draw your attention to that passage
of scripture that we read together, quite a lengthy passage and yet
a most important passage. But of course we cannot say that
any one part of scripture is more important than another because
all scripture is given to us by inspiration of God and is
profitable And whilst we might ourselves not find the prophets
in certain passages of scripture, there are others that will see
importance in those passages that we don't understand and
we should pray the Lord would give us understanding of his
work. But with the Lord's help I'd
like to draw particularly verse 24 to your attention and to base
our thoughts on this passage of scripture from the latter
part of the last clause of this verse where the father of the
demoniac child says, Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. And
straightway the father of the child cried out and said with
tears, Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. You can imagine
the scene of the occasion all those many years ago, 2,000 years
ago, where The crowd had gathered, they
had followed the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Lord Jesus Christ had
been speaking to people in the region of Galilee, and the chapter
commences with with verse 1 which says, Verily
I say unto you that there be some of them that stand here
which shall not taste of death till they have seen the kingdom
of God come with power. And of course the verse refers to the previous
passage from verse 34 to the end of chapter 8 where the Lord
Jesus Christ is speaking about the about the call of God, whosoever
will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross
and follow me. And then he concludes that section
by saying that there were those who will not taste death till
they have seen the kingdom of God come with power. And of course
he is referring to the disciples on this occasion, those who followed
the Lord Jesus, those who had left all, and for three years,
They followed the Lord Jesus Christ throughout the Promised
Land, going from city to city, town to town, village to village,
preaching the Kingdom of God, and finishing up after three
years finally in Jerusalem. Of course, they'd been to Jerusalem
before with the Lord Jesus Christ. In the first chapter of John's
Gospel, for example, We read how the Lord Jesus Christ had
been with his disciples in Jerusalem at the beginning of his ministry
and had cast out from the temple the money changers and those
that sold the offerings for the Jews to make sacrifice. Then
he went about Palestine healing the sick, preaching the gospel
and now as he has identified the disciples and the call of
the gospel in verse 34 of the previous chapter he has gone
further north and he has come six days later into the northern
parts of the kingdom of Israel even further north than than Galilee. And there he takes
Peter, James and John with him to go up into the mountains. The crowd had followed him, perhaps
they had thought to themselves that they would await the return
of the Lord Jesus Christ after he had been up into the high
mountains, apart from the other people and the other disciples
and the other followers. not just the apostolic twelve,
but also the nine that were left down at the foot of the mountain,
but there were other crowds that had followed. and also the scribes
and the pharisees as they kept a watch on the Lord Jesus Christ
as they, being the religious establishment, would have done
so for all prophets or people that would consider themselves
to be prophets to make sure that the status quo was not shaken
too much and they come into conflict with the Roman authorities, watching
their back I think we would call it these days. the Lord Jesus
Christ and Peter, James and John went up to the mountain and there
on the top of the mountain they had this glorious experience
of seeing something of the beauty and something of the glory of
the Lord Jesus Christ we of course with our natural eyes do not
see and we cannot see into heaven and even with our spiritual eyes
we have great difficulty seeing into heaven as to what, we can
imagine what is happening in heaven, we can imagine the prayers
and the worship of the four and twenty elders, we can imagine
the prayers of the Lord Jesus Christ, we can imagine Almighty
God, God the Father on the throne of heaven itself, but we will
not see, we will not see these things until we ourselves are
taken into heaven and after the last day. but from time to time
the veil is drawn back just as the high priest was able to enter
into the holy of holies but on one day a year so there were
those occasions when the veil was drawn aside the apostle Paul
speaks of his own experience where he talks about a man in
Christ being caught up into heaven and seeing things there and hearing
things there that was not lawful for him to utter or to repeat. Well here, Peter, James and John
with the Lord Jesus Christ there, they see something of the glory
of heaven. The veil is drawn back and they
see the Lord Jesus Christ transfigured before them. That is, the intrinsic
glory of the Lord Jesus Christ was revealed to them. Moses himself
went up into the mountain to receive the law of God and there
the God Almighty communicated with him and he had to write
the Ten Commandments and when he came down from the mountain
such had been his contact with Almighty God that his face shone
and reflected the glory of God. And so they had to cover him.
It was like just as the moon reflects the glory and the heat
of the sun and the light of the sun, so Moses reflected some
of the glory. But here we have the Lord Jesus
Christ being transfigured. They saw the essential, something
of the essential glory. Of course, human eyes could not
cope with the actual glory the fullness of the glory of God
just as our natural eyes cannot see the glory of the sun without
there being sometimes a shade between our eyes and the sun
the heat and the light of the sun would burn our eyes out but
here Peter, James and John saw something that they'd never seen
before saw something of the glory of Christ, they saw something
of the purity of Christ and his raiment became shining, exceeding
white as snow, so white that no dyer of fabric, a fuller,
could make clean or make white on earth and whilst they were
there they saw Elias and Moses who began this conversation with
the Lord Jesus Christ. But of course the writer of this
Gospel leaves out what Moses and Elias or Elijah talked to
the Lord Jesus Christ about. But one of the other Gospel records
tells us that that whilst they were there in sweet communion
on the Mount of Transfiguration that they talked about the death
of the Lord Jesus Christ which he would accomplish at Jerusalem. Now that's an important word
that he would accomplish because it tells us that the Lord Jesus
Christ is not subject to death. You and I are subject to death.
Remember how in the Garden of Eden When the commandment was given
to Adam and Eve to tend the garden, God said, you shall not eat of
it, the tree in the midst of the garden, you shall not eat
of it, neither shall you touch it, lest ye die. Earlier, he
said, that command had being given to Adam and Eve, that they
should not. Of the tree thou mayest freely
eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not
eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt
surely die. And that phrase, thou shalt surely
die, literally translated from the original Hebrew would say,
dying thou shalt die. it was the condemnation of Adam
and Eve that they died spiritually and they would die physically
and after so many years they died and the psalmist tells us
that in our own period of stretch of time the days of our years
are three score years and ten or if by reason of strength they
be four score years Yes, their life, those years are trial and
trouble throughout. So, the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished
his death. That is, he laid down his life. No one took his life from him.
What a mercy it is that he laid down his life for his people. There are those who tell us that
the Lord Jesus Christ was a martyr and that he was taken unawares
by the authorities and it was they who had him killed and crucified. But the Lord Jesus Christ wasn't
overtaken by events, he came from the glory of heaven in his
incarnation to live a life upon this earth and when the time,
in the fullness of times, another time, the Lord Jesus Christ laid
down his life for his people. The Apostle John in his Gospel
tells us in verse 11 of chapter 10, the Lord Jesus said, I am
the good shepherd, the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. He made the sacrifice, we were
talking this morning about the Lord Jesus Christ being the substitutionary
sacrifice. Well he sacrificed his life,
willingly, He gave his life, a ransom for many. The life was
not taken away from him. The nails did not hold the Lord
Jesus Christ to the cross. The ropes also that would have
held him there, held any other criminal, did not hold him to
the cross. He then went there voluntarily
and if there had been neither nails nor ropes, he would have
still been on the cross because of the power of God that would
have held him there as he was a sacrifice for sinners. And so Peter made this suggestion
of having tabernacles and there to commune and have fellowship
with the Lord Jesus Christ, with Moses and with Elijah. No doubt
Peter had that sincere desire to know more about those things
that had happened in the time of Moses and in the time of Elijah
and also to continue with the Lord Jesus Christ. Sometimes
we are in a time of fellowship, a place of fellowship, a place
of sweetness with the Lord Jesus Christ. we're spending time reading
the scriptures of truth perhaps we're spending time in prayer
and the Lord comes upon us and we have a great spirit of prayer
given unto us and we want to be in that place for as long
as we can but we have to come down from the mountain and we
have to be back with mundane that as well,
I'm sure that this is what Peter was thinking about that he would
be in that sweet place of fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ with
Moses and Elias but Moses and Elijah went back into
heaven they had fulfilled the purpose for which they came and
a cloud came over the top of the mountain and then there was
this voice of God, a voice came out of the cloud saying, this
is my beloved son, hear him. Three times we are told, it may
have been more times, but of course we are only told the three
times when Almighty God spoke clearly to mankind in the time
of the Lord Jesus Christ during the time of his incarnation.
and the first time of course was at the baptism of the Lord
Jesus where John was baptising at Enon the place of many waters
and when the Lord Jesus Christ was baptised the voice came from
heaven which said this is my beloved son in whom I am well
pleased and why was God well pleased with his son? because
he was obedient he was obedient in his life and he was obedient
in his death and that obedience entailed his giving himself a
ransom for many of pouring out his precious blood that sinners
might go free that that fountain for sin that Zechariah speaks
of might be opened for the healing of the sinful souls of an election
of grace that was given to Christ in covenant bond and so when
they came and then the second time we see how the Lord spoke
out of the cloud this is my beloved son not only was almighty God pleased
with his son because of his obedience but there is that command to
the disciples and because it is here written in scripture
it is a command to each one of us to every Christian believer,
hear him, listen to him. Now how do we listen to the Lord
Jesus Christ? Well, clearly by reading his
words, by reading and studying the scriptures of truth, by coming
before him in prayer and watching the providential mercies and
dealings with us, we're to hear him. And if we're to hear the
Lord Jesus Christ it means that we must also obey him a parent
speaks to a disobedient child and says how many times do I
have to tell you to do this or not to do that how many times
you drive me to the end of my patience but of course God is
not like that he speaks and he reminds us he speaks and listening
to his voice new life the dead receive, the mournful broken
hearted rejoice, the humble poor believe. We listen to him and
we act upon those words that are spoken to us by the power
of the Holy Spirit. This is my son, my beloved son,
hear him. There is that command, that exhortation. And then the third time that
a voice from heaven occurs, is when the Lord Jesus Christ prays
and he prays that he might be glorified and God answered his
own son's prayer and he said I have heard and I have glorified
thee and the Lord Jesus goes on in prayer that wonderful and
remarkable prayer that is recorded for us in the 17th chapter of
John and following that prayer the Lord Jesus again prays Father
the hour has come glorify thy son that thy son also may glorify
thee and then he goes on to say I have glorified thee on the
earth and I have finished the work which thou gavest me to
do so there are those three occasions there is the declaration of pleasure
on the part of Almighty God and his Son, that he is well pleased
with him, that exhortation that we are to hear the Lord Jesus
Christ, this is my beloved Son, hear him, and the witness to
the glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ. That glorification
of course, which we know, is that of the crucifixion, in that
he ransomed a multitude that no man could number, he paid
the price and as the top lady says, payment God cannot twice
demand first at my bleeding surety's hand and then again at mine it
is a declaration that the people of God go free and the Lord Jesus
said I am come that they might have life and that they might
have it more abundantly so they come down from the mountain and
the Lord Jesus charges the disciples, those three disciples that they
must not say anything about the transfiguration nor about the
death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus until those things
had happened and they kept that saying with themselves questioning
one with another what the rising from the dead should mean and
so they come to the crowd that they had left behind they come
to that multitude that were there at the foot of the mountain and
there was great debate going on the scribes and the Pharisees
were questioning the disciples about what the teaching of the
Lord Jesus Christ was what they were doing and asking where the
Lord Jesus Christ was and in the midst of this great debate
that was happening this one man comes with his demoniac son and
wants the demon to be cast out but the disciples again were
not told what path of action they took but they were unable
to cast out the demon and later on when they were away from that
particular situation they asked why they could not cast him out
and when he was coming to the house his disciples asked him
privately why could we not cast him out? and he said unto them
this kind come forth by nothing but prayer but by prayer and
fasting and so it was seen that they were not praying right and
that doesn't imply that there is a proper way a proper formula
to follow but prayer was not indicted by the
spirit that's as much as we can say and likewise with regard
to the fasting but of course the dumb spirit didn't come out because
it was in the wisdom of God that it should be the Lord Jesus Christ
that should cast out that demon and so we are told that the Lord
Jesus said thou dumb and deaf spirit I charge thee come out
of him and entered no more into him and the spirit cried and
Rentenstone came out of him and so we go on so the Lord Jesus
takes control of the situation he then asks those people, faithless generation
a rebuking question oh faithless generation how long shall I be
with you? and how long shall I suffer you?
bring him unto me so this man comes he comes with his child
this child that he has seen many times trying to destroy himself
because of the possession inward possession of this dumb spirit
he has cast himself into the fire he has cast himself into
the waters to destroy him no doubt there have been occasions
when he's tried to when this spirit in him has caused him
to throw himself in the fire and the father has managed to
rescue him from the fire and to attend the burns that have
been received on the arms, the bodies and the legs of this young
child we're not told how old he is and likewise he's been
there when the child has cast himself into the river or the
lake and he's jumped in after him dragged him out and he says
in despair if thou canst do anything have compassion on us and help
us the Lord Jesus replies if thou canst believe all things
are possible to him that believe and that this man realises that
of himself he cannot believe of himself he cannot conjure
up faith bring himself to have that 100% certainty that the
Lord Jesus Christ can and will heal him so he says these words
and straightway after he's heard the Lord Jesus saying if thou
canst believe all things are possible to him that believeth
and straightway the father of the child cried out and said
with tears imagine the scene that here a condition as it were
is put before him and he thinks to himself well I can't be certain
that I believe that there can be healing but I would like to
venture on him to venture upon this son of God who is here in
the flesh and so he cries out and the tears have welled up
in his eyes and he says Lord I believe I believe, help thou
my unbelief. So looking at these words very
quickly, there are three things to consider in this statement
of the Father. Lord, I believe, help thou my
unbelief. First of all, to whom is faith
to be addressed? To whom is faith to be addressed? We hear of people talking about
their faith, but it's a nebulous idea unless there is an object
of faith. A top lady in one of his hymns
says, object of my first desire, Jesus crucified for me, all to
happiness aspire, only to be found in thee. Is the Lord Jesus
Christ the object of our faith? Is he the one we worship? And
then secondly, what it is to believe. and to have faith. Lord, I believe, I believe. And then thirdly, he says, what
is the trial of faith? Because here there has been a
trial of faith. And he says, Lord, I believe,
help thou mine unbelief. And we all come into those periods
when there is a trial of faith. So firstly, to whom is the faith
addressed? Well, it's addressed to the Lord
Jesus Christ. He says he's a Lord. The Lord
he is pinpointing. He's not speaking to the disciples.
When he came to the disciples earlier on in that day, he'd
spoken to the disciples. Perhaps he'd known some of them
by name. Perhaps he'd been brought by
the scribes as a measure, as a way of the scribes being able
to interrogate the disciples and the Lord Jesus Christ. We
don't know. these things, it's just pure supposition on my part,
but there's been a work of the Spirit of God in his heart and
he has been able to recognize that in the Lord Jesus Christ
there is one who can possibly heal him, so he addresses him,
Lord. When we come and have faith in
God it must be in and through the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember how the Lord Jesus speaks
to his disciples in that 14th chapter of John's Gospel. He says, And whither I go ye
know, and the way ye know. Doubting Thomas, always questioning
those things that are said, Thomas saith unto him, We know not whither
thou goest, and how can we know the way? Then Jesus answers,
I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto
the Father but by me. If ye had known me, ye should
have known my Father also. and from henceforth ye know him
and have seen him. So he addresses the Lord Jesus
Christ and he has that faith implanted into him because faith
is a gift. Faith is a gift of God, it's
not something that we can work up by ourselves. I had a friend
many years ago in Sheffield who was a pastor of a Baptist congregation
in Sheffield but before that he'd been amongst the Pentecostal
movement and he said that we used to encourage people to faith
by singing choruses and stirring them up in the hope that they
would be stirred up to make a decision but of course he said we could
never do that we could never do that because faith is a gift
from God remember how Paul writes to the Ephesians for by grace
are ye saved and that not of yourselves the grace is not from
yourself or by grace are ye saved and that not of yourselves it
is the gift of God not of works let me turn it up very quickly
my memory is not what it once was Ephesians 2 and verse 8 for
by grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves
it is the gift of God that faith is not of yourselves It's not
what you have worked up, it's not what we can work up or cultivate,
it is what God gives to us. So the reason that the disciples
were unable to cast the demon out was because they could not
work up the faith. They could not give this man
faith to believe. But the Lord Jesus Christ gives
him that faith and so he says, I believe. The hymn writer says
faith laughs at impossibilities and tries it shall be done. And
so he is addressed as the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is
the Son of God. He is the second person of the
Holy Trinity. he is the omnipotent God and
he is the living God we don't have time to go into those various
facets so he is the one for whom we address
that faith that we have given we address him in prayer we address
him with our wants and we pray unto him and then in the second
place what is it to believe and to have faith, Lord I believe,
help thou mine unbelief, Lord I believe, what is faith? Paul
describes that faith in the 11th chapter of his epistle to the
Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 1, now faith is the substance
of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, there are
three things here, in this verse there is hope there is substance
and there is evidence and faith implies those three necessities
there is hope now we use hope in the 21st century in a nebulous
manner in something that is uh... we're not certain it's going
to happen you know people enter the lotteries and gambles and
they gamble with the hope that they're going to win and the
odds are so stacked that they will not find the evidence their
hope is useless the scientists hope that evolution is a fact
but again the odds on evolution being a correct scientific statement
the odds are so improbable improbable it's easier to win the national
lottery than it is for evolution to be factual and the odds on
winning the national lottery are very slim indeed but in scripture
right up to about the middle of the 17th or maybe the 18th
century the word hope spoke about something that was definite and
we speak about the coming of the Lord our hope is the return
of the Lord Jesus Christ which hope we have as an anchor of
the soul So we have hope being described
as an anchor. Now an anchor is something that
is definite. I may have told you this before
from this pulpit. When I was at Jarrah Chapel at
Lewis, I had in my congregation a gentleman with the name of
Commander Spanner. He was in the docks here during
the war and other naval docks and he was one of
Mr Churchill's advisors during the Second World War and he went
in his retirement and after he moved to Lewis as an elderly
gentleman he designed an anchor which was about perhaps two feet
in length it was just a pole a metal, metallic pole with a
bell end at the bottom with holes in it. It looked absolutely impractical
and yet he told me that by calculation and knowing the stresses and
by experimentation with models, he told me that three of those
little anchors could hold the leg of a North Sea oil rig. And the North Sea oil rig sat
at three legs, if I remember rightly. So that's nine of these
little anchors could hold a gigantic oil rig in the storms of the
North Sea during the winter without it moving, because such was the
suction of the bell end that it held
everything still. it's something that was dependable
and that is hope hope is dependable we have that hope in the Lord
Jesus Christ we have that hope that one day he is coming again
that one day all the dead in Christ shall rise and then we
which are alive shall be caught up to meet him in the end and
thus we shall be forever with the Lord it is a hope and then
in the second place there is substance there is substance
in what we believe we don't believe cunningly devised fables as Peter
says but says that Peter we were eyewitnesses of his majesty we
saw these things he says we saw the transfiguration we saw the
crucifixion we saw the myrtles undertaken by the Lord Jesus
Christ we saw the empty tomb And we saw him being taken up
into heaven. There's substance in it. There's
something that can be depended upon. And so there is, in the
third place, there is the evidence. Faith is the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. The evidence, when
we are called into a court of law for breaking the law, for
a criminal act, the prosecution presents its evidence, and if
we're innocent, if we've not done that deed, we present, through
our legal representative, we present our own evidence. And if we're innocent, the evidence
that we present trumps the evidence of the prosecution. So the evidence is given and
we say we've seen the evidence, we know the substance and because
of this I believe. The hymn writer says, venture
on in, venture wholly, let no other trust intrude. And then finally there is the
trial of faith. Lord, I believe, he says, help
thou mine unbelief. He says that I'm wavering, I'm
wavering, I'm not 100% certain that I'm 100% certain in you,
the one who is able to perform this miracle. Lord, I believe,
help thou mine unbelief. We all have trials of faith.
Peter speaks about the trial of faith, in 1 Peter chapter
4, he says, Beloved, think it not strange concerning the final
trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened
unto you. This poor man had come with his
child in a trial of faith and the tears were in his eyes, He
came to the right source. He came to the right person.
He came to the Lord Jesus Christ. And when we have a trial of faith,
when we're brought low into the dark place, when we go down into
the valley of the shadow, then the place to go is to the Lord
Jesus Christ and to lean upon Him, lean sweetly upon Jesus. There's a lovely hymn by Horatius
Bonner, he says these words, I have no hope but thine, nor
do I need another arm save thine to lean upon. It is enough, my
lord, enough indeed. My strength is in thy might,
thy might alone. I have no other arm. And this
is what this man is saying concerning his child. I have no other help
I've been to the physicians, I've been to the doctors, and
they've not been able to help. Just as a woman with the issue
of blood. She'd spent her all, and so she
was not one with better. But she came to the Lord Jesus,
or the one that touched the hem of his garment. She'd spent all,
but she ventured on him. God grant that when we're in
trial, when the Lord brings us under trial, that he will grant
us that faith to believe and to trust in him. John Newton
says in one of his hymns, Lord, I cannot let thee go till the
blessing thou bestow. Do not turn away thy face. Mine's
an urgent pressing case. God grant us in our urgency,
in our pressing cases, that we might indeed cry out to our Lord
Jesus Christ, Lord I believe, help thou mine unbelief.