We're gonna be in Mark chapter nine this morning, where we read in our scripture reading here just a few moments ago, Mark chapter nine. And I made reference to this story last week in the message out of Psalms 119 and passage there, speaking really about the things that are going on in the heart and the inner life of the believer, especially going through hard times. And it reminded me of this passage, it reminded me of some others that take place here in the gospels. And looking at this here this week in Mark chapter 9, this is also the most thorough of the passages of this story in the Gospels. The same account is given also in Mark and Luke in shorter fashion here, but I really like what takes place here, especially because of just the important expression of faith that the Father makes there in verse 24, which is really going to be the main thought for us here today. the father in this story makes probably one of the most honest admissions and confessions in the entire Bible. When he says to the Lord, I believe, but also, at the same time, help my unbelief. And that's certainly, I believe, something that we all have felt before, something we all struggle with. Jesus, of course, is the author, subject, fulfillment, the embodiment of the Word of God. We've been looking at this series here the written word and the living word. And here we look at the living word, Jesus Christ, being the subject of scriptures, the fulfillment of scriptures, the embodiment of scriptures. The story here today is one of victory. and deliverance, one in which we see the power of Christ over that which is not seen. Yes, victory therein over, power over a spiritually evil entity, power over an unclean spirit, a foul spirit, some terms that are used here for this devilish, evil spirit that has captivated this young boy's life, but also victory and deliverance and help and growth and faith, not just for the boy who is helped, but for the father and for the apostles that are there as witnesses, even for the unbelieving scribes that are there that are there present at that and witnesses to this event that takes place here also. And so the Lord is doing a work there in the hearts of many different categories of people all at once. as he performs this miracle today. Jesus did and Jesus does have power over the unseen, the spiritual realm of angels and devils and unclean spirits as we see here. But he also makes a difference in the life of this father, he makes a difference in the life of everybody who knew this father, knew this family, these members of this community that Jesus performs this miracle in, makes an improvement and a challenge to the faith of his own disciples and his own apostles there, those who did believe in him, the ones to whom they brought the young boy to first and those apostles had no ability to cast that evil spirit out of this boy. And even there, a bold and strong and a powerful witness in front of those who were denying the deity of Jesus Christ, those scribes and those of the religious crowd that were never We're never believers on Jesus Christ, and we're often looking to find fault and criticism, and often looking to try to diminish the name and the reputation of Jesus Christ in some way. And so, this is an important passage of Scripture. It's a unique passage of Scripture. because it does have this very honest declaration from the heart of the Father, from His lips to the ears of Christ. But one, I think, that really expresses something that all of us feel to some extent, that we have faith. We have faith, but oftentimes we find that That faith is mixed with doubt. That faith, we have faith, but it's never, sometimes doesn't seem to be enough. Even in the moments of our strongest faith in the Lord, there is still a part of us and maybe a significant part of us that still has its doubts. And we'll look at that here this morning. This passage reminds me of an old woman that lived alone in a cabin under the shadow of a mountain. This mountain, the shadow from this mountain made her house often dark and cold and it blocked her view of the sunrise. And she remembered what the Bible said about having mountain moving faith. If she had the faith as the grain of a mustard seed, she could pray and have that mountain moved. And so she decided to take God up on that promise. And she prayed, God, I believe that you have the power to move this mountain. And I believe it with all of my heart. And I'm asking you to get this mountain out of my sight When she woke up the next morning, she saw the mountain right where it had always been, and she grumbled, hmm, just as I thought. Even in a moment where she was claiming the promise of God and believing in the promise of God, she really didn't really believe it, right? Claiming God at His word and believing and believing with all of her heart. As sincere as she could be, God, I believe you can move this mountain. And then somewhere inside of her, really not believing that God could move this mountain. And thank God that this father brought his child to Jesus. There was no other help for this child to be delivered from this evil spirit except to bring him to the one that had power over them, one who is greater than they are, and that is Jesus Christ. Thank God he had the faith and the common sense even to believe that Jesus Christ could do this. When the Lord asked him if he believed, he did, but Not all the way, right? Because he's still, in his heart, plagued with a fallen nature, plagued with sinfulness, and plagued with pridefulness, and plagued with all the things that we're plagued with. And so while he could honestly say, Lord, I do believe, he also had to honestly admit that some part of him, maybe a great part of him didn't, And I'm thankful that it didn't take this man having complete and utter and flawless faith for his child to be helped. It took just a little bit. It took a little bit of faith for the Lord to answer this need and to meet this need and to deliver his young boy here. His child was being tormented by something that he was powerless against. The child was powerless against it. The father was powerless against it. The community was powerless against it. The religious crowd, the scribes, they were powerless against it. Even these apostles of Jesus Christ, in this case, were powerless against it. Certainly, this was causing great affliction to the mind of the father. In this case, what they were powerless against was an evil spirit. Certainly in some cases, we've felt powerless against some affliction, some trial, especially when it has to do with someone we love and someone we care for. Far more likely to be troubled in our minds about something that is afflicting someone we love than we are even to be troubled about something that's afflicting us ourselves. And here this father brings his son, who he loved very much. And his son was afflicted with something he had no power over. Some of us have dealt with loved ones, family members, children even, that have dealt with serious medical needs, something that we had no power to do anything against. That's a trouble of mind. And even those moments, those are moments that really try our faith. And we're honest, we can go to God in prayer and we will and thank God for the resource of prayer, the ability to go to God and pray. But down in our hearts, even as we pray to God for his blessing and for his deliverance and for his goodness in that situation, we have to admit there's a part of us that doesn't really believe that anything's gonna change because of prayer. And thank God that God is better to us than we deserve so often and in spite of the part of us that doesn't believe, God takes the part of us that does and he works and he meets needs. And thank God for that. His father had to watch his child as he was under this torment of this evil spirit. This evil spirit itself was what robbed him of his ability to speak and to hear it. He calls it a dumb spirit. In verse 17, it says there in verse 25, Jesus refers to this evil spirit, thou foul spirit, and said to him, thou death and dumb spirit. This child was physically affected, wasn't able to see, wasn't able to hear, wasn't able to speak because of this evil spirit that he was afflicted with. robbed of control even over his own body. It says that, wheresoever it taketh him and teareth him, and he foameth and gnasheth with his teeth, all those things that were just uncontrollable movements and motions, even to the end of it, it said that he pineth away, and pining away is to literally wither away or to dry up or to not be able to even get the necessary food and water that one would need to maintain a baseline level of health. This little boy was wasting away because of this evil spirit that he was possessed by and afflicted by. This evil spirit would even cause him to act irrationally and hurt himself and throw himself into the fire, throw himself into deep water. This destructive spirit was causing this young boy to hurt himself. Father was certainly troubled by this, as any one of us would be, and just for a moment put ourselves even remotely in His shoes, as Father, how He was feeling for His Son, His Son who was doing these things and afflicted in this way, certainly He was troubled. I think it's specifically because this is a spiritual affliction. I think that there is also reason to believe that this father probably felt some guilt also for this situation. I've said this before and I think it's worth pointing out here again that Possession by evil spirits does not just happen. It's not something that someone is born into. It's not something that happens without permission. It's very likely that this young boy, as young as he was, was not the one who invited evil spirits into his life. It's much more likely that this young boy, his parents, his father even, was engaged and involved in false religion, in heathenistic and paganistic religion, in which there was the worship of devils, essentially, and practices that were devilish practices and evil and satanic practices. And that perhaps this child, as some would come when their children are born and dedicate their children to the Lord and to the Lord's purposes, that the heathen would practice this also, would dedicate their children to the service and the worship of these false gods and these evil spirits, it's very likely that this young child was possessed because of some action like that on behalf of the parent. When Jesus asks the man in verse 21, how long is it ago since this came unto him? And the father answers and says, of a child. When he calls him a child, he's using the word infant. He's not saying that he was just a young kid. He wasn't an elementary school kid who had already started to express his own will in some ways. From infancy, the child was afflicted by this. And that's not something that an infant is able to invite into his own life. This is something an infant would expose themselves in any way at all to this kind of influence. This was something that this child was brought under the influence of by adults, by his parents. And then for this father to then see the effect that his choice is having on his child is devastating. It's devastating. You can imagine that he's not just afflicted in his mind with concern, which certainly is reasonable, but also with the guilt of having basically been responsible for this that was taking place in his life. They had heard now the ministry of Jesus Christ. The Lord's been actively ministering here in Israel for a while at this point and they had heard about the miracles that Jesus could do and certainly had heard about the power that that Jesus Christ had over evil spirits. Even at this point, again, to reference the apostles, several chapters before this, the apostles had been sent out by the Lord and given power over unclean spirits there. in chapter 6 when he called his apostles and sent them out, and that's in Mark chapter 6 verse 7, it says, And this father had maybe seeing the apostles even, casting out evil spirits out of those in Israel, and performing some of those miracles, heard about the ministry of Jesus Christ, and knew that there was no hope and no help for his child, but to have these evil spirits cast out of him. So he brings them to where Jesus was. Now, Jesus, when he arrives here, where we began reading in verse 14, he had just come down from the Mount of Transfiguration, and so Jesus had gone with Peter and James and John, and he had gone up into the Mount to be transfigured before them, and the other nine of the apostles were left behind, and it seems that it was those other nine that the Father had brought his child to And it was these other nine that were not able to do that. I'm not criticizing the other nine. I don't know that even Peter, James, and John, had they been there, would the circumstances have been any different at all? This was a special and a unique instance here where the Lord had to intervene. But the apostles were not able to cast out this evil spirit, though they had the power to do that. The Lord had given them the power and the authority to do that through His name, to cast out evil spirits. But this one they couldn't. This was a unique situation. This was a particularly powerful evil spirit that they could not cast out. Again, also, we see this miracle taking place in front of the community, in front of even the leaders, the spiritual leaders of this community. It's the apostles and this father and people from the town having a debate at first with the scribes. The scribes were those who knew the law of God inside and out. They were the ones who were tasked with the preservation, the maintenance of the law of Moses. The ones who were really supposed to be the interpreters of the law, even if you would, because they essentially were or kind of like in the community, they were sort of like law enforcement, but law enforcement not in necessarily the civil authority kind of way, but in the religious authority kind of a way. And there were questions that were arising about how and why this boy was possessed with devils, and then about how he could be delivered. And nobody was coming up with answers when the Lord arrives here. as an unbelief abounds on the earth. And I think we all find ourselves, of course, we all find ourselves somewhere on the spectrum of faith, somewhere between having no faith at all whatsoever to having something at our best just less than the grain of mustard seed, I guess, right? Because if we even had that much faith, the Lord could do powerful, powerful things supernatural and miraculous things here in our lives, we all have some measure of faith and it's not a static amount. There are times when your faith is stronger, and there are times when your faith is weaker. And there's here an example, I believe, of people on multiple different levels, some who have no faith whatsoever. Those scribes have no faith in Jesus Christ, no belief at all that Jesus Christ can do this. The father here has enough faith to ask, but not really enough faith to put his full hope and trust there. The apostles, Have faith. They've seen the Lord do this before. They know that the Lord can do this. But they're also at a point where their faith, when they should have been able to do this themselves by the Lord's empowerment, they were not able to. And so there's a lack of faith in their lives also. We're all somewhere in that vicinity. We're all somewhere on that range, on that scope. So we see take place here. is we see the faith of the Lord meeting each one of these where their faith is and helping them to take the next step forward. First, we see here in verse 14, 15, again, he comes down from the Mount of Transfiguration. When he came to his disciples, he saw a great multitude about them and the scribes questioning with them in straightway. All the people, when they beheld him, were greatly amazed and running to him, saluted him, And along with him is this man who is bringing his son to Jesus Christ, and he comes running to where Jesus is. I think that's a special thing here that the people come running to Jesus Christ. The Bible makes it very, very clear that if our faith is going to grow from wherever you are in your faith right now today, if your faith is going to grow, it takes exposure to the Word of God. It takes exposure to the Word of God, and here it's the living Word of God, exposure to Jesus Christ. Just being exposed to those who knew the Word of God, like the scribes, or just being exposed to those who were learning about the Word of God, the apostles, those who had some foundation, some even authority in the Word of God. That was not enough, but to be exposed to the Word of God itself was the key. Jesus Christ, the living Word of God, was the only one who could produce the faith here that was needed in order for this miracle to be performed. The words of Christ produce faith, and God works through our faith. Faith is the key to the entirety of the Christian life. We come to Christ by faith, and we take every step forward in our walk with God, we take it by faith, and we, as it says in 2 Corinthians, we walk by faith and not by sight. If we are going to make any progress at all in the Christian life, it is a progress by faith. Romans 10, 17 tells us that faith comes by hearing. and hearing by the Word of God, or hearing the Word of God is what produces faith in the life of us as believers, faith to bring us into the Christian life, and faith to take us forward in the Christian life. Everything of the Christian life is produced by faith. The Bible is supernatural. I'm saying the Bible is supernatural. The Word of God is supernatural. And because it is supernatural, it speaks to us on a deeper level than just an intellectual level. It speaks to us more than just on an emotional level. It speaks to us on a spiritual level, on our deepest part, the Word of God is able to speak to us. The scribes only understood the Bible, they only understood the Old Testament from an intellectual level. Those scribes could probably quote large passages of the Old Testament. They could probably go to entire books of the Law of Moses and quote those. They could probably quote many, many Psalms and many Proverbs and many passages of prophecy and history, and they knew the Word of God on an intellectual level, but it wasn't speaking to them on the inside. because they weren't approaching the Word of God with faith, they were approaching it with intellect. The Word of God here, as the Lord speaks to this father, it spoke to him on a deeper level than that. The scribes couldn't answer this man's questions because they didn't truly have faith in it, but Jesus Christ, the living Word of God, was able to speak to this man's heart. Faith often defies and even denies conventional wisdom. Nothing conventional happens in this passage of Scripture. What should happen and what should be the answer is not what is the answer and it is not what happens to bring deliverance here. true faith defies and denies conventional wisdom, conventional knowledge and human understanding of circumstances. Hebrews 4.12 tells us the Word of God is quick and it's powerful and it's sharper than any two-edged sword. piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is the discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. The Word of God is supernatural, and has supernatural power to work in our lives, and produce faith, and to meet the needs that we have at our deepest level. Your faith will always benefit from an increased contact with the Scriptures and an increased exposure and increased influence of the Scriptures. So church is good and I'm glad you're here this morning and I'm glad that if you're able to, you came to Sunday school and you heard a Bible lesson and you're here in the service this morning and you're hearing the preaching of God's Word and I'm thankful for that. I understand that Sunday school, Sunday morning, even Sunday night, Tuesday, Wednesday, I still call it Wednesday service, Tuesday service, Bible study through the week, going to a men's study or ladies' study or any of those things, that's great to get together with other Christians and to study the word of God, but that's not going to be enough. to face the trials, the tribulations, the circumstances of this life, we must have regular and daily exposure to the Word of God, and personally reading the Word of God, studying the Word of God, personally memorizing the Word of God, meditating on it. Psalms 119 has challenged us in all of these areas, putting ourselves under the influence of the Word of God, listening to it, and then committing to obey it and doing that on a daily basis. If your faith is going to grow, it's going to grow by the exposure you have to God's word. And you can grow a little bit coming to church on Sunday mornings. You can grow a little bit more by coming to other church services and other times where we study the Word of God together. But if you're really going to see your faith grow, it's going to be because you put yourself under the influence and the exposure and the contact with the Word of God even more than that on a daily basis and more and more as we go forward. And so they ran to Jesus Christ to hear what He had to say. Let me challenge you to do that this morning. Let me encourage you to do that this morning. Go to the Word of God for yourself. Go to the Word of God for yourself. You know, Paul was a great preacher and a great scholar of the Word of God. And it says in the book of Acts that there was one group of Christians in particular that were more noble than others because after they heard Paul preach, they went to the Word of God themselves and they confirmed whether those things were so. Which means they went and they studied those things out for themselves. It's a good thing for you to come to church. It's a good thing for you to be under the teaching of the Word of God and have discussions with other people about that. But it's so much better for us to take those things and to go study them out for ourselves. And add that to the preaching and the teaching that we hear. I love what the Father says in verse 21. He describes the problem to Jesus Christ, and then he says, I'm sorry, in verse 22, The Father says, oftentimes, to cast him in the fire and in the waters to destroy him. And then he makes this request. And I think it's a special request that he makes here. He says, if thou canst do anything, have compassion on us and help us. What a humble prayer that that is. What a humble request that that is. Because certainly this Father has his idea of how this needs to go and how this problem, how this situation is going to be solved. And yet he comes to the Lord and humbly just says, but whatever you do, Lord, let it be from compassion. There's one thing that really characterized the ministry of Jesus Christ and set the ministry of Jesus Christ apart from any of the other teachers and prophets and religious leaders of the time and of the day. It was that Jesus Christ moved with compassion. Compassion. He set aside his own expectations. He set aside his own ideals. He set aside his own philosophy and his own thoughts about how this should go. And he simply asked the Lord to be compassionate. And God is never going to contradict his word. He's never going to act against himself. And sometimes the things that we want for God to do are things that God is not going to do because his word says so. Certainly delivering this boy in this situation was not something that God was unwilling to do. So something that certainly the Lord would want to see come to pass. But the way in which the Lord is going to bring it to pass is going to be His own way, not dictated by someone else. Bible tells us in James that one of the errors that we make in prayer is that we don't ask, is you have not because you asked not. And then it says another error that we make in prayer is that we ask amiss, that we ask for something that is not according to the will of God. We ask to consume it upon our own lust. We ask for things that God has no obligation to give to us. We ask for it in a way in which God has no obligation to give to us. And this Father sets aside all of that. He makes a humble request and allows the Lord to answer it in the way in which the Lord sees fit and the Lord sees best. He says, just have compassion on us. Just help us. Whatever that means, Lord, however you defined that, have compassion on us and help us. made no demands, he placed no definition or parameters on that compassion and on that help, placed no stipulations on it, no conditions. His submission and his humility opened the door for Christ to work through the little bit of faith that he had to perform this miracle. Verse 24, verse 23, the Lord asks him then, if thou canst believe all things are possible to him, that believeth, and the Father, of course, answers there, Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. And I think there's a special, another special truth there that sometimes we make the mistake of not expressing the little bit of faith that we do have because we know that our heart has a lot of unbelief in it. And here, this father, in spite of the maybe great amount of doubt that he has in his heart, the great amount of fear that he has in his heart, the great amount of anxiety and apprehension, shame, guilt, whatever those other negative things going on in his heart were, in spite of that, says, Lord, I do have a little bit of faith, though. And Lord, with a little bit of faith that I have, I do believe. There's a whole lot of other things going on inside of my heart right now, but Lord, I do have a little bit of faith. Your faith is never going to grow if you don't use the little bit of faith that you do have. Faith is one of those diminishing, perishable assets, I guess you would call it. It's one of those things where if you use it, you'll build up more of it, but if you don't use it, it will fade away and it will diminish. It'll atrophy by lack of use. And while we hesitate and we wait for God to give us more faith, we don't use the faith that we do have. God is under no obligation and God has no ability to increase our faith because we're not using it, we're not exercising it, we're not applying it in any way whatsoever. Father acknowledges his lack of faith, but also expresses the faith that he does have. by simply seeking out Christ. He's already shown some measure of faith. It took an act of faith for him to bring his son there to find, to seek out Jesus for this help. There's always going to be a battle with unbelief and anxiety and apprehension and fear and shame and guilt and all these other things the devil is going to try to plague our hearts with, that our flesh is plagued with to begin with, that the world tells us can and can't happen, what is and isn't real. There's always going to be that battle. Use the faith that you do have. I mentioned last week also, that after the resurrection, that Jesus Christ was seen of the 12, and He was seen of the 120, and He was seen of many after His resurrection. And the book of Acts tells us that He was on the earth until almost the day of Pentecost, which was 50 days after the Passover. Jesus was seen by many and seen to be alive. and told his disciples to go out to the mountain where he was going to ascend from. And some showed up to that mountain. And it says that they saw him. They were looking at him with their eyes, and they still had doubt in their heart. That's how strong doubt can be in our hearts. That's how strong doubt can be inside of our fallen nature. There's always going to be that battle. Use the faith that you do have. But waiting for your faith to be perfected, you're never going to get there. Use the faith that you do have. And then to turn our attention here just to the end of the story, the Lord delivers this young boy and gives him back to his father, made right and made whole there. And at the very end in verses 28 and 29, the disciples came to him. asked why they couldn't cast out this evil spirit. They'd cast out others. The Lord had given them power to do that. And they came back and were able to report many exciting things that they were able to do in the name of the Lord. And then here's this instance where they had no ability to. The Lord said to them, this kind can come forth by nothing but by prayer. and fasting. There are times even for the experienced Christian, for the seasoned Christian, for the older Christian, either by physical age or by years of being saved or both. There are times even where our faith runs into a brick wall. And those times remind us that we still need to grow. We still need to go forward. We still need to draw closer to the Lord. The disciples were, of course, discouraged and humbled by this incident. The Lord challenged them with an ever-increasing readiness for this spiritual warfare. He said, this kind cometh not but by prayer and fasting. And they didn't know that that was coming. They didn't know that they were going to face this kind of powerful situation. this kind of a powerful evil spirit. And so what was the Lord challenging them with was a constant readiness, a constant preparation, a constant growth in their faith, coming to not just a place where they were comfortable in their Christian lives and they felt like they had reached a status, but they were continuing to press on toward the prize, the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. They need to continue to draw closer to the Lord and stay close to the Lord in prayer and stay dedicated to the scriptures and continue to see things with spiritual eyes and prioritize the spiritual over the physical and continue to draw closer to the Lord more and more and more. We can't anticipate. the specific challenges that we're going to face on any given day, on any given week, but what we can anticipate is that there will be a challenge. I don't know what you're going to face this week. I don't know, and I hope that it doesn't happen, but it could be that you get a bad phone call this week. Could be that you get a bad report from your doctor this week. It could be something terrible and tragic happens on even a bigger scale. We don't know. I don't know what the challenge is, and I hope it's not something like that, but it could. And you can't anticipate that. You can't anticipate the bolt out of the blue, but we can live with the reality that those things happen. And God, if it does, I want to respond in faith, and I want to respond with peace and with joy and with wisdom. And I don't want to respond in the flesh, and I don't want to fail that test. God, I want to respond by faith and with your grace. And the only way that we can do that is if we're preparing ourselves for those unexpected things. And we're doing that by staying in the scriptures day in, day out, staying close to the Lord in prayer, day in and day out, taking our faith very, very seriously. We all need help with unbelief. We close this morning. Let me just ask you to think about this. Where do you struggle with doubt? What is the spiritual doubt that plagues your mind right now? Is it Is it about your salvation? Are you struggling with thoughts of whether or not you're even saved? Is it in your walk of obedience to Christ? Is it in receiving the promises that God has made for vision and protection? is what God is maybe putting on your heart as a burden, maybe even as a calling, whatever it may be this morning, I want you to take some time here and respond however the Lord may be leading. So with our heads bowed this morning, if you would join with me for a time here of prayer for just the next several minutes, I'd like for us to continue in a spirit of prayer. You can remain there in your seat for this time, but please, please, as you do pray, let the Lord have his way in your heart. The altar will also be open if you'd like to come forward and pray here at the altar that's available to you. I'll be here in the front. Also, if you have something you'd like to speak with me about or pray with me about, I'll be here to meet with you here at the front also. But all around the room, let's have a heart and a spirit of prayerfulness as we go here into the invitation. If you need to be saved, please get that question answered in your heart this morning. If you need to make some commitment of faith to the Lord, get that answered in your heart also. The piano is going to play for a few moments, and as it does, whatever way the Lord is leading in your heart, let's respond in obedience.