I
was preaching. And the foolishness I was teaching, it made no impression
on me, not until way later. Deaf to the sound of the gospel,
that's what we are by nature. Oh, you can understand the words,
you can get some idea of what linking those words together,
what the picture is, but you don't know what the truth is.
You can't tell what the truth is, not apart from the revealing
grace of God. I'm glad you got a good IQ. IQs
are good. They're useful in this world.
You can get better jobs with them. But they can't help you
understand the gospel. They can't teach you the reality
of what God's doing in this world. They can't help you one inch
to understand all the mess that's going on inside of you as a descendant
of Adam. No. Can't help you. On his best
day, this child could either hear nor see. That's exactly
what we are by nature. We're deaf to the sound of the
gospel. We're incapable of speaking a single word of gospel truth
apart from the grace of God. And this little boy, on his worst
days, in addition to being deaf and mute, the demon who had invaded
his body would throw the little fella into horrible seizures. And would throw and leave him
as a convulsing and frothing mass of helpless humanity. What a picture. What a picture
that little fellow is of us by nature. We went through all kinds,
all kinds of self-inflicted remedies as religionists. If you were
saved in a grace church, I'm so happy for you. You know nothing
about false religion and all the foolishness that you do to
yourself, all the damage you do to yourself and to your family
and to your loved ones? Preaching foolishness, bringing
God off his throne, making Christ your servant to do for you what
you need? Oh, my. What a picture this little
boy is of false religion. We're all just like that. We're
physically deaf. We could listen to the best gospel
preaching every day of the week and still not get a word of good
out of it. Still not see Christ for a half
of a glimpse. No. We were deaf to the truth. We may not have been physically
unable to speak, but we were absolutely, totally mute and
incapable of uttering a single syllable of the gospel truth.
We knew nothing about that. So the disciples in the face
of this pitiful man and this pitiful child and being moved
by such an earnest request were trying their best to remedy the
boy's situation by, I'm supposing, that they were trying to imitate
the methods that they no doubt watched the Lord use in those
situations. But the passage says that in
spite of all their efforts, it simply says they could not. They could not cast out the demon.
Aren't you so glad? The Lord does this for all of
his people. He does this for all true saints of God elect
from the foundation of the world. He leaves us in a place where
we cannot. We cannot. I remember growing up in religion
and I could. I could do a lot of things. I knew a lot of things. I thought.
I understood a lot of things. I thought. I thought I had become
the master of quite a few things. The truth about me was I could
not. I couldn't do any of it. It was just a figment of my imagination.
That's really about all religion is, isn't it? Just a figment
of your imagination. It can make you think you're
good. It can make you think that you do good things. It can make
you think that everybody loves you. Why you're so special? You're just an exceptional person. Everybody's your buddy. No. No. You're just that frothing,
convulsing little fellow that could not control a thing about
himself. Just a dead, dumb, stupid religionist is all we were. No. The passage says that in spite
of all their efforts, they could not cast out the demons. Literally,
they were not strong enough. They didn't possess the necessary
divine power to do that kind of work. And in spite of being
the Lord's hand-picked followers, having watched Him expel demons
on many occasions, they could not duplicate the Lord's power.
It's not of us. Isn't that what the Scriptures
say? The power is not of us. But I
read my Bible every day, Mark. I pray every day, three or four
times. The power is not of us. It's all of Him. We just get
the wonderful and glorious privilege of being united together with
him. I'm just being happy if he did,
if the Lord does all my thinking. And if the Lord does all my making
up of my mind. And if the Lord does all my directing
and all my changes and everything I should be over there and I've
started over this way. If he fixed it all for me, I
would be glad to be. I would be glad to be just his
follower. Just take me where you want me
to be and do with me what you want me to do." No, they could
not duplicate the Lord's power. Could not duplicate His authority.
Could not send the demon away by their command. And apparently
at this point in their discipleship training, they had not yet fully
learned the lesson that Paul would later write to the Corinthians.
Fellas, the power is of God and not of us. I can't speak to your case, but
I'm certainly not in any position to ridicule these well-meaning
disciples. I've heard people do that with this passage, talk
about how dumb they were, how stupid they were. All I can do
is raise my hand and say, yeah, they're my brothers. I'm just
like them. I'm sure that compared with theirs,
my faith would be very much smaller. I found myself many times in
that blessed position of absolute fear. unbelief and inability
with nowhere to look but Christ alone. And in spite of my shameful
weakness, I'd rather be like this. I'd rather be who I am
right now, like this, with nowhere to look but to the Lord Jesus
Christ, my Savior. I'd rather be right here than
to be the most self-confident sinner in the world. I do not
envy those people. They need nothing. They need
nothing, they think, and yet they have nothing. Unbelief is
the natural result of human inability. Sinners simply cannot believe,
cannot imagine themselves to be God-hating rebels. I've never
met one that thought he was. Nor can they bring themselves
to see their sins as intentional transgressions against God Almighty,
the Creator. worthy of eternal death. They
can't see that. That word unbeliever is not merely
the name used to define those who don't believe the gospel.
The worst thing about being an unbeliever is being incapable
of any of the graces of spiritual life. We can't believe the gospel. Repentance toward God and faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ are simply not within the reach of
Adam's sinful race. Not only is it not native, we
can't even make it grow. No, unbelief is what we are by
nature. Those folks may be, these things,
rather, faith and trust may be imitated by false Christianity,
but the spiritual reality of repentance and faith is the gift
of God alone. The Bible makes that very clear.
And how much more are we incapable of remaking ourselves into new
creations in Christ. I've got no clue how to start
doing that. Oh, you've just got to repent and tell God you're
sorry. I don't think it works like that. Oh, you've just got
to start going to church and doing a little better. I don't
think it works like that. Oh, you've just got to make up
your mind you're going to be a better person. I don't believe
you can get it like that. I really don't. The only sure
cure for unbelief is faith. And that, according to the scriptures,
is a divine gift that no son or daughter of Adam has ever
successfully imitated. Church houses full of people
surround this one right here. And they are trying to produce
it, trying to maintain it, trying to somehow come up with it. They
cannot. No more than these disciples
could. They cannot. How many religious souls are
being misled today by some false disciple of a false Christ? who
simply assured them that all they have to do is believe, be
sorry for your sins, ask for forgiveness, try to do a little
better and you'll be set for heaven. But that's not the picture
of salvation set forth in this inspired account. This record
contains nothing about a sinner capable of making some kind of
decision that would automatically release him from his tormentors.
Neither is there anything that remotely resembles an expression
of repentance and faith resulting in the immediate departure of
the demon from the boy's body. You won't find that. No, this
account is a much more accurate picture of how God saves sinners
than anything you'll see in the local free will assemblies in
this area. Now this little boy represents helpless sinners. That's the only kind there really
are. Helpless sinners. And he represents them in the
clearest of ways. He could neither hear the gospel
nor speak the words I believe. The boy could not hear and he
could not speak. What's he going to do when the evangelist comes
through town? No chance of walking this little
fellow down the Romans road. He couldn't hear a word you said.
Taking a boy like this back to the counseling room would have
been a clear waste of time. There could have been no interaction
about the gospel there. This poor child is a perfect
illustration of every lost sinner the Lord Jesus has ever saved.
Spiritually dead sinners can neither hear the gospel message
nor cry out for mercy. How many people you reckon today
are in some pulpit or another telling people to come forward
and ask for forgiveness and cry out for mercy and they don't
even know who they're talking to. They don't even know who they're talking
to. They'll get some feel-good feeling and they'll go home and
think that something happened to them and they'll be just as
dead as they ever were. What a terrible world we live
in. If we have never known the despair, the utter helplessness
of being dead, dead in trespasses and sins,
then we have no way of knowing the glory of being raised to
walk in newness of life. Only when the master arrives
will all things be set straight. Without him, we're as helpless
as this poor boy's father. I can imagine he was in what
kind of shape he was in. And the disciples who wanted
so much to deliver him from his torments could do nothing. Here's
salvation. All your friends, all your family,
all the folks you look up to, none of them can help you. No
one can help you with salvation. There's only one Savior. That's
the Lord Jesus Christ. You can't get Him to save you.
You can't coerce Him to save you. You can't trade works or
deeds for Him to save you. He just saves or He doesn't.
I think that's what we call when we say sovereign. If you've never
bowed before the sovereign Savior, you don't know the Savior. He's
the only one there is. Christ alone must reveal the
sin. He's got to do it all. He's got
to reveal the sin, grant the repentance. He's got to instill
the godly sorrow. He's got to quicken the dead
sinner. He's got to do all of that. What do we have to do with
any of those things? They're out of our hands. They're
out of our hands. We have no part to play in that.
We play the only role we're capable of, and we're good at this one.
We can play the role of the spiritually dead, deaf, dumb, and blind sinner. It's all we can do. That's the
best we can do. Flop our corpse up there before the Lord and
say, save me. And we can't even do that. Can't
even ask for salvation. By the time we've said, Lord,
save me, he's already saved me. By the time you've understood
the gospel, he's already done his work. No, he doesn't respond
to us. We respond to him. No, if anyone
is under this, is here under the false impression that redemption
is up to you, even a little. But you somehow hold the ultimate
key to your soul's salvation. Oh, may the God who can't and
he absolutely won't share his glory with the likes of us. May
he send his spirit to such a one and reveal you to be the deaf
mute in need of deliverance. By the time the Lord returned
from the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter, James, and John, with
Peter, James, and John who were with him, there was quite a commotion
going on, as you can imagine. There were scribes. There were
all kinds of folks trying to tell how to fix this little boy.
Doesn't that sound like religion? Oh, we can send him to camp.
Oh, we can take him to our new Sunday school class. Oh, we'll
pick him up on a bus. He'll be here every time. Some scribes had arrived on the
scene and were probably debating the best method for casting out
the demons or asking questions about the disciples' credentials
for attempting exorcisms in public places. You got the permit for
that? Can you do that here? Not to mention the gawkers who
showed up just to see what all the commotion was about. The
whole scene appears to have been very, very chaotic, very confused,
going nowhere. Isn't that the case whenever
false religion is involved? Oh, there's a big commotion.
There's a big commotion. They're doing something. Nothing
you need. Nothing to do them any good.
No. Just a big commotion. Always confusion. Always debate.
Always someone with a better idea. Always someone coming up
with a new interpretation. Nothing of the sweet, unchanging,
glorious consistency of the sovereign grace of God. Those who have
tasted of that have a taste for nothing else. The Lord just saved
me. That's all I need to know. That's
all I need to know. So the Lord Jesus asked the other
disciples, what are you debating about with them? Why are you
arguing with people who know nothing about the grace of God?
We shouldn't do that either. They're more interested in how
highly people think of them than in glorifying God. What are you
wasting time trying to figure out what they're saying? Oh,
how easy it is when things get complicated, isn't it, to get
sidetracked about the real issue. May the Lord keep our minds single
on Christ alone. This boy's deliverance had nothing
to do with arguing the how-to's and the how-not-to's of false
religion. And in response, the man whose
son was deaf and mute began to recount his intentions had been
simply to bring, all I wanted to do was I just wanted to bring
him to Christ. I just knew he could do something
for him to deliver him from these demons. He described to the Lord
Jesus in greater detail the severity of his son's torments, which
reads very much like those of a helpless sinner with no hope
of salvation. Let's recount those, let's recount
those signs of being lost. He was deaf. He could not hear
the gospel. I know how easy it is to get
frustrated with false religionists who continually spout off about
their biblical knowledge or their good works or the sacrifices
they've made for the cause of Christ. And I've had more conversations
with unsaved religionists than I care to recall. But in every
case, I found myself speaking to someone who was spiritually
deaf. We had a conversation. But they
couldn't hear a word I said. What I was speaking was foreign
to them. It might have been, as well, been another language.
It's not that they just had a slight buildup of a little religious
earwax. That wasn't the problem. And
it wasn't that they were just a little tone deaf, as though
they were close to the truth. But these folks were just like
this little boy, so absolutely deaf. that they were unable to
hear the truth of the gospel of Christ in the gospel. What a pitiful condition. Surely
theirs is that lamentation in Ezekiel 12 too. They have ears. They have ears and they hear,
but they hear not. You can't tell by looking. You
can't tell who's who. They wear the same Sunday go-to
meetin' outfits we do. Most of them carry a Bible like
we do. They bow their heads to pray like we do, and they pray
to one they call Jesus, just like we do. But they hear nothing. They've never heard the gospel.
All they take away from the scriptures and their pastors' messages is
this. If you believe, and if you live right, you'll be okay
when you die. That's all you gotta do. Just
like this poor boy. They're deaf to the sound of
the gospel of God's sovereign grace in Christ. I don't know
how many folks you've talked to lately. Every now and then
I'll get someone who'll stop a few minutes, and I don't get
very far along with most of them. You try to explain to them the
sovereign grace of God. God chose. God sent his son to
die for them. They can't be lost. The Holy
Spirit comes in such a manner to call them that they cannot
not believe. And they look at you. The longer you go, the more
they do that dog thing. You know, they just don't get
it. They just don't get it. Oh, my. No, not only that, but this little
boy was mute. He was mute. Absolutely unable
to describe his torments, unable to plead for help, unable to
cry out to God for mercy. He was alone with his troubles,
all locked up in that body. And that's a good place for a
sinner to be. All of God's children that God
has ever saved knows where that place is, where no one can help
you, you can't get out, and the only thing that God can do is
save you or let you die. It's the blessed place where
Christ shuts his people up, and he leaves us with no options.
He stops our stupid, vile mouths, forbidding us to argue our vain
notions of religion, He robs us of our former confidence in
all of our false and foolish doctrines, and he just humbles
us, and he shuts us up to his glorious truth, and we say, why
didn't I see that before? That's so simple. That's so true. It's so obvious. It's so wonderful.
Why didn't I see that before? Deaf, dumb, and blind. Deaf,
dumb, and blind. Every one of Adam's descendants
have been born into this world deaf, dumb, and blind. Spiritually,
spiritually so. They can't do a thing for themselves
as helpless as this little boy. And oh, how helpless he was.
He could not rid himself of the evil inside of him. No amount
of kneeling at an altar, no amount of making a public profession
of faith, no amount of being baptized, taking communion, having
perfect attendance in Sunday school, nothing could help this
lost soul. And I know just where he ended up. By the grace of
God, I know right where he ended up. He ended up right smack in
the middle of God's sovereign will. It'd be a wonderful place. That place where he reserves,
which he reserves uniquely for hopeless, helpless, incapable
sinners. The hearing ear and the seeing
eye, the Lord has made even both of them, because we weren't born
that way. We praise his name that salvation is surely of the
Lord every bit of it. And finally, this little boy
was in agony. He could find no relief. Can
you imagine the excruciating pain, the confusion, the horrible
fear of a little child from moment to moment, not knowing what grief
this demon would unleash on him next. Uncontrollable convulsions
could pop up at any time. Throw him on the ground stiff
as a board, just jerking and writhing in pain, foaming at
the mouth. If his father was trying to get him to the Savior,
more likely he'd already been to every rabbi, every false religious
in Jerusalem. And just as it's been for every
child of God who's wandered in the wilderness of human religion,
there was no help to be found there. Religion can inform you
about every kind of sin known to man, but it can't deliver
you from any of them, not one. Go back and pick up and finish
up from verse 21. He asks his father, the Lord
asks his father, how long is it since this has happened to
him? How long has he been this way? And he said, from childhood. And often it's thrown him into
fire and into water in order that it might destroy him. But
if, here's his request. Oh, what a feeble request. But
if you can do anything, if you can, if you can do anything for
him, that's a prayer. That's a weak prayer. It's a
prayer that doesn't have much understanding of the Lord Jesus
and who he is and what he does, but it's a request. It is a prayer. Lord, if you can do anything,
have compassion on us and help us. Now, there's no question
in my mind that this poor man and his pitiful son had placed
all their hope deliverance from this demon on the Lord Jesus
Christ. I believe that's where they were. That's why they brought
him to Him. But the way the boy's father asked the Lord for help,
he started with the wrong word. If is not the right word to begin
a prayer with. If... If you can do anything. Wouldn't it have been so much
better to say, Lord since you can do all things, would you
have mercy on this boy? That would have been better.
He started in the wrong place and the Lord still heard him.
If you can, if you can do anything, it reveals a very weak, a very
weary, a very small faith. Will the Lord Jesus answer such
a weak expression of confidence in Christ? I sure hope so. I sure hope so. Or else those
of us who like this little boy and this man, those of us who
just naturally fear the worst, We would be in constant doubt
of being heard. I reckon the Lord would hear
me. While we would have no hope at
all, we'd find ourselves incapable of banishing doubt from our minds.
But listen to me on the end here, to the graciousness of the Lord
Jesus toward this weaker sheep. His literal response in verse
23 to to this poor man was, he stopped and he pulled out the
words, he says, this if you can. If you can do anything for him,
please do. And the Lord stopped him right there. This, this if
you can. Let's think about that just a
minute. This if you can. He says, here's how that works.
All things are possible to him who believes. Well, that's easy. They're doing that at churches
all around us this morning. They're just believing up and
down every aisle. They're believing like crazy. The Lord didn't set a minimum
standard, a minimum possible standard of faith allowed. You've
got to at least have this much. Or He didn't set a maximum level
of doubt permitted. Oh, you're over the line. We
can't do nothing for you. What a blessing. He just said
that faith had to be present. It just has to be there. Big
faith? No, big faith won't save him
any less or any more than little faith. Little faith's okay, because
it's in the right place. We're looking to the Lord Jesus
Christ. What a grace, what a mercy for us naturally born doubters.
What a blessing for all you of little faith. Behold the grace
of God. He hears even our whisper. And
I pray that you would rejoice with me this morning in the grace
and kindness of our Lord and Savior toward the weak in faith. If you have faith as a grain
of mustard seed so extremely small, even you shall say unto
this mountain, Remove from here and go to yonder place, and it
shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible to you. Oh, Lord,
give us that faith. Let us pray. Lord, I remember, and I'd say
there are some that are listening this morning who remember coming up with some sort of man-made
faith some twisted view of trust and confidence in God, and we
threw that up on the altar and said, Lord, I want to be saved.
And Lord, for many of us, we've spent many long years thinking
we were, thinking that we had produced faith, until, Lord,
that day in which you gave it to us. You just stopped us in
our tracks and showed us to be in as bad a shape as this little
boy or worse. and you just made us believe.
I am convinced, Lord. I'm convinced of the grace of
God because even my faith, even my desire to be saved, even my
trust in you, Lord, these years, has been all of you and none
of me. Bless your people. Lord, if there's another one
here today, has no faith, oh, would you do that miracle again
and just give it to them. For it's in Christ's name we
pray, amen.