If you turn in your Bibles to
Mark chapter 9, we're just looking at this remarkable story in Mark
9. The thing that's remarkable is
the context here is that the Lord Jesus is preparing His disciples
for their mission, preparing His disciples for their proclamation
of the Gospel, preparing his disciples for his exodus, as
he called it, that he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem. And as always, the Lord's ways
are never our ways. He does almost nothing that we
would ever contemplate doing in training these men to do what
was to be the most significant thing in all the world, the Gospel,
entrusted to these men, to be proclaimed by these men throughout
all the world. And so last week we saw that
the Lord had taken three of these disciples up onto a mountain. and they had seen the Lord Jesus
transfigured. They'd seen Him in His glory,
in His deity. They'd seen the cloud come down
from heaven. They'd heard the voice of God
the Father speaking to them. This is my Son, the Beloved,
in whom I'm well pleased. Listen to Him. And eventually
they are left alone with the Lord Jesus on the mountain. Just
a great picture of what it is for us to be saved. Ultimately
it's just us and the Lord Jesus. But as we all know, mountaintop
experiences are important, but they don't last very long. Most
of a believer's life is actually spent in conflict in this world,
with the world, the flesh and the devil assaulting us all the
time. And with these disciples, the
Lord Jesus comes down and he finds that the enemies of God
will never rest while they're in this world. And he comes to
this little community of his and they're in confusion, there's
contention. And so such is the nature of life
in this world. And so the Lord Jesus, just as
he came to his disciples on the mountain and revealed himself,
will come to his disciples in the valleys and reveal himself
to them. He'll always come to his people
at just the right time, at a time perfectly suited for them. And
he'll remind his people that the sorrows and the conflicts
that we have in the valleys are as much by His divine appointment
as the joys of the mountaintops." I think this story reminds us
again that the eternal everlasting love of the Lord Jesus for everyone
of His chosen is unchanging from eternity, from before conversion,
after conversion and into life. There are many that say that
God's children in this world are under the wrath of God until
something magic happens and suddenly His wrath for them is turned
into love for them. The scriptures don't teach that. His love is unchanging. His love
is everlasting. And for this man and this boy,
They are the objects of God's love. So let's just read this
remarkable story together and then we'll just glimpse at the
highlights of it. But it's a beautiful story. Mark
9, verse 14. When they came back to the disciples
they saw a large crowd around them and subscribes arguing with
them. Immediately when the entire crowd
saw him, they were amazed and began running up to greet him. And he asked them, what are you
discussing with them? And one of the crowd answered
him, Teacher, I brought you my son, possessed with a spirit
which makes him mute. And whenever it seizes him, it
slams him to the ground and he foams at the mouth and grinds
his teeth and stiffens out. I told your disciples to cast
it out. And they couldn't do it. He answered
them and said, O unbelieving generation, how long shall I
be with you? How long shall I put up with
you? Bring him to me. They brought the boy to him and
when he saw him, immediately the spirit threw him into a convulsion. And falling to the ground, he
began rolling around and foaming at the mouth. And he asked his
father, how long has this been happening to him? And he said,
from childhood. It has often thrown him both
into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if you can
do anything, take pity on us and help us." Jesus said to him,
if you can, all things are possible to him who believes. Immediately
the boy's father cried out and said, I do believe. Help my unbelief. When Jesus
saw that a crowd was rapidly gathering, he rebuked the unclean
spirit, saying to it, you deaf and mute spirit, I command you,
come out of him and do not enter him again. After crying out and
throwing him into terrible convulsions, he came out and the boy became
so much like a corpse that most of them said, he is dead. But
Jesus took him by the hand and raised him up and he got up. When he came into the house,
his disciples began questioning him privately, why could we not
drive it out? And he said to them, this kind
cannot come out by anything but prayer. And some versions have
prayer and fasting. So here we have the Lord Jesus bringing
these three disciples back to the other nine and there's a
crowd and in that crowd there are some scribes arguing with
the disciples. And it's so often the case, isn't
it, as I said earlier, the enemies of the Gospel never rest and
they're always looking for the smallest opportunity to exploit
any weakness they see, any opportunity they see to mock the children
of God publicly. But the Lord Jesus shows us something
here too, as we've seen so often in the Gospels. When His disciples
are attacked, He doesn't expect them to defend themselves. He
always steps in and He defends them. cannot refute the Lord's teaching
or the power of His miracles, but when He is seen to be absent
and the disciples are seen to be weak, they become most active. And it's just so typical throughout
all the scriptures, God's enemies always operate in deceitful ways. They always operate deceitfully. Mark it down and guarantee it.
Every time they will operate deceitfully and sneakily. 2 Peter
says that they secretly bring in destructive heresies. And
Jude talks about them and says certain men have crept in unnoticed. In Galatians Paul was dealing
with these people and he said they came in stealth, sneakily,
to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ that they might
bring us into bondage. These scribes come from a heritage
which should have caused them to trust God. Ezra was a scribe. It's a noble
calling. They had responsibility for copying
God's Word. They had responsibility for knowing
and teaching the law of God. And so the scribes and the teachers
of the law are the same group of people. And what a heritage
they had. A heritage where God had shown
them for thousands of years His remarkable faithfulness to His
covenant promises. And these men who claimed to
be Israel's teachers had God Himself standing before them. And what they did was do everything
they could in sly ways to attack Him, to eventually kill Him,
and at any opportunity they had, they would do the same to the
disciples. But the Lord Jesus has shown
us again and again throughout this Gospel and all the Gospels
that His challenge to us is to leave them alone. We don't have
to deal with them. We tell them the truth and we
get out of the road. Just note well that in this story
we never hear from the scribes again. They come to ravage the
Lord Jesus' little flock. And the Lord Jesus answers for
his own and the scribes are not heard of. But it seems from the
story that the contention was that these disciples who had
had a successful ministry of proclaiming the Gospel and casting
out demons were now in this situation where 1. They could not cast out. Verse
17, one of the crowd answered him and said, Teacher I brought
you my son. possessed with a spirit which makes him mute. Whenever
it seizes him it slams into the ground and he foams at the mouth
and grinds his teeth and stiffens out. I told your disciples to
cast it out but they could not." So here we have this remarkable
intervention into this dispute. There is a man He's got bigger
issues on his mind than debates with scribes. The father cared
nothing for the dispute between the disciples and the scribes.
He had one thing in mind. His one interest was his demon-possessed
son. And this one, this Lord Jesus,
who had cast out so many demons, was now there. The only one in
the world who could help. We need to learn the lesson well.
Disputation achieves nothing. It's always fleshly. It always
fills up our desires for argument and other things. Our job is
simply to declare God's truth, to point people to the Lord Jesus,
to be like this Father. There are bigger things going
on. Let's go and deal with the Lord Jesus. So many debates are
carried on in Christianity So sadly and the one person who
is almost always absent is the Lord Jesus Christ. It's almost
as if people can have this intellectual debate about God as if God is
actually not there present. It's almost as if He's on another
planet. Let's have this intellectual debate. Let's toss it around
like some intellectual football to be examined. May God protect
us from being like that. 2nd Timothy, Paul's last letter
as he's about to die, he writes to his young friend Timothy in
2.24 and says, The Lord's bondservant must not be quarrelsome, but
be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness
correcting those who are in opposition, if, perhaps, may grant them repentance,
leading to the knowledge of the truth, and that they may come
to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been
held captive by him to do his will. So this man is a great
lesson for us. We just go to the Lord Jesus.
We want to deal with Jesus all the time. I brought you my son. He brought the son to the disciples
but he was really bringing his son to the Lord. This man was
exercising faith. He realised his great need. He
realised that that need could only be met by one and that was
the Lord Jesus. But also in this story we need
to remember that this man had suffered for so long. I don't personally know what
it's like to have a son in this state. Matthew describes it as
something akin to epilepsy. But we need to be reminded that
God says that Satan is active in the world and Satan does these
things. It's a remarkable picture for
me and I trust for you of how much God restrains the evil in
this world. How much of the peace of this
world is God sovereignly chaining Satan and protecting people from
him, even protecting unbelievers from the worst of Satan's ravages. But also the Lord Jesus had protected
this young boy. Satan had tried many times to
seize him, slammed him to the ground, foamed at the mouth,
grinds his teeth and stiffens him out. And it had tried, as
we'll see later on, to kill him again and again. The scriptures say that Satan's
time is short and he is enraged against the Church, he is enraged
against God's people. And he has great wrath because
his time is short. We should expect that in this
world, His wrath will be revealed in all sorts of ways and His
anger revealed in all sorts of ways. And just because we don't
see this sort of demon possession in our midst, we must be mindful
of the fact that the worst demon possession that comes into this
world comes from people standing behind these things with one
of these books in their hand proclaiming themselves to be
those who teach people about God. Satan's great enemy in this
world and great point of attack is the Church of God, Satan's
greatest place of defeat was on the cross, and so Satan attacks
that one doctrine which is central to his defeat and central to
the glory of the Lord Jesus, and that's what the Lord Jesus
did on the cross. Satan is far more active in this
world than we can possibly imagine. He stands behind so many, many
pulpits. The Lord Jesus described the
Pharisees as children of the devil. and Paul had to fight
with them in Ephesus. He said, I fought with wild beasts
in Ephesus. He's not talking about animals,
he's talking about the raging activities of the Pharisees and
the scribes as we meet in this story, who despite the death
of the Lord Jesus, despite the resurrection, despite Pentecost,
despite all the amazing things that God did, They continued
to rage against God's people, not in open warfare all the time,
but in sneaky, deceitful ways. And so the father does the right
and proper thing. He ignores the dispute. He brings
his son to the Lord Jesus. He has one focus in his mind.
I must get to the Lord Jesus. All of this rubbish is irrelevant. I must get to the Lord Jesus.
And the Lord Jesus, having had him brought to Him, He answered
them and said, O unbelieving generation, how long
shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with
you? Bring him to Me. What an unbelieving generation.
the Jews had become. What a faithless generation they
had become. Throughout Mark's Gospel we have
two pictures all of the time. We have the Lord Jesus revealing
himself in his glory, revealing himself in his word becoming
true before their very eyes as he healed the blind. He raised
the dead. He fed the multitudes. And these
people saw that before their very eyes. And you have a group
of God's children who are rejoicing in the Lord Jesus. And there
alongside this group is another group of people who are faithless,
heartless, ruthless. and all they ever do is bicker
and whinge. So he calls this generation a
faithless generation. He's talking about the Jewish
nation, that even though they claim to worship God, were just
immersed in idolatry, the worst form of idolatry known, an idolatry
of religious self-righteousness. And he warns them that there
will be a time to this faithless generation when the light will
be removed from them, when the gospel will be taken away from
them, and their nation will be destroyed forever. And always
in the scriptures, the Lord Jesus keeps reminding His people that
it's the leaders they follow who lead them as blind guides. Isaiah speaks of these people,
these scribes and Pharisees of Jesus' day, ancient and honourable. He is the head and the prophet
that teaches lies, He is the tail. For the leaders of these
people cause them to err. and they that are led of them
are destroyed." Be careful who you listen to. Be careful how you listen. God
says that you are to test the things that we say in this pulpit. God says you are to test the
things that we put on our website. Test the gospel that we proclaim. But back to our story. They brought
the boy to him and when he saw him, immediately the spirit threw
him into a convulsion. And falling to the ground, he
began rolling around and foaming at the mouth and he asked his
father, the Lord Jesus asked his father, how long has this
been happening to him? And he said, from childhood. It has often thrown him both
into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if you can
do anything, take pity on us and help us." We can only guess what it must
have been like for that family, that mother and father, brothers
and sisters and people in that village, for this to have gone
on for so long in this young man's life. As I said earlier,
The reason the Lord Jesus had sovereignly ordained this to
happen was that His glory could be revealed. His people could
be strengthened in their faith. They could see that He has dominion
over Satan. And we must never forget that
all this time the Lord Jesus was protecting this young man
and protecting that family and His love His deep, deep love
for them had never, never changed at all. As we saw earlier, Satan's
influence is always destructive. He's a liar and a murderer and
he always seeks to destroy. He seeks to destroy all humanity,
to take them to hell where he'll be going. He always seeks to
destroy. the Lord Jesus in the lives of
believers by taking our eyes off Him and His finished work
and making it out somehow as if there is more to do. The Lord Jesus in Mark 23 has a beautiful
reply to this man. This man does come in faith and
he says to Him, And then he makes this amazing
promise. All things are possible to him
who believes. All things are possible to him
who believes. And so what's impossible for
man is never impossible with God. What God says he's going
to do, he does. Paul begins his letter to Titus
talking about the hope of eternal life that we have in God. Then he describes God who cannot
lie. God cannot lie and God makes
promises. The promises seem impossible.
The promise to Abraham when he's an old, old man to have a baby. The promise to Sarah when she's
an old, old woman that she is going to have a baby. It looks
impossible. God's promises look impossible. Look at the people around us
here. Fancy this motley crew being loved by God from eternity. Fancy this motley crew having
resurrection bodies. Fancy the really, really motley
ones speaking to you, being loved by God. God's promises are unbelievable
to our human flesh, aren't they? are led by God to just take God
at his word. And we need to be reminded, and
that's part of what he's done with the disciples here, he's
humbled them to remind them that all things are possible to him
who believes. And the believer's response when
God says these remarkable words is to say with this man, I do believe, help my unbelief. I do believe that with my believing
is mixed up so much unbelief that it's embarrassing. I do
love, although my love is mixed up with so much selfishness that
it's shameful. We do believe, God's children
do believe that we keep crying out to God Help my unbelief. Your promises are too amazing. The Gospel is too good news for
me to believe. Please help my unbelief." It
goes on in Luke 17, long after this event, and the apostles
call out to the Lord, Lord increase our faith. It's the constant
cry of a believer. Lord, increase my faith. Lord,
help my unbelief. Lord, I do believe. And that
believing is a gift of yours. It's a tiny little spark where
you fan it into a forest fire. It's a bruised reed. You promise
not to break it. Make it strong. And the Lord
Jesus answers this man's cry by healing his son. And he saw
that Jesus saw the crowd rapidly gathering, he rebuked the unclean
spirit. The Lord Jesus wasn't interested
in performing miracles to entertain men. He was interested in performing
miracles to increase, to grow, to strengthen the faith of his
people. And he rebuked the unclean spirit
saying to it, you deaf and mute spirit, I command you, come out
of him and do not enter him again." After crying out and throwing
him into a terrible convulsion, it came out and the boy became
so much like a cork that most of them said, he is dead. But Jesus took him by the hand
and raised him and he got up. So again we have the Lord Jesus. He heals with a word, a word
of his power. I command you to come out of
him. Nothing in this creation will stand against the commands
and promises of God. And then he makes a promise to
this man, a word of promise from God. Just look at it there in
verse 25. I command you to come out of
him and do not enter him again. And then the Lord Jesus does a thing
that he does so often. in the Gospels, He touches people. There's an intimacy of relationship
always between the Lord Jesus and His people. And it's the
touch, taking Him by the hand, that raises the dead. He wasn't really dead, but to
the eyes of people He really was. But he was raised by the Lord
Jesus and he got up. And so the faith, even the weakest
faith, which is looking to the Lord Jesus, is a faith that God
has put into the hearts of his people. And it's a faith that
God will reward. And so there are lessons for
the disciples at the end of this story. And there are lessons
for us. Obviously the disciples are perplexed
about why they couldn't drive it out. And the Lord Jesus is
saying to them, this kind cannot come out by anything but prayer
and fasting. And I think He's just reminding
them that despite all of the things that they will do in this
world, they are utterly dependent upon God. And He will cause them
to be in situations where whatever strength they might seem to have
in themselves, is nothing and they need Jesus completely. And so the lessons for the disciples
are that they have nothing to glory in except Jesus Christ.
They have nothing in themselves spiritually which they have not
received. 1 Corinthians 4.7 We have nothing
that we haven't received from God. Spiritual things come as
gifts from God. So we have nothing to boast in.
We have nothing to brag about in ourselves. Also I think in this we learn
from this man that faith and unbelief are mixed together. in the same person, trust and
doubt, hope and fears. Is that not your story? Nothing is perfect in the child
of God while we live in this world. J. C. Rye has a wonderful comment there. It is of utmost importance to
our comfort to know that a true believer may be known by his
inward warfare as well as his inward peace. Let me read it
again. It is of utmost importance to
our comfort to know that a true believer may be known by his
inward warfare as well as his inward peace. And the two go
hand in hand in God's people. We struggle in this world and
then God brings a peace that passes understanding. And he can bring that peace because
he is absolutely sovereign. God sovereignly ordained all
of these events. God sovereignly controlled absolutely
everything, including the timing of it. Christ has complete dominion
over Satan and all of his agents. As 1 John 4 says, he that is
in us is greater than he who is in the world. We do not need to fear Satan. We don't need to bother about
him. We look to the Lord Jesus. When
his attacks come along we acknowledge our weakness and we run back. We run back into the arms of
our Saviour and we hide in him and say, Lord you deal with this.
This is too big a deal for me, you have to deal with it. And
the Lord has ordained that the blessings of His promises will
come to believers through faith. Faith which looks to the Saviour
to provide according to His promises and according to His character. He will provide. And faith waits. Faith causes God's people to
wait for God to do what He has promised to do. And then faith,
having sought the Lord Jesus' help, having rested in his character
and his promises, just waits and sees God working and rejoices. Just imagine the scene at this
home, when this man took his son home that day. We don't have
it recorded for us, but we can well imagine how that man felt. That night as he lay eventually
his head on his pillow, what a blessed rest he would have
had. What a glorious saviour he would
have seen. Faith is a gift from God. Faith
is a gift that God gives to His people and grows in His people. Faith doesn't create. Faith is a receptacle that God
has given us for us to take hold of God in His true character
and the promises that He makes to us. On those sheets that you
have there are some amazing passages in Romans. which describe faith,
and faith rests on the faithfulness of Jesus Christ, and it comes
to God's people as a gift. And in Romans 4, God's promises come to God's
children 416 is a remarkable verse on the
second page there. For this reason it is by faith,
in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise
will be guaranteed to all the descendants. The great promise
of God is the gift of the Spirit. Christ in us, the hope of glory. Abraham, in verse 20, did two
things that we long for in this world. He gave glory to God and
grew strong in faith. In verse 21 of chapter 4, being
fully persuaded that what God had promised, he was also able
to perform. That's what we rest on, isn't
it? God has promised. God cannot lie. God will perform what he has
promised to do, as he promised to take all of his children to
heaven and present them holy, spotless and blameless and free
from accusation. Has He promised to give us resurrection
bodies? Has He promised to give us a
new creation? Has He promised that all of this
was finished from before the foundation of the world? Has
He promised? He has promised. He's written
His promises in His Word. He's sealed His promises in the
blood of His dear Son. They will come to pass. May God
cause us to rest in faith in our glorious Redeemer. Let's
pray. Our Father in Heaven, we do thank You and praise You that
You take Your people into situations where we are helpless, Heavenly
Father. We have no resources in ourselves.
We see nothing but a huge red sea ahead of us, and we see nothing
but an Egyptian army harassing us from behind. But Heavenly
Father, you make a way, miraculously, through this world for your children.
And we walk through it as if on dry land, and with the things
that frightened us so much being walls beside us, Heavenly Father. We do pray that you'd cause us
to have our eyes fixed on the Lord Jesus. We pray, Heavenly
Father, that His promises to His people would be things that
we write on our heart. And like Abraham they would be
the cause of us to be growing in our faith and the cause of
us to be giving glory to our God. For you are faithful and
you will do it. Please cause us to rest in the
finished work of our Redeemer. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.