Help My Unbelief

Tonight we are looking at what is really the second half of my favorite section of the Gospel of Mark in Mark 9:14-29. What I love about these verses is that it brings us back to reality in a sense. Last week we were on the Mount of Transfiguration and we talked about how we are going to share in the glory of Christ in the sense that Scripture says we will see Him in glory and be co-heirs with Christ. Now we get back to the nitty gritty. Now we get back to earth so to speak. Last week we saw great Godly power and today we will see profound human weakness. Today we come back to suffering. You all have heard me say this before, no one is exempt from suffering. Christ Himself suffered and who are we to think that we deserve better than our Lord? All you have to do is live long enough, and as we will see today that is not very long, and you will experience suffering. God is God and we are not. He has unlimited power but we do not. He is a God of unrivaled strength but we are all people shrouded with weaknesses. One of my favorite songs by a guy named Rich Mullins has a great reminder for us in the chorus when Rich sings, “With these our hells and our heavens so few inches apart, we must be awfully small and not as strong as we think we are.” We sometimes need to be brought down to earth and what we are going to see tonight is a profound bringing down to earth moment for the disciples. All of us need to be confronted with reality. Tonight we see the disciples tested in a way that they have not been before. The question for them comes down to this: What will their faith look like when Jesus is not physically there? I’m excited to get into these verses so let’s pray and then we will look at Mark 9:14-29

Mark 9:14–29 NASB95

When they came back to the disciples, they saw a large crowd around them, and some scribes arguing with them. Immediately, when the entire crowd saw Him, they were amazed and began running up to greet Him. And He asked them, “What are you discussing 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 stiffens out. 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!” They brought the boy to Him. When he saw Him, immediately the spirit threw him into a convulsion, and falling to the ground, he began rolling around and foaming at the mouth. And He asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. “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 said, “I do believe; help my unbelief.” When Jesus saw that a crowd was rapidly gathering, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You deaf and mute spirit, I command you, come out of him and do not enter him again.” 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 got up. When He came into the house, His disciples began questioning Him privately, “Why could we not drive it out?” And He said to them, “This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer.”

Life Off the Mountain

As you can see there is a whole lot going on in these verses. It is a totally different atmosphere from what we saw last week on the Mount of Transfiguration and I love how John MacArthur describes this scene. He speaks of it as a series of contrasts between what happens on the Mount of Transfiguration and what happens here in the valley. MacArthur said, “The transfiguration happened on a mountain; this happened in the valley below. In the transfiguration, there was glory; here there was suffering. In the transfiguration God dominated the scene; here Satan did. In the transfiguration, the heavenly Father was pleased; in this incident, an earthly father was tormented. In the transfiguration there was a perfect Son; here there was a perverted son. At the transfiguration, fallen men were in holy wonder, in this story, there was a fallen son in unholy horror.” Let’s walk through this incident and the reminders that it gives to us. As Jesus, Peter, James, and John come down the mountain, they get to the other 9 disciples and a large crowd is present and there are some scribes that are there that are arguing with the disciples. The scribes aren’t giving grief to the crowd or at least they aren’t to our knowledge. It seems that they are specifically arguing and I would go as far as saying heckling the disciples. I don’t think that they are arguing with the disciples on theology or Scripture but based on the context of the message, they are more than likely arguing with the disciples as to why they were so powerless to cast out the demon of the boy that has been brought to them. I imagine them saying things to the disciples like, “I thought you said Jesus could do this! You operate in His name but look how weak and ineffective you are! You can’t even help a little kid!” As we see in verse 28, even the disciples are not sure why they were unable to heal the boy. Christ had already sent them out in Mark 6 and gave them authority to cast out demons but it seems that this was only temporary. The real power would come later in Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit would fall upon the Apostles but now they are in a rut. Now they are at a point of playing defense instead of offense. Jesus asks the scribes what it is that they are discussing with the disciples and before the scribes give an answer, we see a father from the crowd cry out with an answer. Mark 9:17–18 says, “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 stiffens out. I told Your disciples to cast it out, and they could not do it.”” Here we see the issue of the child and the inability of the disciples. What we see here and in verse 25 is that this boy is suffering from an evil spirit that has left him deaf and mute and it also causes him to have violent seizures that slam him to the ground. Now what a lot of people say at this point is that what this boy is suffering from is not demonic possession but actually from a neurological disease. They say that this boy’s problem is a medical issue and not a demonic issue that stems from his seizures but the ancient world was so readily accepting of the spiritual world that they neglected physical causes. So do you think that is all that is happening in these verses? Are the works of Satan actually present in this chapter or could this boy’s problem been fixed with anti seizure medication? No, the devil is at work in the sufferings of this boy. And as we see, Satan has his eyes on all people regardless of age. It is entirely possible that Satan is amplifying this boy’s suffering and his suffering is brought about by demonic influence. David Garland describes it like this, “Attempts to give his affliction a modern medical name do not alleviate the evil behind his suffering.” This is a great reminder for us that Satan is at work in your suffering. He is the source of evil that is found in any and all sufferings. He is going to work against you any way that he can regardless of what age you are. We can see this clearly in the indoctrination of the children of today with woke ideologies and lifestyles. This is why it is so important that you become right with Jesus at a young age. This is why it is so important that regardless of what you are going through that you know the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit and Christ’s ability to save. As we see in the life of this boy and as we see in the life of Job, Satan will attack the physical body in order to do greater damage to the spiritual soul. Here we see life off of the mountain. In these verses we see that Satan has influence and suffering is present. We see human weakness and we see man’s inability to save himself. Understand if your greatest source of strength is yourself, there is a time when that will not be enough. There will always be a time where you will need to rely on something or someone outside of yourself for strength. A Christian is one that recognizes his or her weaknesses. You have to in order to be a Christian because being a Christian means that you submit to God for a salvation that you cannot reach on your own. It is by faith alone that we are saved and yet even if we have faith, we can often fall into moments of doubt and unbelief. Look again at Mark 9:21-24

Mark 9:21–24 NASB95

And He asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. “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 said, “I do believe; help my unbelief.”

A Desperate Prayer that God is Ready to Answer

That short prayer that the father prays in verse 24 is probably the prayer that I have found myself returning to more than any other prayer in the Bible. So short yet so profound. I have found myself time and time again confronted by Jesus and saying these very same words. “Jesus I know you can do it. I know that you are God the Savior. I believe these things! Yet even in my belief there are seeds of unbelief. Help my unbelief.” Our faith, while in a perfect Savior, is not completely perfect. At least not right now. One day our faith will become sight but it is entirely possible to have faith but fall into doubt. Just look at John the Baptist. Here was a man that Jesus called the greatest in the kingdom of God but even he went through moments of doubt. Our prayers must reek of desperation. Because as long as we go to the Lord in prayer with the mindset of, “if you don’t do it, I’ll just take care of it on my own” we aren’t really going to Him in faith. Prayer is a calling out in a hopeful desperation. It is hopeful in the fact that we can have confidence that all prayer is heard by our Heavenly Father and it is desperate because only He is able to do something about it. You have heard me say this enough but the Gospel is good news but it is only good news to those that are desperate. This father could have easily said, “Jesus your disciples couldn’t do this for me and I’m not sure if you can either.” But he doesn’t say that does he? No he recognizes in that moment the greatest issue is his unbelief. His concern in that moment surprisingly turns from the well being of his son to the doubts of his own soul. He cries out to Christ and asks Him to help his unbelief and as we see in the next verses, Christ does exactly that! When the father asks Jesus to help him in his unbelief, Jesus doesn’t say no. He doesn’t say, “Here’s some homework. Go do that and at the end of a few months I’ll help you with your problem.” No Jesus acts! He answers this desperate father’s desperate prayer. In Jesus there is everything that you need to have your unbelief and doubts met. In Jesus there is enough to go around. Do you recognize that Jesus is the only One that not only meets you at your weakness, He gives you His strength! He doesn’t just address the problem, He answers the problem! God is ready to answer the prayer of the desperate believer that needs a steady flow of grace. Charles Spurgeon said, “This is the point to arrive at, to feel that there is no deficiency in the merit of Christ; no lack of power in his precious blood; no unwillingness in Christ’s heart to save me; but all the hindrance lies in my unbelief. There is the point. O God, bring your power to bear where it is wanted. It is not because the blood will not cleanse me, it is because I will not believe; it is not because Christ’s plea is not heard, but because I do not trust that plea. If I am not in the possession of full salvation, it is not because Christ is not mighty to save, but because I do not lean on him fully and entirely.” Are you leaning fully and entirely on Christ? Or are you trusting your own power to save? Have you brought your doubts to Jesus? Understand if you are bringing your doubts to Christ, that is still a picture of faith because it shows that you do believe that He is able to do something with those doubts. It is the heart that doubts and does not bring those doubts to Christ that has little to no faith. Daniel Akin asks the question: “How does turning to Jesus with questions and doubts demonstrate at least small faith rather than no faith at all?” What do you think? Doesn’t it show that you believe that Jesus can still do something that you are unable to do? Don’t you need faith to bring weakness to someone in the anticipation that they can address those weaknesses and provide answers for them?

A Picture of Resurrection

The last thing that I want us to look at in these verses is that we see a picture of the resurrection taking place. Christ’s death and resurrection are rapidly approaching but it isn’t necessarily His resurrection that I have in mind. Of course we can’t get to the other resurrection without Christ’s resurrection first but Look at what happens in verses 26-27. The demon cries out and throws the boy to the ground and it comes out of him and the boy is left lying so still that the rapidly growing crowd assumes that he has to be dead but look at Mark 9:27 “But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him; and he got up.” Death to life. Not by the will or power of the boy but by the power and glory of Christ. Do you see how we get a glimpse of the resurrection of all believers in this verse? Jesus is the one that takes us, raises us, and then we get up. Look at what John writes in John 6:40. Jesus says, “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” Isn’t that what He physically does to this boy? Doesn’t Jesus Himself take this boy by the hand and raise him? The day is coming when Jesus will raise up His people and He isn’t sending the intern angel to do it. No, Christ Himself will raise up His people. Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.” Christ Himself is coming for His people. We know that as Christians that our souls when we die depart to be in the presence of Christ but the day is coming when even our physical bodies will be raised and they will be made new and we will always be with the Lord. We don’t do it, it is entirely His doing. Sinclair Ferguson said, “Jesus’ actions pointed forward to the time when He would conquer all the powers of darkness- in the weakness of the cross and the triumph of His resurrection. At the same time He was laying down the principle of all spiritual service in God’s kingdom: God uses the weak things of this world to destroy the influence of the things which are mighty. In this way the glory is always His.” So have you confessed your weaknesses to Christ? Have you confessed that you need Him to lift you up from the clay and set your feet upon the rock? The old hymn, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing has a great reminder for us. Let us pray these words

“O to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be! Let that grace now, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love; here’s my heart; O take and seal it; seal it for thy courts above.”

and the words of this father, “Lord I believe, help my unbelief.”