As always this morning, we need to remember our setting. Peter, James, and John and Jesus had just come down from the mountaintop. It may have been 9,000 feet in elevation, depending on which mountain they were up. And they had come from God displaying His glory. It was a situation of heaven on earth, one of those rare times. There was glorious fellowship at this event. There were experts of the faith. Christ was fellowshiping with saints who probably could actually encourage him, as opposed to his disciples who hadn't done such a great job of that. The disciples had witnessed firsthand and they had experienced the kingdom of God in power, just like Christ had predicted in the previous passage. Now, naturally, Peter had to blurt out something silly and inappropriate, but Christ didn't have much to say about it, except that he told his disciples emphatically not to tell anybody what had happened. When Moses had come down from the mountain, if you remember from the Old Testament, after getting the law, he continued to glow afterwards from being in God's presence. The fact that Christ wanted to keep this event a secret probably tells us that there were no obvious symptoms from these guys being up on the mountaintop. So now they come down. They come down from the mountain. They come down from a holy experience. They come down to normal life on this planet. And it's not going to be pleasant. We can't miss the point here that a Christian life, properly lived, does not mean maintaining the continual bliss and blessing of a life un-intruded by evil. God gives us those blessed life experiences, those spiritual high points from time to time, Maybe someone tells us how much our ministry has meant to them. Maybe our kids tell us how grateful they are for our treatment of them. Maybe we spend time with like-minded people and are just deeply blessed by their fellowship. Maybe we go somewhere and have a time devoted to receiving good teaching. Those are all high points. They're wonderful. They're blissful. And it's great that God provides us with such things. But the truth is, we've always got to go back to the valley where the work is. We have to go back to the valley where the need is. And we need to go to the valley where the struggle is. That is God's will for our lives. So let's see what's happening back at the ranch when Christ, Peter, and James, and John return. Verse 14, and he came to the disciples. He saw a great multitude around them and scribes disputing with them. Immediately when they saw him, all the people were greatly amazed and running to him, greeted him. This hike back down the mountain probably took a while. We sometimes forget how rugged these guys had to be. I know Mark was in training for the trip that he was taking, and they're in elevation, I think, around 10,000 feet. So, it's not easy. They only mention Jesus once, I think, ever riding on anything other than either his feet or a boat, and that's when he rode a donkey into Jerusalem. Every other mile he covered was, like I said, either by foot or by boat, so these guys would have been in very good shape. We can just imagine how the disciples felt when they saw the setting they were walking into. You know, they had this blissful experience. They walk down the mountain, they get sight of the disciples, and this is the scene they see. I think it would be something like a housewife coming home to a house that's an absolute wreck, or a husband viewing water coming through the ceiling. You know, it's back to real life real quick. The crowds were back, the scribes were back, and the scribes were attacking the disciples. They were exploiting the opportunity of Christ being away from his disciples. They're pouncing in, you know, it's like wolves, you know, they separate somebody from the flock and then they get after it. Well, that's what they're trying to do. Christ was more than a match for these duplicitous scribes. The disciples, however, were not. We can safely assume that the disciples were not holding up well under the scribes' dispute. Now, as Christ gets close enough that the crowd can make out who He is, the people were amazed and ran toward Him, greeting Him. Now, why were they amazed? Well, after they experienced the B team and their failure, Christ may have had a much greater appeal to them. If you've ever waited to see someone famous, when that person arrives, there's always some awe and amazement. It doesn't mean much, but it's interesting to watch. Some scholars say that they were amazed because Christ pretty much emanated authority. And that's probably true as well. And you can rest assured that all the group dynamics shifted when Christ showed up because he was the central focus. The scribes would no longer be able to have a free reign at pestering the disciples. So ultimately we don't know, we're not told exactly why the people were amazed, but they were. Then verse 16, and he asks the scribes, what are you discussing with them? And essentially they were debating with them. I really like this. It displays how leadership should respond. Elders, fathers, mothers. Here's an example to follow. Look how Christ puts himself between those intending evil and those being victimized by it. Notice that Christ does not ask the disciples what's going on. He serves notice immediately to the scribes that they will now have to contend with Christ himself. No more easy prey. They'll no longer have the easy pickings that they had when Christ was away. So he goes boldly up to them and seeks to expose what they're doing. And notice their response. They don't say anything. They know better. They know now that they're up against Christ and this is not going to go well. Verse 17, then one of the crowd answered and said, teacher, I brought you my son who has a mute spirit, and wherever it seizes him, it throws him down. He foams at the mouth, gnashes at the teeth, and becomes rigid. So I spoke to your disciples that they should cast it out, but they could not. My guess is this man waited for a while, and then seeing that the scribes weren't going to answer, this man answered. This might be projection, but I would guess he felt that Christ deserved an answer to that question, and if nobody else is going to give it, well, I'll give it. So he tells Christ a story. Christ didn't need the story. He already knew what was going on, but he wanted the story told anyway. And here are the facts of the story. This man had a son. His son had a spirit, a demon, who made his son mute. and this demon would not allow this boy to speak. So the boy could not reveal what he was going through with that demon tormenting him. Then on top of this, this demon would, from time to time, cause the boy to seize. It would look like epilepsy to us, as far as I can read from the definitions. The boy would be violently thrown down, would foam at the mouth, his teeth would grind, and he would become stiff. And from what I understand, those are all symptoms of seizures. We learn later in this text that the demon was trying to destroy the boy. We don't know how this became evident to the father. We don't know how the father had the wisdom to know that this was caused by a demon. The culture at the time tended to view anyone with epilepsy symptoms as being at least temporarily out of their minds. They didn't always assume that they were demon possessed. So it wouldn't have been the natural thing to assume, oh, epilepsy or a seizure, therefore demon possession. But this man had somehow discerned that's what was happening. It was demonic. Whatever was happening to his son was intentional. It was caused by a demon. Now, think about this. These guys coming down from the mountain. What a contrast we have from the world that Christ had just come from. He had come from the blessed fellowship of heavenly saints. Now he comes down into the throes of Satan's power and influence. He left people who were ministering to him to minister to people, many of whom will prove to hate him. He came from those who knew what Christ was all about to those who, even those who are closest to him, would not believe in him for more than a moment at a time. That, friends, is the world of ministry. That is pretty much typical ministry. So the man probably came to find Jesus and ask him to cast out this demon from his boy, but only the disciples were available. Christ was not there, so he probably figured, well, what do I have to lose? So he asked the disciples, but they couldn't do it. The wording used here means that they were overpowered and defeated. They failed due to insufficient power. Now, how can that be? How could that be? The disciples were given the power to cast out demons by Christ himself earlier. They had done so, assumedly, on many occasions. What happened here? Well, Christ doesn't have any trouble figuring out what happened here. He goes on in verse 19, he answered him and said, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him to me. The problem is faithlessness. Faithlessness. You know, in some ways, the disciples had it harder than us. We've gotten to know the disciples pretty well in this study, and we've done a lot of comparing our reactions to their reactions, but they may have had it harder than us. Faith, according to Hebrews 11.1, is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Faith looks to that which it has not seen. The disciples had Christ with them. If we had been with Christ, what would we have done? We would tend to do what they want to do now. Don't we tend to want someone else to carry the load if they seem able and willing to do so? Don't we avoid the hard things, the awkward things, the uncomfortable things if we can do so? Especially if we know someone else will do it. Well, the disciples were probably just like us in that regard. They weren't gonna seek to do more than they had to, or to learn more than they had to, or to sacrifice more than they had to. So if Christ was willing to do all the healing, all the better. But there's a problem here. The disciples were not exercising faith. They didn't have to. Everything they were doing was in the presence of Christ. They could let Him do it most of the time. Well, we as believers in our age, we didn't have that privilege, and we don't have that privilege now. If we're Christians, you think about this, we were drawn by a God that we could not see, to a Christ that we cannot see, by a Holy Spirit that we cannot see, to a kingdom that we cannot see, and will receive entry into a heaven that we cannot see. Our salvation, like Romans says, is from faith to faith. Starts and ends there. From faith to faith until we see Christ. If we're in it, we're in it by faith that we've been gifted from by God. So for us, faith is a necessity. We can't live a minute without faith. For the disciples, while Christ was with them, it would have seemed, well, more optional. But Christ knows that they have got to get beyond this point. They have got to get with the faith. They must begin to live by faith, and this current situation is a good teaching ground for them. Now, while Christ spoke in broad terms when he said, O faithless generation, which would appear to be, he'd be talking about everybody living at that time, the disciples probably knew Christ was mostly speaking about them, because it's they who had just failed the test, not the rest of the crowd. And they failed the test for one reason. They did not trust God to do that which God had promised to do. They did not count on God to deliver on what He said. Isn't that us when we fail? Isn't that always the core of the problem? Oh, we always blame it on something else. We say, you don't know how hard that temptation was. You don't know how hard that situation was. You don't know how strong that feeling was. And we go on and on. But ultimately, it comes back to the fact that we did not believe how strong our Savior is. We did not believe how worthy our Savior is. And we did not believe how good our Savior is. Christ goes on, he says, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Christ is displaying his passion here. This isn't about facts. He's not, you know, asking for a specific date and time. He's displaying his frustration with how slow people are to walk by faith, to believe God, to trust God, to listen to God. What Christ is saying here is that his association with these people is not a happy one. There's not much satisfaction in it for him. He's essentially implying that his life would be better and easier without them. They're simply a burden. That's what they would have gotten by Christ's response. If you had been in the crowd, that's what you would have heard. His rhetorical questions were displaying his absolute exasperation. It would be like us saying, how long do I have to put up with this nonsense? I think we all know that feeling. Sometimes when we get the idea that sinning isn't a real big deal because God will always forgive us, we find ourselves in the same position as the disciples. We grieve the Holy Spirit. We exasperate the Holy Spirit. We exasperate the Son's love. We can't maintain that kind of a lifestyle. Our goal is not merely to exist in the presence of our Savior. Our goal is to please Christ. It's not to stay alive. It's to please Him. We must live to please Him, and that is a huge difference in our attitudes. And then Christ asked the disciples to bring the boy to him. Then they brought him to him, and when he saw him, immediately the spirit convulsed him, and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at the mouth. So Christ asked his father, how long has this been happening to him? And the father said, from childhood. And often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. The demon in this boy knew that he was no longer going to face the faithless, powerless disciples. Now he is about to meet power incarnate, and he will soon be shopping for a new home. So the demon does his last act of destruction. Why? Because that's what demons do. They're following their leader. The devil is called the destroyer. He seeks to destroy, and given the opportunity in our lives, He will destroy as much that is sacred as He is allowed to. He will do as much damage as He possibly can. We need to really consider that truth, those facts, that mentality, when we're tempted to do something we know to be wrong, or when we refuse to do something that we know to be right. The devil's plan for us. You know, God has a plan for us. Well, the devil has a plan for us and his plan is for us to rebel. Because it's only as we rebel that he can accomplish any of his goals for our lives. Look what this demon does to this poor boy. What sheer evil. is here. This demon does not have to do this to this boy. He wants to. He takes pleasure in it. This is how demons get their kicks. The devil never ever ever intends one ounce of goodness toward a believer. Never ever at any time. Every pleasure that he offers you outside of the goodness of what God offers you is only intended for one purpose. It is intended to destroy you. Never forget that. As you're watching TV or surfing the web or considering your responsibilities or considering your options, remember this. God's intention for you are only good all the time if you are his child. The devil's intention for you are only for your harm all the time. We get a picture here of what he wants to do to you if he was given the chance. Now, all the PR that he gets in the media, they're all lies. All the ways that it looks like God's holding out on you, and boy, wouldn't it just be great if you could do anything you feel like doing, and that's what you ought to be able to do. Our world just screams that stuff. They're lies. They're all lies. God is the source of all goodness, and we need to keep that in perspective as we walk in this planet. So Christ asks, how long has this been happening? Remember, Christ's not asking, he's not asking because he doesn't know or he needs to know. He's asking more than likely to further his ministry to this man or at least to allow the crowds or the onlookers or those people who are going to write scripture to get the whole story. Now, don't we all need someone we can talk to about the suffering that we've experienced? All of us need that. Even in the sharing of it sometimes with somebody who loves us, we feel some of the burden lifted. Well, Christ asks for this man's story, I think partly intending that. The father tells him the extent of the evil. This boy has known nothing else. It's likely that this boy did not do anything to cause this to happen. But it happened, just like one of the blind men, so that Christ would be glorified at this moment. I think this man probably recognized that the real problem was spiritual as he watched this boy's behavior. Why would he go into a convulsion predictably when he was near a fire or near water? This isn't a coincidence. After a while, the guy would have noticed this. And why would he always be thrown toward it as opposed to away from it, whether it was on his right or on his left? A father's heart would spot this malevolent intention. He would see what's going on. He would instinctively know someone is trying to hurt my child. Well, Christ now has touched base with the man's suffering and the man continues, but if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. If you can do it, Jesus, please, please help us. The word here for help means to run to the aid of one who cries for help. This man is begging. He is begging for a rescue. He's essentially dialing a spiritual 911. He is desperate. He needs anything that Christ can do for him. But look how he words it. This is one of those rare times when a person asking appears to believe that Christ intends to help, but he's not sure of his ability to help. He says, if you can do anything, if you can do anything, put yourself in the shoes of the disciples at this point, especially Peter. I can just imagine the disciples looking on, shaking their heads and thinking, I wouldn't have said that if I were you. Because they knew, you know, they knew. And they would have been right. Look what Christ says next. In verse 23, Jesus said to him, if you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes. Now, this is where the people who know Greek tell us something very, very interesting. The translators probably made a mistake here. They got the words right, but they probably got the punctuation wrong. The statement, if you can, is probably intended to stand on its own. So what we have coming from Christ is not so much a teaching sentence as a statement of indignation. Christ would really be conveying, if I can, if I can, indeed, if I can, He would have been challenging the man for his lack of faith. He would be saying, if I can, of course I can. I am Christ, the Son of God, of course I can do this small thing. How could you think that I would not be able to do this small thing? then Christ teaches with the next statement. All things are possible to him who believes. All things are possible. Now, I always remind you that when you see the word all in scripture, always read it in light of the context. All things that God is willing to do are possible to him who believes that he will do it. The all in this sentence doesn't cover just anything our imagination can come up with, because we can come up with a whole lot of things that God has no intentions of doing. In this instance, the man believes Christ wants to heal his son, but he's not sure he can. Anything Christ intends to do is possible if we believe. That's what Christ is getting to. Now, with this difference that the Greek brings out, the next sentence makes a whole lot more sense. Verse 24, immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. This man understood that he had been rebuked by Christ. And he's like Gus, he's probably afraid that he'd blown his son's chances by offending the only one who could heal him. This man shows amazing love for his son. Nothing is more important to him. He knows that Christ is his only chance. He comes to Christ knowing that the problem he has is one that only Christ can fix. Isn't that how we come to Christ? In fact, that's the only way to come to Christ that will receive what one really needs from Christ. We come to Him realizing that we're sinners. The biggest problem we have, we can't fix. It's a spiritual state we were born in. We can't overcome it. We can't even get rid of the symptoms. We can't get rid of it or improve it. We come realizing that if He's not going to help us, we can't be helped. We come humbly admitting our need, just like this man. So the man replies and cries out in complete dependence with emotional passion, and he says, Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. What a comfort this statement is. If you look at it in context and Christ's reaction to it, what a comfort this is. Doesn't this reflect our prayer to the Word of God even this morning? We come to Christ in faith. We're here because we believe in Him for the most part. I mean, I would assume. But we tremble because we know ourselves too well. There's nothing about us that's perfect. Everything is a mix. Our motives are never without some shadow. Our faith is always mixed with some degree of lurking doubt. That's simply the truth about us. But we can follow this man's example as we cry out to God. Lord, I believe. I know who you are. I know what you're like. I trust that you're good and that you intend me good. But there are so many things that I am not sure of. There are so many things that I don't understand. So I stand before you spiritually naked just as I am and I tell the truth about my condition to you and I ask for your help. I am flawed. I don't know you like I should know you. I don't trust you like I should trust you. I don't love you like I should love you. I don't believe you like I should believe you. So please, please, please help this poor sinner. When we pray like that, we're barking up the right tree. God responds to honest requests of his children for help. He will answer that prayer. And think about that. Isn't it good that our Lord is not limited by our imperfect faith? We can be so thankful that Christ did not say, well, I'm sorry, I can't do this miracle then, because your faith isn't perfect. Our imperfect faith is not a problem when it is placed upon our infinitely faithful God. What a wonderful truth. Then verse 25, When Jesus saw that the people came running together, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying, Deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him and enter him no more. then the Spirit cried out, convulsed him greatly, and came out of him, and he became as one dead, so that many said, he is dead." Well, the crowds are doing what they always do. Jesus is drawing a bigger crowd, and that's not going to serve any purpose that he has right now. Christ's ministry at this point is mostly directed toward the disciples, and it's moving more and more in that direction. He has got to get his disciples to understand and live by faith, and he's got to accomplish it soon. So when Christ sees the crowds coming, he hurries up and casts out the demon. It's interesting that he tells the demon to enter the boy no more. Christ does not tell the demon not to enter anybody else. but he's not allowed to enter this poor boy again. This boy has had all the demons that he can stand, and the father would have been so very encouraged by those words. He would know that his son is gonna be truly free of this monster. Then the demon did his last act of destruction, got in his last shot, and then he left. Now, I've never seen a grand mal seizure, but I know that many of you have. I understand it leaves a person completely exhausted, and that's essentially the state that this person is in. This was the effect that it had on the boy. The boy lay there maybe unconscious. Verse 27, but Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. Jesus restored the boy to normalcy. That is the end of the miracle. He restored him to normalcy. Then verse 28, when he had come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, why could we not cast it out? So he said to them, this kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting. We need to look at Matthew's parallel text here to get the full picture. Matthew 17, 19 through 21 says this, then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, why could we not cast it out? So Jesus said to them, because of your unbelief. For assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting. The disciples wanted to know what they did wrong. That's a good thing. I mean, we come to God in that state lots of times when we realize we've screwed up and we want to know, God, how do you want me to do this? I obviously did it wrong. Teach me. So that's very good in a disciple. So what was the problem? Did they not say the right words? Did they not do the right things? Didn't they hold their jaw right? You know, what mystical thing was it? Well, two things come out of this text. One is the problem and the other is the symptom. Christ told them in Matthew that the core problem was that they didn't believe. Essentially, they were not trusting God to remove this demon. Christ's rebuke gives us more insight into faith. He basically says it's not like you needed perfect faith. It's not even like you needed a whole lot of it. A little is enough. If we just have a little. Some people have great faith, and that's good. We sure need that. But if we'll just use the little bit that we have, it will accomplish great things. Christ uses a mountain as an example, so we get the idea of just how powerful our little faith in a great God is. If God wants to move a mountain, and we believe it so, and act accordingly, the mountain will be moved. The point Christ is making is not how we should move mountains. It's just how powerful God is and how God responds to faith. Faith avails us to the power of God to accomplish the purposes of God. Faith avails to us the power of God to accomplish the purposes of God. We need to consider this rebuke by Christ. When we know the will of God, yet that will is not being accomplished in our lives, there is only one reason. Faith. We have not trusted God to do what he has said. We've not laid our whole selves into his hands, trusting that he will accomplish what he promised to accomplish. Then look at the last verse. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting. The most reliable texts leave out the words, end fasting. And that's helpful in that it makes more sense. Fasting requires time. You can't like fast for two minutes, that wouldn't exactly be called a fast. If fasting is supposed to be included, that would mean that the disciples could not have possibly cast out that demon, unless they knew ahead of time that the demon was coming. They would have had to not eat before the demon-filled child arrived. But Christ seemed to treat the disciples like they could have and should have cast out that demon. It seems to me that the disciples simply did not pray. Pray is in all of the texts. Fast is not. They were used to speaking the words and the demons would come out up to this point. They may have grown complacent. They may have begun to think that they carried with them the power to cast out demons because of the position they have on Jesus' team. You know, I'm one of Jesus' team members, therefore I can cast out demons. So when the normal things that worked didn't work, they forgot that this is all about God. They had lost their dependency upon God. They were trusting in themselves, in their history, in their ability. Their lack of faith led to a perception that prayer is not necessary. Prayer is not important. We don't need to call on God at this point to accomplish this thing. Everything needing done, they may have thought, was in their power to do it. And that is a fatal error. We should learn from this. Prayer is not something we do to make God do what He has no desire to do. A lot of people treat prayer that way. They say, well, if you'd only believe that you're going to get that Cadillac, you'll get the Cadillac. That's nonsense. But prayer is something where our faith participates in the purposes and promises of God. Our faith drives us to ask God what only God can do, to do what only God can do, and to depend upon Him to do it. The disciples could not cast that demon out, but God could. and God wanted to, and that is the perfect place for prayer. What does God want to accomplish in your world? What does God promise in your life? What does His word say is His will for Christians? We might as well recognize right now that whatever that is, we can't do it. Only God can. But if we'll pray for it, we'll play a part in getting it done. As we walk by faith in God, trusting in what He promised to be true, we will acquire for ourselves the power of God in our lives. And our faith doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be without flaw. God will help our unbelief. We only need mustard seed faith in an unlimitedly powerful God to accomplish supernatural, miraculous things. Question comes down to, will we call upon Christ to do what only Christ can do in our lives? Let's close in prayer. Lord, we thank you. We thank you for this lesson that you teach us from the experiences of the disciples and you're dealing with them. And the father and the demon-possessed boy. Lord, we glorify you and that you are worthy of all honor and glory and power. And you display it instantly toward your enemy. in this text. We thank you that you are that powerful and that you can easily accomplish anything that you purpose to accomplish. We ask that you would help us to be more and more the kind of people who buy into your will, who want with our lives what you want, that we would act on this planet like the angels act in heaven. And that we would pour our lives into service to you in such a way that we bring to you in prayer and trust and dependence those needs that we have that only you can meet and we see that you meet them. and that you further your kingdom through us. Help us to be those kind of people, Lord, and help us to see this week what we do that holds that back and where we could serve you better. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.