The Power of Faith

Mark 9:20-29
Gerrit Buddingh’ | Sunday, November 08, 2020
Copyright © 2020, Gerrit Buddingh’

Jesus’ Rebuke, or The Power of Faith

The incident found in Mark 9, which we are examining this morning, describes an embarrassing failure on the part of nine of Jesus’ disciples to cast out a demon, due to their lack of faith and lack of close dependence on the Lord Jesus for ongoing power.

Now, it can be argued that the threefold purpose of the Bible is to inform us of what we are to believe, to inspire faith in God, and to instill greater love and obedience to our Lord Jesus. In light of that, I direct your attention to verse 23: “Everything is possible to him who believes.” In response to that, in verse 24, it says, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” This morning’s message is about the power of faith.

This is contrasted by verse 18. There it is said of the disciples, “I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.” According to the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:7, “We walk by faith, not by sight.” Paul, in writing to the Galatians, says that we “live by faith in the Son of God” (Gal. 2:20). And in Hebrews 11:6 it says, “Without faith, it is impossible to please God.” So we are to live by faith.

Faith is the dominating feature in the life of every Christian because we have put our trust entirely on the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord. John states, “Everyone who believes in [Jesus] has eternal life. . . . Everyone who believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned because he has not believed in  the name of God’s one and only Son” (John 3:15, 18). Our is not blind faith. It is faith based on evidence. What anchors our faith is the witness of the Scriptures, the word of God, because the Scriptures tell us all we need to know for our salvation and life in Christ. The Bible is God’s word. It is a true word. It is an irrefutable word. And so we live by faith in Christ according to the Scriptures.

In this morning’s text, the Lord Jesus teaches about the most important ingredient of a successful ministry and service to Christ, that is, believing faith and spiritual power. The scribes lacked both, the disciples lacked the latter, and the father in the story has little faith.

Let us listen carefully to what the Lord has to say to us today, both as individuals and as a church. May it never be said to us individually or to our church, “And they could not.” Let us consider, then, first, the lack of spiritual power; second, Jesus’ rebuke; third, the cause of failure; fourth, Jesus’ gentle rebuke of the father; and, fifth, lessons for us.

1. The Lack of Spiritual Power

Before going further, let us set the stage for our text. In verses 1 through 13, we learn that Jesus had taken Peter, James, and John up onto a mountaintop where Jesus was transfigured before them. These three disciples witnessed Jesus in the splendor of his whole glory interacting with Moses and Elijah. Further, these three men were blessed to hear the voice of God the Father speaking as he owned Jesus as his beloved Son and enjoined the disciples to hear and obey Jesus.

Such mountaintop experiences with God, though delightful and blessed times, are not the norm. They certainly are enjoyable when God grants them. But God then usually leads us off the mountaintop down into normal life in the valley below.

When Jesus and the three come off the Mount of Transfiguration, they find the other nine disciples in a heated dispute with some teachers of the law, also known as scribes. They, along with the Pharisees, are those of whom Jesus said they were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else. They were in the area to check up on Jesus and to report back to the Sanhedrin. While they were sniffing around to gather dirt on Jesus, they encountered the other nine disciples, who remained behind. And they catch these nine disciples at a bad moment.

A very distressed father has brought his child to them. The child is demon-possessed, and he asks them to heal the boy. The boy is plagued by epileptic fits. But it is much more than a mere disease. It is a particularly stubborn demon that possesses this boy, not only causing the physical disease but constantly threatening his life.

Let no one here imagine that Satan is mere, fictional, evil force. None of us should laugh and think that Satan is just a religious boogeyman conjured up by non-believers to scare little children at Halloween. Satan is very real, as are his minions, the demons. They have great strength and can do great harm to people that they afflict. It is a particularly very violent and destructive demon that possesses this boy. It tries to burn him in the fire and drown him.

Earlier, Jesus had given authority to his disciples to cure all manner of diseases and to cast out demons. We find this in Matthew 10 and Mark 6. Somehow this boy’s father knew about this, so in Jesus’ absence, he asks the disciples to heal his son.

At first, they are quite certain they can do it. They had done it before. But after several attempts to cast the demon out, they give up in failure. The demon stubbornly refuses to leave the boy. Try as they can, the disciples simply cannot cast out this evil spirit from this boy.

Now, the scandal of this situation is twofold. First, these disciples lack the necessary spiritual power, and, second, their failure provides the unbelieving scribes with an opportunity to belittle not just them but indirectly their Master as well. The disciples’ failure reflects badly on them and on Jesus.

Now, as always, it is Jesus who steps into the situation to solve the problem. He arrives at just the right moment. This is always true. God is never too late in coming to our defense, though from our perspective it may seem to be just in the nick of time. Seeing what is happening, Jesus immediately asks for an explanation. Before either the scribes or the disciples can say anything, a man butts into the conversation. This father cares nothing for the controversy between the scribes and Jesus’ disciples. He only wants healing and deliverance for his son. Thus, he appeals directly to Jesus for help, seeking mercy and grace and healing and deliverance for this boy—grace that only Jesus can provide.

In verse 18, this father describes the failure of Jesus’ disciples to cast out the demon from this little boy, characterizing their failure with the words, “And they could not.”

2. Jesus’ Rebuke

Jesus voices a strong dismay over all that he has just witnessed. In verse 19 he exclaims, “O unbelieving generation, how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.” The word “O” expresses deep anguish. Here Jesus is expressing his displeasure toward everyone assembled there that day. He is disgusted with the religious leaders who do not have any concern whatsoever for the welfare of this afflicted boy and who simply refuse to believe in Jesus. He is gravely disappointed with his own disciples who do not have prevailing faith necessary to win this spiritual battle. And he expresses disappointment even with this brokenhearted father who does not have the unequivocable faith that Jesus can deliver his son from this demon.

Jesus sees this lack of faith and he cries out, “O, how much longer am I going to have to put up with you?” And how often Jesus must be grieved with us when we fail to faithfully use the spiritual resources he has graciously provided for us his people.

So this rebuke is addressed both to the scribes and to the disciples. Both had shown their lack of faith in different ways. Even though they are religious, the scribes refuse to believe in Jesus. Now, faith always has an object, and these people believed in themselves. They are self-righteous and they think they have no need for a savior. They regularly attend synagogue and they are free from gross and scandalous sins. A savior? They don’t need a savior. Sinners need a savior. And they are not like the great crowd of unwashed sinners such as you and me.

In this, they model many people in churches today, people who say they love God but see themselves as righteous and good in themselves. The have no need of a savior who demands repentance of sins and surrender to his lordship. They don’t need Jesus or love him as he is presented in the Scriptures. Hebrews 1:1–2 explains, “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” And close and thoughtful reading of the Old Testament reveals that not only did God promise a Messiah to deliver his people by atoning for their sins, but also that Jesus meets all the criteria to be the promised Messiah.

However, the scribes and Pharisees willfully refuse the evidence. They stubbornly refuse to believe in Jesus. Worse, they plan to kill him, and Jesus knows this. No wonder he cries out, “O unbelieving generation!” These men are like the stubborn unregenerate pagans of today who refuse to personally trust in Jesus, the eternal Son of God who became man, to be the Lamb of God, to die to bear the sins of God’s people. For only the Holy Spirit can reveal Christ to us as he really is because only the Spirit makes the spiritually dead alive and takes what is Christ’s and makes it known to us. Only when Jesus is our Savior and Lord will we cheerfully submit to his authority over us and gladly obey him in all things.

And because they hated Jesus, it logically follows that these scribes pick a fight with Jesus’ disciples. These outwardly nice men delighted in the disciples’ failure. They are pleased that it reflects poorly on Jesus. And they delight in mocking the disciples. This incident demonstrates why the ministry is one of the most perilous of professions. The devil hates the godly minister with an intensity second only to that which he feels for Christ himself. And, in fact, a Christlike minister is a threat to Satan’s dominion, a rebuttal to his best arguments, and a dogged reminder of his coming overthrow. In arguing with Jesus’ disciples, these unbelieving scribes are merely doing their lord Satan’s bidding and richly earned Jesus’ rebuke.

At the same time, Jesus’ reprimand of the nine disciples is of a different sort. These men are true believers in Jesus as the Messiah. They know he is the God/man. They followed him for nearly three years. They heard his sermons, witnessed his miracles, and are being personally discipled by Jesus. Yet, sadly, they lack prevailing faith. Mark 3 and 6 tell us that Jesus had earlier authorized and sent these disciples out two by two to preach in his name that the people should repent. He gave them authority to drive out demons and heal the sick. And they had successfully done so. But now it is said of them, “And they could not.”

3. The Cause of Failure

So why had these nine disciples failed? Afterwards, when they were by themselves, the disciples asked Jesus why, when they had been successful before? Jesus tells them, “This kind of demon can only come out by prayer.” In effect, Jesus is telling them, “You do not live close enough to God. You have been equipped with power to perform the ministry I have assigned to you. But you require an ongoing vital prayer life to maintain it.”

The disciples must not think that they can always do the work of the ministry with equal ease and effort in each and every situation, for some kinds of ministry require more extraordinary prayer. It may also be that their prior successes had led the disciples to believe that the power is now theirs, not just Jesus’. We must never presume that it is just because God has gifted us and used us in a particular way in the past that we can do it again in our own strength.

However, notice something very important. The disciples did not fail because they did not expect anything to happen, because they did. They were surprised and disappointed when it did not happen. These disciples expected the boy to be delivered at their word. But this time, nothing happened. So faith is not merely a sense of expecting something to happen. That ought to be clear from this account. Still, Jesus implies their problem is that they are faithless.

So what did Jesus mean? Well, while it is true that these men had faith, it seems they had changed from trusting Christ to work through them to faith in the process. They probably thought that if you had said the right formulaic words and followed the right ritual that the demon would have to leave. (GJB) Without their even realizing it, they had transferred their faith from confidence in God’s working through them to themselves to using a mechanical formula that would bring about a desired result.

This is what we often do. We get into thinking that the words we say or the way we say them are the real reason things happen, rather than God who acts in or through us. So Jesus reproves these disciples for this. In essence, he says of their faith that their faith must be an active, vital, ongoing faith in God himself if they are to be successful.

The Lord Jesus permitted their failure to keep them humble and to make them sensitive to their ongoing and complete dependence on him for power and success. Success in ministry requires an ongoing, earnest prayer life. Prayer for the man or woman of God must be a continuing communion with God, a continuing dependency upon him for strength. Apparently, these men were not communing with God as they should have been. As a result, they lacked the power of God in their lives at that moment and failed.

In contrast, Jesus himself was always in touch with the Father through prayer. He is always drawing upon his Father’s power. He always walked in reliance on God the Father. This is what Jesus is talking about—maintaining a fresh and vigorous relationship with God and trusting in him to do great things in and through your life through his strength and power. It is a life-dependence on God, evidenced by ongoing prayer. Only when we understand this can we say with Paul, “If God be for us, who can be against us?”

So the Lord Jesus permits their failure to keep them humble and make them sensitive to their ongoing and complete dependence on him for their power to preach the gospel, to perform miracles and exorcisms, and to do any ministry in his name. Unless we maintain this close relationship with God, we lose two things that are important, however great our spiritual gifts may be.

First, we lose vitality. We lose that living power, that “plus something” that makes for God-honoring success. Ministry becomes a performance instead of an offering to God. God may give a man great gifts as a preacher. But unless he maintains close contact with God, the man becomes in the end only a man of words, devoid of the Spirit. God may give a person a gift of music or of song. But unless he or she maintains close contact with God, he becomes a mere professional who uses the gift only for self-promotion, which is a sinful thing.

Second, we lose humility. What should be used for God’s glory we begin to use for our own and the virtue goes out of it. What should be used to set God before people is used to project ourselves before them, and the beauty of godliness is gone and robs God of his glory.

At the same time, I also note that we have the promise of the Holy Spirit and its power. Pentecost has come. It is the Holy Spirit who makes the difference. Consider these first disciples. Jesus himself had taught them for more than three years; that is the greatest Bible school one could attend. Still, Jesus directs them in Luke 24:49 to wait until they had been baptized with the Holy Spirit and power. They must not act in their own wisdom and strength. Why? A powerless church portrays Jesus in a bad light.

Because the disciples lacked power, the father of the boy assumed that Jesus lacked the power too. The same is true of a church. When a lost world walks into a church building and sees its deadness, coldness, and apathy, the lost assume that Jesus is just as lifeless, just as powerless, just as dead.

In this way, most churches are guilty of false advertising. They claim to have something to offer the world. But they have nothing—only cold, dead religion—and that helps no one. Oh, may we not be guilty of false advertising! We need to live up to our profession that Jesus is Lord.

4. Jesus’ Gentle Rebuke to the Boy’s Father

Jesus asks that they bring the boy to him. The demon immediately attacks the boy, knowing that its time is short. The child convulses on the ground, and Jesus asks the father about how long the child has been this way. The father tells Jesus that it has been this way since the lad was very little. He also tells Jesus that the demon frequently attacks the boy, trying to burn him in the fire or drown him in the water.

Then the father makes this request: “But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” Notice this father’s honest statement of unbelief. He tells Jesus, “If you can, if there is anything you can do, oh, please help us.” His “if” implies a real measure of doubt.

This father had hoped that the disciples would heal his son in Jesus’ name. And when they failed, his faith in Jesus and his abilities was weakened as well. We see in verse 23 Jesus immediately challenges him: “What do you mean, ‘If you can’? Believe! All things are possible to him who believes.”

Now the father had put an “if” into his question, but he put it in the wrong place in the sentence, and Jesus kindly puts it in the right position. The “if” is not in Christ, as to whether he can save you or do anything for you. No, there can be no “if” in reference to Jesus. On the Mount of Transfiguration, the Father declared, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him!”

When you think of the love that God the Father has to his eternal Son, you cannot imagine him shorting Jesus in power to do his assigned work. Another time Jesus will tell his disciples, “All power has been given to me in heaven and on earth.” The Father gives this power to Jesus, and Jesus to his called preachers.

Furthermore, Jesus himself is God. Given that, can there be any “if” in his power? What is there that God cannot do? Jesus makes it clear that he has absolute sovereign power, and a person’s only duty and responsibility is to believe in Jesus, to trust in who he is, that he can and will help those who look to him for help and for salvation.

So Jesus is able, but is he willing? If he is either unable or unwilling, then he cannot be the Savior for sinful people. But, as we sometimes sing, “Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore: Jesus ready stands to save you, full of pity, love, and pow’r: he is able, he is willing; doubt no more.”

So Jesus is saying, “There should be no ‘if’ about my ability or power, nor concerning my willingness. The ‘if’ lies somewhere else. If you can believe, all things are possible.” So the “if” is in our lack of faith.

When the father hears this, he makes one of the most honest and transparent prayers in the entire Bible. He looks at Jesus and exclaims, “Lord, I do believe; help me to overcome my unbelief!” Out of honesty, in his weakness, he casts himself on the Lord. “Yes, Lord, I do believe. But I know my unbelief and I do not know how to overcome it. Grant me faith in you. Help me surmount my unbelief.”

Now, “help my unbelief” is a prayer that a person can only say by faith. Spurgeon wrote, “While men have no faith, they are unconscious of their unbelief. But as soon as they get a little faith, then they begin to be conscious of the greatness of their unbelief.” The man is saying, “Lord, I do believe in you and in your power. But my faith is weak. Help me to grow in faith.”

It is not our faith nor its strength nor its quality nor its quantity that matters, but Christ, the object of our faith. The problem is not if Jesus can; the problem is if you will believe in Jesus. If you will believe not only in the God who can but also in the God who will, it can be done. Nothing of his promises are impossible if you believe in him. Such faith is a gift because apart from Christ, we are dead. But you can have faith if God grants it. And if you have been granted faith, then use it. Though your faith be small, though it be like the grain of a mustard seed, it is able to move the heart of Jesus.

This father’s trust is strengthened, and immediately God speaks the word, and the devil is cast out, with a command never to return.

5. Lessons for Us

What, then, are we to learn from this? First, we are taught the totality of Jesus’ power and dominion. There are many who foolishly imagine that Satan and the demons of hell are rivals to God, that they are somehow out of God’s control. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The devil is under God’s control. God uses him to accomplish God’s own purposes. Then in God’s time, God will send him to an eternity in hell.

Thus, our Lord Jesus exercises total dominion over Satan and his agents at all times. He speaks with all mighty and sovereign power. And Satan and his demons immediately and exactly obey his voice, even though not joyfully. Satan is strong, malicious, and busy. You and I are no match for him in our own strength. But the Lord Jesus Christ is yet able to save to the uttermost those who come to him by faith. Jesus will save all his elect from Satan’s power. He decisively defeated Satan on the cross and through his resurrection, and Satan is a defeated foe. He can never snatch us from our Savior’s almighty, omnipotent hands.

So I ask: Have you placed your trust in Jesus alone as your Savior and Lord? If not, do so this morning, and then live in the victory he gives in this life through a life of prayer and dependence on him.

Second, we all must live lives of ongoing faith in Jesus, nurtured by a life of prevailing prayer. We must pray and never stop praying.

Third, in many ways, these nine disciples are a picture of the modern church. Like them, evangelical churches have a reputation that they have power. The modern church seems to have everything it needs to exist—nice facilities in which to meet, skilled speakers, great music, and often a crowd of worldly people attending. But most churches lack what they need most—the transforming power of God.

May we always remain a praying church. May God gift us with men who are powerful in prayer. And may he fill our pews with the people who love fellowship with God in prayer. Then we will be able to live up to our promise to a needy world, that they can find God’s help when they come here.

Our campus and buildings advertise that this is a place where God’s word and his transforming grace can be found. We proclaim Jesus’ death on the cross to save elect sinners. We represent the power of God to deliver souls from Satan’s tyranny and sin’s hold on them. We represent Christ’s power to change their lives and to give them eternity with God in heaven. We are Christ’s church. His power should be on us. His truth should be within us. His way should be before us. His word should guide us. The Bible that we preach tells the world that we have been called out from among them to be different. It tells the world that we gather here to assemble ourselves before God to honor and worship him.

We are a church, not a social club. We are a church, and we are not here to entertain you. Most churches in our day lack genuine spiritual power. There is no touch of God. There is no power of God. The world comes in and there is no hope in the church for their condition. And what does the world do? It stands around such churches and mocks their weakness. May it never be said of our church that “they could not.”

We need to pray and to keep on praying. I am referring to prayer that seeks the face and the will of God. I am referring to prayer that assaults the throne room of God, refusing to be silenced until the answer comes. We must be surrendered. God will not bless and use a church that is not separate from the world. We need to be totally dependent on the Lord for everything. The power of God does not come because of our preaching, our singing, our working or our manipulation of people and things. The power of God will rest on us only as we learn to rest in Christ and his power with prevailing prayer.

Then, I must also call our attention to the fact that this story also calls us to our responsibility as believing parents. We cannot save our children. We cannot change their spiritual condition. We cannot give them life and faith in Christ. Many unbelieving men and women have been raised in families with godly parents, and many believing people have been raised in hellholes.

Yet, having said all that, there are some things we as believing parents can and must do for our children. We can, every one of us, bring them to Christ, as this man brought his son to Jesus. He acknowledged then his son’s condition to Jesus. “He is deaf and dumb. He is an epileptic. He is owned by Satan. He is always been that way. He is spiritually dead.”

His son’s desperate need was his own need. He said, “Have compassion on us and help us.” This man haltingly believed God for his son. He could not believe instead of his son, as a proxy. There is no such thing as proxy faith. But he did believe in Jesus, rather, to save his son.

We understand that foolishness is bound up in the heart of every child, and that the rod of correction must be used to drive it from him. But only the grace of God can ultimately, effectually deliver a sinner from the foolishness that is in him and from the power of Satan that rules him.

Finally, Jesus is still in the lifting up business. In verses 26 and 27, it says, “The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, ‘He’s dead.’ But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up.” Just as Jesus took this poor, seemingly dead boy by the hand and lifted him up to live a new life, Jesus can do the same for everyone here who comes to him by faith.

In these verses, we have a picture of what sin does. Dead sinners may be thought of as being possessed by the devil. Now, I am not saying that this boy did something and therefore was being punished for those particular sins. But what we see in this young man’s hopeless condition is a picture of what sin does in everyone. Sin ravages people. It brings enslavement to Satan and his demons. It brings physical and spiritual misery and self-destruction, both in this life and in the life to come. It is important for us to look into that for a moment, because there are many of us still under Satan’s power. We live lives of rebellion towards God. And the fact that we are not as wicked as possible tricks us into thinking that we are all right.

But look to Jesus. It is he who saves. Outside of Christ, you are owned by Satan, a slave to sin. Outside of Christ, you are physically possessed by Satan and his demons. Satan will not let you go except at the name of Jesus. Jesus alone can save you.

If this describes you, then call on Jesus to save you right now. He is willing, and he is able to save to the uttermost those who look to him by faith.