It is not that I did choose thee,
Lord, for Lord, that could not be. Yuba-Sutter Grace Church
would like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Rick
Warda. We currently meet at the Yuba
County Library, located at 303 2nd Street in downtown Marysville,
California, on the corner of 2nd and C Street. Weekly services
are held on Sunday at 11 a.m. at the library. For more information,
visit our website at ysgracechurch.com. Now here's our pastor, Rick Warda. The scripture for our sermon
today is taken from Mark, chapter 9, verse 14 through 29. And when
Jesus 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, saluted him. And he asked the scribes, What
question ye with them? And one of the multitude answered
and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath
a dumb spirit. And wheresoever he taketh him,
he teareth him, and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teeth,
and pineth away. And I spake to thy disciples
that they should cast him out, and they could not. Jesus answereth
him and saith, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you?
How long shall I suffer you? Bring him to me. And they brought
him unto Jesus. And when he saw him, straightway
the Spirit tear him. And he fell on the ground and
wallowed, foaming. And Jesus asked his father, how
long is it ago since this came to him? And he said, of a child. And oft times it hath cast him
into the fire and into the waters to destroy him. And if thou canst
do anything, have compassion on us and help us. Jesus said
to him, 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, Lord, I believe,
help thou mine unbelief. When Jesus saw that the people
came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto
him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him,
and enter no more into him. And the Spirit cried, and rent
Him sore, and came out of Him. And He was as one dead, insomuch
that many said, He is dead. But Jesus took Him by the hand,
and lifted Him up, and He arose. And when He was come into the
house, His disciples asked Him privately, Why could not we cast
Him out? And he said to them, This kind
can come forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting. I have
entitled this message, Bring Him to Me. In this scripture,
a man is driven to the Lord Jesus Christ because an evil spirit
controls his son. From early childhood, the devil
often threw the boy into the fire and water, intending to
destroy him. In great compassion towards the
father and with great power, the Lord Jesus Christ delivers
the man's son from the evil spirit. Notice, while Christ cast the
devil out of the pleading father's only son, the scribes remained
in their madness. This is always the way it is.
This scene is a snapshot of humanity throughout time. King Solomon,
the wisest man to ever live, who was called the preacher,
said in Ecclesiastes 9, the heart of the sons of men is full of
evil and madness is in their heart while they live. The Lord
puts this scene before you and me today. Will we flee to Christ
for salvation and the faith to believe Him? Will we come to
Christ to be delivered from the evil of our sin and its consequences
as this Father did with His Son? Or will we remain in the blindness
of our pride and unbelief as these hypocritical mockers, these
religious experts, and this nameless, confused crowd? May God have
mercy on you and me by drawing us to see and call upon Christ,
the great God and the only Savior of sinners. In this scene presented
to us in scripture, there are six different characters or groups
of people. First, there is the evil spirit. Evil spirits can and do control
unbelievers. Until the Lord saves us, we are
taken captive by the devil at his will. Paul told Timothy that
the servant of the Lord must, in meekness, instruct those that
oppose themselves, if God, peradventure, will give them repentance to
the acknowledging of the truth, and that they may recover themselves
out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him
at his will. 1 Timothy 2.24-26 We are unable to know God as
He has revealed Himself in Scripture until God shines His light. The devil is called the God of
this world because he holds unbelievers in deception. Paul said in 2
Corinthians chapter 4, If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them
that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the
minds of them which believe not. By nature, we are aliens to God's
saving grace in Christ. We live our lives according to
the principles of the prince of the power of the air, as is
said in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 2 through 3. Nothing short
of a miracle of God's grace can deliver us. Men have no power
against the deception of the devil. Scripture calls him a
roaring lion who goes about seeking whom he will devour. He has one
intent, one aim, to destroy men. The way he destroys men is by
deception. He lies about Christ and his
salvation. He feeds man's natural sinful
desire for his own glory and to satisfy his own lusts. He
convinces the world of ungodly and unbelieving men that salvation
is a work in which we must contribute something. that God can save
only if we let him, that Jesus is not the sovereign God of glory,
the man Christ Jesus, but that he is either not God or not come
into the world, that he was not born of a woman, that he was
not a sinless man, that he did not fulfill all of the will of
God. The devil loves man's religion because man's religion mixes
error with truth. But man's religion is the devil's
lie, and it is fatal. One of the biggest lies that
the devil uses today is that God loves everybody, that Christ
died for everybody, and that the Spirit of God calls all men,
but that only some are saved because they themselves accept
Jesus. This is the false doctrine of
antichrist religion. According to scripture, God loves
and chooses his people. According to Scripture, Christ
loved and died for the Church, all whom the Father gave Him
to save. According to Scripture, men believe
not because they choose to believe, but because they were ordained
to eternal life, and because God the Father draws them to
Christ. Men believe because Christ died
to remove their sins, and now He reigns to give eternal life
to as many as God the Father gave to Him. Men believe because
the Spirit of God raises dead sinners to life out of the riches
of God's mercy and his great love for them. In the scripture
here in Mark chapter 9, the devil took control of this man's son.
Wonderfully, the Lord Jesus Christ has total power over evil spirits,
whose aim it is to destroy us. An evil spirit possessed this
boy. He was unable to hear or speak. The devil tortured him
from childhood. It frequently tried to destroy
him by casting him into fire or into water. The boy and his
father were helpless against this evil. You and I are helpless
against the devil. Unless the Lord Jesus Christ
commands the devil to leave us and enter us no more, unless
He gives life to us by His Spirit, shining the light of the gospel
in our hearts, giving us repentance to the acknowledging of the truth
concerning Christ and His salvation, we will perish for our own sins. Our salvation is in the hands
of a sovereign savior whose power alone is able to deliver from
the greatest enemies of our soul. This is the first lesson in this
scripture. The scribes and unbelieving crowd
remained in the darkness of unbelief and therefore remained under
the condemnation of their sins and in bondage to Satan. But
this boy was saved by almighty sovereign grace. because Christ
by himself took his sins against God's law and obtained for him
eternal redemption and then set him free from the bondage to
the devil and the consequences of his sin. And now our conquering
triumphant Lord of glory by his sovereign authority and in compassionate
mercy and by his almighty power commands the devil to depart
and never return to this boy. The second group pictured in
this account is the scribes and the unbelieving crowd. Jesus
called them a perverse and faithless generation. This crowd surrounded
Jesus' nine disciples. The scribes questioned them while
Jesus was away on the Mount of Transfiguration with Peter, James,
and John. These nine were unable to cast
the devil out of the father's son. No doubt, the scribes denied
Jesus and sought to discredit his mission to save his people.
They discounted his doctrine and mocked his disciples. Psalm
35, 16 calls them hypocritical mockers of Christ who gnashed
upon him with their teeth. Soon, they would be stirred up
by the chief priests, and the people would cry against Christ,
the Lord of Glory, crucify Him, crucify Him. The spiritual children
of these unbelievers are with us today. They speak against
the gospel of Christ, as it is revealed in scripture, under
the guise of being religious experts. They denounce God's
sovereign will in salvation. They deny that Christ obtained
eternal redemption for His elect. They hate the doctrine of God's
irresistible grace, that the Spirit of God, by His life-giving
call, gives repentance and faith to sinners. The Gospel is about
the mighty acts of a sovereign God to save His chosen people
by the redeeming work of His Son, with absolutely no consideration
of contribution of any kind from the sinner. It is about God's
almighty power that raises dead sinners to life and gives them
repentance and faith. Repentance and faith are the
results of salvation, not the cause of it. The crowd and the
religious experts were confused. They reasoned among themselves
and argued with the disciples. Until God in His sovereign mercy
shines the light of the gospel of Christ into our hearts, we
will remain in confusion and in opposition to Christ. This
is the sad backdrop to this miracle. The father called his son a lunatic. But what greater lunacy can there
be than to deny the truth of God concerning his own son and
trample his blood underfoot to our own eternal ruin? May God,
for Christ's sake, grant this mercy to you and me today to
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. Now the third
group we see here in this account are the nine disciples. Jesus
gave power to his disciples over devils to cast them out. But
in this instance, the nine are unable to cast out the devil
from this father's tormented son. Why? According to the Lord,
it was because of their unbelief. Faith is a persuasion that God
is able to do all that he has said. Faith is not believing
God can do anything. It is believing that He will
do what He has said. What God has said concerning
Christ in Scripture must become to me the whole truth about the
way things are between me and God. Faith is believing that
all virtue and power is in Him. There is nothing in me that gives
me reason to believe God. Not my goodness. I have none.
Not my knowledge. I am ignorant. not my strength,
I am the epitome of weakness. Faith is the persuasion that
God raises dead sinners to life, forgives all their sins for what
He received from His Son, and brings them to glory by His power
and faithfulness, and not for anything He finds in me. In fact,
in spite of all He finds in me, Faith trusts God as a little
child, because as a child, faith believes God is able to do all
that he said. Abraham believed God. Romans
4.21 says he was fully persuaded that God was able to do what
he had promised. Sarah believed God. Hebrews 11.11
says she judged him faithful who had promised. Faith stands
on the promises of God concerning Christ and his saving work, knowing
that God will do all he has said. Listen to this promise in Romans
8.34. Who is he that condemneth? It
is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even
at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for
us. Do you rest all of your confidence before God on the revelation
He has given from His Word, that it is Christ who died for His
people, that Christ is risen again, and that He rules heaven
and earth to save sinners, His own people, to the uttermost? Is Christ in glory, interceding
for His own by His blood and righteousness before God, all
your confidence to come to God by Him? Is He your only hope? He is to everyone that believes. Now the disciples believed that
Jesus was the Christ, but in this case they did not believe
Him. They probably went through the
motions they had gone through before to cast out devils, and
it didn't work. They probably said the same words,
but nothing happened. When failure comes because of
our unbelief, then that trial causes us to more clearly understand
that salvation must be in Christ and by Christ alone. But not
only because of their unbelief, Jesus said that this kind only
comes out by prayer and fasting. What is prayer? It is asking
God to do what He has said. It is the inner man coming to
the throne of God's grace in all the nakedness and emptiness
of my need and in my conscience trusting Christ as my all before
God. Christ is the only ground on
which God can hear and accept a sinner, because He, our Lord
Jesus Christ, offered Himself to God in body and soul and was
accepted by God for His people. And prayer is waiting on God
to give and do what He must give and what only He can do. Only
God can give faith. Only He can make me know Christ. Only He can convince me that
Christ has saved His people by Himself, by His offering of Himself
to God in perfect obedience. I am either heard and received
for what God finds in His Son, or I will never be heard and
must forever be damned for my own sin. And Jesus said this
kind comes out by prayer and fasting. What is fasting? It is not depriving myself of
food, though God did use that in scripture to teach true fasting.
True fasting is denying myself that I might lay hold on Christ
in the gospel as my only sustenance, my only wisdom and righteousness
and confidence and hope before God. Job said, I have esteemed
the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. True fasting
is denying myself that I might give the food of Christ crucified
to hungry sinners, that sinners might be set free from the darkness
and blindness of Satan's deception and their own unbelief. God said
in Isaiah 58, Is it such a fast that I have chosen, a day for
a man to afflict his soul? Is not this the fast I have chosen,
to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and
to let the oppressed go free? And that you break every yoke?
Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry? and that thou bring
the poor that are cast out to thy house? When thou seest the
naked, that thou cover him, and that thou hide not thyself from
thine own flesh? From Isaiah 58 verse 5-7 we see
that true fasting is bringing the gospel to oppressed sinners,
that they might be loosed from the bands of their wickedness
and their heavy burdens, and that they might go free from
the yoke of their bondage to sin and Satan. Now the fourth
individual in this account is the boy's father. He is desperate. He witnessed and patiently cared
for his only son through the years of his demon possession.
And this father is wise. He saw that the root cause of
his son's symptom was spiritual. This father loved his son because
he made diligent use of God's means to rid him of the evil
spirit. He took his boy to Jesus' disciples. If we would be wise, if we love
our children, we must do as this Father did. We must take our
children to hear the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith
comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. If you love
your children, you will make diligent use of the means God
has ordained for their salvation. Whatever it takes, take your
children to hear the preaching of God's Word concerning the
Lord Jesus Christ and His mighty acts to save chosen sinners.
Only He can save us and our children from our sins. Only He can deliver
us and our children from the devil, from death, from the wrath
of God, and only He can give us life and faith. Only Christ
puts us in our right mind. Jesus told the Father, bring
him to me. He tells every father the same
today. Bring your sons and your daughters to Christ. Don't bring
them to the water of baptism. Bring them to Christ. Don't bring
them to an emotional meeting to hear music and singing under
the claim that that is worship. Bring them to Christ. It is the
gospel of Christ that is the power of God unto salvation,
not water, not music. It is Christ revealed in His
saving work for great sinners that saves sinners. Paul gave
this instruction to fathers. Bring up your children in the
nurture and admonition of the Lord, Ephesians 6. David spoke
these words in prophecy of our Lord Jesus Christ. Come, ye children,
hearken unto me, and I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Psalm
34, 11. Christ himself must teach sinners
as his dear blood-bought children to reverence and worship God
our Father by believing and coming to him through the Lord Jesus
Christ. And this father gives us an example
of faith and prayer. When Jesus came, he stepped out
of the crowd and told the Lord about his son in great detail.
He told him how the devil had treated him. He asked Jesus to
have compassion on them both. He said, if thou canst do anything,
have compassion on us and help us. The father's life was bound
up in his son's life. He loved his son as he loved
himself. And he spoke plainly and honestly.
When we pray, we should try to tell the Lord our needs and the
burdens of our heart. Tell Him what you've done. Tell
Him what you've failed to do. Tell Him what the enemy of your
soul has done to destroy you and your children. Tell Him what
you tried to do and what failed to save. When you tell the Lord
your sad case and your helplessness, then, when He saves you, you
will know what He saved you from, and you will glorify God for
His mercy. And be sure to tell Him the truth
about yourself. When the Lord told this father,
If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believeth,
the father cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe,
help thou mine unbelief. Tell Christ about your confusion. Tell Him about your unbelief.
True faith, God-given faith, comes honestly to Christ alone
and never trusts in its coming. God-given faith comes for deliverance
from evil within and without. God-given faith comes to Christ
for salvation from powerful enemies of our souls against which we
have no strength, our sin, and the condemnation we deserve from
the hand of God's justice. True faith confesses that I have
no obedience to recommend me to God. God-given faith comes
empty-handed with all of its need. In so doing, we are not
only telling the truth about ourselves, but we are describing
the evil from which Christ alone must save us. When the Lord saves
us, He will make it known what He saved us from. He will get
all of the glory from our own confession of our sin and the
deadness of our souls, the deception of the devil, and our own unbelief.
He will show that it is His compassion, His grace, His power alone that
saves sinners to the uttermost who come to God by Him. The fifth
person in this miracle is the Son who was possessed and delivered
from the devil. Here is a sad case of torment
and helplessness. His father could not communicate
with him. The devil had made him unable
to hear or speak. Think of the grief this caused
his father. And to add more, the devil often
sent him into fits of convulsion, foaming and gnashing with his
teeth in uncontrolled, self-destructive behavior. Not once, but often
this boy had been cast by the devil to the ground and into
the fire and into the water in an attempt to destroy him. Doesn't
this describe all those whom the Lord saves? We are spiritual
lunatics. In our foolishness, we try to
destroy ourselves. We oppose our own salvation.
We do all that we do to save ourselves without coming to Christ
and simply resting on Him and His finished work. By our sinful
behavior, we actively try to destroy ourselves. And worst
of all, we worship idols of men's religion. our free will, our
good works, our religious experiences, as if these were cause for confidence
before God and distinction among men. We try to manipulate God
by our promises of reform or our tears and our emotions, our
decision, our commitments, and our sincerity. We do not see
ourselves as nothing but sin. We think we only need help in
a few areas of life, things that are socially embarrassing. In
all of this, we oppose Christ and His truth. We do not realize
that we are in a prison of our own belief. Rather than looking
to Christ alone, we look to our prayers and our service and our
worship as our confidence for coming to God. And finally, in
this account, the sixth person is our Lord Jesus Christ. Out
of the darkness of the confused and nameless crowd and the opposing
scribes, out of the unbelief of the disciples, In spite of
the seemingly impossible case of sin and evil, the spotlight
of heaven shines bright on our compassionate, almighty, sovereign
Savior. He comes down the mountain of
His honor and glory. He defends His little flock of
disciples against the scribes. He listens compassionately to
the sad tale of woe that sin and Satan have brought into the
life of this father and his son. He sees the evil spirit. He rebukes
the scribes and unbelieving crowd. He now reveals to his disciples
and the father the only salvation for this boy and every sinner. He says, bring him to me. When
Christ is thus lifted up by God in the gospel of his saving grace,
his disciples will believe him. They will see Jesus only. All else in this account now
fades into the shadows as a backdrop against the light Christ shines. He says, bring him to me and
they brought him to him. And when he saw him straightway,
the spirit tear him and he fell on the ground and wallowed foaming.
Here we see something unexpected. When the father brought his son
to Christ, the evil spirit demonstrated its control over the boy in the
very presence of Jesus. When Jesus rebuked the foul spirit,
it rent him sore and came out of him, and he was as one dead,
insomuch that many said, he is dead. When we see that Christ
is our only salvation, our sin may very well appear more powerful
than ever. And this pattern is repeated
in scripture. When Moses told Pharaoh to let Israel go, Pharaoh
laid more burdens on Israel. Moses prayed to the Lord in Exodus
chapter 5. He said, Why have you evil entreated
this people? Why have you sent me? Since I
spoke to Pharaoh in your name, he has done evil to this people. Neither have you delivered this
people at all. And then in Exodus 6 verse 1, God says, Then the
Lord spake to Moses, Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh. The people of Israel saw what
they could do. They were helpless to deliver
themselves from Pharaoh. Moses saw what he could do. He
could not make Pharaoh let Israel go. And Moses saw what Pharaoh
could do. He hardened his heart and refused
to let Israel go. Then the Lord said, Now thou
shalt see what I will do to Pharaoh. Salvation is what God has done
in Christ against our enemies. Faith is seeing what Christ has
done and believing Him for it. God raised up Pharaoh to destroy
him in the height of his pride and strength, so that God's name
would be declared throughout all the earth And that is how
God saves His people. God saves His own when every
obstacle against our salvation appears in its greatest strength. God's justice cries out for our
punishment. We have no power against our
sinful corruptions. We are confused and deceived
by the devil's lies. Then God shines the light of
Christ into our heart. We see that He is all of our
salvation. We are persuaded of it and we
rest in Him and we glorify God for His mercy. The Gospel is
the power of God to salvation because in it the righteousness
of God is revealed. That righteousness is the obedience
of Christ in His life and death. Christ's obedience is the justifying
righteousness of everyone who believes Him. He is able to save
to the uttermost all who come to God by Him. Bring Him to me. Come and tell Him all that you
are not and ask God to show you all that He is. Then look to
Him as He reveals Himself in Scripture and call upon Him to
save you from the enemies of your soul. You've just heard a sermon by
our pastor Rick Warda. You may contact us by email or
by phone or download a copy of this sermon by visiting our website
at YSGraceChurch.com Hmm.