“‘Teacher, I brought You my son, who has a mute spirit. Wherever it takes hold on him, it dashes him to the ground. And he foams at the mouth and gnashes with his teeth and becomes rigid. And I told Your disciples so that they would cast it out, but they could not'” (Mark 9:17-18).
I was re-reading Mark 9 today, poring over the story of how the disciples could not cast out a demon in a little boy. The demon had been there since the boy was very little. The father of the boy had brought him to the disciples for help. The boy’s symptoms were horrible, to say the least. He was filled with an unclean spirit, could not speak, and when the spirit took control of him, he was thrown to the ground to wail and moan, foaming at the mouth and grinding his teeth. The spirit often threw him in the fire and sometimes into the water. The father actually told Jesus, “And I told your disciples so that they would cast it out, but they could not” (Mark 9:18c). In other words, “I’ve run out of options; I’ve tried everything.”
