So the Lord Jesus is on his way
to Jerusalem in this part of Mark's Gospel. And last week
we heard him calling his people to a really radical faith in
the Son of God. Disciples are to live radical
lives. In fact, later on in this same
chapter we're in, He'll highlight how serious sin is, that if your
eye causes you to sin, you pluck it out. If your hand causes you
to sin, you cut it off. The Lord Jesus is calling, and
I think God's people, calling for God's people to live in radical
trust in the Lord Jesus. One of the men who has taken
up onto this mountain, James, in a few short years will have
his head cut off by Herod and Herod will rejoice over that
fact. God's people will be persecuted
in this world. They'll be persecuted by people
who they think that they are their brothers and they can trust
them. And so God is calling his disciples
to live radical lives, to be rejected by their nation, to
be rejected by their families, to be rejected and to suffer
serious things in this world. And the basis on which God's
children go through those things is found in this passage that's
before us in Mark's Gospel. Firstly, God's people will do
radical things and live radical lives for God when they really
meet the Lord Jesus. It's my prayer continually that
God would come and minister personally and directly to each and every
one of you here. That He, as Paul said, prayed
in that prayer in Ephesians, He would open the eyes of your
heart He would open the eyes of faith that you would see the
Lord Jesus. So we must see Jesus. This is
eternal life. Knowing Jesus. Being in relationship with the
Lord Jesus. Remembering Jesus. And you cannot
remember someone you don't know and you cannot know someone you
haven't met. And I think the other thing that's
really clear in this passage is that God's people live on
the basis of what is promised. What is promised in this life
and what is promised in the life to come. And that is very much
the message of the Transfiguration. There is a reality. beyond the
things that we see in this world, which is far more real than anything
you will ever touch or feel or see. It's real reality and it's
based on the reality of who the Lord Jesus is. So let's just
read together this passage of scripture, Mark 9, verse 1. And Jesus was saying to them,
truly I say to you there are some of those who are standing
here who will not taste death until they see the Kingdom of
God after it has come with power. Six days later Jesus took with
him Peter, James and John and brought them up on a high mountain
by themselves and he was transfigured before them. His garments became
radiant and exceedingly white, as no launderer on earth can
whiten them. Elijah appeared to them along
with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus,
Rabbi, it's good for us to be here. Let us make three tabernacles,
one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah. For he did not
know what to answer, for they became terrified. Then a cloud
formed, overshadowing them, and a voice came out of the cloud,
this is my beloved son, listen to him. All at once they looked
around and saw no one with them anymore except Jesus alone. As they were coming down from
the mountain, he gave them orders not to relate to anyone what
they had seen, until the Son of Man rose from the dead. They
seized upon that statement, discussing with one another what rising
from the dead meant. They asked him, saying, why is
it that the scribes say that Elijah must come first? And he
said to them, Elijah does come first and restore all things.
And yet how it is written of the Son of Man that he will suffer
many things and be treated with contempt. But I say to you that
Elijah has indeed come, and they did to him whatever they wished,
just as it was written of him." So as I said earlier, the Lord
Jesus is calling his disciples and calling us to a radical saving
faith. A faith that's experienced and
a faith that's sustained by the reality of the presence of the
Lord Jesus in our lives. To be saved is to have God come
and dwell with you. This is eternal life, that you
may know the Father, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. And
the promise of God is that in that day, in that day when God
brings a saving, real knowledge of Him, things will happen in
believers' lives. In John 14, the Lord Jesus promises,
at that day you will know, you will know these three things,
that I am in my Father, and you in me and I in you." And further on Jesus said, if anyone
loves me, he will keep my word and my father will love him and
we will come to him and make our home with him. The transfiguration of the Lord
Jesus before these apostles is designed to show us so many,
many wonderful things about the glory of our Saviour and about
the reality of saving faith in Him. When the Lord Jesus opens
the eyes of our hearts, as Graham wrote in Ephesians, we see the
Lord Jesus. just as these men had seen him
as a carpenter from Nazareth. And continually through Mark's
Gospel, he's opening the understanding of his people to show them that
God is big, that God is powerful, that God cares deeply for his
people, and that God is the Lord Jesus Christ in human flesh. But there's more. The wonder
of saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus is that there's always
more. Why does eternity go on for the
length of time that eternity goes on for? There is one big
reason. It takes that long to appreciate
the Lord Jesus. We never get to the end of appreciating
the Lord Jesus. People wonder why the universe
is so big. What an enormous amount of wasted
space. You could have jammed all those
stars up next to each other. Why is the universe unmeasurable? It's just a picture of our God. That's how big He is. He's unmeasurable. And one of the wonderful things
of a saving relationship with God in the Lord Jesus is He continually
comes to His people again and again. And he takes us to a mountain
top and we see visions of him which just captivate our souls. We live our lives in the valley
of life. The valleys are the places where
the rich soil is. But to live our lives as God's
children in the valleys, we need to go at times, be taken at times
by the Lord Jesus up on a mountain. to meet with him personally. And that's what he's done with
these disciples. He's taken them up on a mountain
to be with him alone. He takes them by themselves.
Again and again in Mark's Gospel we see that it's the Lord Jesus
who continually takes the initiative. We would never take that initiative
and we would never ever do things the way God does things. But
he takes his people and he brought them up, verse 2, and he brought
them up by themselves. And there he was transfigured
before them. And so they were witnesses as
this transfiguration process came on. And it says in verse
3 that his garments became radiant and exceedingly white as no launderer
on earth can whiten them. And the picture of this radiance
is that it's a radiance that comes out of his very being and
just radiates into his clothes and they become so bright and
shiny. that nothing on earth could match
the radiance of them. And it's so similar to the pictures
we have throughout the scriptures of our Lord Jesus. When Ezekiel
meets the Lord Jesus, it's a Lord Jesus who is this glorious. When
Isaiah meets the Lord Jesus, it's a Lord Jesus who is this
glorious. When Moses meets the Lord Jesus,
it's a Lord Jesus who is extraordinarily glorious. When John as a saved man meets
the Lord Jesus in heaven, taken up to heaven itself, he sees
the Lord Jesus who is dazzling in his brilliance and captivating,
so captivating that John fell down as a man as if he was dead. I suppose that's what so much
of what Church is about, isn't it? That we actually gather here
to hear from God's Word about His Son. That we might just be
given glimpses of His glory together. That we might rest on the fact
that He's promised to be here with us, right now, that He lives
in His people. That glorious Lord Jesus, The
one who has transfigured before these people is the Lord Jesus
who is here in our midst right now. And the Lord Jesus comes
and we have this remarkable passage of scripture that Elijah appeared
there with them. And along with Elijah was Moses
and they were talking to the Lord Jesus. Elijah in the scriptures represents
the prophets and Moses represents the law. So these two men who
both had particular and unusual deaths. Moses was buried by God
on Mount Nebo and Elijah didn't die, he was just taken up to
heaven. They are representatives of God's
Old Testament witnesses. The Old Testament witnesses again
and again to the fact that the Lord Jesus is a glorious King,
and the Lord Jesus reigns as a glorious King. And the Old
Testament is all about the Lord Jesus. If we don't see the Lord
Jesus in the Old Testament, we haven't had our eyes opened to
see it. The Old Testament, as he said to the men on the road
to Emmaus, he began with Moses and the prophets and he showed
them from the scriptures and their hearts were opened and
they were astounded at how much the Old Testament is full of
the Lord Jesus. He's the sum and substance of
the Old Testament. He's the sun and the centre of
all revealed truth. And we might wonder what these
men were talking about. And Luke tells us. He tells us
the same story which is the story of all the Old Testament. The
Old Testament's a story about Jesus Christ and him crucified. Jesus Christ as a reigning king
and him crucified. It's the song of heaven is about
the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified. It's on your sheets
there. In Luke 9, verse 31, the Holy
Spirit tells us what this discussion was about, this amazing discussion
that these apostles witnessed. Verse 30, Behold, two men were
talking with him, and they were Moses and Elijah, who, appearing
in glory, were speaking of his departure. which he was about
to accomplish at Jerusalem. So both the Law and the Prophets
are saying the same thing. They're talking about his departure. The word is Exodus. They're talking
about the picture of the Lord Jesus. as the new Moses who goes
to the land of this world and with signs and wonders and an
outstretched hand rescues his people and brings them to a new
land. And what's more than that, they
then talk about the fact that he's going to Jerusalem The Lord
Jesus is going to Jerusalem and He's going to accomplish, He's
going to fulfill is the word, at Jerusalem. All of what the
Old Testament prophets and what the law was talking about was
going to be fulfilled at Jerusalem. Again I need to remind you, the
Lord Jesus didn't come to this earth to try and do something.
The Gospel is not Jesus making an offer of salvation if you
will do something. The Gospel is not about the Lord
Jesus trying to save everyone. trying to love everyone and failing. The Gospel is a declaration as
these men who come from heaven with the songs of heaven and
with the message of heaven. It's accomplished. We proclaim
and we want to proclaim as boldly as God will give us grace to
proclaim a finished work of a supreme saviour, of a glorious saviour. Not the pathetic wimp of so much
of modern Christianity who's really trying to save everyone,
but he can't quite get them saved because of their mighty, powerful
free wills. That's not the God of Scripture.
Can you imagine the apostles standing before Moses and Elijah
and bringing them the Gospel message of our day? The Gospel
message of God loves everyone. God has a great plan for your
life. Jesus died for everyone because
he loves everyone so much. And the Holy Spirit is wandering
around this world desperately trying to save everyone. You
wouldn't do that on this mountain. It's done in pulpits all over
our land, but you would not do it on this mountain. You would
not do it before this Lord Jesus. And Moses and Elijah would tell
you that you were blaspheming their great God and Saviour.
And so it's accomplished. It's a finished work that he
came to do. And as God he had no doubt about
what he was doing and he had no doubt about who he was saving
and how he was going to save them. He was going to Jerusalem
with a purpose in mind. He was going to fulfill all of
the prophets. He was going to Jerusalem to
be the one man that has ever walked on this earth who has
truly honoured God's law. The only man on this earth who
has ever loved God with all of his heart and soul and mind and
strength. The only man who has ever walked this earth who has
treated God's law as a holy thing, as a good thing. as a just thing. And so many people these days
want to put God's people back under a bondage of law, when
by faith we establish the law. We look to someone who completed
the law. We don't look to us and our own
works to make ourselves right with God. We trust Him who said
it's finished. It's accomplished, it's fulfilled
at Jerusalem. That's the message of the Transfiguration. That's the message that came
from Heaven. And this is the message that
God, the Father, comes and brings witness of His Son. That cloud
that came, that voice that came so often in Old Testament times,
that cloud that led people in their exodus out of Egypt, that
cloud that filled the tabernacle, that cloud that filled the temple,
that cloud that is just a sign of the presence of God. And out
of that cloud comes this magnificent voice of God. This is my son,
the Beloved, is the message of the Father. This is my son, the
Beloved. Listen to him. Listen to the
voice of the Lord Jesus. We live in a world where there
are so many chattering voices, and especially chattering voices
of religion, telling us a million different things. God has a word
to us here, doesn't he, in this Transfiguration message. You
listen to the Lord Jesus. You go to the Lord Jesus. You
beware of the yeasts of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. who will come
along with all sorts of rules and regulations and come along
with their piety, but in fact inside they are ravening wolves. Listen to my beloved son. And this cloud, this cloud came
and took both Moses and Elijah a way back to Heaven. No longer were Moses and Elijah
there because no longer do we need to go to God through prophets,
priests and kings. We don't need to go to God on
the basis of law keeping. We go to God directly now in
His Son the Lord Jesus. We have access, we have confident
access to heaven by faith, just trusting Jesus. We are welcomed
into heaven as these men were welcomed on that mountain. We
don't need Moses. We delight in the law of Moses
because it shows us how amazing our Saviour is and how grievous
our sin is. But we delight in the fact that
the law for God's people is finished. Jesus Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness for those who believe. And now the prophets
are beautiful for us because they speak so beautifully of
our saviour. And we look back and see that
all that the prophets said was about this glorious saviour and
how wonderfully finished his work is. We need no mediator. We need
no law to threaten. If God has come and met with
you, if this God is indwelling you, this God has captivated
you by His love, then His love compels you and His love constrains
you. And rules will just send us back
to look at our flesh when the command of scripture is to fix
your eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith. And so, it's a wonderful picture
and what a different mountain. What a different mountain to
the mountain that Moses went up. As that vast crowd of Israelites
trembled at the bottom and the mountain quaked and earthquake
shook it and the rock split and it thundered. It thundered the
law. This gospel mountain is a mountain
that says done, says finished, says peace to God's children. And so for the disciples and
for us, this radical faith results from the Lord Jesus doing the
things that we've seen him do here. He comes to his chosen. He comes and takes them by the
hand and he takes them with him and he brings them away from
this world, away from the temptations of this world, away from the
religion of this world and he takes them away by himself and
then he personally shows his glory. And when God's people
really meet with God, there are several things that necessarily
happen. The first one is that the disciples
say it's good for us to be here. We want to be in the presence
of God, it's an amazing thing. to dwell in His presence and
to see Him through the eyes of faith as He's revealed in the
scriptures. It's good for us to be here. There's nothing in this world
that compares to being in the presence of the Lord Jesus. They
are deeply aware of His sovereignty, the fact that He really is God
as they see Him in His glory. And in verse 6, We are made to
see that they are deeply aware of their humanity. Peter, as
he so often does, didn't know what to say. He said, let's make
some three tabernacles. I don't think we can be mean
to Peter here. I think what he was wanting to
say is, let's try and build a dwelling place as quickly as we can so
that this can continue and continue. I don't want to come down off
this mountain and I don't want you people to go. I wanted to
laugh. But he didn't know what to say
because he'd been terrified. They became terrified. There
is a real fear of the reality of the glory of God which the
Lord Jesus works in these people again and again and works in
the lives of all of his children. There is a healthy fear of God. It's an awe and a wonder fear,
a fear that motivates rather than destroys faith. He is just awesome, he is unbelievably
awesome and woe to us if we play games with him. Extraordinarily in Mark 9, verse
9, after all this had finished and they were coming down the
mountain, gave a command, and at this stage it's the only command
that any man ever really made. They were told not to say anything
and they didn't say anything. I read to you earlier those words
of Peter, obviously this event was so etched deeply in his life
that when he was about to be killed, when he was about to
be martyred. This vision of the Lord Jesus
had carried him for all of those years and was still fresh in
his mind. And at the end of this section
they are reminded that they are now to listen to the Lord Jesus
and not the scribes. They are reminded that viewing
things through the eyes of human reason and human understanding,
and especially the best religious human reason and understanding,
which is what the scribes had, is actually a poor way of seeing
reality. In fact, you miss it altogether. The question was, of course,
about Elijah. The Old Testament finished with those remarkable
words in Malachi. At the end, the last words they
heard from God mentions both Elijah and Moses. Remember the
law of Moses, my servant, which I commanded him at Horeb for
all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. Behold, I will
send you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great
and dreadful day of the Lord. He will turn the hearts of the
fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to
their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse."
So Elijah was promised to come before the Lord Jesus was revealed
in His glory. And the Lord Jesus makes it plain
that Elijah to come was really John the Baptist. But also in
this picture we have the fact that Elijah, the real Elijah,
did really come to this earth. The fact that he wasn't seen
by multitudes is not the point. According to Jewish law, two
or three witnesses establish a matter. The matter is established,
Elijah was there on the earth and you could talk to him in
the days of the Lord Jesus. So it's a beautiful picture,
a beautiful picture of our Saviour, a beautiful picture of His saving
work in the lives of His people. So what does it all mean for
us today? As I've said several times, there is a reality, God's
reality, which is more real than anything that we can ever see.
Our fight's not against flesh and blood, but powers and principalities
in the heavenly places. We are involved by God's grace
in spiritual battles and spiritual wars and they will always and
only always be won by spiritual means. We are not to employ carnal
reasoning, human understanding. We wait on God. We trust the
Word of God and the promises that He's made. And we trust
that He will do all that He's promised to do. So God's reality,
the reality of God's presence in his people, the reality of
the Lord Jesus' presence right here with us now, is on the basis
of what he said and what he's promised. So God's children live
by faith in the promises of God, based on their knowledge of the
character of God, as they've seen him, and as they've seen
him especially in the scriptures. So God's children are not looking
for earthly kingdoms. In Hebrews 11, Moses and Abraham
and all the prophets, they were looking forward to a city whose
builder and maker is God. We are looking forward to that
reality, not the things of this earth. The other thing of course is
that the Lord Jesus is infinitely more glorious than we can possibly
imagine. His presence is amazingly tangible
in the lives of his people. I know we live in the valley
but there are times in the lives of God's people where they really
meet with Jesus and the meeting is special. And so radical faith that he's
calling his disciples and calling us to is to be consumed in the
ocean of the glory of His presence, His presence with us. I love
the way the Apostle Paul finished his life. There he was, cast
off by so many who should have stood by him. And there he was
in a Roman prison about to have his head severed from his body.
And he talks about all those who have departed in one way
or another. And then he says those beautiful
words, he says, but the Lord stood by my side. The Lord stood by my side. If
the Lord stands by your side, you will put up with whatever
this world, whatever the religion of this world, whatever Satan
and others throw at you. The Lord will stand by your side. He's promised that he never leaves
nor forsakes his people. And so much of what is involved in controversy amongst
Christians is actually swallowed up when people stop the squabbling
and gaze at the Saviour. To drown our disputes in the
glory of His beauty is the best way to do it. The question for
people, the question that's before all of us all the time, is have
we met Him through the eyes of faith? Are we trusting what God
says about His Son? And we live now by faith and
not by sight. These men had sight, but Peter
says to us that the blessings and the faith that they have
is the same and as precious as ours. So there's a great day
coming when the Lord Jesus will be with all of his people. The
Transfiguration is a promise. of our transformed, redeemed
bodies. When God saves people, He saves
them completely. He saves their souls, but He
saves their bodies. The reality of Moses and Elijah
being there shows that we will know each other intimately. Death has passed for God's children. At the moment that our body ceases
to function, we immediately are in heaven. and in heaven we know
each other, but most of all we see our Saviour in His glory
without the eyes that are tainted by sin, without a flesh that
causes all sorts of grief. We will see Him in His glory and we will know each other intimately
and we will gaze upon each other and be absolutely amazed at how
glorious our Saviour is. You will see Graham Mesner. If
it wasn't for the grace of God, when you see Graham Mesner in
Heaven, you'd be inclined to worship him. Such will be his
beauty. Such is the beauty of God's people. And in the resurrection, we'll
proclaim what Moses and Elijah proclaimed. We'll proclaim the
finished work of our Lord Jesus. He is the complete Saviour and
all His children are complete in Him. He came and He accomplished
and He finished His work. as He is holy. They are as fit
for heaven as He is fit for heaven. They are as ready for the new
creation as He is ready for the new creation. And I just thought
I might finish by reading something from our bulletin about Christ. The Christ before whom angels
and archangels Principalities and powers bend, and of whose
name every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that he
is Lord. The Christ, whose glory is divine, whose beauty is peerless,
whose wealth is boundless. whose love is as infinite as
his being, the Christ who bore and put away your sins forever,
uplifted forever, removed your curse, paid all your great debt
to divine justice, sorrowed for you in the garden, suffered and
died in your place on the cross. rose from their grave, ascended
up to heaven and lives and intercedes for you, representing your person
and presenting your prayers and praises with perfect acceptance
and delight. To His Father and to your Father,
to His God and to your God, our honoured Saint of God, you have
the divinest in the universe to love you. the mightiest in
the universe to shield you, the loveliest in the universe to
delight you, the dearest in the universe to soothe, cheer and
gladden you. O favoured disciple of Jesus,
you have such a one ever at your side. This is the promise of
promises, the richest pearl of all promises. exceeding in its
mightiness and preciousness, while it is the substance, the
sweetness and the pledge of all the rest. Let's pray.