INTRODUCTION:

1. Our Lord was up on the mount of transfiguration with Peter, James, and John. Moses and Elijah came down from heaven and talked with our Lord.
2. Luke 9:29 says that as our Lord prayed, "the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering."
3. Luke 9:32 says Peter, James, and John saw His glory, and they also saw Moses and Elijah in their glorified bodies.
4. It must have been quite a meeting up on the Mount of Transfiguration! But alas, it soon came to an end and they came down from the mountain down to a distraught father with a demon-possessed son, and a mob of confused people. What a contrast!
5. And what a picture this is of the day we are living in! We come to church on the Lord's Day. Our Sunday school class is a blessing. And we enjoy our services on Sunday morning and Sunday evening. But then it s back to work Monday morning.
6. And we are surrounded by lost people. Some of them are influenced by devils. Some of them are oppressed by devils.
7. And some of them are possessed by devils.
8. The boyfriend of actor Morgan Freeman s granddaughter is charged with murdering her last Sunday morning in Manhattan. According to the NYPD, Lamar Davenport stabbed E Dena Hines to death.
9. Hines, 33, was found lying in the street outside her West 162nd Street apartment in Washington Heights, cops say. The actress had been stabbed multiple times in the torso. She was transported to Harlem Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
10. Her alleged killer, 30, was arrested and transported to Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center for a psychiatric evaluation. He was charged with second-degree murder on Monday.
11. According to an eyewitness, who allegedly saw the attack and called 911, the suspect was repeating: Get out devils! I cast you out devils in the name of Jesus Christ! I cast you out!
12. That is NOT the Biblical way to cast out devils.
13. It is wonderful up on the mountain, but then we must come down to the valley. This is what we see here in our text tonight.
14. Consider this: The Lord Jesus Christ is up yonder in heaven. He has not come down yet, though soon He will.
15. And while we are waiting for His return, we are oftentimes like the powerless disciples (9:37-40).
16. The demon-possessed young man is a picture of the people in the world today who are enslaved by sin and in the grip of evil spirits, and in bondage to the lusts of the flesh. They are "sore vexed" by the devil (Matthew 17:14, 15).
17. The young man's distraught father represents the sincere sinner seeking help. He went to the disciples but "they could not" help (9:40).
18. In like manner, many a lost soul goes to church looking for help but finds no help at all. The church is powerless. The preaching is powerless. The prayers are powerless. Souls are not being saved. What a sad picture this is!
19. There is a multitude gathered (9:37). These are the lost souls that are drifting around, from church to church, looking here, looking there, curious, but not convicted of their sinful, lost condition. They are very restless. The things of this world can never truly satisfy the soul of man.
20. To get a more complete picture of this story, it is good to read Matthew 17 and Mark 9.
21. Mark 9:14 tells us the scribes were hanging around asking questions. These scribes represent the unsaved religious leaders. They are the worldly, religious big-shots, the experts who have all the answers. These scribes were already conspiring to kill Jesus (cf. Matt.16:21).
22. In the midst of this chaotic scene comes our Lord. "Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, and healed the child, and delivered him again to his father" (Luke 9:42).
23. Mark 9:25, 26 says, "He rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him. And the spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him: and he was as one dead; insomuch that many said, He is dead."

 

I. THE PERPLEXED PEOPLE

1. Like the multitude milling about at the foot of the mountain, the multitudes today are confused, lost, unsaved, and on their way to eternal damnation.
2. The prophet Isaiah said, "But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked" (Isa. 57:20, 21).
3. Our Lord had compassion on these great multitudes of people and we should also.
4. Matthew 9:36 says, "But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd."
5. In fact, we see this statement five times in Matthew and Mark. Matthew 14:14 says, "And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick."
6. Matthew 18:27 says, "Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt."
7. Mark 1:41 says, "And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean."
8. Mark 6:34 says, "And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them."
9. When we read stories of demon possession in the Bible, let us note that we are seeing more and more of this type of behaviour as we get closer to the end of the age.
10. As people move further from God and the Bible, Satan and his demons advance.
11. There is much more occultic activity these days, more strange religious cults, more wickedness.
12. Mark gives us more details than Luke and Matthew. Mark 9:18 says the devil "teareth him: and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away."
13. Mark 9:21 tells us our Lord asked the boy's father, "How long is it ago since this came unto him?", and the father said, "Of a child."
14. And the father said, "And ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him: but if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us" (Mark 9:22). Demons destroy people.
15. People were shocked to hear what happened to Morgan Freeman's granddaughter, but people who work in law enforcement or in psychiatric wards and mental hospitals tell us it is not all uncommon.
16. The reason this particular crime has received so much attention is because the victim's grandfather is a famous movie star.
17. Demonism is on the increase. Most of these homeless people have serious mental problems, and some of them are probably demon-possessed.
18. Many of these tattooed young people, who are piercing themselves and destroying themselves with drugs and alcohol are oppressed by demons.
19. Rock music and rap music and all of this wicked, worldly music is demonic. Just do some research on Beyonce and some of these other entertainers.
20. R&B singer Chaka Khan called the music industry "demonic" following the death of her friend Whitney Houston. (Btw, Houston's daughter just died at the age of 22, just like her mother -- drowned in a bath tub.)
21. Chaka Khan said to CNN's Piers Morgan shortly after Houston's death, "This machine around us, this so called music industry is such a demonic thing. It sacrifices people's lives."
22. Gospel singer Helen Baylor once sang backup for Chaka Khan. She told a reporter, "When [Chaka] said that, I sat there in my bed and just said, somebody gets it. Somebody else gets it there is a demonic component in the industry, fueled by greed, money."
23. People are being vexed and destroyed by demons. But the same Jesus who healed this demon-possessed young man can heal anyone today (9:38-43).
24. "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever" (Hebrews 13:8).

 

II. THE POWERLESS DISCIPLES (9:40, 41).

1. Luke 9:40 records these sad words: "And I besought thy disciples to cast him out; and they could not."
2. A Filipino pastor friend of mine was asked by some Roman Catholics to help them. Their daughter was demon-possessed. He asked them, "Why do you come to me? Why don't you get your priest to help?"
3. They told him, "We went to our priest but he was too drunk to help us."
4. We are not surprised than a drunken, unregenerate Catholic priest is helpless and powerless, but these disciples spent three years with our Lord. They were saved. They knew the Word of God.
5. But they were powerless (9:40). Our Lord's words are similar to Deuteronomy 32:5, "They are a perverse and crooked generation."
6. They were powerless because they were faithless (9:41).
7. "Perverse" (9:41) means, "distorted and morally corrupt." Sounds like our generation!
8. The Greek Lexicon says the word means, "to oppose, plot against the saving purposes and plans of God." No wonder they were powerless.
9. May I say that today we have many powerless churches -- churches where people are not getting saved, and where lives are not being changed.
10. I was greatly encouraged Wednesday night listening to David preach. I thought -- God is working here at Bible Baptist Church.

 

III. THE POWER OF GOD (9:43a).

1. This "mighty power" (9:43) is available to all believers through faith. In Mark 9:22, the young man's father said to Jesus, "But if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us."
2. Our Lord answered him, "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth" (Mark 9:23).
3. And then in Mark 9:24 we read, "And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief."
4. The power of prayer is emphasized in Matthew's account. Our Lord said to His powerless and faithless disciples: "Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting" (Matt. 17:21).
5. The evidence of their lack of faith was their prayerlessness. The result of their prayerlessness was powerlessness (Matthew 17:21).

 

CONCLUSION:

1. Back in 1892, John Hyde was a young missionary on a ship to India. His father was a godly preacher, and one of his father s friends had sent him a letter and it was delivered to him on the ship.
2. His father's friend asked John Hyde if he was filled with the Holy Spirit. He told John Hyde that unless he was filled with the Holy Spirit he would never be effective in winning souls.
3. John Hyde crumpled the letter in anger and threw it on the deck. After all, he was a preacher s son. He was a missionary. Did this friend think that Hyde did not have the fullness of the Spirit?
4. He later said, "I was angry. But by and by, better judgment prevailed and I picked up the letter and read it again. Possibly I did need something which I had not yet received. The result was that during the rest of that voyage I gave myself much to prayer that I might indeed be filled with the Holy Spirit."
5. John Hyde went on to say, "These prayers on shipboard were finally answered in a marvelous way."
6. He arrived in India and won many souls to Christ. Then he went to Korea and from 1902 to 1905 there was a great revival in Korea.
7. John Hyde became known as "Praying Hyde" (cf. Matt.17:21).