Shabbat Shalom. Open your Bibles, please. We are studying in the Gospel of Mark. Today we are continuing in Mark chapter 9. And we will continue from verse 14 to verse 32. This ninth chapter of the Gospel of Mark is rather a long chapter. There is a lot to share and to present before us all. And so I would like to just read from chapter 9 and verse 14 of Mark to verse 32. So please open your Bible and follow me as I am reading. Verse 14, we read, And when he came to his disciples, he saw a great multitude about them, and the scribes questioning with them. And straightway, when they beheld him, when they beheld him, were greatly amazed, and running to him, saluted him.

And he asked the scribes, what question ye with them? And one of the multitude answered, Master, Rabbi, I have brought unto thee my son, which has a dumb spirit. And wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him, and he formeth, and he gnasheth with his teeth, and pinneth away. And I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out, and they could not. He answered him and saith, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him unto me. And they brought him unto him. And when he saw him, straightway the spirit tear him, and he fell on the ground, and wellowed, foaming.

And he asked his father, how long is it also since this came unto him? And he said, of a child. And of the time it hath cast him into the fire and into the waters to destroy him. But if thou can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. Yeshua said unto him, if thou can believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. And straightway the father of the child cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief. When Yeshua saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more unto him.

And the spirit cried and rent him sore, and came out of him, and he was as one dead inasmuch that many said he is dead. But Yeshua took him by the hand, and lifted him up, and he arose. And when he was come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, why could not we cast him out? And he said unto them, this kind can come forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting. And they departed thence, and passed through Galilee, and he would not that any man should know it. For he taught his disciples, and said unto them, the son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him.

And after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day. But they understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him. And I'm stopping here with the reading. I read from chapter 9, verses 14 to verse 32 of the Gospel of Mark. And in the progress as we make together, beloved brothers and sisters, in the study of the Gospel, this portion is really deals with the importance of faith. The importance of simply believing the Lord, believing God, believing the Lord, Yeshua, the Messiah. I do not know if you have noticed, but in this portion that we have read, more than a few times the word "believe" or "faith" have been mentioned in our chapter as we read this portion together.

Especially in the verses that we just read in verses 23 and 24. Yeshua said unto him, "If you can't believe, all things are possible unto him that believes." And this man, the father of the child, said, "Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief." Now, I would like to suggest today, beloved brothers and sisters, that we do not only need faith in the Lord, Yeshua, the Messiah, in order to be forgiven and to receive salvation. But the believer in the Lord, Yeshua, the Messiah, needs faith, not only in order to go to heaven and to be eternally saved, but we need faith in the person of the Lord, Yeshua, the Messiah, every day in our life.

Wherever we live, whatever the circumstances we find ourselves living in, our family situation, our job situation, our children situation, those that are young at school, if you are there, wherever we are here in this world, wherever we are here in this world, we need faith in the Mashiach, in the Messiah, not only in order to be saved and to go to heaven, but also to have day-by-day life that is pleasing to the Lord. Unfortunately, we are not different than these disciples, is that we believe in Yeshua for our eternal salvation, but we must admit that we oftentimes do not believe that He is able to carry us through in various circumstances and trials that we experience in our lives.

And that's why at times, beloved brothers and sisters, we have no spiritual power to live our life for God here in this world. And that's why many times, unfortunately, we are not victorious in our spiritual walk here in this world. Satan defeats us, the world tempts us, the flesh overcomes us when we do not allow the Lord Jesus the Messiah to rule and reign over our life because of the lack of faith that we have here in our lives, even as believers. These words that we find out, spoken by the father of that sick child, where he said, "Lord, I believe, but Lord, help my unbelief." We can say that at times in our life, we are unbelievers believers.

We are believers who don't believe that God is able to carry us through in our day-by-day living. Now, you notice the contrast here. When Yeshua the Messiah had arrived here in verse 14, it says that he came to his disciples, he just came down from the Mount of Transfiguration. He was there on Mount Hermon, we believe, which we have read in the first 13 verses of Mark chapter 9. He transfigured before Peter, James, and John, Shimon, Petros, Yaakov, and Yohanan, and he revealed to them, he gave them a preview over the future Messianic Kingdom. Moses, Moshe, Elijah, Eliyahu were there speaking with him, and Shimon, Petros, Simon, Peter said to him, "Lord, it is good that we are here.

Let us build three tabernacles, one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah." Peter wanted so badly to now enter into the Messianic Kingdom, to the future Kingdom that was promised to the people of Israel. But of course, Peter did not quite grasp the fact that before the Kingdom going to come, before the glory going to come, sufferings and sorrows and the Messiah's death has to come first. If there will ever be a Kingdom in this world, if the Jewish people will ever be gathered back to the land, if Yeshua the Messiah ever is going to rule and reign over this world, and have Shalom, have peace in this world, he must first of all die for the sin of this world.

This is important. In order for the human race to be blessed, the Messiah had to die. Sin had to be punished. And the Messiah died on that cross, on the tree for our justification. But you notice now the contrast, beloved brothers and sisters, from the utopia, from the mountain, he's coming now down from the mountain, and he's going now to deal with the day-by-day issues of life. In a sense, I would like to suggest that it's like for us too, one day we are on the mountain, we rejoice in the presence of the Lord, we enjoy the Lord Jesus, the Messiah in our life, we enjoy the meeting, we gather together, we can sing to the Lord, we sing the praises of God, and then we leave the meeting and we are going back to the jobs, to our families, to our issues and our problems.

Or it's wonderful to be on the mountain, to be in the top and enjoying the Lord's presence and the people of God, being under the sound of the word, it is wonderful. But then we come down and we are back to the day-by-day problems. Families, children, jobs, opposition, financial problems, health issues, all those things that we all just came from right now as we came to this meeting hall today. We all came from all sorts of situations in our life, and when we are going to finish the meeting, we are going to go back to the day-by-day challenges that we all face in our life.

Well, you see, the lesson that we learn from this passage is that we need the Lord just as much as we needed Him here to be in the midst of His own people and enjoy the word of God. We need Him when we go home to face the problems that we experience in our own life. And here He's teaching these lessons to His very own disciples. Now, brothers and sisters, Yeshua come down, we see in Mark 9, these verses 14 to 18, we learn something that the disciples who remained below, you remember He took three to the mountain, Peter, James, and John, there were other nine that remained below.

And when He calmed down and now He's arriving back down to the ground back down to Caesarea Philippi, or this area, down from Mount Hermon, He's coming down, and what does He see? He finds out, notice in verse 14, He came to His disciples, those are the ones that remained below the mountain, we find out that He saw a great multitude about them and the scribes questioning wisdom. Apparently, the scribes, these were the sofrim. In Hebrew we call them the sofrim. These are the scribes who copies the scripture very carefully. These are part of the Pharisees, who were the spiritual leaders of our people Israel. They were now approaching the disciples, and apparently He found that the scribes were questioning the remaining disciples that were still below as Yeshua came down from Mount Hermon, for the Mount of Transfiguration.

And again, the sofrim is very interesting because the scribes of those days did not begin then and there. You know, the first scribe that we read in scripture, in the Tanakh, we read about Ezra, the scribe, in Ezra 7. He was a ready scribe, a faithful scribe, who wanted to maintain order among our people, of all the people of Israel, and Ezra was the first scribe of whom we read in the time when they returned from Babylon. When they passed by, many other scribes over the generation of our people Israel have been risen, and now those scribes became very meticulous, very particular. They were part of the Pharisees, the Pushim, in the land of Israel in the day when Yeshua was here on earth.

So the scribes were questioning the disciples. They were questioning them. Well, Yeshua was not there. He was on a mountain. He's coming down. And he sees all these questioning by the scribes. And of course, the scribes knew their Bible very well. They knew the Tanakh very well. And they can ask all kinds of questions. And they knew very well that the disciples, those Jewish Talmidim, the disciples followed Yeshua, the Messiah. They were questioning them with all sorts of questions. Why are you doing that? Why you don't do this? Why you don't keep that? Why you keep that? And so on. Tell us more about Yeshua.

Tell us more about what he taught you. And all these questioning that they would question, that we don't read exactly what questions they were questioning them. Many, many things that they've asked and the disciples were seeking to present to them. So we read there that not only that there were disciples there, not only that there were the scribes there. Verse 14 and verse 15 said that there were other multitude of people, Jewish people in Galilee from the northern part of the land of Israel. Great multitude. Once again, verse 14, they were eager to talk to the person of Jesus, of Yeshua, the Messiah. So Yeshua in verse 15, straightway, as they saw him, the multitude, when they saw him, they were running unto him to salute him, to say, Shalom, Shalom.

They really wanted to heal from him additional teaching, but also that he will heal the sick that they have had in their midst, that he will heal them from all their diseases, and that he will meet their needs as well. They wanted that because they had been people just like you and I, who have many, many needs. And Yeshua the Messiah was the one that is able to meet their needs. And so we find out that in the next verses, because there we find out about the disciples of the Lord, that they were not able to serve the Lord in casting demons there, because we find out the reason, because they were not in tune with the person of the Lord, Yeshua the Messiah.

Notice what we read. And he asked the scribe, what question, verse 16, ye with them, what are you questioning my disciples? What is the question that you have towards them? He is asking these scribes. And again, this is the second time that we find the word scribes. In Hebrew, the word is sofrim. Sofrim are those that were copying the scripture carefully, maybe writing all sorts of commentaries about the word of God. But they called in Hebrew sofrim. We'll have scribes like this today in the land of Israel, very conservative, religious individuals, that they are the one who are carefully copying the various scripture to maintain that as it was given.

So now notice what happened. After the Lord asked them, what is your question that you have for them? Then all of a sudden, a certain man, verse 17 and 18, the first half of verse 18, there was one man, notice, he said, and one of the multitude answered and said, Master, or Rabbi in Hebrew. Rabbi, he said, I have brought unto thee my son, which has a dumb spirit, and wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him, and he foameth, and he gnasheth with his teeth, and he become rigid, or pineth away, and I spake to thy disciples, listen, that they should cast him out, and notice they couldn't.

So you notice what we learn here immediately, that the man that had a sick son, now just imagine, beloved brothers and sisters, this son that he had was possessed by a demon. Yesterday, in our Bible class, we talked about Miriam from Magdal, Miriam Magdal, and she had seven spirits possessed here, demons, and the Lord took all these demons out, and she loved the Lord, she served the Lord, she lived for the Lord, she wanted to be with him, and when he rose from the dead, she wept because she couldn't find the body of Yeshua, Messiah, John chapter 20.

Here we have another one, that his very own son, was possessed with a demon, Satan attacked him, possessed his body, and apparently according to those verses 17 and 18, look what we said, I brought unto your disciples, actually to you, but you were not there, the disciples were there, my son, he has a dumb spirit, in Hebrew, ruach, ilem, cannot speak, but it's not only this, he's saying to him in verse 18, wheresoever he, this is the demon, this evil spirit, wherever he takes my son, he tears him apart, and not only this, he foams, and he gnashes with his teeth, and he becomes very rigid, you can just imagine, beloved brothers and sisters, how

this father have felt, he had a son that he loved, and his son couldn't speak with him, but not only that, that demon, when he entered unto him, wherever he takes him, he tears him apart, he caused him to behave, in a terrible way, and not only that, according to verse 18, he foams, from out of his mouth, there's all this foam coming out of his mouth, but even more, he gnashes with his teeth, and he becomes very rigid, like that, you can just imagine, how would you and I feel, if our sons, or our daughter, or our family member, will behave like this, because a demon occupied that person, terrible condition, beloved brothers and

sisters, and the father loved his son, he wanted so badly, that his son will be healed, and he was trying to find an answer for that, and obviously, the only one that could answer, is the person of the Lord, Yeshua, Jesus, the Messiah, so he said in verse 17, I brought my son unto you, but then you were not there, so I came to your disciples, and as it says here, in verse 18, at the end, talk to your disciples, that they should cast him out, but listen to this, they could not.

Now it is so interesting, because if you just please turn a few chapters back, just want you to notice that, that earlier in chapter 6, just go back to chapter 6, of the Gospel of Mark, I want you to notice, that in verse 7, and he called the 12, unto him, and he began to send them, forth two by two, and listen to what it says in verse 7, and he gave them power, over unclean spirit. Look what it says in verse 13, of the same chapter, Mark 6:13, and they cast out many demons, and they anointed with oil, many that were sick, and healed them. You see, Yeshua have already empowered them, earlier, in their ministry.

He have already gave them, these are the apostles, this is not every individual, these are the immediate apostles, those shlichim, they were the early apostles, that were empowered, by the Lord, with the ability, to cast out demons, and to heal the sick, not with their own power, but with the power of the Lord. But time passes by, the Lord is a little bit away, he's gone to the Mount of Hermon, Mount of Transfiguration, the disciples, the disciples are below, this man bringing his son, that is possessed with a demon, and he wants the Lord to heal him, Yeshua is not there, so he brings his son to his disciples, and according to this verse 18, he says, they could not heal my son.

Now it is interesting, and I would like to make a suggestion here, that sometimes, in our lives, because of our lack of fellowship with the Lord, we are lacking in the ability to live our life, in the strength and the power that God has given unto us. And why is it? It's not that the power of the Lord, or the power of the Spirit of God is not available, but the problem is, because we have neglected to have fellowship, and communion with the Lord. No wonder sometime we ask the question, I think it was someone who asked me yesterday, he said, Brother Gideon, how is it possible?

The Christians, believers, who know the Messiah, who love the Messiah, how can they behave like that, and yet to claim that they follow Yeshua, and they believe in Yeshua the Messiah? And you know, my response is simply this, I know how, I know why. The reason is, when we don't have communion and fellowship with the Lord, how do you think we will be able to live the life of the believer, in a world that is opposing anything that had to do with God and God's people? What do you think, we are robots? That God will press a button and turn us this way, and press another button and turn us this way?

No. There is a need to have fellowship and communion with the Lord on a day-by-day basis. We need to read our Bibles. Do we? We need to pray. Do we? We need to speak with the Lord and submit to His authority. Do we? There is no magic here. There is no trick in here. We know that when we are not in fellowship with the Lord, we are unable to do things that we could have done earlier, when we were submissive to the Lord. That's why it is so interesting, because you and I as believers in Yeshua the Messiah are already suitable for heaven. If the Lord would have wanted to take us now and place us in heaven, we are ready to be in the presence of God, the Messiah died for our sins, and He rose for our justification.

We have accepted Him as our Lord and our Mashiach, and we are suitable for heaven. Our sins have been forgiven. But He didn't take us home yet. He leaves us here. And so He leaves us here in this world, so we can live for Him and seek to please Him, and we cannot live the life of the believer in the power of the flesh. It just doesn't work. We need the help of God and the Spirit of God to enable us to do so. And so these disciples, what they could do the day before, when Yeshua had empowered them, and they went out in communion with Him, and they lived for Him, and they testified for Him, they could do as we read in chapter 6 and verse 13.

He said they cast out many demons, and anointed many with oil, and they were all that were sick. They healed them. But now the Father brings His Son. Yeshua is not there. According to verse 18, He said they could not. I expect to your disciples, verse 18b, that they should cast Him out, but they couldn't. This is amazing. This is amazing. When I read this passage, it is amazing, and it's so practical, beloved brothers and sisters. It teaches us of the necessity to have fellowship with God, to depend upon the Lord in our life for whatever we do, because we're just going to fail every time if we don't have fellowship and communion with Him.

You remember what He said in John chapter 15 and verse 5, "Without me ye can do nothing." We just can't. Because even though we are forgiven and our sins have been paid for, and we belong to heaven, yet on a day-by-day basis, if we don't have fellowship and communion with the Lord, we will mess it up every time. And the world is going to look at us and say, "And you call yourself a follower of Yeshua?" And you see what is very practical these verses. So in verses 14 to 18, you see the inability of the disciples to cast out demons from these young men, while in the past, according to chapter 6 and verse 13 of the Gospel of Mark, they have done so to many, many others.

So you know what it does say, brothers and sisters? It says that we cannot live today in a way that is pleasing to the Lord on the basis of what we have done five years ago. Every day is a new day. Every day we need to be in fellowship with the Lord. Every day we have to be humbled by the Lord and broken before Him and recognizing, "Lord, I can do that on my own." And there are so many problems in our lives that we need the Lord's help. And as we stay close to the Lord, He is able to help us along the way to live and to go another day, and another day and another day for the Lord Yeshua the Messiah.

We are not robots. We are human beings. We are sinners that are forgiven. But we still have the old nature. And we live in an all sinful world. And we are being attacked by this old enemy of God's people, Satan. And Yeshua said, "Without me, ye can do nothing." Chapter 15 of John, in verse 5. So we move along in that event. Notice, now in verse 19 to verse 27, you find out how Yeshua rebukes His disciples first of all. But He does not only rebuke His disciples because He loves them, He cares for them. The second thing He does, He also is healing the man's son who was possessed with a demon.

So we read in verse 19 that Yeshua charged His disciples. You know that's what it says? Mark 9:19. Yeshua, He answered him. He's talking to the man and yet He's speaking to everyone. And He said, "Oh, faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him unto me." You see, He's calling them faithless generation. Now this is specifically applied to the disciples, even though it could be applied to everyone there, but He's specifically applying this to the disciples because the disciples should have been able to heal that man's son if they have been empowered by the Lord, for them to be the one who will be the source.

But they couldn't. So Yeshua said to them, notice the word faithless. In other words, if you will just change a little bit the word, all unbelieving generation. How long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? How long? I'm teaching you. I'm instructing you. I'm assisting you. I'm ministering to you. He says, "Don't you get it?" And you know, as much as well He can say it to me, He can say it to you. Don't you get it? You need to be in fellowship with me. You need to submit to my authority. You need to live for me. You need to live your life as a believer and be a testimony for me and be empowered by me to live the life of the believer.

You need to be in fellowship with me. And you notice He called them faithless or unbelieving generation. Unbelieving generation is a generation that did not believe. If you remember from our history, the history of our forefathers, the Jewish people who came out of the land of Egypt, our people Israel could have entered into the promised land after 11 days. They could already be by the shores of the land of Canaan. They arrived to the shore. They sent spies to see the land. Do you remember that? Two spies, two spies bring good reports. Kalev ben Yefuneh and Yehoshua Abinun. And ten spies saying, no, we cannot enter into the land.

We are unable to. There are so many giants in the land. We are unable to defeat them. No, no, why did you bring us here? So God was not happy. He wanted Israel to go inside the land. He brought them from slavery to freedom. Four hundred and more years they were slaves in the land of Egypt. He wanted them to come into the promised land and he have done all these miracles, the ten plagues that fell upon the Egyptians. He brought them all the way out. He opened the Red Sea. He allowed them to enter, to go to the sea and come on the other side.

But when they finally have arrived to the land of Canaan, he says, no, we can't. So you know what God did? He turned them all around. And they began their marching in the desert for 40 years. And he said, you unbelieving generation, you will die in the desert. And your children are the ones that will enter into this land, the promised land of Canaan. And lo and behold, the only two individuals that entered into the promised land was All the older generation who grumbled died in the wilderness. Now they were saved because they were under the blood, but God disciplined them and physically did not allow them to enter into the promised land, even though they were already under the land, even though they were already under the blood and they were forgiven because they had the blood of the land placed upon the doorpost and the lintel.

But judicially, he punished them and he allowed them to die physically in the wilderness and not enter with their younger generation into the promised land. They were unbelieving generation. And here we learn, it's so true. You could see that we are no different, brothers and sisters, what we read here in the text. Whether we are Jewish people or Gentiles or part of the nation of Israel or part of the body of Messiah, the body of Christ, we have the same heart, the same condition. But God is expecting from his people to have fellowship with him so they can be used as vessels here to be a blessing.

So he wants to empower us to do things for him in this world, but it's not happening because we are not having fellowship with him at times, sometime more than other times. So Yeshua charged them in verse 19 and he said, Oh, he said, Oh, faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him to me. So now he asked that father that had this demon possessed son, bring him to me. Bring him to me. And so we read in verse 20 that a man's son was brought and look what the demon did to that son publicly there. It says here in verse 20, it says then they brought him unto him.

This is the boy, the young man. They brought him unto Yeshua. And when he saw him straightway, look what this demon had been doing there. The spirit tore him apart. He fell on the ground and he wallowed foaming. Right there, the demon, this evil spirit, when he was brought before the Lord, before Yeshua, the demon began to tear him apart. To tear him, as it says here in this passage. He fell on the ground and he wallowed foaming. In other words, you could see that he had become like a madman foaming at his mouth. As it says here, falling to the ground. And as the earlier verses, we find out things about him that he's gnashing in his teeth and he's becoming very rigid.

And so on, as he fall to the ground, you can just imagine. Here is before the Messiah, Yeshua himself. They brought him that son in that condition. And you can see that that evil spirit was constantly tearing him apart. And so we read in the next verses, verse 21 and verse 22 of our Gospel of Mark, chapter 9, that now Yeshua is questioning the father. And he's talking now to the father who came specifically with his son, knowing that he's able to receive healing from Yeshua himself, from the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, while the disciples could not do so, because they were not empowered by the Lord, because they were not in a proper, suitable spiritual state.

And so we find out now in verses 21 and 22, he asked the father. And he said, "How long is it since this came unto him? How long time does your son have this condition?" And the father said, "Since he was a child." Imagine, young kid, young boy, growing up at home, in such a terrible state, such a terrible condition. Falling, becoming rigid, foaming, grinding his teeth, tearing apart. He's telling even additional information when you read here in the next verse, verse 22, give him additional information. He said, "And often times he cast him," this is the demon, "cast him into the fire," verse 22, "and then into the water." Now, can you imagine, brothers and sisters, what it meant to live like this, to seek to maintain this son sane?

But this evil spirit, that's what Satan does. He destroys. He opposes God and God's people. He constantly attacks men here in this world. And you can just imagine how this family have lived for years since this boy was young. Fire, water, gnashing of teeth, foaming from the mouth, falling down, rigid becoming, or tearing him apart. Can you imagine what a condition this boy has gone through? By the way, with this situation, perhaps it teaches us why we have such a condition like in the world today. There are so many things that men have been attacked by Satan and those who follow him by all sorts of things that are existing today in the world in which we live in.

And you can just imagine what is going on in the world today. And it is also a description of sin. Of that which is evil. A description. That's how it's characterized. It's a mini picture of showing what's going on in the world in which we live in. That's why we needed the Mashiach, the Messiah. That's why God had to send the Messiah down to this world. He sent his only begotten son into this world of sin and woe. And so now, look at this. This man, the father, is now appealing to the Lord. Look at him, how he asked him, he said in verse 22, he said, "But, after all what I've just described to you, what my son is going through," he said, "If you can, if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us." If you can do anything to this child of mine, if you can really, really help this boy of us, please, as it says here in verse 22, "Have compassion and help us." In chapter 1 of the Gospel of Mark, in verse 40, "There came a leper to him, beseeching him, kneeling down to him and saying unto him, if you will, you can make me clean, if you will." This one says the leper in John 1 verse 40.

This father of the son said, "If you can, have mercy on us, have compassion on us and help my son." He's asking if, notice they use the word if. You know, sometimes, brothers and sisters, we don't necessarily realize that God can do all things. It's not if. But he can do all things. He can raise the dead. He can heal the sick. He can give sight to the blind. He can give hearing to the deaf. He can make the lame to walk. God can do all things. It's not if. Though we are like him, sometimes say, "God, if you can, please do that. If you wish, please do that." That's how sometimes we are, right?

But I don't blame this man, because I do the very same thing. And you may do so as well. You know, God is willing to help us, to bless us, to minister to our hearts. It's not an issue of if. He is able. There's a song that we sometimes sing. He is able. He is able. I know he is able to carry me through. It's a wonderful song. And here he says, "If you can, if you're able." He says, "Do anything." He said, "To do anything, have compassion on us and help us." He said, "And look how the Lord answered." So beautiful, because the Lord is responding to him.

And he says, "You ask me if I can do anything for your son, I will do the very same thing." And he said to him, "If," notice now, he used the same "if" in verse 23. And he said, "If you can believe, all things are possible unto him that believes." You see, the teaching here is of the importance of believing. Faith. Not only faith unto salvation, but faith in order to be able to continue on and to live here for the Lord in spite of the opposition and that which is seem to be against us. And so, Yeshua is responding to him with the same thought.

He asked him, "If you can do anything, please do so, help us." The Lord is answering him simply, "Can you believe?" "Do you have faith in me?" "Do you believe in God," what he is saying? "Do you believe in God?" He says, "If you can believe," he says, "all things are possible unto him that simply believes." Now, you don't tell me now, "Brother Gideon, I want to change this mountain, I want to move it this way," and I believe that God is going to do it. God does not want you to rearrange the universe. He can do it on his own. But what he is really teaching us is that the people that believe in God, they need not only to believe in him unto salvation, but to believe that he is able to help us along the way that the trials and challenges are coming.

Could you turn with me to Genesis chapter 18 for a moment? I just want to read those verses there. In the time of our forefather Abraham, Abraham Avinu. We read in Genesis chapter 18. We read there in verse 11. You remember Abraham waited and waited and waited to have a son. Yitzchak that came later on. And so we read in verse 11 of chapter 18 of Genesis. Now Abraham and Sarah were old and they were stricken in age. And it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. Therefore Sarah laughed within herself saying, After I am waxed old, shall I have pleasure, my Lord being old also? She didn't believe that she was going to have a son.

And so we read in verse 13. And look what the Lord said to Abraham in verse 14. Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the set time or the appointed time, I will return unto thee according to the time of life. And Sarah shall have a son. Notice the question that God asked Abraham. Is anything too hard for the Lord? And the answer, of course not. Now remember, dear brothers and sisters, Abraham was pushing 99. His wife Sarah is 89. You try this today. And see if you can have any child at this age. It's not possible. Humanly it's not possible. But is anything hard for the Lord?

Nothing is hard for him. Because he is God. He opened a womb. Because he is God in a miraculous way. Sarah had a child by the name of Isaac. And by the way, his name Yitzchak. Come from the word laughter. Because Abraham laughed earlier. Sarah laughed now. And when somebody saw Abraham 100 years old and a boy that is a baby. He said, is that your son? Yitzchak, tzachak, tzachak, laughter. But you see, God, nothing is hard for him. He is speaking of our own life. We oftentimes don't believe God. And that's why Yeshua said, if you can believe, all things are possible to him that simply believe.

To him that simply believe. I want to read one more verse in Matthew chapter 19. I'll read that verse because it is going along with the verse that we just read. Matthew 19, verse 23. Then said Yeshua unto his disciples, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of God. He said unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through an eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, who then can be saved? And look what Yeshua said. Yeshua beheld them and he said unto them, with men, this is impossible.

But with God, all things are possible. It's so good to know that. Because he's God. He's the creator. He's the upholder of all things. He's the one that sustains all things. All things are possible with him. And so we read, brothers and sisters, in the next verses. Notice verses now, 24. He asked him, and I think this is a very, very important verse. In verse 24, straightway, the father of the child cried out. And notice he was with tears. He was weeping. He said, if you can't do anything, have compassion on us and help us. Please look at my son. So in verse 24, he was weeping. And when the Lord asked him, if you can believe, notice what he said.

Look at the answer. In verse 24, Lord, he said. Notice he's calling him Lord. But the very fact that he called him Adon, that means that he recognized him as the Messiah. And he says, Lord, I believe. I do believe. I do believe that you can do all things. But then notice what he said, but help my unbelief. He was very honest. He says, I believe that you are who you are, that you are the Messiah. I believe that you are able to do all things. I believe that all things are possible because of who you are. But Lord, help me. I'm an unbeliever believer. Help my unbelief.

Perhaps this is something that you and I need to say to the Lord every day. Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah. I believe that you saved me and you died for me on that shameful tree. But help me. I have so little faith in my daily challenges. Help my unbelief. And you know, after so many years with his son have been in that condition, he surely needed the help of God with believing the Lord. And you notice immediately we read in verse 25, 26, and 27. Look what we find out. The Lord responded to this man. He had compassion on him and he helped him. We read, When Yeshua saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit.

And he said unto him, Thou dumbest and deaf spirit, I charge thee. Come out of him and enter no more unto him. And you notice what he says in verse 26. And the spirit cried and rent him, saw, and came out of him. And he was a swan that was dead inasmuch that many said he is dead. But Yeshua took him by the hand and he lifted him up and he arose. Yeshua had compassion on this man. He had compassion on his son. He rebuked this evil spirit. He removed that spirit and commanded it not to come anymore, to come out, and never anymore to return to this boy's body.

And now you find out that the spirit cried, left him, and kept him on the floor as dead. And Yeshua lifted him up and he stood up and now everyone could see that he is alive and he is now no longer in the same condition that he was before. What a lesson, beloved brothers and sisters, that we learn here. What we learn here is that the Lord is able to assist his own people as we walk with him here in this world. He is able to sustain and to assist in spite of the fact that we are an unbeliever's believers. We believe, we trust that the Messiah saved us and paid for the price of our sin and sins, but in our day-by-day living we just don't trust him.

You know, somebody said years ago, he said, we trusted our soul to God, but much of our lifetime we don't trust him for a piece of bread. We have entrusted our eternity to Yeshua the Messiah when we have accepted him and we have believed that he is the one who paid for our sins and died for us in order to pay for our sins, but we don't trust him for a piece of bread. Isn't it true, beloved brothers and sisters? At times we are unbelievers believers and we need, like this man, to say, Lord, I believe, but please help my lack of faith. I confess it, I admit it, that this is me, this is my heart.

Lord, help me. Help me. That is the thought that we have here when we learn from this passage. Now let's quickly move along because in the next verses, verses 28 and 29, Yeshua now instructing his disciples as to the need of him all the time. You see, verse 28 and verse 29, he says when he was coming to the house, it must be a house somewhere there when he came down from the mountain, someone's house, maybe by the Caesarea Philippi, Caesarea Philippi there, he went into a house, his disciples asked him privately, he said, why could not we cast him out? Why is it, Lord, we did it before, they didn't say it here, but we did it before, why we couldn't cast this demon out of this young man?

Why? And look what the Lord is saying. He gives them an answer and he said to them in verse 29, he said, and he said to them, this kind can come forth by nothing but by prayer and by fasting. You see, brothers and sisters, you have to admit and I have to admit that many times in our lives, we don't take a time to pray. Check your life. From today, when we leave the meeting, ask yourself the question, did I talk to Jesus, the Messiah, today? When you get up in the morning and you start a new day, did you speak to Yeshua and thank him for the night that he had given you?

When you went to sleep, you and your wife or you and your children, did you go on your knees before the Lord and say, God, thank you for today? You know very well that prayer is our biggest problem. You know, in many places, in many local assemblies, local churches, on Sunday or on Shabbat, everybody come to the meeting. But midweek prayer meeting, we don't need that. We're going to be religious on the first day of the week or on Shabbat. But midweek meeting, to come to the prayer meeting, I don't need it. We say, and we don't realize how much we need to pray. We get up in the morning, Lord, I don't need to pray.

I can talk to you sometime later. We go to sleep at night. Oh, Lord, I don't need to pray. I can, you know, I'm tired. I got to go to bed. We have a problem to get a job or to have a situation in our life. We try to fix it on our own and we don't have fellowship with the Lord and asking him, Lord, what should I do? How can I handle this situation? You and I have to admit it. The Lord said to the disciples, he says, these things do not come. You're not going to be able to receive power from me. To empower you to be a godly brother or godly sister and to be able to cast out those demons in those days, you cannot do it by simply saying, oh, I'm a disciple of the Lord.

I'm a disciple of the Lord. No, this thing only comes when you are spending, taking the time in beseeching the Lord in prayer and fasting, denying your own way and your own will. And how many a time we fail at that? And you remember what he said in John chapter 15 and verse 5, without me you can do nothing. There is a verse that is found in Philippians chapter 4 and verse 13. Look what the apostle Paul said to the Philippians. And I'm reading this verse, I can do all things. Through Christ, through the Mashiach, which strengthened me. In other words, I can do nothing if I don't have fellowship with the Messiah because he will never strengthen me when I live away from him and I'm not in fellowship with him and I don't read my word, the Bible, and I don't pray.

What do you think? You're going to get the ability to be empowered when you don't have fellowship with the Lord? It's not possible. Without me, you can do nothing. John 15 and verse 5. Now, in closing, the last verses here, in verses 30, 31, and 32, Yeshua now reminds the disciples of the purpose of his coming. Why did I come to this world? It says here in verse 30, 31, and 32, And they departed thence, and they passed through Galilee, and he would know that any man would know it. In other words, he was on the way to Yerushalayim because he was going to go into the time when he will give himself a ransom for many.

So he didn't want people to see him because they're only stopping him and they want to have their diseases healed and all the physical things met and he wanted that no one will see him. As we read here, he would know that any should know it because he had a purpose and a goal in his mind. He set his face as a flint to go to the city of Yerushalayim, Jerusalem. Why? Because this is why he came to this world. He came to die. To pay for the penalty of sin. And that's why we read in the next verse, verse 31, And he taught his disciples, and he said to them, The Son of Man, Ben Ha'adam, this is a messianic title, the Son of Man delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him, and after that he is killed, he shall rise on the third day.

He already mentioned in this chapter, in chapter 9 and verse 12, and now he's repeating it, and he will mention it again in chapter 10, verses 33 and 34. The Son of Man has to die. He has to be killed, but he's not going to remain in the grave. He's going to rise on the third day. And by rising on the third day, he will be taken to the Abba, to the Father in glory, and there he will declare our justification. Every believer will be justified when he trusted the Messiah who had to die, beloved brothers and sisters. And you remember in the earlier chapter, Peter said to him, No, no, you will never die.

And the Lord had to say to him, Get thee behind me, Satan. You wishest not the will of God, but the will of man. His face was set as a flint to go to the city of Jerusalem, because that was the reason why he came down to this world. And then, brothers and sisters, notice verse 32, the last verse for this ministry meeting, they still didn't get it. It says in verse 32, but they understood not. That saying, and they were afraid to ask him. They still did not understand it, and we don't point the finger at these dear disciples, because had you and I have been there, we would not grasp it.

He is the only one that is able to help them to grasp the purpose and the reason that he came. That's why earlier on a mountain, Peter wanted the kingdom to be established, because he saw the Lord Yeshua, the Messiah, in a preview of the Messianic kingdom. But no, no. He must die. The wages of sin is death. Sin need to be paid. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That's why God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whosoever will believeth on him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. And so, he continued on in the study of the Gospel of Mark.

He is focused on his journey to the city of Jerusalem. He must be killed. He must be buried. He must rise again. And he must be taken out of here in order to declare us justified. May the Lord bless us and encourage us and we should be like this man who says, Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief. May the Lord bless his word. Can we say amen to that?