If you wish to follow along,
turn to Mark chapter 9. I used this in my conclusion
last week and tried to give you just a
little taste of what I'm going to preach on this morning. Mark
chapter 9. Notice what it says in verse
14. And when He came to His disciples,
Now this seems to be a mundane kind of thing, just a normal
everyday occurrence, but if you read the preceding context, you
realize that he was with his disciples, and they were asking
him questions. As a matter of fact, I think
it was, what, three of them, Peter, James, and John, had just
recently come down from the mount, what we call the mount of transfiguration,
and ensued him transfigured. Then they began to talk about
Elias. So here you have them with the disciples, and then
Mark makes this statement, and when he came to his disciples.
So somewhere along the line, he left. There are things that
transpired between verse 13 and the beginning of verse 14 that
we know very little about, but we do know something about it.
So my question then is this, where was Jesus? Where was Jesus? And this is what it says in verse
14, and when he came to his disciples, he saw a great multitude about
them, and the scribes questioning with them, and get the picture
here, they were interrogating the disciples. This is what was
happening. And straightway all the people,
when they beheld him, were greatly amazed, and running to him saluted
him, And men always do this generally at first. Always do that generally
at first. Religious men and women can be
very salutary at first. But that generally changes as
well. And he asked the scribes, that is Christ asked the scribes,
what question ye with them? And I can almost picture the
tone in his voice when he said this. In other words, what are
you doing to my boys? What are you doing to my men? That's what
he's talking about. And one of the multitude answered,
and here's the man that all of this tumult was about, or at
least one of 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. Now think
about this. He had given them power over
demonic spirits prior to this. But here's one they'd come up
against they couldn't touch. And he answered him and saith,
O faithless generation, Today, we want everyone to speak softly
and nicely to us. Our Lord's first response was,
O faithless generation, he included the Father, he included the masses,
he included his disciples. And he answered him and saith,
O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long
shall I suffer you? Bring him unto me. And they brought
him unto him, that is, the young boy, unto Christ. And when he
saw him straightway, the spirit teared him, and he fell on the
ground and wallowed foaming. This had to be an awful experience
for anyone that was around, not to mention the young boy that
was going through this and suffering. And he asked his father, how
long is it ago since this came upon him? And he said, of a child. Now we do not know how old this
boy really was, but it seems to indicate through the Greek
language that it had been some time. And oft times it hath cast
him into the fire and into the waters to destroy him. But if
thou canst do anything, have compassion on us and help us. Jesus said unto him and he responded
in like kind to him now don't Set yourself too far above this
father Remember the disciples have already tried couldn't do
it and they were his disciples Probably many of these people
had seen his disciples cast out demons before oh And he says, if you can do anything,
Lord, help us. And Jesus said unto him, if thou
canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.
In straight way. Now he's already rebuked the
man. Hasn't he? He's rebuked the man. You're a faithless generation.
Included the father in the mix. In straight way, the father of
the child cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe.
Help thou mine unbelief. And for a long time, I didn't
even see that. I mean, I've been trying to preach this gospel
for almost 35 years, and I never seen that. He wasn't saying,
Lord, help me to get a hold of this unbelief and do with it
what I need to. He said, Lord, help thou mine
unbelief. Aren't you glad the Bible doesn't
say that the only people are saved are people who don't have
unbelief? Aren't you glad it doesn't say it that way? Salvation
is for those who believe and for those who believe only. But
it's not for those who totally do not have unbelief. Religion
teaches it almost that way. You have to be able to put unbelief
totally apart. Never any doubts. Well that's
a lie. And 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. And I like that. I charge thee. Exactly. We don't know what the disciples
said before, but they couldn't get it done. Yeah. Oh, but here's
one who did. I charge thee, come out of him
and enter no more into him. And the spirit cried and rent
him sore. still wasn't quite done yet.
And rent him sore and came out of him and he was as one dead
in so much that many said he dead. He killed that boy. That's
what they're accusing Christ of. He's killed this boy. They're
actually saying he's worse off now than what he was before.
He dead now. But Jesus took him by the hand
and lifted him up. and heroes. and when he was come
into the house. Some other things probably took
place here. Remember, when God intentionally leaves something
out, it's because God is pointing us to zero in on what he did
give us, not speculate about what he didn't give us. And this
is what much of religion does today. They want to teach and
speculate about what's not there, rather than concentrating on,
and as you said, Joe, bowing down before God's word and what
is said. When he was coming to the house,
his disciples asked him privately, why could not we cast him out?
That's a normal question, isn't it? And he said unto them, now
here's where Jesus was. Here's where Jesus was. This
kind can come forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting. Now let me, oh listen to me. When you read these words, if
you're anything like me, and I know you are, our mind begins
to wonder. What's he talking about here?
Here it was, here's what he's talking, he was preparing himself
for the deliverance of two objects of divine mercy. Don't try to
figure out what it takes, only he can do this. You hear what I'm saying? What
does it mean in prayer and fasting? Here's what I'm talking about.
I wanna expose a few false ideas first. There are whole denominations
built upon the idea, how can we do things like this? So if
it takes prayer and fasting to get spirits like this out of
people, then what I gotta do is figure out how to do that
kind of praying and fasting. You can't. Because you're not
the omnipotent God and see it coming. Because to fast, you
don't just miss one meal or one sandwich. It takes, fasting is
a few days. He knew this was coming. He was
preparing himself for it. Things like this hit us right
in the face. Nothing ever hits our God right in the face. He
was out there praying and fasting, preparing for this mercy to be
shown. And that's all we need to know
about it. We cannot do it, the disciples have already tried.
And you've got to know what's coming down the pike. And you
don't. And I don't. We cannot stop the
madness. If I thought I had that power,
there would not be a person left in the hospital over at Beckley.
I'd go there and clean it all out. I'd heal every one of them,
send them home. And I'd tell, people would get
mad. I'd tell all the nurses and doctors, now you're going
to find somewhere else to do work. But even our Lord didn't do that.
Did he? But that's the way our minds
work, isn't it? It's the way our minds work.
Here's another thing. Here's another false idea. And
I gotta confess to you, I've been caught up in this. There
are people who when they read the Bible and they see things
or people like this young boy here, this young man, he may
have been a young man by this time, we don't know for sure.
He had this problem from a child and it's a little fella. We look
at this and we say, well, what kind of physiological problem
was cured here? Now, I'll give you an example
of what I'm talking about. When I took under Jay Wimberly years ago
and took those classes and lessons, I had to, one of the things I
had to do every month was take a book of the Bible and outline
it. And of course, I'm not smart
enough to just look at a book and say, okay, I'm going to,
I'd go into commentaries and they'd have outlines. I would
read them and see which one seemed to be the best. Well, I remember
distinctly coming upon this passage and I titled it in all of its
appropriate things, Christ heals the epileptic. Because a lot
of people say this boy was an epileptic. You see, what we always
try to do is narrow this down to some kind of physiological
malady. It wasn't a physiological malady
this boy had. He had a spirit inside of him
that was tormenting him to death. He was demon possessed. I still feel bad about every
time I think about when I wrote that down like that. I've been
embarrassed at myself about that. What kind of physiological problem
was cured here? When men and women will admit,
well, epilepsy is demon possession, then I'll say it was epilepsy.
But if you look at it, it could have been chiggers. Have you
ever had a bad case of chiggers? They can make you do a whole
lot of the same stuff. No, that's silly. We laugh a little, but
you understand what I'm saying? Be careful of falling into that
trap. Well, that kind of stuff, here's
the third one. That kind of stuff happened back
there, but that was in old, archaic days. These people really did
not understand. Now we need to deal more with
social and political issues. Oh, no. It's still all about
demon possession. demonic influence, anti-Christ
spirit in this world. And we battle not against flesh
and blood, but against principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness
in high places. In our enlightened age, we think
all these people are really old and dumb and ignorant, and they
really didn't know what was going on, and this poor boy either
had epilepsy or chiggers. No, that's not what it was about.
What it's all about, here's the thing, here's the thing. It's
always about the need for mercy. That's what it's always about.
Even if you have a physical, physiological malady, it's about
mercy. Because one, you and I don't
deserve to be healed. Our physiological problems come
upon us because we live in a sin-cursed world. And in a manner of speaking,
I'm not going to sit here and try to doctrinally argue this.
We started this thing in our daddy Adam. And we just keep
it going and keep it going and keep it going. No, it's always
about a need for mercy and who can show it, who can give it,
and who can make it stick. Who can make it stick? So, second, here's the second,
this passage reveals to us the who and the only who that can
do and show and make stick a mercy like this. It's the one who is
none other, look at, I'm not gonna read it, look at chapter
nine verses one through 10, get the context, it's one who is
none other than God Almighty manifest in the flesh. Peter,
James, and John went up on this mountain with him, and they seen
him transfigured before their physical eyes, so much so that
even the clothes he had on were glorified with the glory that
he truly had down inside here, being God Almighty clothed in
human flesh. Mark puts it that his clothes
were so white that a fuller can't even whiten them like that. Another
writer said it shone his clothes shone as the noonday sun. The only one who can show mercy
is God Almighty manifest in the flesh. There is but one mediator
between God and man, and man, that's the man, Christ Jesus. You either have mercy from Jesus
Christ or you will have no mercy at all. Secondly, the only one
who can do this is the one who is God's foreordained prophet.
Look at verses 11 through 13. that promised one that was sent.
The one who would be heralded by Elias. I'm not gonna go into
that. Let me just state this. I mean
we know you got a lot of people who believe certain eschatological
things. They're always putting everything
out in the future. Christ said Elias already come.
That's what he said. Now who do I believe, them or
him? Who do I believe, them or what
I think? Because I have certain ideas about future events. That
don't matter. Right here's what it means. This
is God's prophet. What's that mean? This is the,
that prophet that should come. What's that mean? Everything
he says is exactly right. Peter had some missteps. He was
an apostle, but he had some missteps. Peter was here in that group
of 12, or at least 12, you know, there were still 12 up there.
They couldn't cast out this spirit. Mm, this passage reveals to us
again the who and the only who that can show mercy. So then,
where was Jesus? He was being God. And he was
doing what God does. He was preparing himself to show
mercy. I'm not talking about he had
some fault and had to, see we all, our minds, what's he talking
about? He was preparing himself for these acts. I'm gonna go
cast out that foul, dumb spirit. He knew what was going on down
there, Joe, before he ever got there. While he was up there,
wherever he was, fasting and praying about it. Isn't that
what it says? That's what he said. What was
he doing then? Fasting and praying. Leave it
with him. He does that business before the Father. It's not our
business. Leave it alone. Don't step in
the middle of it. The demon may come out and tear
you. Remember some folks, the seven sons of Sceva? Yeah, yeah. We know Paul, we know Jesus,
but we don't know you. Be careful. Just be careful. Oh, our minds love to wander
and it always comes back to this. God Almighty and the person of
his son must show me mercy or I'll have no mercy. We like to
wonder about this and about that. Stop wondering, deal with what
the book gives you, and only with what the book gives you,
and God'll give you something from it. But if you're trying
to discover all the deeper things that are not there in the book,
you're gonna miss what's even there. You're gonna miss what's
there. So let's, briefly, let's see
this example of this mercy. Here's the first thing. Mercy
is only for those who are shut up unto it. Yes, sir. You hear
what I said? Yes, sir. Mercy is only for those
who are shut up unto it. This son, this boy, young man,
whatever he was at this time, there was nothing in the world
he could do about this. That's right. Now, was there?
Exactly. Nothing in the world. Now, I'm going to say something
here. I think in our day and age, we call many things physiological
maladies when they may very well be demonic possession. That's
right. if not at least demonic influence. And what do we do?
We feed people drugs. We feed people drugs. Now I'm
not saying, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that those things
can't be helpful. We feed people drugs for everything. And it
just dumbs them down even further to the real problem down in here. I think we're drugging many people
right straight on to hell. I think so. Now I'm not against
drugs. I started to say it used to take
a lot of them, but we won't go there, will we? Strike that off, but
take that off the TV. No, let's face the facts. We
are sinful fallen creatures in need of mercy, but most of us
don't know we need mercy. Most of us think we can take
a pill or go to a meeting or some meetings and talk about
these things and we'll straighten all our problems out. The only
one who can ever really straighten our problems out is Jesus Christ. Whatever your problem is, whether
it's epilepsy, or whether it's chiggers, or whatever it might
be, if it's a foul, evil spirit within you, only Christ can do
that. This father could not help that
boy. I take it he was at the end of
the rope for him, as we put it, you know what I mean? He was
at the end of his rope, he didn't know what else to do. And think
about it, we look at him and say, well, he said, I believe,
help them, I don't believe. He was taking him to the master,
but the master wasn't with the disciples. He was somewhere else. And he meets the disciples first. And they said, well, basically,
I'm adding in a little, let's give it a shot. They'd done it
before, hadn't they? They'd cast out demons. They
come back one time and said, Lord, the demons are even subject
to us. And what did he tell them? Oh,
what a great gift I've give you. No, you don't rejoice in that.
You rejoice that your names are written in heaven. Mercy, mercy,
mercy. That's what it's all about. That's
what it's all about. And here are the disciples, and
they tried. They couldn't do it. He's got reason to doubt. Don't he? Don't he have reason
to doubt? The disciples couldn't do it.
Here's the second thing, mercy is only discovered when all the
facets of false mercy have been exposed. God don't just go around and
drop little things at mercy. Here's some guy walking down
the street, has a foul spirit and all of a sudden he walks
by the Walmart and everything's now okay. God will put you through the
wringer. when he shows you mercy. Look at this account here. He'll
put you through the ringer when he shows you mercy, just so you'll
know what mercy's really like. Just so you'll know what mercy's
really like. Think about it, the Bible quoters
couldn't help the scribes. Oh, they were doing, were making
things worse. Can you imagine how this father now felt? The
disciples tried, couldn't do it. And all of a sudden, there's
a multitude to start with. They're taking this boy to Jesus.
Jesus ain't there. There's the disciples. They can't
do it. And now the disciples are being interrogated about
this matter. The boy, he don't know much of what's still what's
going on. He's out of it, man. You know, he's out of it. The
Bible quoters can't help. Just quoting the Bible ain't
the difference. It takes a sovereign act of God
to show mercy. Like I said, mercy is only discovered
when all the facets of false mercy are exposed or exhausted. Even God-sent instruments cannot. If you lean upon a preacher,
And God Almighty ordained a pastor. Pastor teachers are called the
ascension gifts of Jesus Christ. And I'm not trying to build myself
up. I'm just telling you what the book says. And yet don't
lean on me. As Earl used to say, I'm a broken
stick. I'm a clay pot. It's not the
pot that's the glory. It's what God put inside. And
what's that? His truth. His word. That's what it's all about. Even God sent instruments couldn't
do it. See, I cannot save you. All I can do is point you to
Him who saves. I can show you mercy, but it can only be a temporary
kind of thing. It will not cast out any foul
spirit you got, whatever your foul spirit is. We can but proclaim,
but I can't show, give, and make mercy stick. I can't do it. If I could, every one of my blood
kin would be saved and would have mercy. Everybody else may
be on their own, unless I liked you. No, mercy will always have its
detractors. The circumstances were against
this man and this boy finding any help. Were they not? Remember,
the disciples' inability to cast out the demon happened before
Christ was even there. The circumstances were against
both these people, the father and the son. The scribes were
against them, the masses were against it, even the disciples
were in trouble here, because they became a part of the problem.
Why doesn't it say, well they said, hey, we couldn't do it,
but we know one who can. Is that what they did? No, here's
the glory, even in spite of us, Jesus will show up when he's
purposed to show mercy. Even if we're at fault, even
if Joe were exacerbating, making the problem worse. If he's pleased
to show mercy, he'll show up. And he'll rebuke us and everything
else, if that's what it means. And you know what, when you get
rebuked, if you believe God, you know what you do, you kick.
Oh, that preacher made me mad. Boy, that hurt my feelings. Oh,
I'm so mad. I could scratch chiggers all
day long. Huh? No. Bow down. Bow down. Because if myself or
Joe or any other person stands behind this podium and declares
to you the Word of God, it's not us you're bowing to. It is
Jesus Christ. Mercy will always have its detractors.
This father had his problems. The son had his problems. This begs my last point here.
Mercy, our Lord puts it this way, mercy is always associated
with faith. I said it's associated with faith.
You don't come up with faith and get God to give you mercy.
That's not what happened here, is it? This man didn't come up
and say, Lord, I believe, therefore you got to do this because I
got faith. Is that the way he responded? No, he said this.
How long has this boy had this problem? The same time and a
time we've had our problem, from a child. From a child, from the
beginning, way back yonder. This ain't something new, our
problem ain't something new, it's from a child, and what happens?
It oftentimes casts us in the fire, the waters, it wants to
destroy us. But if thou canst do anything,
have compassion on us and help us, and Jesus said, just believe. Can you believe? If you believe,
do you know what true faith says? I do, but I doubt to. All true faith, all true faith
still has unbelief right alongside of it because it's in fallen
men and women. It's in fallen men and women. Christ said if you had faith
as, what was it? Grain and mustard seed, you could
say to this sycamine tree, be thou plucked up by the roots
and cast into the sea. I don't believe he was exaggerating.
He could say to this mountain, be removed. I can't do that. I can't even make him give me
a raise at work. Let alone do that. It shows us, it shows us how
little faith we have. But here's the glory, that little
faith is God's gift. Don't despise it. Don't despise
it. You don't have faith in the measure
that Christ did, because you ain't Christ. I ain't Christ,
but he is. He says, if thou canst believe,
all things are possible to him that believeth. Now is Jesus
talking merely about possibilities? Jesus is God manifest in the
flesh. He knows what he's gonna do for these two people here,
doesn't he? But he's saying, trust me, lean
on me. Your original inclination is
right, come to me. Isn't it? Come to me. Now you
will be sidelined. You'll meet some of the disciples.
And some of us will say, well, I got the answer for you. And
we'll try and it won't work. You know, this is what I'd say,
you know, people, and I have to say that probably in this,
we're a small group, but I have to say as a pastor, I don't get
a lot of those pastoral questions. I think it's because you heard
me preach so long, you know, I'm not going to tell you, I'm not going to
tell you to leave me alone. Go figure this out in a word, you
know, I don't have a lot of advice to give you besides this and
it's the same advice I try to tell myself over and over believe
God Believe God how am I gonna fix this you ain't you ain't
Only Christ can fix this just believe him and Here's what true
faith says. True faith receives even rebuke
about the absence of it. Yes, sir. Isn't that what it
says? Verse 19. Oh, ye faithless generation.
A person without faith would say, well, I'm out of here. Right? And they do it all the time.
Do they not? Even in our small group, as I've
said over and over, we've had more people leave here that said
they believe the gospel, and I mean leave with hate toward
the gospel, than we have who are left here that believe the
gospel. The group that's left us bigger
than the ones that stayed. But you know what? That's all
right. It's truly all right. True faith receives even rebuke
about the absence of it. Oh, faithless generation. But
that man knew, here's my only hope. He'd learned that by hard experience. Had he not? You see, he'd learned
that, even the disciples couldn't do it. True faith, secondly,
true faith confesses the presence of rank unbelief. That's what
true faith always does. Lord, I believe. help thou mine
unbelief." You see, every Sunday, you've been taught this gospel
even for 30 some years, and some of you were taught it under Earl
even before that, that we hear this gospel over and over and
over, but we're so surrounded by lies and errors, it seeps
in. And the problem is the lies and
error that seeps in through these and this, it's got something
to connect with down in here, my old evil heart of unbelief. And I find myself trying to somehow
fix my unbelief. I can't even fix that, let alone
a son. You see it? Lord, I believe you
deal with my unbelief. You see it? That's what he said.
Lord, I believe I've got rank unbelief. God, you deal with
that, please. Deal with that just like you gotta deal with
my son. Now that is not the way religion, so-called Christian
religion today's preaching. But folks, that's the truth given
to us here in God's word. Let me sum it up this way. True faith has Christ as its
source and sustenance. I don't know that this father
ever knew that Christ, for however many days, however long it was,
that Christ was already, Mackie was already up there praying
and fasting about doing this for these two. But you know what? Whether he understood all that
or not, he got the same mercy nonetheless. Was it not? You don't have to be a theologian
and figure it all out. If Jesus shows you mercy, bless
God you'll have mercy. You'll have mercy. Your foul
spirit will be cast out. So then, who assured this mercy? Who assured this grace? Who assured
this compassion for this father and this son? Christ did. Christ
did. And he lets us know he was always
about assuring this for his people. Why couldn't we cast this one
out? He said, look at it, let me find it. And I'm on the wrong
page. And he said unto them, this kind can come forth by nothing
but by prayer and fasting. Thank God. Listen, what is prayer? What is prayer? It's crying out
to God. Even God manifest in the flesh,
the Son cried out to the Father. And what is fasting? It is to
deny yourself. Things of this world, specifically
food, for a greater purpose. Exactly. That's right. You see
Christ when he was here, he wasn't here. So I had everybody come
look at me and look how great I am. Matter of fact, sometimes
he told people, don't you let them know what happened. And
then he not, he go along and heal somebody to say, don't let
nobody know about this. If there were legal, I mean, law matters,
he would go to go do what the law says to do. Right. But you
don't have to tell anybody. No, but let me tell you, What
he did do gives him inestimable glory. So that one day every
knee will bow and every tongue will swear that Jesus Christ
is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Now, here's mercy. God's
allowed some of us to do that now. Now. Not just then in the judgment,
but now. My brothers and sisters, that's
mercy. That's mercy. Oh God, teach us. Teach us, and we know it must
come through experience, and experience has its tribulations
and trials. Oh God, we believe. Help thou
our unbelief, in Christ's name, amen. I'm good.