Turn with me this morning to
the 17th chapter of the book of Matthew. Matthew chapter 17. Well, we see some, not new faces,
but some that we've known over the years. They're visiting with
us this morning to worship with us. Betty and Eleanor, her daughters,
granddaughters, glad to see you. And we're glad too that Katie
has made the scene back in Florida. And I believe she's glad to be
home. We're glad to have her here.
Glad for all of you. I'm glad to be here. The seventeenth chapter of the
Book of Matthew has to do with the transfiguration of the Lord
Jesus. All of you are acquainted with
it, somewhat. You remember reading about our Lord taking Peter, James,
and John, His brother, and bringing them up into a high mountain. apart from everybody else and
everything else. And there he was transfigured
before them. His visage was changed. And it says in this transfiguration
that his face did shine as the sun. There must have been some sight,
wasn't there? A man, a man whose face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as
the light. That was the man, Christ Jesus. And there appeared unto them
Moses and Elias. talking with Him. Then answered Peter and said
unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here. No doubt it
was. If Thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles,
one for Thee, One for Moses and one for Elias. Peter said this
is such a fine place, let's just stay here. Let's just
kind of forget about going back down, up on this high mountain,
apart from everybody, apart from the cares of this world. the longings of the flesh and
so forth. Let's just stay here. But here's
the verse that I want to talk to you about. And while he was
speaking, he was interrupted by a voice. And while he spake, behold, a
bright cloud overshadowed them. and behold a voice out of the
cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased." The voice said, This is my beloved
Son. The voice speaks concerning the
Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only begotten of the Father, but yet at the same time, He's
God. He's God and man in one person. Isn't that a mystery? That's
the greatest mystery in the Bible, how God can become a man. No one can unravel that mystery. That is the mystery of godliness,
that God condescended, took upon himself a robe of human flesh, and was all God and all man in
one person. Humanity and deity joined together
in one person. This is my beloved son. in whom I am well pleased. I am well pleased with Him. So, He uses three words here,
and that will be the words of our text. Hear ye Him. Hear ye Him. All right. When our Lord, the
Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man, when he was transfigured, changed,
there came a voice, the Bible says, from the bright, overshadowing
cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son, hear ye Him. Now, this was
the voice of the Father. God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit. This is the voice God the Father,
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is my beloved
Son, hear ye Him. And the voice of the Father spake
concerning His Son. It was a testimony. It was the
testimony of the Father concerning the person of His Son. It was a notification of his
office. It was an announcement of his
authority to teach and to legislate. But now, as it was right after
these words were written, but now he's gone up above to his
excellent glory. He said, Let not your hearts
be troubled. You believe in God, believe also
in me. In my Father's house, many mansions,
I go to prepare a place for you. He's gone. He's not here. He doesn't preach and teach in
the streets anymore. He's gone. to an excellent glory. He has
gone to be with the Father who sent Him. He no more teaches in the streets
and in the synagogues, yet still as though present with us, He
speaks to us. He speaks to us by the written
Word. by the Bible, by the Scriptures. His sayings are given to us infallibly. That is, there is no mistake.
There is no error. Everything that he says is absolute,
unmitigated, unqualified truth. the words of the Scripture, given
to us infallibly by these writers, by these apostles, by Matthew,
Luke, and Mark, and John, the apostle Paul, speaks by the written
word. These three little words give
rise to Four questions. Hear ye Him? Why, what, how, and when? Hear ye Him? Why should we hear Him? Why should
we hear Him who is God's Son? Well, it would
be a sufficient answer if we had no answer but this, God commands
us to hear Him. Now, that answer would be sufficient
if we had no other answer to give. Just by saying we are to
hear Him because Jehovah God has commanded us
We're commanded to hear Him. We're not just asked if you are
in the right mood, or the right frame of mind, or if you have
time. But He said, This is My beloved
Son, in whom, in His person, I am well pleased. Hear ye Him. Hear what He's got to say. Oh, listen, because God Himself commands
us to hear Him as reason enough, these three words come from the
Father. And every true messenger of God,
and I say that as delicately and as humbly, as I can, and
there's not much humility in me. Not much. I wish that I was full of humility. As I think about the office,
the sanctification and the setting apart, and the calling of God
to this great work, How little that I have contributed
to it. It belittles me, it humbles me
to say this. Every true messenger from God
ought to have our respectable attention. Every true messenger. We ought to give him first place
in our hearing. because he's going to tell us
something that comes from God. If he has nothing to say concerning
God and his Son, let's not hear him. Let's not give him our attention. But if he's got something to
say, we owe to him our attention. Now, if we ought to give our
attention to a messenger from God as a preacher, how much more
when we have the greatest of all messengers? This is not Buddha
or Mohammed. They're all dead and gone. They
can't speak. This is the messenger of the
covenant. This is the Lord Jesus Christ
Himself. He's far greater than all the
messengers put together. I said He's the messenger of
the covenant. God made a covenant. God agreed upon some things before
time ever was. He called it a covenant. It's
an agreement. And He made it with Himself. He made it with the Father and
the Son and the Holy Ghost. They made a covenant. God chose
a people out of all the peoples of the
earth that would be born and ever shall be born. He foreknew
them, chose them, set them apart, sanctified them. Chosen in the Lord Jesus Christ,
and the Lord Jesus Christ agreed to come as a messenger of that
covenant and fulfill every stipulation of that covenant. And the Holy Spirit agreed to
quicken, to give life to, to regenerate every one of those
that the Father chose. and ever one of those that Christ
died for to redeem. He's the messenger of that covenant.
We ought to hear Him because He's the messenger of the covenant. We ought to hear Him because
He's the Messiah. The Jewish people are still looking
for one. They say that the Lord Jesus Christ was an imposter,
that He was not the Messiah. God says He's the Messiah. The
Lord Jesus said He's the Messiah. All the prophets said He was
the Messiah. And every page of the Bible says He's the Messiah.
He is the Messiah. We ought to hear Him because
He is the Messiah, which means the sent one. He was sent of
God. Now that's one reason why we
should hear Him. He was sent of God. He is the apostle and the high
priest of our profession. Did not God Himself say, This
is my Son? That ought to be enough, oughtn't
it? Why should we hear Him? God Himself. Think of it. God, God Himself said in a loud,
audible voice, This is my Son, here He is. That's the reason why we hear
Him. Now, He is the appointed, anointed,
and commissioned of the Father to speak to us, to make known, the mind and the will of the
Father concerning our reconciliation to God. That's the reason we
ought to hear it. It's going to make us know. It's
going to make us know. How can God be just and justifier
of him that believeth in Jesus? How can God maintain His sacred
holiness, sacred righteousness, And yet, at the same time, save
a guilty sinner. How can God do that? How can
God be consistent with His justice when His justice says, The soul
who sinneth shall die? How can God show mercy at the
expense of His justice? How can mercy and justice embrace
and sweetly kiss one another? He comes to tell us. That's what
I mean when I say, according to the Scriptures. There's churches this morning
all over the country. They believe in the cross of
Christ as much as we do, maybe more than we do. Why, the Catholics
out-Catholic us in believing in the cross. But they don't
know what the cross means. See? They don't know what it
means. By the grace of God, through
the revelation of the Spirit to our souls, He has made us
to know what the cross means. That He suffered even unto death,
the shedding of His blood. by what he did on the basis of
what he did, God can show mercy because justice is satisfied.
It's finished! Justice is satisfied. Listen, he's appointed and ordered, commissioned
by God to speak to us, to make known to us, the mind and the
will of our great and gracious, sovereign God. And it's really
treason and blasphemy of the high storey if we refuse to hear
Him. Is that right? God Himself said,
This is my Son. Hear ye Him. And if we refuse
to hear Him, then we're flying into the face
of God. And that's treason and blasphemy. Hear ye Him, hear ye Him. Does not our Lord Jesus Christ
deserve to be heard? He's the lily of the valley,
the bright morning star. He's our all in all. If we have
Him, we have everything. There's nothing else that we
need if we have Him. Does He not deserve to be heard? He who came representatively
to live for us, to die for us, suffer and die for us, to be
buried for us, to be raised again for us for our justification,
to ever live for us, to intercede for us before God the Father.
Doesn't He deserve to be heard? I believe He does. fearless, spotless, and matchless
among the princes of eternity. There is no angel or seraphim
or cherubim that can compare with Him. He is the chief of
ten thousand bright morning stars. He is perfect in wisdom. perfect
in motive, undeviating in absolute righteousness and holiness and
truth, who will we turn to if we turn away from Him? Our Lord said to Peter, when he saw the disciples His
followers trickling off down the road at the conclusion of the discourse
of our Lord Jesus Christ. And maybe before He finished
it, I'm not sure. But they started to go back to
where they came from. And our Lord looked to Peter
and He said, Peter, will you also go? Will you go with Him? Will you be numbered among that
crowd? And he looked into the face of
the lovely, dear Savior and he said, To whom shall we go? Where else will we turn? To whom
shall we turn to? if we refuse to listen to Him. Who can we find among men, or
deities so called, to give our attention to? He came, brethren,
listen now, He came because the message that He delivers concerns
ourselves. That's why we ought to listen
to this scripture. His name shall be called Jesus,
for He shall save His people from their sins. His coming and
His message concerns you and I. Concerns our present and it concerns
our future. If a man knows not Him, whom
to know is life eternal. He's dead while He's living. That's His present state. A lot
of dead people in the world today and they don't know they're dead.
They're dead while they liveth. It concerns our present. God hath not saved us in order
to make use of our so-called abilities and talents. If God has saved anybody, on
the account of their ability or their talent, that would not
be grace. No grace in that. He saves those that cannot help
themselves. And if he saves a person who
has some gift or some talent, he's got to rework that gift
and that talent before He uses it, because everything's got
to redound to His honor and to His glory, not to ours. We can't hang our little selves
on the cross and glory in it. He'll have it all. So it concerns
our present, and it concerns our future. well-being. Concerns hope. Hope! Hope! I, God, if you've got any
hope this morning. Hope! If you have hope in yourself,
you ain't got no hope. Got to have hope in you. It's
concerning our hope in regard to the future. My hope is built
on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. What's your hope built on? He comes with supreme authority. There cannot be any higher authority
than God. And God Himself said, this is
my beloved Son, I'm sending Him. He's the Messiah. I anointed
Him. I appointed Him. I commissioned Him. He comes
with my authority. Oh, the authority of God. Oh,
listen, He comes with supreme authority. He comes as an ambassador
from God. I seen there on the news the
other night where there is a pointing, or they anticipated in a pointing,
a fellow from Massachusetts, I believe, as an ambassador to the country
of Mexico. And I heard the man who's received
the appointment, or at least he hopes he'll receive the appointment,
and he said, If I'm appointed, I will accept it. To go to Mexico,
I'm going to represent the United States of America. I'll have
the authority of the President himself. You don't get no higher
than that in this land. I got the authority of the President
of the United States to represent him in the sovereign state of
Mexico. Our Lord Jesus Christ came as
an ambassador for God the Father, and he has that authority and
everything that goes with it. And He did not come to settle
petty arguments. He did not come to settle silly
disputes or to advise upon local and temporary affairs. But with supreme authority from
God the Father, to show how sinful men can be reconciled under the
Father. That's what He comes to do. That's
His chief business. That's His main objective. That's
His purpose. He's coming and showing how sinful
men like you and I can be brought back into fellowship with the
God of glory and have a closer and sweeter fellowship than the
fellowship that we lost in Adam. God made Adam, breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life, and he became a living soul. God provided him with a garden,
a garden of paradise, everything in that garden. all
was under his control. Gave him authority to name whatever,
anything that passed in front of him. If an elephant came along, and
Adam said, elephant, God says, that's your name. If a dog comes
along, Adam said, I don't. God came down in the cool of
the day and communed and talked with Adam as a man talks to a
man. We lost that in Adam. To be reconciled
is to be reconciled over and beyond what we had in the first
Adam. We have been separated from the
God of glory. Our sins have separated us from
God. God, being absolute, immaculate,
holy, can have nothing to do with sin except to hate sin and
punish sin. And that He will do. He came, brethren, not to settle
silly arguments, petty disputes, or sit straight by way of arrangement,
temporary affairs. But, oh, He came. He came to be the reconciler
of man to their Maker, to their Maker. We did not make ourselves. It's God that made us. We're
far off from God by nature, so far off from God we'll never
come back on our own. If He does not come and get us,
if God Himself by His Spirit through the Word, does not come
where we are and fetch us back, we'll never be brought back because
it's not in us to come back. And our Lord Jesus Christ, that's
what he came to do, to reconcile us unto God, bring us to the
place that will unholster our guns. We'll take our knives and
our guns and our weapons of carnal warfare and we'll surrender! We'll lay these weapons at his
feet! I'm a rebel! I surrender! I throw my weapons down. I see
your love and your mercy, your goodness and your kindness. Oh,
the lily of the valley, I see him. Oh, listen, how He came to show
us how these foul stains of transgression that we have committed against
the Most High God can be washed away. These bright scarlet sins
might be made as white as the driven snow. He comes to tell
us how we may escape the wrath of hell, the doom of hell, how
we may attain the inheritance in heaven. He came to cleanse
us from our corruptions and our transgressions. He came to give
us a new nature, a divine nature. to take our hearts of stone and
make them hearts of flesh that we might love Him. He came to
write His Word upon our hearts, and that He did. Well, that is
why. Now, what about what? What are
we to hear? I think I probably covered that
ground, too. Well, listen now. What are we
to hear? Hear ye Him. What are we to hear of Him? That's
all we are to hear is Him. Nothing else can be compared
to Him. Him. He's history. All history. Everything concerns Him. This is the Him book. We call
this the hymn book, but this is the hymn book. It's all about
hymn. Hear ye hymn. Hear ye hymn. Oh, there's so much to hear concerning
hymn, concerning his person, concerning his doings, his ways,
concerning his suffering. even unto death, concerning the
fullness of the revelation that is embodied in himself. Much to hear. More to hear than
we'll probably ever hear. Listen to me now. Greater than
the greatest sermon that was ever preached in this world,
is the Word made flesh. And that's Him. That's the greatest
of all. The Word was with God, and the
Word was God, and the Word was made flesh. Hear Him! Hear Him. He's the manifestation
of God. He is the brightness of the Father's
glory. And the Bible says He is the
express image of His person. Would you know God? Would you
know God? You must know the Lord Jesus
Christ. Because this is the testimony
of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He said, He that hath seen Me
hath seen the Father. know God, or will know God, desire
to know God, you must know Him. You must know Him. Listen, in
the character of our Lord Jesus Christ, we see the character
of God reflected in the spotless purity of Jesus Christ Himself. We can know nothing of God apart
from the Lord Jesus Christ. To know God is to know God's
Son. Man doesn't honor the Son. He does not honor the Father. He said, I am the Father. We're
one. Ah, the invisible God is in him. He's the wisdom and power of
God. Hear him, who says, Come unto
me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. I, God, in Christ,
I, Him, I will give you rest. All that labor, all that labor,
all that's trying to save themselves by their own good work, All that are doing the best they
can to conform themselves to some image of perfection. He
said, Oh, you and your useless labor. Oh, He said, Come unto
Me. Come unto Me. I'll give you rest. My yoke is easy. My burden is
light. I know that's right. I know that
His burden, His burden is light. And I've had His yoke on me,
and I've had His burden on me for forty-some years. And I speak as one to tell you
that His burden is light and His yoke is easy. Why will you
die when the Lord of life is so nearby? Oh, listen. God was in Christ,
the Bible says, reconciling the world unto Himself. Hear Him! Hear Him as He goes beyond the
stars and enters into the pearly gates and takes possession of
His crown. The crown that He won! How God
rewarded Him for His finished work. Divide the spoil with the
grains. See him, hear him, how he promises
that he'll never leave his people alone. Never leave you alone. Oh, some of you is going to get
real old. I know some people's 89 years old and some's 90-some
years old. I don't know about their spiritual
state, But I know, naturally speaking, that some of them,
at some time, whether it be at noon or at midnight, old people
says, I'm alone, my wife has died, my children are far off,
and they're old. And here I am alone. I'm alone
like a sparrow in the treetop. Oh, my soul. Hear Him who said,
I'll never leave you, nor forsake you. You're not alone. I'm with
you. When you go down into the valley
of the shadow of death, I'm with you. Hear ye, hear ye. Hear what he has to say. Listen,
let me read some verses here, and I'm going to quit. Over in
the book of Hebrews, about 9th chapter, I think, 9th chapter, 24th verse, and
listen to what it says. 9th chapter, verse 24. For Christ is not entered into
the holy places made with hands." That is, it's not a man-made
place. Abraham, you know, said, well, he wasn't looking for a
permanent residency. He said, I'm not looking to build
a new home out of mortar and bricks and wood and stone. But
he said, I'm looking for a city whose builder and maker is God.
That's the city I'm looking for. He has not entered into the holy
places made with hands. They are just the figures of
the true. But into heaven itself, right now, right now, right now,
into heaven itself, listen, now to do what? To appear in the
presence of God. Who for? For us who believe. For us who believe. Now he says, verse 26, For then
must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world.
But listen now, But now once in the end of the world hath
he appeared, hath he appeared to do something, to put away
sin. To put away sin! Put away sin. Surely He's going
to have some help doing that. You mean all the sin of God's
people was laid on Christ, and He's going to pay the full, complete
debt that sin owes justice by way of the shedding of the blood?
Is He going to do it by Himself? By Himself. No help. Elias and Moses. They are not
going to help. When they were talking on the
Mount of Transfiguration, you know what they were talking about?
They were talking about His exodus. They were talking about when
He left this world to take the blood and sprinkle it on the
mercy seat. He had made a tone of mind, listen,
to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed
unto men once to die, But after this, the judgment. So Christ
was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that
look for him shall he appear the second time, without sin
unto salvation. Then in that tenth chapter, verse 12, but this man, this
man, God manned one person. Much God as if He's never manned,
much man as if He's never God. A man, a man, a person. But this man, oh, this man, different
from all other men that ever lived. This man. This man had no sin. All other
men have sinned. Most of them are too proud and
deceitful, and some of them just out and out ignorant, they won't
admit that they're sinners. We've made some mistakes, but
we're not sinners. Well, Christ only came for sinners. If your needs is just a mistake,
then you can take care of that. He didn't come to settle disputes
and family arguments. He didn't come to take up the
mistakes of others and correct them, reconstruct them and all
that. Oh, no, he comes to save sinners. Sinners! I don't like that name. Why can't
you say something else? But this man, after he had offered
one sacrifice for sins forever, forever, forever, forever, sat
down. Why did he sit down? Why did
it say he sat down? Because his work was finished. No need to stand up. He sat down. Where did he sit? On the right
hand of God the Father. The throne of God, in the very
presence of God, he sat right there. Listen to me now. By virtue of our union with Him,
we set with Christ on God's right hand. We're with Him, with Christ. Anybody going to pluck us out
of His hand? No. Well, I was reading. Verse 14, For by one offering
He hath perfected forever, even them that are sanctified. perfected
forever and forever and forever and forever. Oh, my soul. In the four Gospels,
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we read there how He, the Lord
Jesus Christ, obeyed the Father. We read that in the Gospels.
In the epistles written by Paul and some of the others, we read
of that obedience as a righteousness imputed to all them that believe
on his side. The Gospels of our Lord Jesus
Christ, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John gives us a proof of
His rising from the dead. He is not here, they say. He
has risen. the letters, particularly of
the Apostle Paul, assures us, assures us that He was raised
again for our justification. How shall we hear Him? How? He speaks in the Word of Scriptures. I said that before. He speaks
through His sent servants. to think that God would send me. That's
hard to believe in. That's hard to believe that God
would send me. I have no education. I have nothing
to show. Nothing. In the past, much less
in the present. Only God knows. But God must
have sent me. God must have sent me. How could
I remain here these forty-some years and have you people come
and hear me? Forty-some years, huh? I hope all of us haven't been
deceived. I trust He sent me. Oh, listen, He speaks through
His sent servants. How are we to hear Him? Well,
three words, with devout reverence. No giggling, no squirming, being
devout, hearing every word that He says. We are to hear His Word,
which comes by sacred authority from God the Father. When shall
we hear Him? Evermore. Evermore. Every opportunity that God gives
us to hear Him, that's when we hear Him. Here the Bible says,
and your soul shall live. Faith cometh by hearing. and
hearing by the Word of God. The Bible says today, if you
hear His voice, harden not your hearts. You know what it says?
Oh, my soul, listen to me. I'm as earnest and sincere as
I'll ever be. And in earnestness and sincerity
and genuineness, motivated by what God has done for me, and
the assurance that God has given to my poor soul. May God give
you grace this morning to hear Him! Listen now, if you and I don't
hear Him now speaking in mercy, one day we shall hear Him when
He says, depart from me, I never knew you. I leave that with you. May the Lord bless His Word.