The Mighty Son of God

Our text this morning is Mark chapter 9, verses 2 through 29. Let us make three booths, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.

For he did not know what to answer, for they became terrified. Then a cloud formed, overshadowing them, and a voice came out of the cloud.

This is my beloved son, listen to him. And all at once, when they looked around, they saw no one with them anymore, except Jesus alone.

And as they were coming down from the mountain, he gave them orders not to recount to anyone what they had seen, until the

Son of Man rose from the dead. And they seized upon that statement, arguing with one another what rising from the dead meant.

And they began asking him, saying, Why is it that the scribes say that Elijah must come first?

And he said to them, Elijah does first come and restore all things, and yet how is it written of the

Son of Man that he will suffer many things and be treated with contempt? But I say to you that Elijah has indeed come.

And they did to him whatever they wished, just as it is written of him. And when they came back to the disciples, they saw a large crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them.

And immediately when the entire crowd saw him, they were amazed, and as they ran up, they were greeting him.

And he asked them, What are you arguing with them? And one of the crowd answered him, Teacher, I brought you my son, possessed with a spirit which makes him mute.

And whenever it seizes him, it slams him to the ground. And he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid.

I told your disciples to cast it out, and they could not do it. And he answered them and said,

O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you?

Bring him to me. And they brought the boy to him, and when he saw him, immediately the spirit threw him into a convulsion.

And falling to the ground, he began rolling around, foaming at the mouth. And he asked his father, How long has this been happening to him?

And he said, From childhood. And it has often thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him.

But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us. And Jesus said to him,

If you can, all things are possible to him who believes. Immediately the boy's father cried out and was saying,

I do believe. Help my unbelief. Now when Jesus saw that the crowd was rapidly gathering, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it,

You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and do not enter him again. And after crying out and throwing him into terrible convulsions, it came out.

And the boy became so much like a corpse that most of them said, He is dead. But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him, and he stood up.

And when he came into the house, his disciples began questioning him privately. Why could we not cast it out?

And he said to them, This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer. Let's pray.

Lord, you have revealed yourself to your people.

And Lord, as we read a text like this, we should be drawn to your glory, or we should be drawn to your majesty.

We should also be drawn to our condition of blindness. And Lord, our unbelief that vies with what we have seen and what we know.

So Lord, this morning, I pray that you would give us conviction to see where we have unbelief.

And Lord, help us with that. Help to take away our unbelief so that we would believe your word, that we would believe your testimony.

Lord, as the song said, that we would have that mystic union with those who came before us, or that we would see the historic faith and that we would be comforted knowing that you are

Lord and that you have saved us. Lord, thank you so much for this time. I pray that it would profit your people and that we would have ears to hear and that we would understand and that this word would penetrate into our hearts and sink in deep.

It's in your name, I pray. Amen. As we go to context, we've been looking over and over and over again at this idea of belief and unbelief in the sign of miracles.

There's been miracles everywhere. And yet the people who are traveling closest with Jesus over and over again do not understand the reason for the miracles and don't understand the source of the miracles.

And today we draw into focus that this story today is about the resurrection.

And in context, we will go there and look more particularly at the resurrection next week. But what Jesus is doing is he is orienting the disciples and he's orienting everyone around to look at the fact that the son of man must die for the sins of man and that he would raise again.

But in the midst of all of this, we have a changing of the guard. An old covenant is giving way in this story.

I think if you see it and what I hope to show you this morning is that the old covenant has passed away and a much greater thing has come into place.

But those who are closest to it are blind and they don't see it clearly. Now, this can happen to us.

I'll give a I'll give a couple I can't go too long here, but I was confronted with my own blindness this week on an academic matter.

I was looking at electrical ladder logic and I was teaching some adults. And there was there was the end of one rung.

I don't expect you to know what I'm talking about. But there's the end to run one rung. And I was explaining this device and I've been teaching it this way for years.

And the older man who was with me, I said something and he kind of did this face. He was like, and I and I stopped and I said, no, am

I wrong? And he said, kind of. So this I said, time out.

The class is over. And I had him come over and he explained to me how I was wrong about a neutral leg.

And I argued with him and then he drew a picture and then I argued again. And he took the device apart and showed me the inside.

And I said, oh, I've been wrong about everything. I was totally blind to it. Totally blind.

Didn't understand. I understand how series circuits work. I understand how coils work. But I didn't put it all together, even in the face of this logic.

I didn't get it. And I think that that must be kind of like the stories of the disciples. The thing about blindness that's very difficult is with spiritual blindness.

We don't know that we're blind. That's the problem. I was going on gleefully teaching this content without knowing that I was teaching it wrong.

In fact, I would have argued with anyone who had come at me. That's the good thing about high school students. They're rarely coming at me because it's all

I can do to get them to listen to every fifth word I say. So I was never going to get called on it there. But I did get called on it by an old man, and I'm very grateful to him.

So the disciples have blindness. And here's what I want you to see. I'm going to be hard on them this morning. And I think the author,

Mark, he is hard on the disciples. And there's a tradition of the gospel of Mark, and that is that it is probably the account of Peter that was written down by Mark.

And who would know the foibles and the unbelief of the disciples better than Peter? And here's what

I submit to you this morning. The disciples look very dumb in this passage. And they've looked very dumb in many passages that we've looked at coming up to this point.

And guess what? They're going to look even dumber still as we go through the next few chapters. But here's the thing.

What man of you in here would say that you were worthy to tie the shoestraps of the apostle

Peter? I would say no one. No one. Peter, who his confession is the cornerstone of the church, the one who is the chief of the apostles, who in large part is the reason that we have.

This word is that God used those apostles to give us the faith delivered to all the saints.

And so it should be hopeful to us that these men were just men. But at the same time, men struggle with belief and unbelief.

And the problem that we get into is just like the man whose son was demon possessed. A lot of times we don't know where our unbelief comes from.

And we often don't even know that we have it. It's a very difficult conundrum that we find ourself in.

But the first section, I want to talk about the son of man and kingdoms and covenants. It's a good thing that we've put these in more than one.

I think I could go an hour and a half on the transfiguration. Instead of doing that, don't worry. I'm going to try to do about 20 minutes.

OK, so here we go. I've entitled the transfiguration a new old story. So we are looking at the first or we are looking at verses 2 through 13.

And what happens is I want to look at the comparisons and fulfillments in this passage.

So if you look right away, Jesus takes his three, the inner circle, Peter, James and John, and he takes them up to the top of a mountain.

Now, there's some dispute over what that mountain is. And it doesn't really matter to us. It's probably somewhere in between where he was in Caesarea Philippi up to Galilee.

There is a high mountain there that is about 9000 feet. There's problems with this.

People are trying to place it. We're not going to go down that rabbit hole. But what you'd have to understand, first of all, is this happens on a mountain.

And a lot of bad things and a lot of good things happen on mountains in Scripture. A lot of people go to worship false gods on mountains.

It was thought to be where heaven is closer to earth. But those were all mockeries and facsimiles and foolishness that were pointing at the reality that God often spoke to his prophets on mountaintops.

And this story this morning, you should be looking at two men in particular, two pillars of the

Old Testament. They are Moses and Elijah. They are named. That's not me making that up. It's right there.

And so scholars for a long time have wondered what is going on with Moses and Elijah there. Moses makes a lot of sense.

Elijah, a little bit less sense. But I think that we should look through that and see the first comparison.

What are we thinking when we see a mountain and we have clouds on the mountain and we have shining light?

We should be thinking of another mountain. And the author of Hebrews draws us to that mountain, that there was a mountain that had a shakable reality.

And that mountain was Mount Sinai. Mount Sinai, where Moses went to the top of the mountain. And it was a terrifying experience.

Up on top of this mountain, there was a gloomy cloud covering and there was sound.

And it was a moment that you would have been terrified if you'd been sitting at the foot of that mountain because God had given rules.

When Moses went up the mountain, there was not to be anyone touch the foot of that mountain or they would be put to death.

Not even a cattle could go on the foot of that mountain or they would be put to death. This is a place that was unapproachable.

You do not step foot on Mount Sinai or you will die. And so Moses, God's prophet, goes up and he delivers.

He is given revelation from God of the way that his people are to live. Moses is given the law.

Now, if you if you've been in kind of a study of covenant theology, what you would understand is a mosaic law.

When Moses is given the Ten Commandments, this really gives us the brightest picture of revelation of what

God's covenant was to be about. This is how the people are to live. And if you remember when Moses gets the law and he comes down off the mountain, he asked the people, are you going to follow this law?

And they say, we surely will follow that law. And so Moses throws blood on the people and they say, we will follow this law.

And they were wrong. They did not follow the law. But we get a few things from this. Number one, we give that God is a

God of order and that his people, when he gives revelation, there is also a responsibility and there is a law of death that shines on the sinful condition of people.

To know God's law is to know how bad our situation is, because our situation is, is that we can't follow any of it.

We can even the parts that we do think we're following, we rode those up and say that we don't need

God because we follow the law. That's like the rich young ruler that you'll see in a few weeks. We have no ability to follow the law, and yet it was given and it was given for the good of people because what

God was doing was writing a story. And we go from Sinai to this mountain in Mark 9. And the mountain in Mark 9 has a lot of similarities, but there's some key differences.

But first, the similarities, dazzling light, clouds, clouds show both the mystery of God, but they also show the protection of God.

And they allude to the coming of the Messiah on the clouds in judgment. Clouds are showing

God's mystery and his protection and him ushering in. And so on the mountain of old, the law was given and prophecy was rendered.

And what I really hope to prove to you is that at Mount Sinai, the old was testifying of the new.

We do not have two different religions. There is not the religion of the Jews in the Old Testament and the religion of Christians in the

New Testament. There's always been one religion, one God, one faith, one religion.

And the New Covenant does not abrogate the old, it fulfills it. We live in the days of the

New Covenant, but we didn't have Jesus come and go, you know, all that old stuff. We're kind of done with that now.

That's not what happened. Jesus fulfilled the old and he brought in the new, which is a more intense, brilliant, clear covenant that we see today.

And I think that I want to draw your attention to that. So when Moses goes up, when he goes up on the mountain and he's given all this, he comes down and there's this concept.

I was fascinated with it as a younger man. This concept is the Shekinah glory. All right.

So when Moses comes down off the mountaintop, the people cannot look at his face. It's too dazzling for them.

They can't, they can't look on him. And so what they do is they make Moses wear a veil. And I've always thought to myself, that's kind of weird.

I've never seen a grown man wearing a veil before. That must have been fairly interesting. But the idea that we're getting is that, remember,

Mount Sinai, unapproachable. You can't go up there. God's man went up there. Anyone else to go up there, that's death.

And when he comes down, when he comes down, they can't even look at him. So separate was God from the sinful people that there was no way to approach at all.

See, in the new covenant on this mountain in Mark 9 though, James and John and Peter can look.

And they go up onto the mountain with the Lord. See, what Jesus is in this text is he is the greater Moses.

That's not me making this up. The author of Hebrews gives us this. Paul gives us this in 2nd Corinthians as he talks about how the veil and how when they saw the glory on Moses' face, imagine how much more glorious it is to behold the son of God in his gospel.

It's a lesser to greater thing. And so the Shekinah glory that made the people have to cover

Moses' face. We know that there is a new kind of covenant because the son of God himself goes on this mountaintop, converses with the father, converses with the law and the prophets, and his disciples are with him and they are looking on him.

Now, granted, it's uncomfortable for them. It was terrifying for them. They've never seen a light as bright as what they saw on top of this mountain, but they are there.

And similarly, remember, Peter, James and John are men. We are merely men today.

And in this new covenant, one of the things you have to understand is that God has come to live among us and we are in the presence of God and we can enter the presence of God with confidence because he doesn't look on our law following or our law breaking.

He looks on Jesus' law following and Jesus' righteousness that's been given to us. And so this mountain in Mark 9 is showing a different kind of mountain, a new kind of covenant, a covenant where God truly has come to live among his people and that his people can hold court with God.

When we pray, we don't pray through a mediator. We don't wash up and go into the temple and talk to a priest.

There is one mediator between God and man. That is Jesus Christ. So we can look in the new covenant and then we get to the metamorphosis, the transfiguration.

That's what this event is about. And the root word for transfigured is metamorpho.

All right. The idea is that this is a completely different kind of thing. Same being, totally different trappings.

It's like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. And what we see in this metamorphosis is we see a greater reality where Jesus has changed before their eyes.

And just for a moment, the disciples see what Philippians is talking about.

When Jesus was with God, but he did not claim his divinity as a thing to be grasped.

Peter, James and John on top of this mountain see Christ as he truly is in his divine nature.

And what they see is a whiteness that no one else has ever seen. Can you imagine how white the robes on the

Lord Jesus Christ are? Perfect righteousness. Perfect righteousness. So if you remember, when

Moses saw this light, when he was given the law, they covered it up because they couldn't look at him.

But when Jesus sees the light, when Jesus is turned into this light, he's given this word transfiguration, metamorphosis.

This word is used four times in the New Testament. Once in Mark 9, once in the parallel account in Matthew, and then two other times.

And I want you to see as we start to round into application here, as Jesus changed, as they see his real nature, as they see his divinity.

What's this supposed to do? Well, Paul gives us two verses that use this word. I want to read them for you.

Romans 12, verse 2 says, And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed.

That's the word. Be transformed, be metamorphosized by the renewing of your mind so that you may approve what the will of God is, that which is good and pleasing and perfect.

So what happens to the Christian when we consider Christ, when we consider the high apostle, the high priest and the apostle of our confession?

When we look at him and when we take heed and when we gaze and we examine what has happened, who the

Lord Jesus Christ is, what happens is we are metamorphosized. And we no longer look like the world.

We are no longer conformed to the image of the world, but instead we are transformed. We change completely through the renewing of our minds.

And what does this renewing of the mind do? Remember, this ties back to Sinai. Look what happens with the metamorphosis so that you can approve what the will of God is, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

What happens is Christianity severed from the old covenant. Are we just doing a new thing? No. What happened is

Jesus, he brought us into his presence. And what he did is he gave us a mind that's able to understand the law.

That's what the people didn't have. They had a mediator, Moses, who would go into his tent and would talk to God on the people's behalf.

But we have a greater Moses today who makes appeal on that behalf of his people and who has given us this change to where we can understand the will of God and we can determine what is good and pleasing and perfect.

How peaceful is it to be the man or the woman who can determine what is good and pleasing and perfect?

Doesn't that sound peaceful? Doesn't that sound what a life well -lived is, is to understand what is good and pleasing and perfect?

What if everything you do is understanding and following the will of God, to be right in the center of the will of God, not to be jerked along, not to be pulled along, which he will do that for his people, but to be right in the center?

That's what it's like to be a tree firmly planted by streams of water. Do you understand that following God's law is a peaceful scene, right?

It's serenity. To be at peace with your creator. That's what's offered through Christ.

Another verse might be even more bold, 2 Corinthians 3, 18. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of God, are being transformed, are being metamorphosized into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the

Lord, the Spirit. Do you understand what was happening? On this mountain, Peter, James, and John, as they behold the

Lord, it starts this process to where they become like him. Not that they become God.

But remember, they're given the mind that determines what is good, but also they are being transformed into the same image of God.

That is not man becoming God. That is grace perfecting nature, is it not? Because if you remember back in Genesis, we are made in God's image.

And so what's happening? As we behold the Lord from one degree to another, we are being made more into that image of God that we were created to be.

See, in our sin, we fell away from creation and God's plan of redemption was put into motion.

But what we do is we mar God's image in ourself. We mar it with our sin. We mar it with our collective national guilt.

We mar it in many ways. But through grace, through grace, we are being transformed into the same image of glory, being made in the image of God.

Now, that's an interesting thought, isn't it? So Jesus showed them, I am the greater

Moses. You behold me and your mind is going to be transformed. You behold me and you're going to become from one degree to another back to the creation that I made you to be.

But it's going to be better this time because it's not based on a covenant of works with Adam. It's based on the covenant of redemption where Christ followed the covenant of works and he saved you and he didn't make you in the image of Adam.

He made you in the image of him. You are made in the likeness of God's son.

What an amazing thought. It's really an unsearchable thought. And if you ask me, how does that play out? I don't really know.

I don't really know. But I know that it's a grand hope and that someday in glory that we are going to resemble

God in a way that we don't understand right now as creation is perfected. What an amazing thought.

Christian, are you burdened down by the world? Don't be. Do not be conformed to this world.

Do not be enticed by the simple, mean pleasures of this world. But remember that you were made for something better and that God will surely make you into something better.

Now, as Peter beholds all this, Peter is always the bold one and we make fun of him. But guess what? Peter got to talk, so we get to judge him.

The others were quiet, but I would assume they were just as dumb. Peter was just impetuous. So what does Peter do when he sees the

Lord? He has the right impression, right? He thinks, this is good. This is really good.

I'm sitting here and I see Jesus and I see Moses and Elijah and they're talking to each other.

This is awesome. I'm so glad that I got to be here. Look at those other plebs down there that didn't come up the mountain.

They didn't get to see any of this. Wow. What an amazing day. Lord, Lord, let's set up three tabernacles.

One for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah, and we can just stay here forever.

This is going to be great. We know you can make the food. See, I get it now. I get that.

I really do. See, Jesus, you're going to dwell with us and the law and the prophets, it's all come together.

It's beautiful. That's what Peter's thinking. And he's right to wish for this, but he's looking at it the wrong way.

Do you understand what Peter does? He's looking with a very old covenant mindset as he looks on Jesus and he looks on Moses and Elijah and they're talking.

And what he thinks that he should do right now is that he should make the promises come true, that God is going to live on this mountain with us.

We will all be here and it'll be great. But see what Peter doesn't understand. But through his pen, we know that he will understand is he doesn't understand what the temple of the new covenant is.

The temple of the new covenant is the church. Peter would write later, 1 Peter 2, 4 and 5.

Listen to this. And coming to him as to a living stone, which has been rejected by men, but his choice and precious in the sight of God.

You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Do you understand? Peter got it at the end. Peter got it. God was not coming to live in a tapernacle anymore.

He was not going to be confined to one place in one nation, like in the old covenant where Israel was the oracle, right?

They were given the law and they were given the privileges of God's presence with the ark of the covenant. But in the new covenant,

God makes the temple out of his people, living stones, living stones, not dead stones, not minerals, living stones.

And as he builds those up, look who's going to be there. Where is the sacrifice going to happen? It's going to be inside the spiritual house with a holy priesthood.

And Baptists, to our great joy, we have held doggedly for many centuries that we have a holy priesthood of believers.

That is a super important thing to understand about Baptists, that we are all called to be priests because there is no mediator between us and God.

Jesus is the mediator. He is the great high priest and we are all priests and we have been built into a church.

And we offer spiritual sacrifices in the church. Really important that Peter understands this, but Peter doesn't get yet and the disciples don't get yet that Christ's kingdom is cosmic.

Not geographic, cosmic, it's everywhere. We also see in this text a recapitulation of God's favor on his son.

Remember when he's baptized, that God speaks, this is my son in whom

I am well pleased. In this text, he says, this is my beloved son. Listen to him.

That recalls two things. Number one, Genesis 22, this is Abraham and Isaac. Then he said, take now your son, your only one whom you love,

Isaac, and go forth to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which

I will tell you. This is the precursor. You probably didn't see this, right? This is my beloved son.

What he's talking about is just like John 3, 16. This is the son that's going to be offered as a sacrifice.

But there will be no ram caught in the bracket this time. The crown of thorns is going to go on his head.

It's going to be smashed down onto his head as this lamb of God is slain for the sins of people.

This is precious blood. Jesus is the beloved son of God. But also we get this other thing. Listen to him.

Listen to him. Deuteronomy 18, 15, Yahweh your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you.

That's Jesus from your brothers. You shall listen to him. Do you understand that Moses and Elijah are saying that the whole old covenant law and prophets testify to the son of man.

They testify to his divinity. And then Jesus tells them, don't tell anybody you've seen this until you see the son of man resurrected.

And then the disciples, they do something very dumb. Right. First of all, it says that they seize upon that statement.

That means they take hold of it and they stuff it down. It's going nowhere. They're having internal squabbles about what does it mean when he says he's going to be resurrected from the dead.

I don't know. What would that mean to you? What does it mean that you're going to come back from the dead? I don't know.

In a hyper spiritualized sense, it might be something like maybe he's going to go asleep or maybe the religion is going to be dead and raising it.

No, no, no. Jesus is going to die and raise again. And they don't understand it yet because they are still blind.

And as we'll see, the next discourse paints that picture, right? That there is blindness among the people.

They don't see really what's going on. We also see an illusion. They ask this question. Well, what about Elijah?

You can't possibly be dying. This can't be happening. Elijah hasn't come. And Jesus said Elijah did come.

Elijah did come and he did make the way because Elijah is John the Baptist. And when we look at Elijah and John, they were both persecuted by an evil woman,

Elijah by Jezebel, John the Baptist by Herodias. Elijah was delivered into heaven after his persecution as he went into heaven on a chariot of fire.

He was transformed just as Moses with the Shekinah glory. Elijah was transformed as he went into the chariot of fire into heaven.

But see, John is the picture of a different kind of Moses and a different kind of prophet. Because John, as Elijah comes and he heralds the way, remember, he brings them judgment.

And he says, your dead system of religion is not going to make way for you. You have to repent. You have to repent.

The axe is laid to the root of the tree. Beware, you pit of vipers. The winnowing fork of justice is coming.

And God is going to toss up all of the threshing floor grain and he's going to separate the wheat from the chaff, just as Psalm 1 said.

But John does not go to heaven on a blazing chariot of fire. John is killed and beheaded and chopped down, just like Jesus is going to be killed and just like Jesus' disciples.

Remember last week, count the cost. Count the cost. Did John count the cost?

Yeah. And John knew he was Elijah. He did because he knew the text. Malachi 4, remember the law of Moses, my servant, even the statutes and judgments which

I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel. Behold, I'm going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and awesome day of Yahweh.

And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers. Lest I come and strike the land, devoting it to destruction.

See, John restored repentance in the land because many thousands were being baptized by John.

And people were starting to understand that the system was coming apart and that God was moving and that things were happening.

So Elijah did prepare the way. Because what is Christ's message? Is it not repent and believe?

Is that not the gospel? Repent and believe. Do not hold to your own righteousness.

Your righteousness is filthy rags. Repent and believe. John said, repent and believe.

Be baptized. He is the forerunner. He prepares the way. But see, what we take from this story and we look and we're like, how do they not see this?

Like the disciple Peter, James and John literally saw the unmasked king of all creation.

That's what they saw on the mountain. Right. They saw Moses and Elijah revealed to them through the Holy Spirit conversing with God.

And they come back from that and they don't understand the message. And we think, how in the world? If I had seen that,

I would believe immediately. And here's the spoiler. No, you would not. You would not. Because belief comes from the

Holy Spirit. It's that simple. If you don't believe in God this morning, it's because you're dead in your sins.

And it's because you're listening to yourself. You do you, right? You're listening to the voice of your own stupidity.

And what you should cry out for is you should cry out for the regeneration and repentance that the Holy Spirit provides.

There is one way to be saved and that is through the Holy Spirit. It has always been required of all mankind.

No one has ever been saved outside of the work of the Holy Spirit. That goes for Elijah, that goes for Moses and that goes for you today.

So a little longer than expected. I knew I was going to do that. Let's look at an unbelieving generation as we look at the man and his demon possessed son.

First of all, as you look at verses 14 through 19, it's a difficult passage. Scholars have trouble with this because it's kind of broken up, right?

Let me show you what I mean. They came back to the disciples. They saw a large crowd around them, scribes arguing with them.

And then the crowd saw him. They were amazed. Why were they amazed? Some people think that Jesus still looks glorious like Shekinah Glory here.

I don't think so. And I don't think there's any real reason to believe that in the text. But we have to ask, why are they amazed?

And as they ran up, he said, what are you arguing with them about? And then they just don't answer the question. So what's that about?

Because somebody interrupts, what were you even arguing about? No answer. So let's try to look through some of that and then get back on the main road.

First of all, why are they so amazed? Who's arguing about what? Here's what I think.

In context, what we've seen is the disciples are unable to heal this boy, right?

They're unable to cast out the demon. And so I think what's happened is that the scribes are seizing on this opportunity to make fun of the disciples in much the same way that Elijah would have been making fun of the prophets of Baal.

Because remember, the scribes think that Jesus is a false religion. They think that he's the son of Beelzebul, right?

That's what they think is going on. And so they're arguing with the scribes or the disciples. Why can't you even cast out this demon?

If Jesus is really God and you're really his people, what are you even doing here? You're just clowning around. And the disciples are arguing, no, no, you don't understand.

He is God. And they're like, yeah, well, I mean, the kid's still convulsing, right? Where is this powerful

God? It really does recall Elijah there, I think. And I think that's why Mark is doing that. And then we have to ask, why are they amazed to see

Jesus? Well, here's what I think. I think that in context, what's going on here is that we are contrasting the crowd once again with the disciples.

You see, the disciples don't understand what's going on, but the crowd is excited for Jesus to come.

And I think that the crowd believes that this convulsing boy is about to be healed. Imagine if you're around and you see this kid foaming at the mouth, throwing himself in fire and in water, acting like an absolute lunatic.

And Jesus is going to come and totally stop it. And look, these people all knew each other. Remember, these villages have like at most 2 ,000 people in them.

It's like growing up in Prairie Grove. We all knew each other, right? If I saw somebody break into a house, I could go point at them the next day.

Oh, yeah, that was old John over there. I saw him, right? I know his car. I know who did it.

It's not like living in a metropolis, right? And I think that's the situation is they knew this kid. They knew the torture in this family.

They knew the hardship. Can you imagine being the dad of this child who's hurting himself all the time, who's deaf and mute at times, who cannot live a normal life?

It's a difficult time here. And then we have these scribes who are feasting on the inadequacy and the failings of God's people, right?

They're feasting on it. And God's enemies today will feast on your ineptitude, just like they did back then.

But guess what? It doesn't matter. God's purposes are going to be accomplished. And so the comparison is the crowd is expected to see something, and that's contrasted with the blindness of the disciples.

Because remember, Peter, James, and John are blind to what's actually happening at the mountain.

They get part of it, but they don't get the whole thing. And then when we get to this demon possession, the disciples are totally blind as to why they cannot cast out this demon.

We thought we had superpowers. What's going on here? They've forgotten to do something primary, right?

They've forgotten. Oh, I get ahead of myself. Here we go. So over and over, the

Lord teaches, and over and over, the disciples are unbelieving. So what's going to happen is, in this text, they are going to be taught a lesson by a desperate man in one of the most famous quotations of the book of Mark.

Jesus asks, how long am I going to be here with you? How long?

You see the presumption going on. They think he's going to be here forever. They don't understand. He's told them twice now.

The Son of Man is going to be delivered up and he's going to die. He's going to raise again. They don't have any way to believe that.

They don't have any concept of it. And so there is going to be a time where Jesus will leave. But then what he is going to do is he is going to send the comforter.

And in great measure, God's people are going to believe, right? And these apostles are going to see with clarity the new covenant, and then they will give their lives.

There will be no more blindness to the teachings of Christ. So let's look at what happened. Let's look at what happened.

And I've called this section the power of prayer. So they bring the boy to him. They bring the boy.

And Jesus asked, how long has this been happening? And the answer is for a long time, from childhood, for most of his life.

And we see here the demon is going to try to destroy the body and he's going to try to intercept the truth.

The demon is deaf and mute, just like the disciples, right? The disciples had been said to be mute.

They're not to tell anyone what they saw on the mountain until the resurrection. They're deaf and dumb.

They don't understand what's happening. The crowd doesn't quite understand what's happening. They are just expectant. And then this boy's father, he has some measure of belief.

But this demon has really gotten in the way. And so it is. When God's people seem to be powerless, the demons harp and they play.

And that's what we have in many different avenues in our country today, right? The demons are at play.

The demons are at play. I think I can't remember who I was talking to, but somebody asked me the question, if you could change one thing about our country right now, what would it be?

And I thought a little bit, but I think that my answer would be to stop the lies. I think that would be my one answer.

If you could change anything about our country, it would be that the lies would stop because it's so confusing when no one knows what to believe.

And I think that's what the demon does, right? The demon makes you deaf and mute. It makes no one understand what's going on.

It's interfering with the transmission and it's trying to kill the body. Demons always do this. The demon of abortion is killing people and perverting the truth and making people believe that it's just a clump of cells.

Or, like, you can have sex all you want, contrary to God's law. It'll be okay. We'll just murder. And you're murdering people that don't even matter.

Big deal. That's what demons do. They make us deaf and stupid. And then they want to destroy the body.

And so this boy has been under this oppression for a long time. A long time. And so the man asked him, he says, he says, the disciples weren't able to do it, but if you can do anything, would you take pity on us and help us?

And Jesus asked him, Jesus says, Oh yeah, sure. No, he doesn't. See, Jesus rebukes the man. Does he not? Do you see it right there?

He says, if, if you can, if you can, why are you even here?

If it's, if you can, if you can. Isn't this the dilemma of the past few stories?

Isn't it? What about the bread? Jesus, we're on the boat. We forgot the bread. How are we going to eat?

We're all going to die in this boat. Jesus, what are we going to do? What kind of man is this who the wind obeys?

Surely you don't have to die, Lord. What does it even mean when you say that you will rise from the dead?

If, if you can save him. And so the man is rebuked by Jesus, but in his rebuke, he returns in a way that I think the disciples have not shown yet.

Not all the way. He says, I do believe, help my unbelief. Do you understand that what happens is this man, when he has a confrontation with Christ, it leaves him with a clear understanding of how his faith is lacking.

His faith is lacking. We haven't, we haven't seen that many times. And this is the last, this is the last exorcism in Mark.

And I think it's a really important one because it shows us the power of resurrection. And we're going to get another look at that.

But here's the thing, right? This man, unlike the disciples, he doesn't know what he doesn't know, but he knows he doesn't know it.

And that's kind of like a Tolkienism there, right? I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, like that sort of thing.

All right. But at the end of the day here, what he understands is I need to have faith, but I don't have any.

I don't have enough. And then the critical part, the critical part, don't miss it. Help me, right?

Who does he ask for the faith that he knows he doesn't have? He asked the Lord. He asked the

Lord. See, he understands that Jesus can provide the faith. And that's a step that we churchgoers often forget.

Our faith does not come from understanding doctrine. Our faith does not come from academically studying the word.

Our faith does not come because our parents told us things. Our faith does not come from beer nights with the friends.

Our faith does not come from talking and arguing with each other and discussing all of the ins and outs of theology.

None of those things are bad things. But at the end of the day, that's not where faith comes from. Faith comes from Christ.

Faith comes from Christ. And if you don't have faith, ask for it. Isn't that what

James says? If any of you lacks wisdom, ask for it. Proverbs tells us over and over again.

What's the most important thing you can have? Wisdom. Why? Because wisdom tells us to ask for faith from the one who provides it.

And so Jesus obviously gives the man faith. Help my unbelief.

And Jesus rebukes the spirit, calls him deaf and mute, and tells him to leave.

And the boy has a final violent convulsion. And then he lays on the ground like a corpse.

I think he is dead. I think the boy dies. I think the demon had been so ingrained in this boy that he was his whole life.

He was so dominant in this young man. And he lays on the ground. And then we see again, this is the reason

I think the boy's dead. But whether he's just exhausted and fainted or whatever, we see the same picture.

And that is this passage is about the resurrection. The whole thing is about the resurrection. So what Jesus does is he sees the man's belief.

He rebukes the demon. He throws the demon out. And then he grabs the boy because everybody's like, oh, he's dead.

Don't you imagine? They weren't going like we were. Oh, he's dead. No, he's dead. What did you do?

Wouldn't you think so? What did you do? And the boy's look, the man's looking on at his son who he was convulsing and hurting himself.

But now he's dead. What did you do? But we don't hear the man say that because I think the man has faith.

And so what Jesus does is he simply grabs him and raises him up. Isn't that the picture of baptism?

Isn't the picture of your salvation is that you were dead and Jesus raised you to life?

Did you raise yourself to life? How absurd is that? How absurd? You can't raise yourself to life.

Only God can do that. So the question is this morning, do you believe? Do you believe?

And one more time, don't be like the disciples here. Be like the disciples later. Here's what the disciples do.

They come back later and they're like, Jesus, why couldn't we cast out this demon? We've been casting out demons everywhere.

We've been proclaiming your good news and we've been doing miracles and it's been awesome. And people have been asking us, remember this guy, he goes to disciples.

Would you cast out this demon? Disciples like, oh, sure. But nothing happens.

Still convulsing. Right. What are we going to do here? What happened? What happened? And Jesus tells them something and it's critical and it's short, but it should pack a big punch for us this morning.

And we end here. Prayer. Prayer is the only thing that's going to bring this type out.

Deaf, mute demon. Do you understand that? The deaf, mute demon. What's going to give you ears to hear and what's going to give you the words that you're going to speak?

Do your words not flow out of your heart? The words are going to flow out of the heart. Your ears are going to hear.

How are we going to be transformed? By the hearing of the word. Right. How are we going to speak words that please the

Lord? From having a heart that meditates on him. That's where the mountain ties in here. And at the end of the day, here's the key.

If you want to not be deaf and mute, pray. Why is the church weak in America?

Because we don't pray. Why do we not? Why do we not see power over these things?

Let me just give a few real quick. Did you know, guys, that prayer is the key to Christian's power over darkness?

And make no mistake here. Our Lord has power over darkness. The devil does his bidding, not the other way around.

There is not a cosmic battle between God and Satan. Satan is the lackey of God.

I know this is hard to understand. All right. But Satan roams to and fro, roaring like a lion.

But the reason he does that is because God has him on a leash. Satan is doing the ordained purposes of God.

In his insanity, he thinks he's doing it for himself. But God knows he's surely doing it for God. As God uses all things, all wills, all ends to his glory.

Even Satan is working for the glory of God. Now, that's an encouraging thought if you believe it.

And I do believe it. It's not a cosmic battle between God and Satan. It's not a cosmic battle between good and evil.

God wins. And God is good. But for us, we often forget it. And we think, hey, my answer to this question is to talk about it a lot.

Or my answer to this question is to ask a bunch of wise people and listen to a bunch of stuff on YouTube. Hey, my solution to this problem is

I'm just going to have to try harder. How do I stop this sin? Try harder.

How do I be a better Christian? Try harder and listen to a bunch of podcasts. No. What is the key to overcoming generational sin?

Prayer. What is the key to overcoming current enslavement to sin? Prayer.

What is the key? What is the key to getting rid of the demons that torment our people in this country?

Prayer. What is the key to strife between brothers? Prayer. And what we do is we pray something like this.

Lord in heaven, I'm having such a difficult time. Will you help me? I just don't know what to do.

Will you help me? And what we don't do is we don't pray like the man who's on the edge of desperation because his son is being thrown down over and over again into the fire.

Can you imagine seeing your boy throwing himself into a fire? Can you imagine? This man is desperate.

And when Jesus says, if you believe, he said, I do believe. Help my unbelief.

And when we pray, we don't have that kind of thought. What we do is we go, we believe it all. God, would you just do what

I say? No. Pray, God, help my unbelief. The reason

I sin is because I don't believe what you say. I don't believe you have the power to conquer sin in my life.

Help my unbelief. I don't believe you have the power to cleanse this country of evil.

Help my unbelief. I don't believe that you have the power to stop the generational sin that's plagued my family for generations.

Help my unbelief. Help my unbelief. See, if you pray that prayer in doubt,

God does not answer because you are double -minded. Double -minded, unstable in all your ways.

Does that not call to us that what we have to say is that we have to confess, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Friends, the reason we struggle with sin is because we don't believe. It's not because we don't try hard enough.

It's not because there's some doctrine that you don't understand. It's not because there's some friend that you don't have that you really need, who's going to push you that extra mile.

It's because we don't believe. What fellowship does light have with darkness?

If we believe and have faith, the Holy Spirit is working for our sanctification and we are promised,

I've said it I think three weeks in a row now, we are promised that he who began a good work in us will complete it.

That is a promise of God. He's not going to leave you alone. He is not going to forsake you. He will never forsake you.

And that sin that you struggle with, that unbelief that you struggle with, confess it to God. And understand that when you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive your sins according to what?

According to what? His righteousness. You see, this is all God's doing.

This demon was put here in this boy. It's an inexplicable thing. And I know I'm going long, but I have to bring this point out.

This boy, this boy was subjected to the horror of this deaf mute demon who was torturing his body.

Why? For the glory of God. Because this one day Jesus was going to come down from a mountain and he was going to look on this boy and he was going to teach his disciples a lesson that this boy was going to give them that day.

And we think, man, bad luck for the boy. No, not really. Because this boy, I think we can believe is in glory.

He was raised up by the Lord Jesus Christ. And these men were taught a lesson. And the reason we sit here today is because they wrote of the new covenant that Christ revealed and they wrote of the gospel that he revealed.

And we know to pray, help my unbelief because of this testimony today. Praise be to God for his work in this young boy's life.

Two thousand years ago. Wouldn't you like a story like that written about you? The demons don't have to stay.

Jesus has power over them. Pray, pray. That's always the answer. Faith is the victory that overcomes the world.

How do we gain faith? We pray for it because it's all given by Christ.

I hope that we can learn that lesson. Let's pray. Lord, we we are a weak people.

Lord, I feel it. I feel it every day. I feel that I feel the desire to look like the world.

I feel the desire to be to be fascinated by what the world has to offer. And yet,

Lord, you've given us a better way. You have told us that we will be transformed. That will be transformed to understand your law, to understand goodness, to understand your will, and will also be transformed into the image that you've made us into.

Lord, as a church, if we want to do anything, we have to understand that we have unbelief.

So, Lord, this morning, I pray that you would unveil our eyes and that we would see the areas where we do not believe in order we would confess that.

Help us to be like this man who has helped so many Christians for so many years.

Lord, we believe. Help our unbelief. Help our unbelief as a church,

Lord, that we would that we would praise your name. That we would be delivered from our foolishness or that we would be delivered from the discouragement that weighs us down.

That we would be delivered from any sins that creep onto us and grab on and slow down and wither us,

Lord, that we feel them in our bones as they grind us into dust. Lord, I pray that we would believe in your power to deliver us.

The enemy says that we will forever be enslaved to those sins. But you have said you have given us all the tools for righteousness.

And that through your word, you will deliver us from evil. Lord, help us to believe, help us to believe.