Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2224
“If You can do anything, have compassion on us, and help us. Jesus said unto him, If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes.” Mark 9:22,23.
WE are all familiar with the story of this youth who was possessed by a dumb spirit which caused him to fall into violent fits of epilepsy and worked worse evils, casting him, at times, into the waters and into the fire to destroy him. The father intended to bring his child to Jesus, of whom he had heard so much, but our Lord, being absent, he made his application to the disciples. They failed to effect a cure but, by-and-by, the Master came from the mountaintop and then the father addressed himself to the Lord. I shall need you to notice some lessons from this story before I come to the text.
The main thought which I would emphasize is that our Lord would have us clearly know, when we seek a blessing, what it is we really seek. If you go to Jesus Christ for anything, either for yourself, or someone else, the Savior will earnestly desire that you should know what it is that you are asking of Him. You know there is much blind praying—asking for mercies because you know that such and such words are proper, without having a clear and vivid idea of what the blessing is which is intended by those words. Now, our Savior loves us to pray with the understanding and to have a consciousness of our need and some perception of what it is that we want Him to do. Therefore try to got into your own heart a clear notion of what it is that you are seeking, for Christ would have you know why you are pleading with Him.
Hence, when this man came with his sick child, the Savior permitted him to give a statement of the case and, with the eagerness of love, the father entered into full particulars of the evil which had befallen his son. This was not needed by the Savior for His own information—He knew all about the dumb spirit’s possession of the poor lad and all the misery that had resulted from that possession—but the heart-rending account was given, first, in order that the father might distinctly remember the evil from which he desired his child to be saved and, then, that those who were standing round might know what kind of miracle it was which Jesus Christ was about to work. Sometimes it will be a very healthy thing for seekers to stop a while and say to themselves, “What is it we are seeking?” Christ may say to you, “What do you want that I should do for you? What is it are you really asking for?” There are many that cry, “Lord, save me!” who, perhaps, have no distinct idea from what they are to be saved, or to what they are to be saved.
In connection with this statement of the case, our Lord had permitted this poor man to make an application to His disciples. I will not say that it was on purpose that he might meet with a failure, but I do believe that failure was meant to teach the man a valuable lesson—and certainly it was designed to instruct the disciples—showing clearly to both that all hope lies in Jesus Christ, Himself. You have been seeking, dear Friend. Now, how have you hoped to get saved? “Why, by attending the means of Grace,” you say. Quite right and I have not a word to say against the means of Grace any more than I should have had a word to say against the Apostles! But the means of Grace cannot save you any more than the Apostles could cast the devil out of that child! It is not the means of Grace, but it is Christ, Himself, that you must go to, just as it was not the Apostles, but the Apostles’ Master who had to work this miracle!
Perhaps you have been sitting in these pews for years, expecting something to come to you by your constant and continued attendance. The Lord wants to get you thoroughly convinced that you will not be saved except by going to Jesus Christ, Himself. No Bible-readings, no sermon-hearings, no, not even prayers, if they are relied upon, can save you! Your reliance must be upon the wonder-working Christ of God! If you will trust the Savior, you shall be saved at once. If you can believe, now, you shall have immediate forgiveness of every sin and instantaneous salvation by the power of the Christ of God! But, it may be, you have not thought of this. You have been going round about and now you are to be sickened
of all that, so that you shall say, like the man in the narrative, “I spoke to Your disciples, that they should cast him out, and they could not. I have used the means of Grace, I have heard Your ministers, I have read good books, but neither books, nor ministers, nor services, nor all combined, can cast the devil out of me. Lord, You must do it.” The failure of every other hope is another thing that Christ would have us know when we come to Him for a great blessing.
Yet further, when the poor father had stated the case and had confessed that he was disappointed with the disciples, yet the Savior caused him to see another exhibition of the mischief from which he would have his child saved. Then and there, before them all, as they brought the boy to Jesus, the devil began to treat him, perhaps, more violently then ever! He foamed at the mouth and seemed, at last, to fall into such a condition that those who looked on said, “He is dead. The case is utterly hopeless.” In the very Presence of Christ, the evil spirit made a supreme effort to retain his hold of his victim, or to destroy the body in which he dwelt before he left it!