A brief overview for Sunday School teachers and Bible study leaders, of Lifeway’s Explore the Bible lesson of Mark 9:17-29 “Strengthens” for Sunday, October 15, 2023. A video version of this overview is available on YouTube at:

INTRO: share a copy of Raphael’s painting, “The Transfiguration”
Raphael was a painter in the Italian Renaissance (1483-1520) known for his beautiful works.
??? What do you notice in his “The Transfiguration”???
(EX: the striking contrast between the glorious Jesus on the mountaintop, and the chaos and confusion of the world below. But someone is pointing to Jesus as the Answer!
This painting is very applicable to our lesson this week: coming down from the glory of the “mountaintop” to the problems of the valley below — and that Jesus is the answer. You might also consider using this as a conclusion to the lesson, or at another point along the way.)

You/your group can discuss this painting, then you might ask: (OR use this as an alternate opening)
??? Did YOU ever experience a big “come down” from a vacation/spiritual high??? — as soon as you got back, you came back to the “real world” and all the problems, etc?
In today’s lesson, Jesus had that same experience: He had just come down from the Mount of Transfiguration, where He shined in His glory — and then :14+ tell how He came “back to earth” to some big problems awaiting Him!
(I might call this: “From the Mountain Top to the Valley” or “Coming Back Down To Earth” or something like that …)

And that’s the CONTEXT for this week’s lesson:

OUTLINE
I. The Problem in the “Valley” (:17-23)
II. The Honest Prayer (:24)
III. The Power of Jesus (:25-27)
IV. The Final Challenge (:28-29)

I. THE “VALLEY” PROBLEM/SITUATION (:17-20)
So what did Jesus come down from the mountain to?
— :14 “When they came back to the disciples, they saw a large crowd around them, and some scribes arguing with them.”
So what “characters” do we see here in this scenario?
— “a large crowd”
— “the disciples” (Peter, James, & John were with Jesus on the mountain; so these are the rest of the disciples who didn’t go up)
— “some scribes”

So it’s kind of like “mass confusion”
Does this remind you of ANOTHER similar situation?
(MOSES coming down from Sinai: what a “spiritual high” he experienced with God on Mount Sinai; then come down to the raucous crowd and their idolatry with the Golden Calf!

The problem this time was different than in Exodus: :17 “And one of the crowd answered Him, ‘Teacher, I brought You my son, possessed with a spirit which makes him mute …” (and :18 describes what the spirit did to him in more detail.)
He then said: “I told Your disciples to cast it out, and they could not do it.”

??? WHO do you think Jesus was speaking about in :19:
“And He answered them and said, ‘O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you?”
(— Perhaps He was speaking to the man, who seemed to be doubting, and the onlooking world, who were always questioning Him.
— or He could have been referring to His hapless disciples, who couldn’t cast out the demon. (Kind of like a pastor who says: “Good grief, can’t I leave the church for one vacation without everything falling apart?!” Everyone in a leadership position probably feels this way at one time or another.
— OR just the whole, troubled world in which He found Himself.
Or maybe a combination of all three!

You might also consider talking about the issue of “disappointment with Jesus’ disciples.” Jesus HIMSELF never disappoints us. He never fails. But you might ask the question:
??? Do His DISCIPLES sometimes fail us???
(And of course the answer to that is “yes”!
— They failed them here: they couldn’t cast out the demon. Their failure led to this whole troubled atmosphere.
— And His disciples still fail sometimes today: by not having the power we should have, like the disciples here, to help people as we should; by not being as loving or unified as we should, thus not representing the Lord well to the world; by sinning and giving an occasion for others to criticize the faith, and so on …)

But what was the answer? :19 “Bring him to ME”! Bring him to Jesus. Jesus’ disciples often fail, but Jesus Himself does not. HE is the answer.
What do we do, when no one else can help us? Jesus says: “Bring that thing (whatever it is) to ME”!

If we’re burdened with something difficult today, we need to hear Jesus saying to us: “Bring that to ME!”

II. THE HONEST PRAYER
So :20 says they brought the boy to Him, and he began rolling around and foaming at the mouth again, etc. In :21 Jesus asks him how long this has been happening, and he tells Him “from childhood.”
In :22 he says: “It has often thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him.”

This points out the ultimate purpose of Satan and the demonic: it is to destroy us. Jesus said in John 10, “the thief comes to steal, and kill and to destroy.” God created us, and wants to bless us. Satan wants to defile, and corrupt, and destroy us, in every way he can. He wants to mar the image of God he sees in man, in every way he can — which is why perversions, mutilations, destruction and death always follow in the wake of the Satanic. His purpose is to destroy.

You might discuss with your class: ??? What are some of the specific ways Satan tries to corrupt/destroy lives today???
(Addiction to drugs/alcohol; pornography; destroy marriages and other relationships; all kinds of corrupt sexuality that pervert God’s original plan; transgenderism — turning one’s back on the way God created them;
SO many ways … But the demonic aim is to destroy. They’ll lure you with something that looks good; but the end goal always leads to marring and destruction.)

Then at the end of :22 the man says: “But if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”

Jesus really responds to that in :23, “‘IF You can?’ All things are possible to him who believes.” He highlights the importance of faith. Believe what He can do.

Then :24 is one of the greatest prayers in the Bible: the man says, “I do believe; help my unbelief.”
I think this is such a poignant, honest prayer. There’s 2 parts to it:
— “I DO believe”
— “help my unbelief”

ALL of us have probably been in this same position as this man:
— we DO believe: we do have faith in God and what He can do.
— but there is also a part of us that is just so laden down with guilt or despair at the apparent hopelessness of the situation, that this part of us does NOT believe.

A person like this is what James might call: a “double-minded man.” “Di-psuchos” — Literally “of two souls.” It’s like you have a soul that believes, and a soul that doesn’t!

It reminds me of the two-headed snake that was in the news some time ago. You may have seen one of those (you could bring a picture of one) The one I read about has been hurt numerous times, because one head wants to go one way, and the other head wants to go the other way — so it hits the plant, or rock, or whatever it was trying to go around — and hurts itself. Scientists tells us sometimes they just freeze up, and don’t do anything — which can be deadly too.
That two-headed snake is a good picture of what is going on inside of many of US spiritually. One part of us really believes — but another part is just dragged down by the world and doubts.
If we’re honest, many of us will say: “This ME!”

So what do we do? The very best thing to do is BE HONEST! Say to the Lord just what this man did: “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.” Lord, I do believe in You; but help me where I’m falling short. He just admitted his need.
In Matthew 5:3, Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Poor in spirit means you realize you are a spiritual “beggar,” and can’t do anything unless God helps you. That was the place this man was. He was “paralyzed” spiritually, like that 2-headed snake. He had “a mind and a mind;” he needed Jesus help, and he admitted it.

The good news is, Jesus gave him the help he needed when he asked Him. And He will help US too, when we humble ourselves and admit that we need His help.

So the application is: be honest with God about where you are spiritually (we’ve talked about this a couple times in recent weeks); tell Him what you’re really thinking/feeling — and ask Him for His help. He WILL help you when you do that.

III. THE POWER OF JESUS (:25-27)
Verse 25 says “When Jesus saw that a crowd was rapidly 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.”

I think it’s interesting that Jesus used that specific wording: “AND do not enter him again.” Why might He say that?
I think of the example He gives in Matthew 12:43-45: “Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find it. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came’; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order. 45 Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first.”

The point being there, that it’s not enough to cast the demon out, you need to replace it with something that will keep it out: the Holy Spirit, who comes into your life when you are saved.
You might share the GOSPEL at the this point, for anyone who needs to make sure they are saved, and that God’s Holy Spirit is in them

??? You may/may NOT want to ask your group to share during this point, if they felt like they had ever had an encounter/experience with the demonic???
(The Bible DOES teach the existence of demons. C.S. Lewis says in his Screwtape Letters that sometimes the demonic strategy is to terrify a population with their manifest presence — at other times the strategy is to hide themselves, so that people don’t believe they exist. It seems to be more that way in our country.
But it was NOT in Jesus’ day — and there are places in the world still where the demonic is more obvious: India, for example.
One encounter I had was in India; there on a mission trip they called me on the phone and said that a family’s son had a demon assailing him, and could I pray for him over the phone; they’d just hold the phone up while I prayed. I could hear him yelling. I was kind of like the man: “I believe/Lord help my unbelief!” So I just prayed as God led me, in Jesus’ name — and they said the boy was quiet. That was probably the closest I’ve come.
You/your group can share others.)

Now let me say this: a lot of people have a great fear of the demonic. And Satanism and demonism and the occult is NOT something to play around with; you are playing with powerful evil forces that are not to be messed with.
But one thing has helped me all my life. When I was a young boy and a relatively new Christian, I was in the car with a teacher from our school and his mother and some others after church. It was not long after the Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby and some of those demonic movies had come out, and everyone was talking about them. I don’t think I said anything, but maybe I looked frightened, because the teacher’s mother looked back at me from the front seat and said; “But Shawn, those demons have no power over you; they can’t harm you — because you belong to Jesus, and the Holy Spirit of God is in you.” And that calmed me that day, and I never worried about it since.
If you want to share that story you can, but regardless the truth is there: Jesus has all power over the demons. I love how in Mark 5, in a passage we didn’t cover, the demons had to ask Jesus’ PERMISSION to go into the swine. 5:13 says “Jesus gave them permission”! He has all power over them. And we belong to Him! That should be a comfort to us as God’s people.
(Again, if you didn’t before, you may want to share the GOSPEL here, for anyone who needs to make sure God’s Holy Spirit is in them, and that they are protected from the evil one.)

But after Jesus commanded the demon to come out, :26 says it did, and “the boy became so much like a corpse that most of them said, ‘He is dead.”
But :27 says: “But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him; and he got up.”

JESUS – JESUS – JESUS. Jesus is the answer here. And He is for us too. For salvation, for power over the enemy, for whatever problem we have. Jesus is the answer.

And because He is the answer, we really need to seek Him — and this leads us to our final point:

IV. THE FINAL LESSON: (:28-29)
“When He came into the house, His disciples began questioning Him privately, ‘Why could we not drive it out?’ (:29) And He said to them, ‘This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer.’”

By “prayer” here, Jesus didn’t just mean a 10-second prayer. He meant a LOT of prayer!
(We might get an idea of what He meant here, in Matthew 17:21, where it says, “This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer AND FASTING.” So He’s saying, it takes INTENSE praying; praying with fasting” — in other words, not just a “trite” prayer. These don’t come out by anything except BIG-TIME praying.

So the challenge to us is: if you have a “big-time problem,” make sure you do some “big-time praying.”

??? What are some “big time problems” we might have today???
(EX of things in our own lives, our kids, grandkids, our church problems, our country, etc.)

??? What might be some examples of “big time praying”???
(— Pray EVERY DAY for something.
— Make the sacrifice to get up extra EARLY to pray:
“While others sleep
Teach me to pray.”
(Ruth Bell Graham, It’s My Turn, p. 132)
— Pray for a long period of time: maybe you’ve never prayed for an hour, or 3 hours, etc. Devote an unusually long amount of time to it.
— Pray as much as you can in the day. Charles Wesley was about to be married to his wife Sally, but the day before the wedding his brother John expressed that he had a problem with the marriage. Charles said of he & Sally: “We crowded as much prayer as we could into the day.” And God changed John’s mind, and they all celebrated the wedding together the next day in peace. (John R. Tyson: Assist Me To Proclaim: The Life and Hymns of Charles Wesley, loc. 2075) So their “big-time praying” was praying all they could in that one day.
— Pray and FAST, like Matthew 17 says. Some early texts don’t have “and fasting” there, but other passages DO talk about fasting. The early church in Acts regularly fasted & prayed. WE don’t fast as much; the early church did. Which church had more power? Maybe we should get the idea!
— Pray with other groups of people;
— Get many other people/churches to join you in prayer.
— After the crisis of 9/11, Tim Keller (former pastor in NYC) was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and his wife Kathy with Chrohn’s disease. When they were hit with all that, Keller’s wife Kathy insisted that they begin praying together each night.) “As we remember it, she said something like this: ‘Imagine you were diagnosed with such a lethal condition that the doctor told you that you would die within hours unless you took a particular medicine — a pill every night before going to sleep. Imagine that you were told that you could never miss it or you would die. Would you forget? Would you not get around to it some nights? No — it would be so crucial that you wouldn’t forget, you would never miss. Well, if we don’t pray together to God, we’re not going to make it because of all we are facing. I’m certainly not. We have to pray, we can’t let it just slip our minds.”
(Timothy Keller, Prayer, pp. 9-10)
For the Keller’s, that “every night praying” was an example of “big time praying” for them.
You/your group can share other examples of what might be “big time praying.”)

The point is, “Big time problems” call for “big time praying” — and that applies to all of these things we just mentioned. If we’ve got some “big time problems”, let’s do what they did here in Mark 9, and bring our “big time problems” to Jesus, with some “big time praying.”

And even when our faith is not what it should be, be honest, and ask Jesus for help with that too. Say, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.” He will! “The thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy” but HE comes that we “might have life, and have it abundantly”!

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— And if you write something in the Comments below, I’ll be sure to pray for your and your group, and any requests you mention, by name this week.

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