Reasoning Through the Bible
Taking a cue from Paul, Reasoning Through the Bible is an expository style walk through the Scriptures that tells you what the Bible says. Reviewing both Old and New Testament books, as well as topical subjects, we methodically teach verse by verse, even phrase by phrase.
We have completed many books of the Bible and offer free lesson plans for teachers. If you want to browse our entire library by book or topic, see our website www.ReasoningThroughTheBible.com.
We primarily do expository teaching but also include a good bit of theology and apologetics. Just like Paul on Mars Hill, Christianity must address both the ancient truths and the questions of the people today. Join Glenn and Steve every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as they reason with you through the Bible.
Reasoning Through the Bible
S29 || Faith in the Face of Demons || Mark 19:19-32 || Session 29 || Verse by Verse Bible Study
When a desperate father brings his demon-possessed son to Jesus after the disciples fail to help him, we witness an extraordinary moment of both vulnerability and power. "I believe; help my unbelief!" cries the father—perhaps the most honest prayer ever spoken and one that resonates with believers throughout the centuries. This raw confession stands as a perfect encapsulation of the human faith experience: simultaneously believing yet struggling with doubt.
What makes this encounter particularly fascinating is Jesus' private explanation to his puzzled disciples about why they couldn't cast out this particular demon: "This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer." This brief statement opens a window into spiritual warfare dynamics, suggesting different challenges require different approaches, and reminding us that spiritual battles aren't won through formulas or human effort but through dependent connection with God.
Join us as we explore these fascinating dynamics of faith, prayer, spiritual authority, and honest struggling with God—themes that continue to shape authentic Christian experience today.
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May God Bless you!! - Glenn and Steve
Hello from Reasoning Through the Bible. My name's Glenn. I'm here with Steve Today. We are in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 9, and where we left off last time was that Jesus had been up on the Mount of Transfiguration. He comes down and he finds his disciples arguing with some Pharisees. Jesus asked them what are you arguing about? And they don't really give an answer. Instead, a man comes to him and says can you help me, because my son is demon-possessed and your disciples could not cast him out. That's where we pick up the story. So, if you have your copy of the Word of God, turn to Mark, chapter 9, starting in verse 19. Steve, can you read down to verse 29?
Speaker 2:And he answered them and said O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him to me. They brought the boy to him.
Speaker 2:When he saw him, immediately the spirit threw him into a convulsion and, falling to the ground he began rolling around and foaming at the mouth and he asked his father how long has this been happening to him? And he said From childhood it has often thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us. And Jesus said to him If you can, all things are possible to him who believes. Immediately the boy's father cried out and said I do believe. Help my unbelief.
Speaker 2:When Jesus saw that a crowd was already gathering, he rebuked the unclean spirit saying to it you deaf and mute spirit, I command you come out of him and do not enter him again. After crying out and throwing him into terrible convulsions, it came out and the boy became so much like a corpse that most of them said he is dead. But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him and he got up. When he came into the house, the disciples began questioning him privately, why could we not drive it out? And he said to them this kind cannot come out by anything but prayer.
Speaker 1:At the beginning of that passage, of course, the father and the disciples apparently had brought this boy to Jesus, or at least had come to Jesus with the problem of the boy. Jesus in verse 19, seems a little frustrated. He says he seems frustrated, yet he still says bring the boy to me. Jesus always has time to meet with and help those that are in need. They bring the boy to Jesus, which is what we should do with all the children around us and all the problems that we have. We should bring those to Jesus and ask for help. There's things that we struggle with. There's things that we can't do. That's what their issue here was. They couldn't cast out this demon, so they brought him to Jesus. As Christian parents today, we should do everything we can to bring our children to Jesus. Steve, in verse 19, when he says there, how long shall I put up with you? He seems frustrated. Why do you think he's frustrated?
Speaker 2:We don't have everything that he was teaching his disciples Glenn. We just have a small snippet of the things that he was telling them through the Gospels here and through Acts and some of the other depictions in the New Testament. But hasn't it been the case sometimes, whenever we have been teaching other people or maybe teaching our children something, and we've told them and they go off to do whatever it might be that we've taught them, but then they come back and say, well, I can't do it, I can't do it? And you say, well, have you done this? They go yeah, I tried that. And through that process you find out that they really haven't been doing what you've told them to do and you're a little bit exasperated with them because they're not putting forth the effort to actually put into action the things that you've been teaching them. That might be one of the things here that Jesus is a little bit frustrated. He knows that he's not going to be with them much longer and they're maybe not taking to heart some of the things that he's been teaching them.
Speaker 1:One thing we can be sure of is that the problem of casting out the demon had nothing to do with the faith of the disciples. When he says, oh, unbelieving generation, that is not a condemnation of their faith. He doesn't say that, doesn't mean it and grammatically and logically we cannot make that conclusion simply because later in the passage that we just read, he says why the demon couldn't be cast out it was because of a lack of prayer. He mentions here, yes, unbelieving generation in verse 19, but logically we can't connect that and say that that's a cause of the disciples' failure. The point of verse 19 is him just saying how long am I going to be here? He's merely frustrated because there's so much need in these people and he knows he won't be around much longer to keep helping them. That's his entire point there. Jesus then tells them in this passage that the reason the demon couldn't come out he says this kind only comes out through prayer. So, steve is prayer effective.
Speaker 2:It's obviously effective. Jesus is saying that this is the one thing that you need to do. And, of course, when you're praying, who are you praying to? In the model prayer that Jesus gives to us, we're to pray to the Father. That was one of the things. This particular spirit was a deaf-mute spirit. That's the description Couldn't hear, couldn't talk. It affected the boy that way. Well, one of the protocols in order to cast out these demons by the Pharisees was that they needed to get the name of the demonic spirit. Well, if the spirit's not allowing the boy to talk, well, then they can't get his name. This was one of the things that are behind this. When he says with these, you have to get them out by prayer, that's the protocol that you need to approach with these particular types of evil spirits. But of course, that's not what Jesus had to do, because he is over all of that. He was able just to cast it out with his word.
Speaker 1:Jesus responds and says bring him to me. And they do that. They bring the boy to him. The Gospel of Mark has many instances of people bringing their loved ones to Jesus. We should follow this example. Bring our loved ones to Jesus and lay them before him and see what actions he does. Look at the middle of verse 20. The middle of verse 20, what happens immediately when the demon sees Jesus, he begins to fall to the ground.
Speaker 2:He takes control of the boy to where he's having him convulse, rolling around and foaming at the mouth.
Speaker 1:Immediately. When the demon is in the presence of Jesus, it immediately acts violently. In verse 25, jesus is in total control over the demon. This is yet another pattern that we've seen here, as the demons in the Gospel of Mark, when they're in the presence of Jesus, they immediately react. Jesus doesn't have to go through some sort of ceremony, doesn't have to say some kind of incantation, there's no gyrations, it's just immediate. When they're in the presence of Jesus, they fall down and are subject to him. This is yet another claim to deity, for no other being in the entire Bible has this power over demons other than the Lord, god Almighty.
Speaker 1:In the New Testament, in Jude, verse 9, the archangel Michael, no less than the archangel Michael, can only say the Lord, rebuke you. When he was speaking to demonic forces. In Daniel, chapter 10, an angel appears to Daniel and speaks of having struggled against demons for weeks. So we don't see that here at all. In Jesus we see the demons immediately subject to him. They immediately fall down, they immediately react. They are entirely subject to him and he is in complete and entire control over the demonic forces in the spirit world. The demons are more subject to Jesus than the religious leaders are.
Speaker 1:I find this always interesting, as the demons recognize who Jesus is, but the Pharisees do not. The same demons fall down before Jesus, but the religious leaders are cursing him. This is interesting to me. And we see here again Jesus is in total control over the spirit world, which makes him the Lord, god Almighty. Then, in verse 23, the man had seen the disciples try to cast out the demon but fail, so possibly his faith was shaken. Jesus responds by trying to build the man's faith and saying all things are possible to him who believes. The man says if you can do anything, please help. Jesus says the issue is not whether he's able, but what does he say?
Speaker 2:He answers that if you can. He says all things are possible to him who believes. I don't think the man is being disrespectful to Jesus. He's rather approaching him and saying if you can do something, please do it. He's just making this correction to him that says what do you mean? If I can, yeah, of course I can do it. We have seen this with some of the other healings that he's done. Whenever he has healed some, he said your faith has made you whole. As we've talked about before in many of our sessions, glenn, we see all types of different kinds of healings and ways that Jesus performs the healings, and I think that gives us a broad spectrum of the abilities that he has and his power that he has over all the different types. Again, this is a type of a demon that these people know is a hard one to get out, because it's the deaf and mute type of demon.
Speaker 1:Jesus says here in verse 23, that all things are possible to him who believes, and of course this is all things are possible to him who believes. And of course this is all things are possible to God when we have faith. But we also have to realize here that he's talking in a realistic world. There are things, my friend, that this may be a surprise, but God can't do. We always have these conundrums that people like to bring up to try to criticize Christianity. Have these conundrums that people like to bring up to try to criticize Christianity. Can God make a rock so big that he can't lift it? And idiotic things like that. Well, there's logical impossibilities, such as asking God to tell a lie. Okay, I can think of that, but that's not possible.
Speaker 1:Hebrews 6.18 says it's impossible for God to lie. If I were to go to God and say, hey, God, old buddy, I want you to stop being God for a few days and let me do it. Well, that's not possible and it won't happen. It's also not possible for me to go write a Bible that's better than this one and have it replace this one. God can't make a square circle and he can't make a stick with only one end. None of these things. These are all logical absurdities. God can do all things that are possible, but he's not an absurd God and he's not going to do unintelligent things. All things are possible to him who believes all things that are logically possible and good for God to do. God's not going to do evil. So when he says here all things are possible, what does he really mean? He means all things that are in God's will are possible.
Speaker 1:The context here is if you can, if you are able and Jesus is merely saying I'm capable, I have the ability All things are possible to him who believes that God is indeed in control. Jesus tells the man that all things are possible, and then the man has this wonderful statement here I do believe. Help my unbelief, steve. I just think that's such a great picture of the human condition. We all have faith, but we also feel at times that our faith is inadequate. We feel that our faith is incomplete. We feel like we have weak faith. We have doubts sometimes. We trust Christ, but we need help in trusting him more. We have confidence in God, but we're still fearful of what will happen, and if we had faith we wouldn't be fearful. The man expresses the condition of most Christians. This comment also tells us that we need the Lord's help to build our faith. If we ask the Lord to draw us closer to him, he will do so.
Speaker 2:Yes and the word believe here. When he cries out, he says I do believe, yes. And the word believe here. When he cries out, he says I do believe. That's that word, pisteu, which means a firm persuasion, a belief, often translated as the faith, and the unbelief can also be translated as uncertainty. So think of that. He's saying I am firmly persuaded and convinced that you can do it. Please help my uncertainty. So, yes, it's a great thing and a great picture there to see this man is that he doesn't retreat from it or he doesn't say that he doesn't believe that Jesus can do it. He convincingly says yes, you can do it to help my uncertainty.
Speaker 1:This is just a wonderful description of the human condition, saying I do believe, help my unbelief. We all find ourselves in this condition In the following verses we see in verse 23 and 24, the demon is there, the boy is there, it's fallen down before Jesus. Jesus sees that a crowd is about to gather so he casts out the demon before the crowd gets there. He doesn't want to do it in a showy public display Now. Jesus had already done many miracles prior to this. He did many of them back earlier in the book in front of everyone, in front of many people. It was obvious that he had done these miracles. Here he's not trying to draw a crowd. He's not trying to demonstrate his truthfulness as a true prophet of God, as truly the Messiah. He's trying to help this boy and not draw necessarily attention to his own credentials here. As a general rule, what we see in Mark not in every case, but as a general rule the miracles earlier in Mark were more public and more people saw them and as time goes on, now he has this large crowd that he's already demonstrated himself in front of. The miracles later in the book of Mark were more private and Jesus did them so that fewer people would see them, and that's what he's doing here. The early miracles were done to prove Jesus' deity and his message was truthful, and the later miracles here are done to help the people that are in need. After Jesus had been rejected by the religious leaders, he did most of them more privately, did not need to do the showy public miracles to prove his own truthfulness.
Speaker 1:In verse 26, when the demon comes out, it leaves the boy as dead, and some of the Bible teachers think he may have been dead. The demon must have had total control over this boy, showing that a spirit can control a physical person, and we have no issue with that in the biblical world. When Jesus touched the boy and lifted him up, he was restored. This again, is a picture of our salvation. We have here somebody who is as dead, and we're told in the New Testament that sin leaves us as dead dead in trespasses and sins. Yet Jesus must come along, take us by the hand, instill life in us and lift us up. And unless he reaches out and takes us and lifts us up, we are going to remain as dead, don't you think?
Speaker 2:Steve up, we are going to remain as dead, don't you think, steve? Yes, and Glenn, this is at a time whenever the Holy Spirit is given and taken away for certain situations. Now that we're in the Christian age, as it's so called, after the Holy Spirit has been given at Pentecost in Acts 2, given at Pentecost in Acts, chapter 2, every believer has the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It's not true that a believer can be possessed by any type of these demons. And of course, jesus asked his father. He says how long has he been this way? He said he's been this way since childhood. So I just want to clarify that that while this is going on and you were describing the abilities of the demon, as a believer you're protected from that because we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and no demon is going to come in and overtake the Holy Spirit in our lives. Would you agree?
Speaker 1:Yes, oh, I'd agree 100%. The Bible teaches greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. One of the reasons I always bring out what happens with Jesus and the demons is every single time the demons are immediately subject to him. Without question, there's not a power struggle going on here. There's not an arm wrestling match in between the demons and the angels trying to figure out what happens at least not with Jesus. Anyway. We pointed out a while ago there were some angels that were struggling in Daniel's day.
Speaker 1:But with Jesus we have Jesus' Spirit, the Holy Spirit, in us. With that, there is no issue there with demonic activity. If the Holy Spirit is in you, then the demons cannot. Now we may have demons tempting us, we may have demons attacking us, we may have demons doing some odd things and God may lead us into an uncomfortable circumstance. But we don't have to worry, simply because the Bible always teaches us that God is in total, complete control and that he only wants our good. So if he puts us into a difficult situation, even a situation that might have some demonic activity, then we don't have to worry. He's in charge and he's doing it only for our good and for us to minister to others. So that's really the lesson here is we don't have to worry about demonic activity.
Speaker 1:In verse 29, it says this kind can come out by nothing but prayer, and some of the translations add and fasting. Most of the Greek manuscripts, the vast majority of them, include and fasting. There's a few of the older ones that do not have that phrase. It's not an issue simply because it doesn't add much doctrinally. But what benefit, steve, is prayer? What benefit would if we did add fasting? What would be the benefit from a spiritual standpoint like this?
Speaker 2:In that situation of prayer, going to God, the Father in prayer, asking for whatever situation we are in to be delivered from it or to be healed from it, or just confessing our sins in order to stay in that right relationship with him. That's the relational way in order to attack these type of situations is just go to the father and ask that's what this father did. The father of the boy went to Jesus and asked. So that's what we should do whenever we come into these type of situations. There are just some situations that we can have no control over and that the only way that we are going to get control over it is through prayer to God, the Father to help us out.
Speaker 1:And lastly in verse 29,. It says in there Jesus speaks and says this kind cannot come out by anything but prayer. We have a strong implication that there are kinds of demons, there's categories of them. Some of the Bible scholars would take issue with that and say that he's really just making a general statement about demonic activity. But nevertheless, I think what we can be sure is that there's a lot more going on in the spirit world than God has revealed to us, and he knows about it. It's not really our business, or he would have told us, so we generally just follow Christ and leave all that to him. Let's move on to the next section. Steve, can you read Mark 9, verse 30 to 32?
Speaker 2:From there they went out and began to go through Galilee, and he did not want anyone to know about it, for he was teaching his disciples and telling them the Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men and they will kill him. And when he has been killed, he will rise three days later. But they did not understand this statement and they were afraid to ask him.
Speaker 1:Jesus here is going through the area where he grew up, but he did not want anyone to know. It says they went out and began to go through Galilee, did not want anyone to know about it. Verse 31 tells us why he didn't want anybody to know about it. It was because he was preparing the disciples for when he would be crucified and rise again. He didn't want a big crowd there because he's getting towards the time when he's going to have to go to Jerusalem and be crucified. These are the last weeks and months of his time with the disciples and he's trying to train them as much as he can. He knows they're going to be put through the ringer, so to speak, when it comes to persecutions later. He's trying to educate them, trying to train them as much as he can, but they did not understand what he was saying and why he was saying it.
Speaker 1:God says things that don't fit our worldview, doesn't make sense to us. He's trying to train us, like he's trying to train these disciples here. He's trying to educate us because he knows we're going to go into circumstances and we're going to need things. So he's telling us things and it's not making much sense. What should we do then, steve, my first reaction, from a biblical standpoint, is listen to Christ, even though we may not understand. I don't understand why he's taking me through not understand. I don't understand why he's taking me through these circumstances. I don't understand why the Bible is teaching me these things, but I know I will need it down the path because he will lead me into places where I need this.
Speaker 2:How often does it come that, after a situation is resolved or something comes to pass, that you then look back on that particular time and say, no, now I understand why this was done this way or why this thing happened? Same thing is going to happen to these inner group of disciples. They're going to understand what he's talking about after it happens, whenever he actually is killed on the cross and he's in the grave for three days and then rises again and then ascends back into heaven. Then they're completely going to understand everything that's here. I think it's the same thing with us At the time. We might not understand.
Speaker 2:I also think, though, glenn, that some things we can understand if we know God's Word, because through knowing God's Word, we know who God is and the way he works and the way that he ministers. We can build up a relationship with Him. So there are some things that we can understand through God's Word, but there's certainly going to be other things that we just don't understand why they happen, and we won't understand them, maybe not in our lifetime, but maybe on the other side for sure. Then we're going to be able to understand why certain things happened the way that they did.
Speaker 1:The disciples, of course, had not had our experience of looking back all these years on what Jesus did on the cross and rising again. When he tells them this, they didn't understand it, and it says in verse 32, they did not understand this statement and they were afraid to ask him. As we said before, we will get into situations where we just don't understand what he's telling us. What we should not do, then, is shoehorn the Word of God into our worldview so that, oh, we must mean this because I've already decided that's what it's going to be. No, we need to change our worldview to fit the Word of God, even though it may not make sense right now. That's what I need to follow. Theology always needs to win out over interpretation and philosophy and all these things, simply because the theology of the Word of God and the person of Jesus Christ always has to win out, even if we don't understand it, in philosophy and everything else. Now, when he says here in verse 31 that he's going to go to Jerusalem, be delivered into the hands of men and be killed and rise again, this is the second time that Mark tells us that Jesus explicitly told the disciples that he would die and rise again this is the second time very explicit. He told them more than once, but they still did not understand and they did not ask for clarification. They were even afraid to.
Speaker 1:And, steve, I think it's important here to point out that when we have questions, we need to go to God and ask. When we have people in our churches that may not understand, hey, why does the church do this? Or why does the Bible say that we need to let people ask questions? We need to allow people to ask really radical questions sometimes, because the only way we're going to understand these things is to ask questions, to go to God and ask. We'll stop here for today because of time, but come back next time. We're going to be reasoning through the next section of Mark, where Jesus asks a question that he already knows the answer to and the people around him are a little bit skittish to give an answer.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for watching and listening, as always. May God bless you.
