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Living Hope SDA Church

Chris Holland

When God is Silent

Wherever you go, he already knows what lies ahead and whatever is behind.

Heavenly Father, there are many of us in this room that wonder what lies ahead.

The news that continues to come out of Israel and Gaza.

The news from around the world leaves many of us wondering what lies ahead.

But there are many of us here, Lord, with a much more personal question as to what lies ahead.

Maybe we are unemployed, maybe we are in a questionable relationship, maybe we don't know how we're going to pay the bills, maybe we don't know how we're going to heat our home, Whatever it may be, there are many of us wondering what lies ahead.

But today, Father in Heaven, as we study Your Word, it is our great desire that You would encourage us and strengthen us that you already know what lies ahead.

You already know what we've gone through, and you will be right there by our side wherever we go.

If you have your Bibles with you, I would invite you to open your Bibles to the Gospel of Mark.

Mark 9 records the events surrounding an encounter that Jesus had with a man who brought Him His young boy.

14, the Bible says, and when he came to the disciples, he saw a great multitude around them, and the scribes disputing with them.

Immediately when they saw him, all the people were greatly amazed and running to Him, greeted Him, and He asked the scribes, what are you discussing with them?

Then 1 of the crowd answered and said, Teacher, I brought you My Son who has a mute spirit, and wherever it seizes Him, it throws Him down.

He foams at the mouth, gnashes His teeth, and becomes rigid.

So I spoke to your disciples that they should cast it out." But they could not.

He answered and said, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you?

Then they brought Him to him, and when he saw Him, immediately the Spirit convulsed Him, and He fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at the mouth.

So he asked the father, how long has this been happening to him?

And he said, from childhood, and often he has thrown him into the fire and into the water to destroy him, but if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us." Jesus said to him, if you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.

Immediately, the father of the child cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe!

When Jesus saw that the people came running together, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him and enter him no more.

Then the spirit cried out, convulsed Him greatly, and came out of Him, and He became as 1 dead, so that many said, He is dead.

But Jesus took Him by the hand, lifted Him up, and He arose.

And when He had come into the house, His disciples asked Him privately, why could we not cast it out?

And He said to them, to them, this can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.

The events of Mark chapter 9 are also recorded in Luke 9 and in Matthew 17.

These events follow Jesus' journey to Bethsaida where He healed a blind man.

He fed 5, 000 and then on the journey to Caesarea Philippi, a journey of approximately 30 miles, they estimate it would have taken 10-15 hours to walk it.

That is where Peter first proclaimed that Jesus was the Christ.

And then immediately before this event, the transfiguration occurred where Peter, James, and John all were able to witness Jesus in His glorified state.

And as Jesus came down from the mountain, these crowds had gathered around and there was a dispute, the Bible says.

And while this debate was occurring, there was a father who had brought his son.

The Bible says that he had a mute spirit.

Jesus had not been there at the time when the man brought the Son, and the Father had spoken to the other disciples, and when He had spoken to the other disciples and brought the son and said, help my son.

Those that were in the crowd had been around the disciples and had witnessed what had happened.

The book Desire of Ages says that the dispute that was happening was because the rabbis were triumphantly proclaiming that the evil spirit could not be cast out by the disciples, and also therefore, could not be cast out by Jesus Christ Himself.

But the father, not wanting to get into the midst of their theological disputes and debates, had a greater need.

And he brought the child through the crowd and there petitioned Jesus.

And he explained to Jesus that he had a mute spirit.

And he described what happened, That the Spirit would seize him.

Jesus asked for the Son to be brought to Him.

This story emphasizes an important reality that I believe many of us don't understand the magnitude of.

And that is that John 8 and verse 44 says this, speaking of the devil, that he is a murderer from the beginning.

The word murderer is the Greek word anthropokantanos.

Anthropos, which means man, and kataino, which means murderer.

Which means that the devil has 1 goal in his existence.

And so when the devil's temptations come, this is not simply an exercise in, oh, that's a temptation.

No, a temptation is an attempt to destroy you.

In fact, 1 Peter 5 and verse 8 says, Be sober and be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

And the word devour literally translated means to drown or to overwhelm and to swallow you up.

The devil seeks through his temptations in your life and in my life to drown us.

And In this case, the devil, through his demonic forces, had possessed this young boy with 1 goal.

Because later we will find out that this would often happen and the boy would throw himself into water or into fire.

In the accounts in Luke and Matthew, it says that it bruised the child.

This word bruise literally means to shatter, but interestingly enough, it is the same Greek word used in Luke 4 where it says that Jesus has come to heal the brokenhearted.

Brokenhearted is the same word to shatter or to bruise.

The devil seeks to destroy and break you.

He seeks to destroy and break whomever He can in whatever way He can.

But it is important to know that Jesus is the healer of the bruised.

He is the great physician of the brokenhearted.

And this Father had brought His Son for the Spirit to be cast out.

Somehow, someway, this Father must have heard that Jesus could do it.

Maybe He heard that the disciples had been given the power to cast out spirits.

I want you to go back to that time and imagine for just a moment the disappointment of the Father when He brought the child to the disciples, and they could not cast out the demon.

The Bible doesn't say, and I don't know, maybe He regained some confidence, maybe He said there's still hope.

So he told Jesus everything that the Spirit would do to His Son, and when Jesus called for the Son to be brought, the Father must have been filled with some sort of relief, some sort of hope.

But as soon as the Son was brought in front of Jesus, what happened?

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When God is Silent

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