Turn with me to Luke chapter 9. We'll be reading today verses 37 through 45 of the gospel of Luke chapter 9. Continue our efforts to share what the Lord has revealed to us in his word from this gospel and see things in the light of their context as we go from one scene to another and pray that it might broaden our awareness of the things that Luke wrote to Theophilus and the Spirit has written to us through him to understand today what he would have us to understand. I do think that there's a thought that is helpful if we will avail ourselves to it. And so we want to encourage you to follow along with us as we read. Luke 9, verse 37, this right after, of course, the transfiguration of Christ that Peter, James, and John were privileged to see on the mountain. We pick up right there again in verse 37. On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. And behold, a man from the crowd cried out, Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child. And behold, a spirit seizes him, and he suddenly cries out. It convulses him so that he foams at the mouth and shatters him. and will hardly leave him. And I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not. And Jesus answered, O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I going to be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here. While he was coming, the demon threw him to the ground and convulsed him. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the boy and gave him back to his father. And all were astonished at the majesty of God. But while they were all marveling at everything He was doing, Jesus said to His disciples, Let these words sink into your ears. The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men. They did not understand this saying, and it was concealed from them so that they might not perceive it. And they were afraid to ask him about this saying. " Peter, James, and John have just now, prior to this day, the day prior, witnessed the glory of Christ in a transfigured state. They had just overheard a conversation between Moses and Elijah and Jesus. They have just heard the very voice of God as he said to them, this is my son. Listen to him. And verse 37 says just the very next day, not weeks later, not no time to really process all that they had seen, but not yet one day later, even. From the divine revelation that they saw when Christ was transfigured before them on the mountain, they find themselves coming down from the mountain and facing a very different scene. This, I think, we can see something of the pattern of the Christian life here. From mountaintops, where we see amazing things, glorious things, things that we don't yet fully understand and maybe even say things like Peter did, say them at times that are carried away or not fully correct even, but we see incredible moments. From the moment that we first come to Christ and experience salvation to the other spiritual mountaintops that we are privileged on occasion to see, to those moments that we are experiencing great joy and confidence and expectation. I see in this something of a pattern of what it is to walk after Christ in this life. They didn't get to stay on the mountaintop. I have found in my years of trying to follow the Lord that the mountaintop is the exception to the rule. Most days are spent in the valley, spent walking with Christ in a world that is full of sorrow and sin and evil. And inevitably, as we walk down from those spiritual mountaintops—and I might say I am grateful for those mountaintop experiences, as they're called. Grateful for those moments when God's presence is so real that we sense him and we can all but see him with our eyes. We know that he is near. I remember when the Lord saved my soul and he gave me peace. I remember that moment so vividly when just peace flooded. Nothing changed outwardly, but inwardly I had come to know the Lord. After these many years since that day, I've been able, by the Lord's help, to put a lot of words to what happened and theological ideas of what happened that day. But that day, I experienced the joy of the Lord, and I'm thankful for that. And there have been others, other days, between now and then, that the Lord has blessed me with spiritual mountaintops, and he's blessed us even as a church at times. with high points and wonderful times of great joy and confidence but then inevitably it seems we were called to walk back down the mountain and it's often it's just the next day. We are to confront our own weaknesses and as the disciples did and realize that there's little if anything that we can do about the sin and the suffering of the world and this reality I think creates a tension Some might call it a cognitive dissonance, something that just doesn't set right fully, doesn't settle. There seems to be this tension between those mountaintop experiences of God's glory and power and then compared to the experiences of the valley and the human weakness and suffering that fill most of our days. And if we are to remain faithful in the valley of this life, we're going to have to do what Jesus told his disciples here. when he says to them, let these words sink into your ears. If we're going to remain faithful in our lives to the Lord, and I pray that that is our desire, that it is the desire of our heart at its very core, is that we will remain faithful to the Lord. If these words of Christ and the others that he spoke, that have been recorded, and the ones that he speaks to us in our heart, if they don't remain with us, our hope of remaining faithful in this life is bleak at best, if possible at all. These words of Christ must sink, the words, I should say, of Christ ought to sink down into the very core of who we are and what we are about in this life. They must be what remains when everything else is stripped away, when relationships fail, when jobs are taken, when money fails, when health is taken from us. When prosperity, when peace even, and delivery that we've enjoyed from persecution, when these blessings of the blesser are taken from us as they were with Job, these words must sink into our hearts. They must be what's there when nothing else is. In my life, What is in my heart when everything else is stripped away is the peace that I have with God and the ability to say with confidence and certainty, it's well with my soul. Because there is no other remedy for the human heart and the human soul than the salvation offered to us in Christ. And I know this. And when everything else is taken away, that's what I know. When I don't know what else to do or where to go, These are the words that must stay with me, and if we have a title today, it would just simply be what Jesus said, let these words sink in. This contrast from the transfiguration, and again, I don't, at the risk of overstating it, I think when we don't see scripture in its flow and in its revelation of sequence of events, I think sometimes we pull these things out and we're just not able to see them as clearly. And they've just literally walked down the mountain the day prior after having seen Christ transfigured. This, to me, it's like Monday after Sunday. It's like going back to work after being connected to the Lord, maybe in a season of revival or a weekend. It's the Monday after Sunday, where Sunday there was experience of the presence and the fellowship of God and His people. straight from what we might say glory to great need. From hearing the voice of God to hearing cries of people. This was a contrast, a stark contrast that these men had just observed, Peter, James, and John in particular. And we experience similar things in our life that try to follow the Lord. And as they walk down the mountain, they're confronted with evil and need. as this father begs Christ to deliver his son. Teacher, I beg you, he said the father did in verse 38. I beg you. He's already begged the other disciples. Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he's my only child. There's something unique, particularly in Jewish culture, about the only son. He carried the family name. And of course, there is great love between the father and his son, and that in no doubt is the first and primary concern of the father, is that his son live. But even beyond that, this isn't just the suffering of his son. It's the father's entire family line risk being taken and evaporated and disappear. And this was important in the Jewish mind. Jesus, this man says, my son, he's afflicted with this demon. It throws him down. It seizes him in verse 39. He suddenly cries out. He convulses. And he foams at the mouth and shatters him. And it just won't leave him alone. Just this relentless, merciless, destructive oppression of the enemy. And his father says, no one's been able to do anything for him. I begged your disciples and they couldn't. This is what we see in the world. We see evil and suffering. Sometimes we come down from the mountaintop and we're immediately confronted with the suffering of the world, the evil in the world. And it creates that spiritual, cognitive, that mental, emotional dissonance that seems to be a disconnect. And how do we remain faithful to what we saw on the mountaintop as we come down into the valley? The answer is we let these words sink in, what Jesus said. This is what we see in the world today. in the world that we are now walking in. We're shown brief moments of glory on the mountaintops, and I thank the Lord for that, but that is followed by long walks through the valley below. His father said in verse 40, I've asked your disciples to cast this demon out, but they couldn't. Matthew and Mark, by the way, they elaborate more on this. particular occasion than Luke does. We don't want to spend our time talking about that, but we'll reference it momentarily. But Luke simply records that he had had his disciples, the father had tried to have the other disciples cast him out, and they couldn't, but they had done so before. Do you remember Jesus had sent these men out already? And he said, cast out demons. And he said, and they had success in that. They had come back and said, Lord, even the demons are subject to us. But here, here they couldn't. This one, they failed. And now in a public way, maybe perhaps they're embarrassed even. This is where expectations of ours often meet reality, these disciples might have expected to be successful and be effective, they discovered that they were actually powerless, or they rediscovered it, or were reminded of it. When we're on the spiritual mountaintop, we feel as though there is no enemy that will and can ever overcome us. We know with Christ all things are possible. We are convinced of that, and we sign up sometimes for that glory, but we get into the valley and we expect victory, but we are reminded often of our own inadequacy. This is not a deviation from the Christian life. This is the Christian life, an ever-present reminder of our need of Christ and our own powerlessness as we walk through this valley of the shadow of death. We discover that we cannot provide Jesus' response in verse 41, O faithless and twisted generation. I see in this something coming together and it's top of mind for me as I prepare another lesson to be given on the incarnation of Christ. I see in Jesus here humanity and divinity. I sense in him a frustration, certainly not of sin, but a question of faithless and twisted generation. And he's not just talking to the disciples. He uses this word, oh, faithless and twisted generation. He's talking about all men. He's talking about all that were there, all of those that were seeing the miracles, all of those that were professing to be followers of Christ. How long, he says, am I going to be with you? But oh, faithless and twisted generation. The word twisted in the Greek means warped. turned from its proper course. That's what sin did when man fell from the law. His way became sinful. He was turned from his proper course. And in your life and in mine, when we allow sin to take root and to direct our lives, we are warped. Our way is turned and we're turned from the direction that God would have us to go. And if we go long enough, we're gonna wake up one day and realize just how far we have drifted from the path that God had laid out in front of us. And Jesus looks at all of the people and says, you twisted and faithless generation. It echoes Deuteronomy 32, verse five, when Moses said the same thing about Israel. Moses said they've dealt corruptly with God. They are no longer His children because they are blemished. They are a crooked and twisted generation. A perverse generation, he would later say. Children in whom is no faithfulness on the spiritual mountaintops that we are sometimes privileged to experience. The reality in the valley is often distorted from our clear view. Man in his sinfulness is a valley dweller where sin and sickness and violence and death reign. That's what sin has done to the world. That's why everyone ends their life here in a casket. That's why our lives are marching steadily toward a conclusion, because the penalty of sin is death. And this body of sin will pay the price. Man, apart from Christ, is a sinful creature. Had Christ not come, none of us would ever see the mountaintop and would only walk in the valley. And for those who would reject Christ, I say to you, it will be an eternal walk through that valley. Never to see the mountaintop. Jesus says in verse 41, the latter part of it, how long am I to be with you and bear with you? Again, echoes of the Old Testament in Numbers chapter 14. God lamented the same, how long am I going to bear with you? Jesus, I think not only or merely is this a condemnation, but I think it's grief. It's grief as he looked at his disciples and saw their lack of faith. And Matthew and Mark elaborate on that. Because they asked Jesus, why couldn't we cast this one out? And in one record, Jesus says, this one can only be cast out with prayer. In another, he says, you didn't have the faith necessary. I often wonder. I often wonder. I wonder how often even Jesus thought and continues to think, why don't you trust me? As we walk through the valley, I wonder if he looks at us and says, why don't you trust me? I wonder how often Jesus looks at us and wonders, when are you going to truly learn to depend upon me? When are these words going to truly sink in? And despite even all of that grief that Jesus experiences and it communicates here, He does not abandon this Father. In the end of verse 41, He just simply says, bring your Son here. The command to bring Him because he wants to give him the blessing of answering his prayer and his request. He will do, Jesus will, what they could not. And as we walk through the valley, we must always remember that it is Jesus who does the work. It's none of us. The disciples, perhaps, this is conjecture on my part, so take it or leave it, maybe they forgot their dependence. Maybe they thought they'd been given the authority to cast out demons, and so they could do so at any point that they needed to or desired to. They'd been given that authority, but authority must be exercised in faith and in prayer as Matthew and Mark point out. We are again confronted. They are, and so are we, confronted with our inability. And this is by design. God exposes our weakness to ever and always teach us dependence. But if we never feel weakness, we will never feel dependence. And we are dependent. Absolutely every one of us is dependent upon the mercy and the grace of God. We'll take too much time to talk through it, but Jesus commands the demon to come out. Verse 42a, while he was coming, the demon threw him to the ground and convulsed him. One last display here of the destructive power of evil, and evil does not go quietly away in the valley. It will always cause a stir. Evil in our own lives will cause a stir. And when Jesus deals with it, and when we come to Him to have it dealt with in our life, it is not going to go quietly, willingly, without struggle. Sanctification in our life, it's a struggle. Once we are saved, we are called to be sanctified, to become more like Christ. And that is going to require that we walk through the valley with the Lord's words sunk deep into our hearts and sin ever and always as we strive not merely to be righteous or to put on the robes of the Pharisee at all, but to be followers of Christ, to be reminded of our dependence upon Him, and to know that He alone is the one who can remove the evil and remove the tears from everyone's eyes, not us. Jesus rebukes this unclean spirit in verse 42, the same authority that he demonstrated over the wind and the waves in chapter 8 of Luke. Just a word from Jesus and the demon obeys. I want you to think for just a moment. Beings of such power as a demon, and I believe in them, of course, a third of them followed Satan from heaven. You want to think about how convincing and how good of a salesman Lucifer is? He talked a third of the angels out of a place of perfection and holiness before their creator. You don't think he can twist your mind around? You don't think he can take your mind and turn it upside down and make it ask questions rather than seeking answers in God? You seek answers in the world? He talked them out and as Jesus speaks one word, this demon with more power than you and I have at the moment certainly immediately obeys and yet human beings at the continued and repeated plea of Christ disobey. We're a unique creature and we have great responsibility and we will pay a terrible price of accountability in rejecting Him. This demon leaves. Jesus gives him back to his father. He heals him. Physical picture, of course, of what Christ does for us when he prepares us to leave the valley and begin climbing the mountain. Verse 43, all were astonished at the majesty of God. They recognized this is God's power, not human ability. They see what the disciples could not do, Jesus did. And so what we learn in the valley as we walk through it is that we cannot, but God can. We are weak. He is strong. The power resides in the master, not in his servants. Our job is not to be sufficient. Our job is to depend on the one who is. That's what we are to do. Let these words sink in, and I know we haven't spoken of them yet, but we will as we work our way towards the finishing of our remarks. But I want you to think about this for a moment. Verse 43. While they were marveling at all and everything that he was doing, the crowd still celebrating. They see power and expect conquest. At this moment, Jesus interrupts it with a warning of his coming suffering. We should be celebrating Jesus. We should be rejoicing. And no doubt this father was. The disciples would want to rejoice with this stranger as his son was restored to him and the demon cast away and dealt with finally and ultimately by the Lord. And we would want to be celebrating and shouting for joy. And maybe we want to stay in that spiritual moment of great victory. And in that moment, Jesus says, Listen, let these words sink in. Literally, the Greek translated, place these words in your ears. Put them there. It's an imperative command of the Lord Jesus Christ, and so they are responsible to hear, and so are you, and so am I. These words are not going to be words that they understand, but they must listen and put the words in their ears. Our first task is to listen to God. If we do not listen carefully, we will not understand rightly. We ought to strive for understanding because we do not follow blindly. But listen, this is important. And it is normal for us to desire to understand what God is doing, but our desire for understanding while we walk through the valley must always be placed in subjection to God and His timing. We must trust even and especially when we do not understand. We must let His words sink in. The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men. literally on the heels of simply saying the word and the demon departing. This demon, who is far more powerful than any man, he says, I'm going to be delivered over to them. I'm going to be handed over. There is, in the sense of the Greek word, betrayal. The crowd sees majesty, and Jesus speaks of suffering. The crowd is expecting more power, and Jesus predicts the cross. In Matthew chapter 17, in the account of this, we're told by Matthew what else Jesus said. He elaborated, they will kill him, the son of man, and he will be raised the third day. The disciples did not understand what he was saying. That's what verse 45 says. They heard the words. They understood the words. They did not understand what he meant. They couldn't. They didn't see it. Has God ever told you something that you didn't understand, but you knew it was his voice? You knew it was him. I don't understand at all. There may be questions. They did not understand the saying it was concealed from them. And boy, theologians and commentators have argued back and forth whether this was something God did or whether it was them that simply didn't understand. I'm going to skip past that. Take the easy road. I have my opinions. But the bottom line is they didn't understand. They didn't know. The passive voice does indicate here that there was something kept from them. They could not yet understand how the Messiah's glory was going to come through suffering and that verse where it says they were afraid to ask. They sensed its weight. They sensed that Jesus was saying something to them that they were called upon to understand. Jesus had said, he looked him in the eye. Can you imagine that day? You're one of the disciples and Jesus has just performed a great miracle and he locks eyes with you and he says, let these words sink in. I'm going to be betrayed. I'm going to be delivered over to men and they're going to kill me. They sensed that there was significant weight to His words, of course, but the context of the cross was outside of their purview, and they didn't know it. And then fear just kept them even from asking for clarification. They were too afraid just to even ask Him, what do you mean? This wasn't simply a lack of understanding. It was a truth they weren't sure they wanted to know. You know, God calls us to hold truths we do not yet understand. He does. He plants seeds that often take root much later. We hear words, even from Him, or others that are speaking on His behalf and for Him. We hear words that make no sense in the moment. Words about suffering, about waiting, about paths we don't choose. And we are responsible still, even though we might not have full understanding, we are responsible to let them sink in, to hold them even when we can't make any sense of them. We are not responsible to always understand. We're responsible to always listen. Let His words sink in. And then, in God's timing, He will give understanding. The human being is a being of rationality and comprehension. He is not an automaton. He is not a robot. He's not artificial intelligence. He is intelligent. He is a reasoning, thoughtful creature created in the image of His God. And understanding does come, and it ought to come, but it doesn't always come in the way that we want or when we want. And there is a gap from when the words sink in to when they make sense. When we're walking through the valley, that we just must have the words sink in and trust Him. I don't know all of what you're doing, Lord. I don't understand it. It's not the path that I would have built. It's not the way that I would have chosen. But I'm going to listen to your words, and I'm going to let them sink in, all of them. And I'm going to open my Bible, and I'm going to read about your life that you had four different men record so that I could hear your words through their pen. And you've inspired the word in the beginning and you have watched over others who have translated it into a language that I can read because they're your words. And sometimes they don't make sense to me, but I know between here and heaven they will. Luke chapter 24, and we'll get there perhaps one day. Jesus is going to say this, these are my words that I spoke to you while I was with you. He's telling them, look, this is after his resurrection. And he says, look, this is what I was talking about. Do you remember the day we came back from the mountain and that man that came with his son? And I cast this demon out, and I looked at you, and I said, let these words sink in. And you didn't understand, and you couldn't make sense of it. Now you can. Then you couldn't. But now you can. Jesus points them back to what he had said. The words they heard but did not understand, the predictions that were concealed from them, Jesus shows them. And Luke 24 verse 45, then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. The same divine work, I think, that was at play in their limited understanding now reveals truth in its fullness. Understanding comes according to God's timetable. In the meantime, we let his words sink in. After the cross, after the resurrection, their minds are opened. Why the delay though? Why did they have to go through that period of fear? And they were afraid to ask him. Can you imagine their own, by the way, side conversations at night? What do you think Jesus meant by that? What is he talking about? I believe he's the Messiah. Peter, I agree with you. He's the Christ of God. What is he talking about being delivered over to men and that they're going to kill him? Well, I wonder if they understood him. This is, again, conjecture, so take it or leave it. I think they would have done what Peter started to do. No, Lord, far be it from you to have this done to you. Had they understood it, perhaps they would have tried to prevent it. They needed to witness the suffering before they could grasp the glory of what Christ was doing. So listen, God's concealment of his full plan, when you're going through the valley and you don't understand everything that's going on, listen, let the words sink in. He is good. He has your best at heart. He sent his son to die for you. His concealment of his full will is not, it's the word I'm looking for, it's not cruel, it's kind. He knows you're not ready. He knows you have to walk the road to see it and to understand it. He didn't create you where you're like a software program that he just programs into you this code that lets you understand everything all of a sudden. You're a human being that's to experience life. Words are to be life, not just programs. Church ought to be life, not just exercises. Prayer ought to be life-giving, and it ought to be the pouring out of all of our life to God. And know that we're walking through the valley, and we are on this side of that valley. And occasionally, He's gonna bring us up on the mountaintop and see things that are too marvelous for us to fully understand, but just little bits and pieces. And I thank the Lord for that. But as we walk through the valley, let the words of Jesus sink in. I died for you. I'm going away to prepare a place for you. I know you don't understand all the suffering in your life. I know you don't understand why it's necessary. I know you don't know everything that I'm doing. I'm not asking you to understand it all right now. I'm asking you to let the Word sink in because one day you will understand. But if you didn't let the Word sink in, you won't know what I was even talking about. God's timing's not to prevent us or to keep us back or to be cruel again to us. He gives us truth in the amounts that we can bear at the times that we are ready for it. I think He does sometimes withhold clarity when clarity might lead us to resist His leadership. God knows what he's doing. But if he gave you the whole plan, you may never take the first step toward it. Because he wants to know, do you trust me? Do you trust me? Are you letting my words sink in when everything is scraped away from your life? Are my words what's left? When the time is right, he opens our minds to understand what we've been holding by faith. It is in the gap between hearing and understanding that faith in God and Christ must be our anchor. When we do not yet see, we must trust. When we do not yet understand, we must believe. This is the essence of faith, holding fast to God and His Word when circumstances cause us to question everything that's happening, when our minds cannot grasp what's going on, when our hearts struggle to accept His words and our actions, and His actions and our minds are too afraid even to ask, God, what are you doing? From the mountaintop to the valley, letting Christ's words sink in, is how we will remain faithful. Reality, as we perceive it, and that is an important qualification, it often doesn't match our expectations. We come down from the mountaintop experiences spiritually expecting victory and glory from one day to the next, but our valley experiences don't seem to match. I think it's a cynical statement, but I think the principle might apply Hope is the apex predator of the human heart. Our expectations, when they're not set in God, when they are not resting in Him and letting His Word sink in and being able to say, as Job did, I know my Redeemer lives. I'm going to see Him at the last day. I've got no idea what's going to happen between now and then. I have no idea why what has happened has happened, but I know Him. And we walk through this valley, we discover again and again and again our inability. We can't fix what's broken in us or in others. We're confronted over and over again with our absolute dependence upon Him. God provides alone what we can never provide. We discover over and over that when we are weak, He is strong. When we fail, He succeeds. We hold truths we don't yet understand. God speaks words that make no sense in the moment. We're not responsible always to understand them. I want to say it again, but we are responsible to listen to them and let them sink in, even when their meaning is withheld. You know, I thought of a soldier on the battlefield. Soldiers are trained to obey orders because it saves lives. If they questioned orders, many would fall on the field of battle unnecessarily. The commander, the captain, the general, those hopefully that are in charge and giving the orders have a better view of the battlefield and they know the larger stakes and so a soldier's trained to obey. He doesn't have to understand the why behind the words, he's gotta understand what the commander and the captain has said. I want you to take that hill, so take it. And sometimes Jesus gives us commands in this life and we wanna question them. And it's as though we sit down with them and say, this is a negotiation somehow. Lord, I know you want me to do X, but I want you to convince me that I ought to do X. And may we, for the moment, stand in utter shock at our audacity to stand before the Lord Jesus Christ and expect him and even demand him at times. Explain yourself. And we die on the battlefield because we've questioned the words of our captain. Between understanding and hearing lies faith and faith alone. We're responsible that the words of Christ sink in. Understanding comes according to God's timing and it will come. He's told us it will, and so those words ought to sink in. I don't understand now, but I'm going to one day. And those words have sunk into my heart. I pray you can say that, and I pray I can say that. Trust God's timing in the valley. Depend on His strength, not yours. Hold His words, even when you don't understand them, and wait for the day when He opens your mind. And I want to close with just a call to any who might not know the Lord. You are walking in a valley. It's a valley of sin, suffering, and death, and I don't have to prove that to you. You just look around in the world. You see the brokenness around you and within you, and you know something's wrong, but you can't fix it. Like the disciples, you've discovered your inability. You can't heal yourself. You can't cast out the darkness that's in your own heart. You can't save yourself from the judgment that you know ultimately the sin of life and your sin deserves, but Jesus can do what you cannot. He came down from glory into this valley to seek and to save the lost, every last one of them. He rebuked the power of sin and death On the cross, he conquered it and the grave. He gave sinners back to their fathers. He restores the forgiven, makes them new. I pray that those words that Jesus said to the father sink into your heart as he delivered him back, his son back to him. This is the gospel. Christ died for your sins and mine, and he rose again. You may not understand it all, and that's okay. In fact, that's perhaps we might even say a requirement. The disciples didn't understand it all until after the resurrection. You're responsible to heal, to hear and to hold what he has said and to trust it. God will open your mind in his time. He will reveal himself to your heart in his time. Yours is to hear the words and let them sink. Admit that you're in the valley, can't save yourself. Trust that Jesus died for your sins and He rose again, and you will be saved. You'll feel the peace and the joy that on that mountaintop will be glorious and marvelous and no less real than the valley. In fact, in some ways more real. Then you will tread back down the mountaintop if God leaves you here in this world, but You, as one who is a follower of Christ, letting Jesus' words sink in. They direct you. They decide for you. You let Him decide your path of life. You'll not regret it. Let these words sink in.