All Things Are Possible (4)

All Things Are Possible (4)   Mark 9:17

  Mark 9:17 Someone from the crowd answered him, "Teacher, I brought  you my son; he has a spirit that makes him unable to speak;  9:18 and whenever it seizes him, it dashes him down; and he foams  and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid; and I asked your  disciples to cast it out, but they could not do so."  9:19 He answered them, "O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you?  How long shall I put up with you?  Bring him to me."  9:20 And they brought the boy to him.  When the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth.  9:21 Jesus asked the father, "How long has this been happening to him?"  And he said, "From childhood.  9:22 It has often cast him into the fire and into the water, to destroy him; but if you are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us."  9:23 Jesus said to him, "If you are able!  --All things are possible to the one who believes." 

            We saw in verse 19 how Jesus was angry that the people were unbelieving.  They couldn’t cast a demon out of a boy, and this upset Him.  The question, of course, is: why should anyone have thought that they could cast a demon out of a boy? 

            Then in verse 23, Jesus says that all things are possible to the one who believes.  The problem here is that He acts like everyone should have known this already.  But how?  Jesus talks in other passages about moving mountains and how a person has to have faith without any doubting.  And, again, He sounds like people should already have known this. 

            Prior to the ministry of Jesus, all the people had was the Old Testament.  And so this is where we have to look first.

            I remembered some passages from the story of Joseph where it says that everything Joseph did prospered, because the Lord was with Him (Genesis 39).  I began looking for other passages where the Lord said He was with someone.  I found over 70 in the Old Testament, and in almost every case God’s being with that person was the source of that person’s (or nation’s) prosperity, protection, or other obvious manifest blessing from God.

            Today when we speak of God being with someone, we mean that He will cry with us, hold our hand, or in some way comfort us, but we have lost the idea that He is there to protect or deliver us.  We are very ready to believe that God will allow all manner of misfortune to consume us, and He is there only to give us the strength to endure it. 

            Where did this thinking come from? 

            The Bible doesn’t teach that we won’t or shouldn’t expect to have problems in our lives, but it does teach that we should be able to expect God to deliver us out of our problems and not just help us to endure our problems.