Thank the Lord today for his
kindness that brought us here. As I often would remind people
that, you know, you couldn't be anywhere else today. When
you got up this morning, you thought you could go anywhere
in the world, but you couldn't be anywhere
but here. And how do I know that? because you're here. These things don't happen by
chance. Even as those Gibeonites, and
they concocted this scheme in their mind, but it was a scheme
ordained by Almighty God. And as surely as They concocted this scheme, the
Lord, though they, in some sense, they meant it for evil, even
as Joseph's brothers meant his carrying off into Egypt. They
were just thinking of self-preservation at the time, but they serve as
an illustration of those who have no other hope but to apply
themselves to Christ. Now, religious men have many
avenues by which they feel like that they can approach unto God,
and Christ is one of them. I mean, a lot of people believe
that it's Christ, that they have an access to God, but they also
believe that They can kind of enhance that a little bit by
the things that they do. They think that they can earn
the favor of God by their obedience, and they look around them, and
they often compare themselves among themselves. And they feel
like, well, you know, I'm doing pretty good because look at old
so and so over there. But the Lord looketh on the heart. And that's a frightening thing. When the heart is deceitful and
desperately wicked, who can know it? And so when a man thinks
that he, because of his heart, that he has some place of standing
with the Lord, he's sadly mistaken. The Lord knows exactly where
you are. He knows what you are. And you
can't hide anything from him. But he is gracious that in spite
of who we are, in spite of what we are, the Lord is pleased to
rescue his people who are by nature the children of wrath
even as others who walk according to the same spirit that works
in the children of disobedience. But by the grace of God, we're
not appointed unto wrath, but to receive the glorious salvation
of Christ. And what can any of us say but
thank you, Lord, for your abundant mercy and kindness that brought
us to the place where we are right now? Because we don't have
anything that we can boast of. And everything that we can think
of to be ashamed But the Lord is gracious, kind to all who
call upon his name. We're looking in Mark chapter
nine, and I'm not gonna read the whole passage. I'm gonna read down through verse
29, and then we'll look at those verses if we have time. And he said unto them, 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 after six days, Jesus taketh
with him Peter and James and John, and leadeth them up into
a high mountain, apart by themselves, and he was transfigured before
them. And his raiment became shining,
exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can white
them. And there appeared unto them
Elias with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. And Peter
answered and said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here.
And let us make three tabernacles, one for thee, and one for Moses,
and one for Elias. For he wist not what to say,
for they were sore afraid. And there was a cloud that overshadowed
them, and a voice came out of the cloud saying, this is my
beloved son, hear him. And suddenly, when they had looked
round about, they saw no man any more, save Jesus only, with
themselves. And as they came down from the
mountain, he charged them that they should tell no man what
things they had seen, till the Son of Man were risen from the
dead. And they kept that saying with
themselves, questioning one with another what the rising from
the dead should mean. And they asked him, saying, Why
say the scribes that Elias must first come? And he answered and
told them, Elias verily cometh first, and restoreth all things. And how it is written of the
Son of Man that he must suffer many things, and be said it not.
But I say unto you that Elias is indeed come, and they have
done unto him whatsoever they listed, as it is written of him. And when he came to his disciples,
he saw a great multitude about them, and the scribes questioning
with them. And straightway all the people,
when they beheld him, were greatly amazed, and running to him, 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,
pineth away. And I spake to thy disciples
that they should cast him out, and they could not. He answered
them, 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.
And when he saw him, straightway the spirit tear him, and he fell
on the ground and wallowed foaming. And he asked his father, how
long is it ago since this child came unto him? or since this
came unto him. And he said of a child, and of
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. And Jesus said unto him,
if thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believe
it. And straightway the father of
the child cried out and said with tears, I believe, 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 we not cast
him out? And he said unto them, this kind
can come forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting. Now, this is quite an interesting
passage of Scripture, and one which some I believe stumble
over, but to me seems quite straightforward. As the Lord said, 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. Now there are many who try and
won't in their scheme of thinking about end time things, as they
call it, eschatology for a big word, that the kingdom of God
is something that's yet to come. It's down the road out there,
and we're just in something right now, but where one day, the Lord
Jesus Christ is going to come back and establish his kingdom
on the earth, and that's going to be the kingdom, and they take
this passage of scripture and they have a hard time dealing
with it, but they've managed to do it somehow, you know, in
saying that. Now to me, as I read this, it
seems pretty straightforward, that the kingdom of God coming
with power, is the demonstration of the Lord Jesus Christ is that
one who alone is the revelation of God to men and the spokesman
for God to men. God who at sundry times and in
divers manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the
prophets hath in these last days Now, that's a term you hear people
say, well, I wonder if we're in the last days. It seems like
we're in the last days. Yes, we're in the last day. We've
been in the last days ever since Christ came. There is not another
time. This is the time. This is the
day of salvation. This is the unfolding of the
kingdom of Almighty God through Jesus Christ. And so we see it. And so he says to these disciples,
I'm not sure who all was present when he said this, but he said,
there are some of you standing here who shall not taste of death
till they see the kingdom of God come with power." Now I don't
know how much more power could be demonstrated of coming than
what is set forth before us immediately in these verses that follow this
passage of scripture. After six days, he took Peter,
James, and John with him. He said, there be some of you.
He didn't say there would be all of you. He said, some of
you will see this, will be given this privilege. Now, you know,
the Lord works in mysterious ways. He does things according
to his timetable. And he shows various men things
that he wants them to see that he does not show to everybody.
And so in this case, He did not take all of his disciples with
him, but he took Peter, James, and John. Now, you can speculate
as to what that reason for taking them was and all of that sort
of thing, but nonetheless, these were those of whom he spoke would
not taste of death till they had seen this with their own
eyes. And so the Lord took them up into what's called the Mount
of Transfiguration. And the scripture says that he
was transfigured before them. Now that word just means that
he was changed into a glorious sight that they had never beheld
before. In fact, in Matthew's account
of this, they were put into a deep sleep. as this was taking place
because I believe that the glory of what took place here was so
grand on such a grand scale that it's impossible that they could
have beheld it in its fullness. But in the And so as Matthew
records it, Moses and Elias, they were conversing. Now I don't
know what they were conversing about. They were conversing about
the fact that the Lord Jesus was going to lay down his life
and rise again from the dead, but then these disciples awoke
and saw this as it was almost over. But so his raiment, the
scripture says, was shining white. There's no fuller on earth, nobody
with bleach or whatever could make it as bright as this. It
was brighter than what men can imagine. And there appeared unto
them Elias or Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus.
Now, Elijah, of course, as we read the scriptures, is considered
to be the chief of the prophets. I mean, he was an amazing character. He did not see death, but he
was taken up in the chariot of fire into the presence of God. Moses, No man knows where his
sepulcher is to this day. Now, I'm not sure what exactly
that means, but the scripture says the Lord buried him. But
these were two men who were specifically set apart to represent that which
the Lord would reveal unto men. Now, the revelation of God to
men is that which was not all at once. I mean, you see, the
Lord gave the Old Testament. He didn't reveal everything that
we see in the New Testament until he was ready to reveal it. But
he revealed the truth from the beginning, as he told the prophets. that he prophesied to Satan that
the woman was going to bruise his head. Even though he would
bruise his heel, the Lord Jesus would come through the woman
and destroy him. Now that is the gospel. And so
that was the truth from the beginning. Now some think that there have
been various ways that men have come into the presence of God
in acceptability down through the ages. A lot of people try
to say, well, the Jews were saved by all these bulls and goats
and things that they offered up unto the Lord. But there's
only ever been one sacrifice that's acceptable in the courts
of heaven. And that is the sacrifice of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And all of those bulls and goats
could never take away sin. Scripture plainly says that.
They never could. So what was the purpose? The
Lord was showing by type and shadow, just like he sent forth
Moses as the giver of the law. And so Moses, we could say, is
the law, and Elijah is the prophet, the law and the prophets. Now,
the law and the prophets is an interesting and a needful part
of the revelation of God. Without the law and the prophets,
we could not understand or see. Without the law, we wouldn't
know what sin is. And without the prophets, we
would not have any understanding of what God has set forth to
do in the earth. And so it is that Elijah and
Moses were talking to the Lord. And Peter, being Peter, as he
awoke, was overwhelmed by the sight of this. Now keep in mind
that up until this time, Moses and Elijah were prominent figures
in the Jewish thought, and no doubt in Peter's thought, and
in the rest of the disciples. But the Lord's going to teach
them something here that they've never known before. And so Peter,
not knowing what to say, the scripture says that. It says
he didn't know what to say. So he just thought he needed
to say something. You know, a lot of times people do that, don't
they? They think they need to say something, and a lot of times
we'd be better off if we just didn't say anything. And Peter
would have been better off if he'd just not said anything and
just waited to see what was gonna happen. But he said he came up
with a plan. He came up with something good.
See, religious men always come up with something they think
is good. Sounds good. I mean, you know, this would
be a good idea. Let's build tabernacles under
Moses and Elijah, and we'll build one for you, Lord. But in a moment's
time, Elijah and Moses disappeared. And the Lord said, this is my
beloved son, in whom I am well pleased, hear you him. Now the kingdom of God came with
power that day because they were brought to a place they had not
been brought to before. They saw that Jesus Christ alone
is greater than the law, greater than the prophets. And all of
those things have had their place and still do occupy a place. But Christ is the preeminent
one. If we want to know who the prophet that the Lord has sent
into the earth is, it's Jesus Christ. There's not another one. And any prophet who has come
either before or after, supposedly after, there have been no prophets
after Jesus Christ. not prophets in the sense in
which we're speaking about a prophet here. Christ is the prophet. He is the word of God. He's that
one beside whom there is none else. And we need not look to
another. Now there have been men down
through there, there are many religions, some huge religions
in the present day that all revolve around people that were supposedly
prophets. Think of Mormonism, think of
with Joseph Smith, he claimed to be a prophet. We got Muhammad,
he said he was a prophet. There've been numerous prophets
who've arisen. I'm telling you, they're all
imposters. There's one prophet sent from
God. The kingdom of God has come, and Jesus Christ is the king
of that kingdom. And that's what these disciples
were brought there that they might learn. And as they came
down from the mountain, He charged them that they should tell no
man what things they had seen till the Son of Man was risen
from the dead. Now here He is. He's telling
them something else that they hadn't thought about. I mean,
they didn't know about it. They didn't understand because
here's what it says. And they kept that saying with
themselves, questioning one with another, what the rising of the
dead? What does he mean, rise from the dead? I mean, he's come
into the world here to establish this earthly kingdom and destroy
these Roman oppressors and whatnot. How is it, what's his business
about rising from the dead? He can't die. I mean, he's come
to do this. See, they didn't know. They didn't
understand. But the Lord would show them.
And then they asked him, saying, why say the scribes that Elias
or Elijah must first come? And he answered and told them,
Elias verily cometh first and restoreth all things, and now
how it is written of the Son of Man, he must suffer many things.
When he said Elias has come, what did he mean? Well, he's
speaking of John the Baptist. One of the other gospels says
he spoke of John the Baptist. Elijah has come according to
the prophecy. He was the harbinger of Christ.
He was the one who would come before Christ. But he's passed
away. And the Lord said, you know,
Elias did come and men hated him. Just like in all ages, men
have hated the word of God. The prophets of God that he raised
up in time past have all been hated of men. They've been put
to death. They've been tortured. They've
been disregarded. They've been counted of no value. And, of course, John the Baptist,
of him, he said, there's not arisen a greater prophet than
John the Baptist among men. He said the one who's least in
the kingdom of heaven is greater than John the Baptist. Now what
did he mean by that? Well, I believe that what he
meant by that was that John came with the same message, basically,
as the Old Testament prophets. He was an Old Testament prophet,
and he came, but he had the message that Christ was the Lamb of God,
take away the sin of the world. He saw more than any of these
other prophets ever saw, more clearly than any of them saw.
But those who have been brought to a fuller understanding of
what it is that Christ has done are greater in the kingdom of
heaven than he is. That is, they have more understanding
of it. They've got a clearer vision, just like these disciples,
these three, they had a clearer vision of what the kingdom of
God was and who Christ was than any of the rest of the disciples.
at that point in time, because it was revealed to them in a
clear fashion. And so it is that men have hated
the gospel. They hated the gospel in the
olden times, and they hate the gospel in the present time. And
men will not hear it. And when he came to his disciples,
he saw a great multitude and the scribes questioned with him.
And there was a man there and they're minged. And these... The Lord asked this question,
what question ye with them? He asked the scribes. See, here
was the Pharisees, they were gonna trip him up again. They
had it in their mind, now we've got a good case. We brought this
man to your disciples who supposedly should have power, because if
you've got power, they should have power. And so, here's this
man. See, he says, why question ye
with them? And of course, he already knew
the answer. And one of the multitude said, Master, I have brought
unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit. And he tells,
you know, that this child, he's been from a child, he's been
possessed with a devil. I don't know how that manifested
itself in that time as far as were there natural Diseases associated
with that, I'm not sure. I mean, what he describes here
would be a classical case of epilepsy, would it not? Now,
you know, the Lord doesn't need epilepsy. diseases to manifest. A lot of people try to explain
these things. I'm not trying to explain it.
I'm saying that it could be that. Now, we see many things in our
day that I believe are probably the result of demon possession
that are cast off as some psychological problem or this, that, or the
other. I mean, you know, when people are hearing voices and
people saying in their mind, go kill somebody, I think that's
more than a psychological problem. But nonetheless, they had brought this child to the disciples of the
Lord and they couldn't do anything. Now, why couldn't they do anything?
Because they didn't have any power. And unless the Lord gives
a man power, he cannot have power. Now, the Lord sent them out and
he specifically told them to cast out devils. But you see,
he sent them to do that. Now that's an important thing.
Because the Lord sends somebody one time does not mean he's giving
them a blanket sending Forever. The Lord sends men to accomplish
a certain purpose. And he sent them to do this.
Now, obviously, they couldn't cast this devil out of this child. Why not? Because the Lord didn't
send them to do it. And so the Lord said, oh, faithless
generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer
with you? Now, who's he speaking to? Now, some have mistakenly
said that he's speaking to the disciples, that he's saying to
his disciples, oh, you don't have any faith, you know, you
couldn't do it. But no, he's speaking to this
crowd who came to him, first of all, as he describes, who
came just not because they desired to see him perform a miracle
unto the glory of God, but because they wanted to make mockery of
him. And so he's speaking to them,
but he's speaking to this man who had the child. And he said,
oh, faithless generation. Now, what was the faith? Why do I say that? Well, here's
the thing. Now, he said to them, see, they
brought him to the disciples because they figured, well, you
know, these guys can do it. Just like religious men think
that they can go somewhere to some religious guru and he can
solve their problems. That you can listen to somebody
with soothing words and he can tell you everything is going
to be all right, and he can smile and pat you on the back, and
he can give you positive reinforcement, and he can make all your trouble
go away. He said, bring him to me. Now,
what was the faith that he directed them to have? Bring him to me. See, they brought him to the
disciples. The disciples didn't have any
power. Brother, we're not trying to get people to come to us.
We don't have anything for them. See, I mean, you can go out here
and you can do all sorts of things, and people do every day. They
say they're doing things in the name of the Lord, but they don't
have any power, they don't have any ability. It's not in men
to do these things. Our faith is not a feeling, it's
not a thing, it's a person. He said, you have no faith because
what you're doing is putting confidence in these disciples
that they can heal this child. He said, you have no faith. Bring him to me. See, our faith
is Christ. It's not what we have, but it's
Christ. See, this is the thing that if
If a man, by the grace of God, ever comes to see that his faith
is not what he's thinking, his faith's not what he's doing,
his faith's not what he's experiencing, his faith is a person. See, our
faith is Christ. I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless
I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. and the life that
I now live, I live what? By the faith of Christ. That is, that faith which centers
itself in Christ. He is my hope. And so he's telling
them, bring him unto me. And they brought him unto him.
And of course, this devil cast down this child in the presence
of the one who was his king. And he said, How long ago has
this come upon him? Now, who did he ask him that
for? He didn't ask the man to tell him that so he would know,
did he? I mean, he made the man. He made the child. He made the
devils that inhabited the child. See, he made all these things.
They belong to him. He wasn't asking for information,
but he was asking these things for the man's sake. so that he
might recount this. And he said, if you can believe,
all things are possible. They just believe. That what
people tell us today? Just believe. They told me that
when I was a kid. Just believe. And I took them
up on it. I did what they said was believing. That wasn't believing. See, because
until God gives a man faith, he can't believe. And apart from a proper understanding
of who it is that the faith is, a man can't believe yet. And straightway the father of
the child cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe,
help thou mine unbelief. Now he confessed, did he not?
True faith. I mean, isn't that true faith?
See, when a man comes to the Lord, he says, Lord, see my faith.
Here's my faith, Lord, I'm holding up to you, I've got faith. Lord,
I don't have anything to do with that. He said, you don't have
anything. See, when a man comes to the Lord, if he had it, and
he said, Lord, he said, it's in the desire of my heart to
believe, but I can't believe. I can't even come to you, I can't
call upon you. I can't do anything, Lord, if
you don't help me. He said, Lord, will you heal
my child? The Lord said, believe. He said,
I want to believe. But apart from you, Lord, I can't
do it. See, that's the same thing that
Peter confessed when he said, to whom shall we go? Lord, thou hast the words of
eternal life. See, this was the same thing Blind Bartimaeus said
when he said, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. You see, it's the same as that
woman that was with the issue of blood. She said, if I can
but touch the hem of his garment. Because she knew it was him.
See, she knew that he was the one in whom Her trust was placed. And he rebuked the foul spirit.
The spirit cried, rend him sore, and came out, and he was as one
dead. I mean, this was a serious thing. The Lord snatched that spirit
from him. And Jesus took him by the hand,
lifted him up, and he arose. And when he was coming to the
house, his disciples asked him privately, why could we not cast
him out? See, they didn't understand it.
I mean, they had cast some devils out, obviously. He sent them
out to do it. They had seen him do it. They'd
even seen it take place, because he sent them to do it. And they
said, we're puzzled. We don't get it. Why couldn't
we do it? I think what the Lord told them
was, look, you can't do it. Apart from me, you can't do it.
Now some have taken this, this kind goeth not out but by prayer
and fasting. Ah, there's the key. What we'll
do is we'll get over here and we'll pray and fast and then
we'll be able to cast the devil out. No. See, without the first, without
first the Lord sending the man to do it. See, the Lord Jesus
Christ, I mean, he was, thought it not robbery to be equal with
God. But what did he do in his spare time? He prayed. You know, I often am puzzled
by that. I mean, we shouldn't be, but
it's just an amazing thing to me that here, the Son of Man,
the Son of God, the Creator of all things, prayed to His Heavenly
Father. And He came to do His Father's
will. He fasted and he prayed. He fasted for 40 days one time. Now the error that men make is
thinking, well, I'll do that. And then I'll be able to do it.
No, it's not the prayer and the fasting. The Lord's saying this
kind of goes not dealt by prayer and fasting. He says, I've showed
you. He says, I'm the one who's prayed
and fasted. He says, I'm the one that has
the power. He's not saying you can do this. He said this kind cannot come
out except it be through prayer and fasting as I have done. He's not trying to get people
to pray and fast. I want you to understand that.
Now I'm not saying there's anything wrong with praying and fasting.
You need to pray and fast as the Lord leads you. But don't
think that's the key to becoming a demon flinger because it's
not. I mean, if the Lord doesn't send you to that task, don't
attempt it. But he said, look, he said, this
is serious business. See, this isn't no joke. Dealing
with evil spirits is no joke. This isn't something to be taken
lightly. It's not something that's a sideshow
in somebody's revival campaign. I've been in some of these meetings
and stuff where people claim they was doing all this stuff.
It's a wonder that it wasn't like the Seven Sons of Sceva,
where those demons just came out and jumped on them. Because
this is not a joke. And in my estimation, it proves
the falsity of the claims of these people that go around doing
such things, because it's not. Some of them, they get destroyed
by these same ones they're supposed to be casting out. I don't know
what all that is. I believe it's just a trickery
of Satan himself to deceive people with all these signs and wonders
and stuff such as that. But the Lord When the Lord does
something, brother, it's done. I mean, these demons, this child,
scripture says that he was as dead. I don't know if he was
actually dead and the Lord raised him to life or he was just almost
dead. I don't know. But nonetheless,
you see, the Lord is the only one that has power to raise men
from the dead. And he did that. Oh, that the Lord might give
us a mind today to know that faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the word of God. And the Lord only can give a
man ears to hear. And the faith, the message that
the Lord gives men to hear is that Christ is our faith. See, we're not trusting in the
things Christ did. We're trusting in Christ. Now,
what He did is part of who He is. And He did indeed come to
do many things that we benefit from. But you see, apart from
a man... A man... See, a lot of times
people will wear a cross around their neck as a piece of jewelry
because It's like they're looking at that and they're saying this
is the thing, okay? Well, that's not the thing. It's
the one that hung on that cross. See, it's not the cross. I mean,
you can put a cross up on the wall and you can fall down and
do whatever you want to do. It's not the cross. It's the
one that was on the cross. It's the one that paid the price
for our sins. See, it's in Him that we trust. It's in Him that all of our hopes
are found. Not in all the things that men
can do or men try to get us to do, but it's Christ and Christ
alone. Christ is all. Somebody have
a question or a comment? Well, may the Lord help us, give
us mind and heart to heed his word, to believe. Do we exhort men to believe? We should. Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. We exhort men. Can they do it? No. Can't do it. I know they can't
do it. But I know the one who can give them faith to do it. And so he told us to exhort men. And may the Lord give men faith
to believe.