Challenging Questions of Christ "And he asked his father, How long is it ago since this came unto him? And he said, Of a child," Mark 9:21. Here is a question for "fathers" though naturally it has implications for us all. What a contrast between the scene on the mountain top and that on the plain below? Just such a contrast, to a much greater degree, faced the Saviour when He left the glory of His Father's house to come to earth to redeem His elect from amongst fallen sinful men. On the plain there was the power of Satan at work, the grief and pain of his victims - misery, tears, heartbreak - the powerlessness of Christ's disciples and the mocking of the enemy, verses 20, 26. n response to the Saviour's question of the scribes, the father of the possessed child speaks up - "And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit; And wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him: and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away: and I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out; and they could not," verses17-18. The Saviour rebukes the scribes and those who joined with them in glorying in the disciples' failure. He then asks the question which is our text.