Faith Discovery

Transcript

And hello radio friends. How in the world are you? You doing all right? Thank God we can be in the world, but not of it. You don’t have to be tarred with the world’s brush, because you live in a dirty world you don’t have to get dirty. You can be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, and that I pray that that may be so for each of you, this very day. Well, I’ve been praying that God might put His love, most of all His love and then His power and His truth and all of the blessing of God, into what I say to you in these moments. May that be granted for Christ’s sake. It’s a very important thing, words are important, and what is said can have such a deep effect upon somebody’s heart and life. So, I’m always aware of that and I always pray that God may guide. Well it’s great to be alive, I feel to that it is, I could live to be 113 ,and then have to be shot. Thank God for good health and for peace and joy and the consciousness of sins forgiven and the nearness and preciousness of Jesus. It’s great isn’t it? Those of you know our blessed Lord, it’s wonderful to be a Christian isn’t it? I’ll tell you it’s a living miracle every moment of every day.

Well, we’re looking at Mark chapter 9 and the last time we got together we just paused long enough to look at verse eight where we said, “They saw no man anymore save Jesus only with themselves”. Fix your eyes upon Jesus, the old chorus we used to sing, “Fix your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face and the things of this earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace”. “They saw no man anymore save Jesus only with themselves”. It’s quite a concept, keep your eyes on Jesus looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

You know, if you have your attention fixed on your blessed Lord, the mistakes people make are not going to shake you up quite so much, but if you’re watching people and have your hopes and dreams fixed on them, oh you are in for some rough times, because be, he or she ever so wonderful, any human being upon whom you ultimately depend, is going to fail you at sometime or other. You know that don’t you? So keep your eyes on the Lord Jesus, “They saw no man, only Jesus”. All right, well they came down from the mountain, this verse nine of Mark chapter 9, “He charge them they should tell no man what things they had seen till the Son of Man were risen from the dead and they that saying with themselves, questioning what the rising from the dead should mean”. See, it went right past them. He told them again and again, read the Gospels and see how often the Lord Jesus tried somehow to tell the disciples what was going to happen, and it just went by them. Well instead of asking about that, they asked something else.

Verse 11, “They asked Him saying, ‘Why say the scribes that Elias must first come now’”? That’s a reference of course to Malachi 4 verse 5, where the prophet says that Elijah will come again before the that great day of the Lord, and this with other references that they had put together, made them believe that before the Messiah arrived, a forerunner would arrive and that would be the fulfillment of the prophecy about Elias. Well, Jesus said, “Elias has already come. Elias cometh first and restore of all things and how it is written of the Son of Man that He must suffer many things and be said it not, but I say unto you that Elias has indeed come and they’ve done unto him whatsoever they listed as it was written of him”. See, John the Baptist knew who he was, he knew he was the forerunner of the Lord Jesus Christ, and so he said, “I am the one of whom it is said the voice crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord’. I’m not the Christ, I’m the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord said the prophet Isaiah”. So, our Lord Jesus identified John the Baptist with the fulfillment of the prophecy, concerning Elias. He said, “He’s here. They’ve done whatever they wished”. That of course means that they’ve killed him because by this time, John the Baptist had been beheaded as a result of the hatred of the wife of Herod. Well now, it says, “He came to His disciples and He saw a great multitude about them of the scribes questioning with them, and all the people they beheld Him were greatly amazed, running to Him, saluted Him and He asked the scribes, ‘What question ye with them?’, and one of the multitude answered and said, ‘Master I’ve brought unto Thee, my son which are the dumb spirit and wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him. He foameth and mash with his teeth and pineth away, and I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out and they could not’, He answered him and said, ‘Oh, faithless generation. How long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him to me’, and they brought him to Him and when He saw him straightway, the spirit”, that’s the demon that was indwelling the boy, “tore him, and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming”. Jesus asked his father, “How long is it since this came unto him”? He said unto Him, “A child”. “Often times it hath cast him into the fire and into water to destroy them, but if Thou canst do anything, have compassion on us and help us”. Jesus said unto him, “If thou canst”, not if I can, but, “if thou canst believe all things are possible to him that believeth”. Now, the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord I believe. Help thou mine unbelief”. When Jesus saw the people came running He rebuked the foul spirit saying, “Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee come out of him and enter no more unto him. And then the spirit cried and rent him sore and came out of him and he was as one dead”, and so much that many said, he is dead. Then Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up and he arose. Now the disciple says, “Why could not we cast them out?’, and He said, “This kind can come forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting”, in another gospel He added the words because of your unbelief.

Now, what’s the point of all this? Well, number one, as I said to you a day or so ago, whenever you had a great time of blessing with the Lord, you are immediately confronted with challenges and opportunities to share that blessing with others. Coming down from the mountain, from that high and holy sacrosanct occasion, when they had seen the lamp of deity turned up to shine through the humanity of the Lord Jesus, and they had seen momentarily Moses and Elias talking with Him about His crucifixion at Jerusalem. Now coming down from that experience, they are confronted with human heartbreak and need.

Remember this; every time God blesses you it is that He may share you with somebody else’s need to meet it, by His grace. Every time God blesses you, it is that He may share you with someone else, so that you may meet, by God’s grace and power, you meet human need. That’s what happened here. Now, another thought is that it the Lord Jesus seemed to be pretty rough on this poor, distraught father of the boy. He said, “I spake to thy disciples and they could not cast him out”, and He said, “Oh, faithless generation”, He answered him. Jesus talked to the father of the boy. He answered him and said, “Oh, faithless generation. How long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him to Me”. He was saying to this father, listen you didn’t believe anything would happen anyway, did you? You really didn’t believe anything would happen anyway. Now I know that that’s so because our Lord Jesus said later on to this same father, “Believe all things are possible to him that believeth”, and the father cried out, “Lord I do believe. Help my unbelief”. He knew, the father of this boy knew that down in his heart, he really didn’t believe that God was going to do anything for his boy. Now, he does a complete turnabout, he says, “I do believe, oh I do believe. Help my unbelief”.

I’ll tell you something. You and I are going to benefit greatly if we’ll just confess to God, the lack of faith we have at critical points. You’re praying about something then nothing seems to happen. Why don’t you confess the fact that down in your heart, you’re not really believing God? When that happens, I can guarantee you that the blessed Spirit of God is going to rise up within you, with a faith that lays hold of God and you can really believe Him and trust Him. Anything I tell you, I’ve been there and I’ve been aware of praying, at times when my prayer sounded good but down in my heart I knew that I really wasn’t, wasn’t really believing God, and I told Him so. Lord I’m praying poorly and I’m not really trusting You and I don’t really have the faith and I’m talking about, oh create your faith in me. Paul said, “The life I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me”, and so I’ve prayed that God would help me believe Him and He has. You my dear friend can have the same experience, I guarantee you. Yes, the Lord was rough on that dear father, He said, you’re a faithless generation. How long do you want Me to put up with you? But, He said, “Bring the boy to Me”. God may point out, to you and to me, our feelings but He’s always willing to receive us. He didn’t turn the man away because he had on believing heart.

Neither will God turn you away if you’ve any disposition at all to seek Him. Oh, God is waiting for you. God is waiting for you. “Draw nigh to God and He will draw night to you”, says James. God is waiting for you, beloved. Turn around from where you’ve been facing. Turn around and seek God and confess your need to Him and if you have an unbelieving heart and skeptical and cynical and it’s hard for you to trust God, tell that to God and ask Him to give you the simple, childlike faith that believes God’s Word and rests upon His promise. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Get out your Bible, read some of these precious promises, and begin to trust them as you pray.

Well, the father brought this child and the Lord Jesus rebuked the spirit, who came out of the boy, and he was healed. The if clause, we’ll get around to this the next time we get together because time is running out, but I want just to stop long enough to remind you, if you put an if clause in your praying, “If Thou canst do anything, have compassion on us and help us”, that’s the mark of unbelief. Now, the if of surrender is something else. “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me”, that’s the if of surrender. You want God’s will more than anything else, but the if of unbelief is, if you can do anything. Jesus said, “If you can, believe all things are possible to Him and believe”. So we’ll talk about that the next time we get together.

Dear Father today, may our hearts be filled with the faith that believes God all the way, in Jesus’ name I pray this, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!