We turn in our Bibles this morning to the Gospel according to Mark and we will be reading from verse 14 of chapter 9. The Gospel according to Mark chapter 9, reading from verse 14 to 29. Mark chapter 9, verse 14 to 29. As I bring God's words to us, the title of the message is, Human Weakness Meets Jesus' Power. Human weakness meets divine power. And when they came to the disciples, They saw a great crowd around them and scribes arguing with them. And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, that is the Lord Jesus Christ, were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him. And he asked them, what are you arguing about with them? And someone from the crowd answered him, Teacher, I brought my son to you for he has a spirit that makes him mute. And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down and deforms and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able. And he answered them, O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me. And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked his father, how long has this been happening to him? And he said, from childhood. And it has often cast him into fire and into water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. And Jesus said to him, if you can, All things are possible for one who believes. Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, I believe. Help my unbelief. And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit saying to it, you mute and deaf spirit. I command you, come out of him and never enter him again And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out and the boy was like a corpse So that most of them said, he's dead But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up and he arose And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, why could we not cast it out? And he said to them, this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. May the Lord add a blessing to the reading of his words and the exposition of the same. Let us pray. Our Father, this is the world in which we live, a world in which we very deeply feel our own inadequacy and our own weakness, our own failure, our own impotence. our own powerlessness in the face of daunting challenges. And if we look only within ourselves, yes, there is little, if nothing at all, that we can ever do against such formidable challenges that we encounter in life. But if we look up to the one who is in heaven, If we look up to the one who has resources far beyond what we can even imagine, power to do the unimaginable, if we look up to God, if we look up to our Savior Jesus Christ, nothing, nothing is impossible. And so we pray that as you speak to us from this passage, O Lord, may we see your divine power, And may we see our own weakness so that we may be able to say, I am weak, but thou art strong. Speak to us, Lord, we pray. In the dear name of your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. In life, and none of us would fail to admit this, we all go through some great moments. Thrilling and exciting moments. Defining moments that fill our hearts with a great sense of joy and excitement and satisfaction. Moments that we can refer to as mountain top experiences. I'm sure you have been there. And I'm sure once you have been there, you do not want that moment to come to an end. If you have attempted to become a licensed driver on several occasions, and on all those number of occasions you have failed and when finally you go for what seems to be the last moment and you want to give up that you will never be able to get a driver's license and you pass the thrill, the joy and the excitement finally I don't have a driver's license. Even if you don't have a vehicle, it's an exciting thing, especially if you have failed so many times. But what about an exam? You have attempted one exam so many times without success. And then comes that moment when your name is among those very few that have made it. We know about Ziale. No need for me to say much about it. We know about several other exams that can be Quite frustrating to face them. But when you finally make it, the thrill of it, the excitement of it, the joy of it, it's about, what about that promotion? That you never expected. Because you have long given up that anything will ever change in your life. And people that you trained, and people that you assisted, and people that you taught, how to do that job have all gone ahead of you and you have remained on the same position and then eventually you receive that appointment letter It's a mountaintop experience, it's a joyous occasion But you know what, spiritually we have these moments, don't we? We have these mountaintop experiences when we come face to face as it were with the power, with the glory, with the love and the grace of God in a way that is difficult to capture in your own words. Experiences that are bigger than our minds Experiences that are bigger than what our minds could grasp Experiences that take us to a place that is bigger than our human minds could ever imagine And experiences that we wish could last forever That they could go on and on and on But you know what? Life is not always like that. Because what often tends to happen is that we come from the mountaintop experience only to descend into the deep and dark valley of despair. And that is exactly what is happening here in this chapter with the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. The contrast between the two events that are recorded in the first 29 verses is so clear. Brilliantly captured in these verses, we see something of the overwhelming contrast between the glorious mount of transfiguration and the troubled world that waits us below the mountain. In the first opening verses, The Lord Jesus Christ has taken with him three of his closest disciples, Peter and the two brothers James and John, the sons of Zebedee. And there, Jesus is transfigured before them. and what a spectacle if you read those verses and the description that we are given of this transfiguration the clothes of the Lord Jesus Christ became brilliantly shiny with an intensity that is so white as no one on earth could ever bleach clothes Not only so, there appeared before them the preeminent law giver Moses and the foremost prophet of Israel Elijah and the shining cloud of the glory of God enveloped them. And from the middest of that cloud they heard the roar of the voice of the mighty God speaking, this is my beloved son. Listen to him. And as suddenly as the transfiguration had happened, it disappeared. And Peter, in a moment of excitement, doesn't want to leave the mountain. Oh Lord, he asks, why don't we put up boots here? One for you, one for Elijah, and one for Moses. Why must we go down? Why can't we just stay here? It's a mountain to that thrilling moment that you never want to let go of. But well, they need to go down. And so the very next day, they make their way down the slopes of that mountain. And what greets them is nothing compared to what they had seen the previous day. It's a disturbing sight, a troubling sight. They were so ecstatic, now they realize as they hit ground level that they are facing a world that is convulsed and shaken by satanic forces. A world that is shaken by demonic powers. That's the world that they are getting to from that mountaintop experience. Because that is the way life is. There's an argument that is raging down there. The disciples are arguing with the scribes. And Mark does not tell us what they were arguing about. We can only speculate. We can only guess. And the guess possibly has something to do with the request of this troubled father who had come to the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ asking for help with regard to a demon that possessed and afflicted this young boy. And it is quite clear that the disciples were not successful in that attempt at exorcism, casting out that demon. So we may speculate that that was and may have been the beginning point of this argument and the scribes, the teachers of the law who were foremost enemies of the Lord Jesus Christ took that occasion and with the crowd that was beginning to gather and watching began to taunt the disciples saying, see what you have failed to do And if you can fail to do this, it means that you are phony. You are simply pretenders who claim to have a power and an ability that you cannot put to good use when and as it is required. And if you have failed, so is your master. Together with him, you are taught of failures. That's probably what they were saying to their disciples. And the disciples are at a loss. They have failed. And their failure perhaps led to this prolonged argument that Jesus and the three disciples find happening down here. And it is in that context that we see the power of the Lord Jesus Christ shine forth in the midst of human weakness and over human weakness. And those are the two things that I would like us to very quickly look at. First and foremost, human weakness before we look at divine power. Now, human weakness here is portrayed in these three different ways. Firstly, there is this afflicted child. A testimony of human frailty. A testimony of the fallenness of this world in which we live. And if there is something that ought to remind us of the fallenness of this world, it's afflictions such as this young man was experiencing. We can count on the fingers of one hand how many times during our weekly church notices, or on our prayer bulletin, we can count how many times there is never an announcement of an illness among us. And that's a stark reminder to us That illness, sickness and death has intruded into this world that was once pristine and peaceful and beautiful that never knew tears and sorrow and pain And this afflicted child is a reminder to us of this world that we live in, that takes us away from that mountaintop experience, and we land on the ground, on ground level, and we see that this is the world that we are to deal with and contend with. This child suffered from a spiritual condition. that manifested itself in a severe physical way. This disorder of the child is a picture of sin as a spiritual evil. We are told that this child was deaf. And so a sinner refuses to hear the voices of God and his conscience is seared by sin. In the same way that the deafness of this child would not make him hear The child is also dumb, so the sinner's tongue is not used to glorify God and to praise God That's the picture that we have The spirit had total control of him and when the seizure came, there's nothing that he could do to control himself and overpower that spirit. Neither could the father do anything. He was thrown down. He would foam on the mouth. He would convulse. He would sometimes fall into the fire or into water. Is that not a picture of the enslavement with which sin grips us? The chains with which we are enslaved by sin, impossible to break ourselves free. That's the picture that we are given here. And that's the picture of everyone who is outside of the Lord Jesus Christ. And there is no human weakness that is greater than the inability to be able to do anything that can bring you back to spiritual life when you are spiritually dead A corpse can never bring itself back to life We are dead in our sins and in our trespasses And so the afflicted child is that picture of human weakness But notice secondly, that human weakness is also pictured to us in the anxious and frustrated father to this child The father is depicted in most touching words We see him as a man who is then on the age of despair but still trying to find some relief for his suffering son We know what it means to be troubled over an illness of a child and an illness that is not getting any better And those who are parents know that all too well. And this is what this father had been through. And this is what this father had gone through. And we read of his own desperate words as he tries to describe the condition of his son. And we notice that what had brought him to this position is this very great need and what he wanted was to see the Lord Jesus Christ. He was bringing his son to the Lord Jesus Christ. At least he is coming to the right person. Look what he were told in verse 17. Teacher, I brought my son to you for he has a spirit that makes him mute and whenever it seizes him it throws him down and deforms and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid so I asked your disciples to cast it out and they were not able He took his son to the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ had gone up the mountain the previous day with his other three disciples. And so he probably recognized these other nine disciples. And he asked them if they could help. And they gave it a try. And they failed. He settled for the disciples because Jesus was away. And the disciples proved to be of no help at all. Have you been there before? And someone that you are counting on, someone that you trust and are convinced, yes, at least these would not let me down, and they do let you down. That's the life we live in. That's the world we live in. But we also hear the father's vivid description of his son's terrible condition. And it's the word for me, the word seize in verse 18. Seize. And whenever it seizes him, It's a very strong word in the original language which carries here the sense of to see something with hostile intent. And that is why the father later on says it sometimes would throw him into the water, throw him into the fire to do what? To destroy him. What is it that the devil does? Has He not come to destroy and to kill? So that is what He does to this child and that is what makes the father all the more anxious Not only is he anxious and hopeful but he is now frustrated because the disciples have failed And so you have the falling down, you have the foaming at the mouth, you have the grinding of teeth often resulting perhaps in severe tongue biting or lip biting. You have the writhing on the ground or rigid extension of the limbs and the comatose, rigid corpse-like inability to make any move. not to communicate anything. And all of these were compounded by the frightening prospect that such episodes may erupt in hazardous environments near water, near fire. The father is helpless. The father is in a hopeless situation. The father's frustration with his son's dangerous condition is only worsened by futile attempts to find a cure. Although we read his own testimony that he brought his son to Christ and his disciples have failed to help him, I don't think that was the first time he was seeking some relief for his son. There may have been other attempts that are not recorded for us here. But Mark picks up this very incident because it involves the Lord Jesus Christ. And they failed. But notice that the frustration of the father seems to go beyond the condition of the child alone. The response of the Lord Jesus Christ to him is not at all encouraging, not at all comforting, not at all inspiring. When Jesus had posed that question and the Father speaks in the midst of the noise of the crowd around, Jesus responded in verse 19, O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Well, you may think that he's addressing the disciples alone because they're the ones who had failed at their attempts to help this man, but he's addressing everyone. Beginning with the father himself, his disciples, the scribes, and the entire crowd around. Faithless generation! Is that the answer that would have inspired the father? Is that the answer that would have encouraged the father? When you go to the doctor with a terrible headache and a toothache that refuses to go And the doctor examines you and he says, how long have you had this? And you say, the last two days. And the doctor looks at you and says, you are a fool. Why didn't you come the very day the pain started? Now you are coming when it's so severe. I mean, that is not particularly very encouraging. Those are the first words. Oh man. You are part of this faithless generation. Disciples, you have failed. You are part of this faithless generation. How long am I going to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? And then He says, bring Him. Bring Him to me. At that moment, The father must have been both deflated, but also at the same time excited. But his problem is still there. And sometimes that's where we could be ourselves from time to time. As hope begins to rise over something that we are looking forward to and something that we are hopeful is going to be our portion, and then suddenly, There's something that comes up that is not particularly very exciting But there's something that we see about this father Before we go to the disciples that I would like to just spend a bit of time to talk about a little bit of time It is the frailty of his faith He didn't have a particularly big amount of faith and he knew it But that little faith that he had was enough to bring him to the Lord Jesus Christ and enough to keep him by the Lord Jesus Christ and not to walk away in anger and frustration. How now can you begin to challenge me and to insult me in this way and call me faithless? Have I not come to you with the hope that something could be done? No, he doesn't do that. What does he do? When you notice, he says to the Lord Jesus Christ, after Jesus said to him, if you can, all things are possible for one who believes, and immediately the father of the child cries out, and this is what he says, I believe! Help my unbelief. I don't know if you have read through those words and thought about the implications. I believe, help my unbelief. Those are two contrasts. The one who believes means that he strongly has overcome unbelief so that all his hope and all his confidence and all his trust is resting in that which he believes in But his father cries out, help my unbelief What he is saying is this What has brought me here is faith. What has brought me here is confidence and trust in your power, your divine power to help my son. But I'm struggling, I'm struggling, I'm wavering with a little bit of doubt. Is this possible? Your disciples have just failed and I don't know how it will fare with you. I'm struggling to hold on, keep my faith alive. My unbelief is struggling to die within me. Help me. That is what he's crying for. You see, true faith is always aware how small and inadequate it is. And true faith is always aware that it does not rise from within us. It's a gift that comes from God. And this is the reason why he cries, help my unbelief. Let my unbelief be overcome. by the faith that you will help me to grow within my soul The father becomes a believer not when he amasses a sufficient degree of faith but when he risks everything on what little faith he has and when he heals his insufficiency to the sufficiency of the Lord Jesus Christ that is faith Did the Lord not say to his disciples at one point, if you had faith, as small as a mustard seed? It's not huge faith, but as small as a mustard seed. I do believe. Help overcome my unbelief. That is what true faith is. Unconditional openness to God. a decision in the face of all that appears contrary and you believe that Jesus is able Yes, Jesus can and will do so I do not presume to know all your thoughts but I can say on my own behalf that more than a few times I've been found in a similar frame of mind as this father, help thou my unbelief and God who is able will never turn away from any little evidence of faith in our hearts He moves with compassion, with kindness, with love, and with grace, and with power towards such a helpless one, as he does for this little boy. But there's a third evidence of human weakness here, and that is concerning the disciples themselves. Unsuccessful and puzzled. Earlier on, Jesus had sent them two by two. Had He not given them the authority to cast out demons, to heal the sick, and to preach the gospel. And they came back rejoicing. Even the demons were submissive to us. What has happened? It was as much a puzzle to them as it was to the father, if not more frustrating to them They failed And in the privacy of the inner room, they turned to the Lord Jesus Christ Why could we not cast it out? Why could we not? is an admission of helplessness. If those that we believe are capable and are able to do something and they fail, it is not only frustrating for the one who went to seek help from them, but it's also very frustrating to those who believed that they could help and then they fail. I was watching a video on Facebook a few days ago. It was not one of those moments of just trying to make you laugh. It was a real moment. On a hot, sunny day, the father was trying to fold a pram. Fold it up and put it in the boot of the vehicle and drive away. after time out at the park, and he fell. And someone, two guys were filming him. at his attempts. He tries this, he pushes that, he tries that, and another man comes along, tries, fails. The owner of the prom calls his wife, and the wife is trying to give instructions. He points his phone, it must have been a video call, points his phone on the prom as the other man was trying to do it, and they couldn't. Until a woman passing by, straws towards them, pushes that little button, and the whole thing collapses. And it fits in the boot. And she walks away. And the two guys who were filming are laughing to themselves. See how effortlessly she did it? I think that must have taken away so much of the ego of that man. He could change any tire on the vehicle. He could change the battery. He could even change the engine oil. He could service his own vehicle. He can repair the generator and do several other things. But he failed to retract the pram and put it, the stroller, and put it back in the boot. That is, that can be very deflating to your ego. This small mathematical problem, bring it here. This is what all of you have failed. And he starts to do the calculation and discovers it's not as simple as he thought it was. That's where the disciples are. They have failed. And now they are being taunted by the scribes. And the whole crowd is now listening in and watching. And if it was in our day, they would have been shouting, akangiwa, akangiwa. Look at them. They call themselves the followers of the miracle worker. They have failed. Human weakness. Well, that brings us to our final point, divine power. Jesus now turns away from all the arguments, from all that the crowd is saying and anticipating. He now turns to the father and he asks him, not that he did not know, but he wants to magnify the power of God in their midst to know that this is not a momentary affliction, but something that has been with this boy from childhood. How long has this been going on? How long has your son been troubled? How long has this been happening to him? How long has he been afflicted by this evil spirit? The father says, from childhood. From childhood. and he goes into this long explanation of all the anguish and the agonizing moments that the son had been through and when Jesus saw that the crowd was coming together in verse 25 he rebuked the unclean spirit saying to it you mute and deaf spirit I command you come out of him and it comes out but as it does so There is massive convulsion, terrible convulsion, that the boy now looked like a corpse. And all the people present concluded, ah, he's dead. I mean, as a father, what do you think was going through his mind? He's dead. But Jesus took him by the hand, lifted him up, and he arose and gave him back to the Father. Divine power. And the nine disciples are watching. Those are the ones that felt. I wonder, Peter, who, after listening to the confession of his colleagues, I wonder why Peter did not say, ah, guys, you failed. Lord, hang on, let me do it. But he didn't offer himself. Ah, but you have just come from the mountaintop. Jesus steps forth. Stands up to the rulers, stands up to the authorities, stands up to the powers of darkness in this world. Jesus takes him by the hand, Jesus lifts him up from the appearance of death into a new and restored life. That's what he does with our souls that are dead in sin. He restores us. There were moments standing by the bedside of mom when it looked like she will finally breathe her last, unconscious. And that we were not going to leave that hospital with any hope that we are coming back tomorrow, the following day to visit her again. but that we are going to part, never to meet again here on earth, but wait for that moment in glory. It is only the grace of God. It's only the power of God. It's only the confidence and the trust that we have, even in the face of what appears an impossibility. And this is what the Lord Jesus Christ demonstrates. And that is what prompts the disciples to ask, how come? How come we couldn't do it? Jesus does not say, because I'm the Messiah, what else do you expect from me? That's not what he says. Instead, his response to them is, this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. Now, there are all kinds of different ways that people interpret that statement from the Lord Jesus Christ. It's as if to say, well, there are certain demons that can only come out from intense prayer, from those that are casting them out. No. The essence of what the Lord Jesus Christ is saying is simply this. What is prayer? It's simply our absolute dependence upon God. That's all it is. So does it mean that they were not doing it in dependence upon God? Well, possibly. So they did not come with the confidence and the trust that Jesus has the power to do anything through them. They came with the excitement of their past experience. Hey guys, don't you remember when we went two by two? Don't you see? Don't you remember how we cast out demons? And they would obey. They would scream and leave their victims. And this is nothing. We can do it. but in their own strength and not independence upon God. And so if the only thing that has ever, the only thing that can ever, the only thing that will ever break the power of those things that threaten to break us, and undo us is the wake of Jesus on death and resurrection on the cross and if that primary wake of Christ on the cross on our behalf is the sole basis that we have for the defeat of anything and everything including death then our faith is placed in where it ought to be placed in the Lord Jesus Christ And so this is a primary invitation to us, that if we want to act, that if we want to be collaborators with the Lord Jesus Christ, then we must be men and women, boys and girls of prayer. And one commentator puts it this way, Prayer in the Gospel of Mark is not pious manipulation of God to get what we want but it is communing with God in the wilderness where Satan is confronted and overcome and soon enough in the Garden of Gethsemane wrestling alone in the night to submit to God's will and not to our own will. That is what prayer is. We do not seek to manipulate him, but we seek to be guided by his will, so that his will, once it is done, whether it is health or death, whether it is success or failure, it is still his will. And so our extremity becomes an opportunity for God to demonstrate his divine power. What about you? What does this passage say to you? Are you like the father who, because of need and the need that was so great and intense in the life of his son, went to the Lord Jesus Christ? And when he's disappointed and frustrated, he does not give up at all. But there is clear evidence of human failure, the failure of human help, but that does not take him away. He still believes, even though there is unbelief that is struggling with his little faith that he has, he still remains. Is that where you are as well? And deliverance comes when everything has been resigned to God and to his will. And his omnipotence, his power, is displayed in accomplishing what no one else can effect in us, in you, in me, except God himself. So that both faith and prayer can testify that spiritual power does not lie within oneself but in God alone and both wait in trust upon his promise to be accomplished and unless you come to that point and unless we do come to that point then we take prayer as I'm twisting God who is unwilling But that is not what prayer is. The manner that the Lord Jesus Christ restored this young boy back to life, may the divine power of the Lord Jesus Christ that is able to save saved from a far worse disease than this evil spirit that afflicted this young man. A far worse disease of sin. It is Christ alone who can restore us back to life and present us back to the community that had long lost hope that anything good can come out of us. It is Christ alone. that can save. Amen. Father in heaven, thank you for reminding us that it is in the midst of our human weakness that you demonstrate your great power. May that power be effected in someone this morning. May you restore them to spiritual life from spiritual death And may their dam and death, mouth and ears, be able to respond to the gospel call and sing praises to the greatness of who you are, before whom nothing is impossible. We ask this in the dear name of your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.