Well, there were two things that my mother was very zealous to do again and again and again that I wasn't actually very thankful for. She was very committed to warn me. I can remember the little lectures that I would get again and again before I left the house. I thought of them as a hassle. I wished that she would just record it; I could play it at my leisure. I never said to her, "You know mom, I know that these lectures are very important for me; and if you could just lecture me more about the dangers of life in the fallen world, that would be helpful."
Mom Was Zealous to Rebuke
I never said that. Mom was real zealous also to rebuke me. It's such a negative sounding word, but when you rebuke a person, you're actually helping them to see themselves as they actually are; it's a loving thing to do. And I now realize that my mom was loving me. Because she loved me, she warned me again and again and again of the dangers of evil, of the dangers of temptation, of the dangers of sin. Because she loved me, she would rebuke me again and again for my disobedience or my failure; it was love that motivated her.
In a real way, the passage that we're looking at this evening is, for us, warning and rebuke, both things that we need. And this passage is warning and rebuke, for us, because we need it and because our Savior loves us. And He will again and again warn us, and He will again and again rebuke us until we are fully formed into His likeness. The historical moment here is very interesting. Jesus has just been on the Mount of His Transfiguration where, in incredible glory, His divinity has been revealed.
His place in the plan of God, this is the One who is the fulfillment of all the vision of the prophets; this is the One who is the ultimate fulfillment of the requirement of the law; this is the Son of God; this is the hope of the world. Just as you're realizing, thinking about that high moment of holiness, Jesus comes down off the mountain and is immediately greeted with shocking, destructive, distorting evil. And the juxtaposition between the Transfiguration and this moment of evil is very, very important for us to pay attention to, because this evil that Christ now encounters is an argument for the need for the One who is revealed on the Mount of Transfiguration.
This Son of God, this One who fulfills the law and the prophets, this One is our only hope. If this kind of evil actually really does exist and really has this kind of destructive power, then we are people in great need of rescue, great need of protection. Jesus comes down from the mountain and essentially walks into an argument. It's an argument between the scribes and His disciples. Now you know, we've talked about this again and again - the scribes are following Jesus around, trying to build their case that He is, in fact, a fraud, a blasphemer, and He's misleading the people.
They are looking for any opportunity to build that case, and the building of the case is marching Jesus to the Cross. The disciples who were left behind - remember only three went up on the Mount of Transfiguration - have been asked to provide deliverance, healing for this boy who is under the control of an evil spirit, and they are unable. Jesus walks into the crowd at that moment, and you will notice there in verse 16 says, "What are you arguing about?" The question is actually directed at the scribes.
But the father of this little boy who's under such torment answers: "Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able." There are two things that you ought to pay attention to in the little answer that this man gives. First is, I am deeply persuaded that the graphic descriptions that we get when Christ encounters one of these possessed people are meant to be, for us, a warning again of the evil of evil.
How Destructive Evil Is
We see in graphic words, in specific detail, how destructive evil is. If you would look later in the passage, verse 22, the man reports, "And it has often cast him into the fire and into the water, to destroy him." This is what evil does; it's always destructive; it never produces good; it never will give you life; it never leads to good fruit; it never leads to peace and reconciliation and truth; it never ever goes in that direction. Evil is evil; bottom line! Now here's the problem: evil doesn't always appear evil to us.
Sometimes evil looks beautiful; sometimes it looks downright attractive. If there's a man in the mall and he's lusting after a woman, he doesn't see evil; he sees beauty, even though what he's doing is destructive to his heart; and if he's married, destructive to his marriage relationship. It doesn't look destructive; it looks attractive and beautiful. If you're listening to a moment of gossip, maybe that gossip doesn't seem evil at that moment; the scintillating details seem exciting, and evil doesn't look so evil at that moment.
If you've broken the law and you've gotten your own way, there's a buzz of self-sovereignty that you feel, and it feels like you have power, and it feels like you're independent; it feels good but it's not good. Rebellion is never good; disobedience is never good; lust is never good; gossip is never good; stealing is never good; pride is never good. Evil is evil! And in a physical picture, you see what happens when evil has its way and takes over a person. It's not just that this little boy isn't spiritual; he's robbed of his humanity.
And the spirit inside of him is actually intent on bringing him to death. There's where evil goes. And I can't help but pastor you in this moment; I would ask you the question: where, in your life, are you tempted to look at what God says is evil and see it as less than evil? Where is sin seductive for you, deceptive, attractive? Where, because of its attraction, because of its pleasure, because of its supposed beauty, are you letting down your guard? Are you toying with things that only lead to destruction, with your eyes, with your mind, with your desires, with your physical body?
Oh, I would pray that all of us, this evening, would receive the warning that is in this passage. There's a second thing. We have to embrace, as pictured in the disciples, our utter powerlessness to defeat evil in ourselves. You have no independent, no self-sufficient ability to defeat evil whatsoever. Maybe we have an ability to expose it; maybe we have a temporary ability to restrain it, but we cannot kill it. And when the disciples, obviously in unbelief, obviously in self-reliance, try to deliver this boy, they have no power at all.
And that means there is never a time in our lives where we shouldn't live with a needy heart, seeking always the protecting and delivering grace of Jesus Christ, always celebrating that grace that can do for us what we could not do for ourselves. And if your life is godly in any way, may you not boast; but may you praise the God who has delivered you and has produced that holiness in you because any good thing you think, any good thing you do, is empirical evidence of His delivering and empowering and transforming grace because, if there was any ability in us to defeat evil, Jesus would not have had to come.
The Cross argues our hopelessness; the Cross argues our helplessness; there is no hope for us apart from transforming grace. Having heard the report from the man, Jesus says, "O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you?" And then He says, "Bring him to me." Jesus is speaking to the disciples at this point, and He is essentially saying, "How long will you not understand; how long will you respond in unbelief; how long will you live in self-reliance; how long do you need to see my power exposed to you; how long do you need to see my willingness; how long?
Grace in the Rebuke of Christ
After all that I've done, after all that I showed you, how is it that you would still live in unbelief?" Listen, in the grief and rebuke of Christ, there is grace. He's not saying, "I've had it! This is it! I've given you opportunity after opportunity; it's over!" The question of Christ is really a call to these men, once again, to leave their own self-reliance, to abandon unbelief and to find their hope and rest in this Redeemer. It's grace. As the boy is brought to Christ, we see another display of the evil that's overtaken him.
The boy convulses, falls to the ground, rolls around foaming; what an ugly scene is before the Messiah. What a horrible thing for this boy, what a horrible thing for his family; imagine the scene. And Jesus looks at this writhing little boy and says to his father compassionately, "How long has this been happening?" The father says, "From childhood," and he reports the destructive power of evil. And then the father says this, "If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us." And Jesus responds, "'If you can!' All things are possible for the one who believes."
Jesus is essentially saying this, "Sir, your problem is not my ability; your problem is not my willingness; your issue is your faith. If you come to me in faith, things are possible way beyond anything you could ever imagine." Listen, the same is true with us as we face the battle with sin, as we face the temptations of life in a fallen world, as we face the push and pull of temptation. Our problem is not that God lacks power; our problem is not that He lacks willingness; the problem is our own unbelief.
We limit, in our hearts, the power of God in our unbelief. God is able and God is willing. After the statement of Christ, the father cries out, "I believe; help my unbelief!" What a humble confession. Perhaps that should be the confession of everyone in this room: we believe, we live by faith, but not always. There are moments when we panic, forgetting that God is with us and in us and for us. There are moments that we do things in our own strength, forgetting that our only hope is His power. There are moments when we live for His Kingdom, but there are other moments when we would rather have our own.
There are moments when we love God's will, and we love His way, and we love His wisdom, and there are other moments when we want our own way. There are moments when you would be tempted to think that you're a better sovereign than the Sovereign. And we all need to recognize, this evening, that the war of faith still rages within us. Praise God that there is even a bit of faith in us. Praise God for the belief He has given us. But wouldn't you humbly say this evening, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief, because my life is not a picture of perfect, sturdy, zealous faith; I yet need Your rescue; I yet need Your strength; I am yet in possession of a wandering heart"?
As Jesus sees the crowd coming close to Him, probably wanting to avoid one of those mob scenes that was the experience of Christ's life, He rebukes the unclean spirit; speaking to it: "You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again." And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, "He is dead." There's a picture of the power of Jesus. He speaks to this evil spirit and it must obey; there's His power.
No Evil Can Defeat Him
He has ultimate power. There is no evil so evil that it can defeat the power of the Savior! The people, standing around, think the boy is dead, and Jesus lifts up the boy by His hand, and he is alive and well. Now, what happens next in this passage is very important; it is a bit of the elephant in the room in this passage because it's the sort of unanswered question that flows throughout the passage. And it's as if the disciples can't wait till they have a private moment so they can say to Jesus, they can ask Him this question.
Notice verse 28: And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, "Why could we not cast it out?" And he said to them, "This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer." Now, let that rattle around in your brain for a moment. Jesus is essentially saying, "The problem is, boys, you didn't pray." Now, can you imagine. You've seen the description of the evil that is taking over this boy, the power it has, the destructive, distorting power; could you imagine that the disciples would stand before that kind of evil and believe somehow, someway - in independent, self-sufficient, autonomous ability - they could drive that evil spirit out.
It's shocking! How amazing! Who do they think they are? How could they possibly be this deluded to think that they were up to this contest? It should surprise you that that's what Jesus says, that's just that simple - you forgot to do this thing - you didn't pray! You should be saying, "What? They didn't pray; they didn't pray; they didn't pray; they didn't pray? Are you kidding me? How could that be?" You see, here's what prayer does. Prayer calls me to abandon my reliance on me, abandon my hope in me; abandon my delusion and my strength and wisdom.
If I am strong, if I'm able, if I'm sufficient, prayer doesn't make any sense. It's not religious game-playing; it's not religious recitation; prayer is by its very nature an abandonment of self and a rest in the power of God; that's what prayer is. And we pray because we are desperately aware that our only hope is the one who welcomes and receives and answers those prayers. And any other reason for praying is a pollution of prayer. We don't pray to be heard of other people; we don't pray to be thought well of; we don't pray as a theological recitation.
We pray because we recognize that our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus and His righteousness; that's why we pray. Now, I've said this before, but I think I'm about to hurt your feelings. I think there's a whole lot of prayer-less Christianity. I think perhaps, scarily, the Christian life can begin with a deep sense of weakness and need and a deep celebration of empowering and forgiving grace; but I think, as we collect Biblical literacy and as we collect theological knowledge and as we begin to participate in the external habits of Christianity, it's tempting for us to become self-reliant; to begin to think that we're more able than we're actually able; to begin to think that we have power that we don't have.
Listen, you are as desperately needy for the grace of Christ here this evening as you were the first moment you believed. Wives, if you are going to have a hard conversation with your husband, do you pray first? Do you pray that God would rescue you from the evil that would make you want to do things in that conversation that are neither helpful for your relationship or honoring to God? Do you pray? When you get an unexpected check with more money than you thought you would have in this pay period, do you pray?
I'm serious! If you're like me, I can think of fifteen ways of spending that money on things that I would enjoy. Very often, my first thought isn't the work of the Kingdom of God, "Thank you, God, for giving me this extra money that I can now invest in your Kingdom." Do you pray? When you're riding your bike or you're taking a subway to your university, a place where God isn't honored, where there's temptation all around, do you pray, "God, I am not able to live here the way that I should apart from Your rescuing, Your empowering, Your transforming grace," do you pray?
Do You Pray?
When you're parenting your children who push you way beyond the borders of your character, do you pray? When that rebellious little one acts like he or she knows much more than you do and is pushing you in that conversation, do you pray? When you are now on your computer and it's been a source of temptation, do you pray before your fingers touch the keyboard? Do you pray? When you're dealing with a neighbor who is hard to get along with and makes your life difficult and mocks your faith, do you pray?
Do you pray? Do you pray? Do you pray? Not just because it's the thing that good Christians do, but because you realize rescuing, and empowering, and evil-defeating grace has invaded your life in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ? And prayer is, at once, a confession of your neediness and a celebration of His grace! Do you pray? That's why Paul, in Thessalonians, says, "Pray without ceasing," because a humble Gospelshaped heart will never stop praying because you get it. You get your need.
And every day you face things that you are not able to defeat yourself, whether that be a situation or a location or a pressure or an opportunity or a temptation; whether that's thoughts or desires, every day, we face things we have no ability to defeat, no more ability than the disciples had ability to defeat this evil; and so we pray; we pray; we pray; we pray; every moment of our life is preceded and punctuated by prayer because we believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And in those moments of temptation, we look back at the Mount of Transfiguration; we look at the glory of Christ, the Fulfiller of the law and the prophets, and we say, "That one, alone, is my hope; I pray!"
May God help us to avail ourselves of the glorious grace that is ours because of the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. I would speak to someone in this congregation this evening who maybe has never prayed. Maybe you've never ever confessed your need; you've never recognized that your deepest problem is not evil outside of you; your deepest problem is evil inside of you. And you've never recognized your need for this forgiving, delivering, transforming Messiah Who lived the life you couldn't live, Who died a death on your behalf, Who conquered sin and death.
May you pray this evening, seeking His forgiveness and the grace of new life. Let's pray: Lord, it is quite possible for us, in ways we haven't considered before, to be living prayer-less lives, somehow being deluded into thinking that we're more able, wiser, more righteous then we actually are. We thank you for the warning that is in this passage of the destructive and death-bringing evil of evil. We would confess we need the warning because evil doesn't always look ugly and evil to us. We thank you for the rebuke that is in this passage that confronts our self-reliance, confronts our pride, confronts our delusion that, somehow, we have graduated from the need of grace that we once had.
We believe that Your warning and Your rebuke is the product of sweet, redemptive love. May we hate evil, and may we pray with a combination of neediness and celebration, unceasingly. In Jesus's name, Amen.
