Well, good morning and welcome
to our continuing Bible study in the book of Luke. If you'd
turn to chapter nine, we're in chapter nine, beginning in verse
28 today. As a matter of context, the last
time we were looking at these previous scriptures were He asked
Peter, whom say ye that I am? And Peter said, thou art Christ,
the Christ of God. And then he entered into this
spiritual revelation. He says, well, if any man follow
me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow
me. Well, we went through that and
examined what that means from a spiritual standpoint. And we
looked at all the things that were likely to happen if you
became a follower of Christ. We looked at John where the Lord
had healed that blind man, and the result was him and the rest
out of the assembly. They got cast out of the church
because they said the Jews had already agreed that if anyone
believe that he was the Christ of God, they would be cast out.
And we looked at some of what that means. And so now we come
to verse 28. And he told them in verse 27,
I tell you a truth, there'll be some standing here, which
shall not taste of death till they see the kingdom of God.
Boy, what a lesson we have today here starting in verse 28. And
it came to pass about eight days after these sayings. So about
a week has transpired here in our understanding of time. And he took Peter, John, and
James and went up into a mountain to pray. And as he prayed, the
fashion of his countenance was altered and his raiment was white
and glistering. And behold, there talked with
him two men, which were Moses and Elias, or Elijah from the
Old Testament name. This is the Greek rendering of
Elijah. And who appeared in glory and
spake of his decease, which he should accomplish at Jerusalem. But Peter and they that were
with him were heavy with sleep. And when they were awake, they
saw his glory and the two men that stood with him. And it came
to pass as they said unto Jesus, Master, it's good for us to be
here. Let us make three tabernacles, one for thee and one for Moses
and one for Elias, not knowing what he said. And while he thus
spake, there came a cloud and overshadowed them and they feared
as they entered into the cloud. And there came a voice out of
the cloud saying, this is my beloved son, hear him. And when the voice was passed,
Jesus was found alone and they kept it close. and told no man
in those days any of those things which they had seen. So that
comprises our lesson block of scripture today. Several things,
boy, what a block of scripture. Several things are brought to
our attention here in Luke's narrative. Several names are
mentioned and specific numbers are also brought out according
to the purpose of the Lord. The Lord took three men with
him to the mountain to pray. Why three? And what was the prayer
about? Boy, it'd be interesting to know
what his prayer was about. What took place next? His countenance
was changed. In the other gospels that talk
about this, they use the word transfigured. It's where we get
the metamorphosis. word from in the Greek, it's
metamorpho. And so his former glory revealed
him. And so we have two men that appeared
in glory, Elijah and Moses. Why these two? They spoke of
his decease and where it should be accomplished. Several reactions
of the disciples while this was going on, They were heavy with
sleep. Isn't that just our nature? And
so they seem to want to worship Jesus and these other two men
as well. And then they hear a voice from
heaven that says, this is my beloved son here, hear him. And
the prayer, the communication between the father and son was,
it was not a one way communication only. And so first thing we should
consider is that This whole thing is recorded for our admonition,
for the edification of the church. It's recorded for us for a purpose.
And it's an important consideration for us to realize the true nature
of Him with whom we have to do. And so often, you know, in these
Disciples were looking at him and saying, he looked like a
man, yet he was able to do some things that were divine, that
were not natural. Raising people from the dead,
healing people, and all those things, feeding the 5,000. But
they still kind of looked at him like an earthly king kind
of a figure. as well, so the nature of man
is always minimizing God and attributing to him kind of our
nature and our thoughts. The Old Testament says, you thought
that I was altogether such a one as thyself, and I'm not. He says,
my ways are higher than your ways. He's not a man. And it's good to have a glimpse
of His majesty and glory presented in bold fashion from time to
time as it is in the scripture so that we can keep a right understanding
of Him as our Lord. And we get glimpses of him throughout
the scriptures. There's just lots and lots and
lots of them. And we'll look at a few of those
today. And you know, as our Lord prayed to the Father, it says,
the fashion of his countenance was altered. And that's how it's
phrased here in Luke. And it was really back to normal
for him, or as close to normal, really. And most translations,
as well as my Greek interlinear, have it translated this way,
the appearance of the face of him different in the rain gleaming. And Matthew records it kind of
more that way. Matthew 17, two, and he was transfigured
metamorphosis before them in his face did shine as the sun
and his raiment was white as the light. Mark said his garment
was exceeding white. It was more than white. As you can imagine, the whitest
thing, it was whiter than a fuller could get it. It exceeded every
imagination of white and gleaming and glistering that they could
conceive of. In this world, our ability to
observe and understand and record things is based on our understanding
and our knowledge. They just got a glimpse of what
was really there. We're going to look at a hymn
in a minute or so that Isaac Watts wrote that kind of covers
some of that. We wonder what he prayed, but
I think we can find almost everything that he prayed in John chapter
17. Many things. which we related to you in our
lesson, that if a man follow me, let him deny himself and
take up his cross. 16th chapter, John, if you read
all that preface to that prayer, and go back to John chapter 16,
it reads, there's a lot in there about denying your own righteousness,
denying your own self and totally leaning on Jesus. And then he
goes into his prayer for his people there in John chapter
17. So good reading there if you
have an extra minute sometime. Go back and just read those two
chapters. It'd be well worth your time, beneficial. So as
we look here in Luke chapter nine, verse 28, and it came to
pass about eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John
and James and went up into a mountain to pray. And as we look to John
chapter 17 about the prayer that we have recorded, these in John
17 one, we're just gonna read the first seven verses there.
These words spake Jesus, and he lifted up his eyes to heaven
and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify thy son, that thy
son may glorify thee. And isn't that just what happens
here in Luke chapter 9? His countenance was changed. His garments became glistening. As thou has given him power over
all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou
has given him. And this is that they might know
thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. I've
glorified thee on the earth. I've finished the work which
thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou
me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee
before the world was." So we're led to contemplate his pre-incarnate
existence, what he was like. We have many, many scriptures
that kind of gives us glimpses into that. He said, I've magnified
thy name to the men which thou gavest me out of the world. He
magnified God to them. And thine they were, and thou
gavest them me, and they've kept thy word. Now they have known
that all things whatsoever thou have given me are of thee. So I think that prayer is answered
right here in Luke chapter 9, verse 29. The Lord was glorified. And that glorified means to render
glorious, It says in Strong's Concordance
to, and to do that in a very apparent way. And his glory shown through the
raiment even could not contain for him personified. And we have
so many scriptures that discuss his his attributes is, I am the light
of the world. And we look at that as in a more
spiritual context of not just a light like we have here. It's
a total light. It's a sovereign light. It's a light that, you know,
when we think of light, If you remember back to our studies
on the rainbow and the manifold wisdom of God and all those things
that talk about variegated or multicolored. And we looked at
that rainbow and we said, the human eye can look at a rainbow
and we can see seven colors, seven primary colors. When you
add all those together, it becomes kind of white. But in each direction,
in all directions from that spectrum is an infinite spectrum of light. It's an infinite in all ways. And we can't see that. In our bodies, in our human nature,
we can only see this narrow of those things. But that doesn't
mean they're not there. We can see them with modern instruments. We can look at that and say,
well, here's all these wavelengths that go way out into infinity. But with our naked eye, we can
just look and say, well, I can see the seven colors, but can't
see much else. And so when he's the light of
the world, it encompasses more than what we can see, is I guess
the point that I'm trying to make. He's just so much more
than we can see. And I mentioned this Isaac hymn,
Isaac Watts hymn. It's in your green book on page
31, The Lord Jehovah Reigns. Well, the first stanza that is
taken from Psalm 104. Turn over there, if you would,
to the Psalm, Book of the Psalms. Chapter 104. In the hymn it says it's taken from
Psalm 148, but I just didn't see any connection there. In Psalm 104 it's recorded, Bless
the Lord, O my soul, O Lord my God, Thou art very great. What
an understatement. Thou art clothed with honor and
majesty, who covers thyself with light as with a garment, who
stretches out the heavens like a curtain. And I think the way
that Isaac Watts framed it, the garments he assumed are light
and majesty. And so he kind of paraphrases
that Psalm 104 there. And he says, no mortal eye can
bear the sight if he could see the whole thing. We can't contain. I think David wrote that in the
psalm also. He says, when I stay up in the
late night and I think about him, it's just too much for me.
That's why I can't contain. In 1 Timothy chapter six, Let's turn over there to 1 Timothy. In verse 15, which in his times
he shall show who is the blessed and only potentate, the King
of kings and the Lord of lords, who only hath immortality dwelling
in the light which no man can approach unto, whom no man hath
seen nor can see, to whom be honor and power everlasting,
amen. We can't see the whole thing.
Remember he tucked Moses in that rock kind of shielded him and
said, I'll just kind of let you see a little bit. When he came
down in Exodus chapter 34, verse 29 and 30, it said, and it came
to pass when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two
tables of testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from
the Mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone
while he talked with him. And when Aaron and all the children
of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and
they were afraid to come nigh unto him." Just from being in
the presence of the Lord, his countenance was changed.
Can you imagine that? Just being in the presence of
the Lord, just the glimpse of him, his countenance was changed. You know, in Genesis, the very
first thing we find in Genesis 1, verse 3, the Lord God Almighty
said, be light, and light became. And as we find so all through
the scriptures, it's just a type, it's shadow of Christ. He said,
I am the light of the world. a type of Christ. If we look to Isaiah the 60th
chapter for one more Old Testament reference here, in Isaiah the
60th chapter, This kerosene Bible's a lot slower
than my iPad. In Isaiah chapter 60, in the
first couple of verses, thy light has come and the glory of the
Lord has risen upon thee. For behold, the darkness shall
cover the earth and gross darkness the people. That just speaks,
that word darkness just means not just dark like we turn the
lights out, it just means error. and it's just a result of the
fall. It's called gross darkness. It's just not, or even ordinary
darkness. Gross darkness, people, but the
Lord shall rise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon
thee. And the Gentiles shall come to
thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. What a picture
of him. You know, Isaiah, he saw him
on his throne, high and lifted up, his train filled the temple.
He said, uh-oh, I'm dead. No mortal eye can see that and
live, it says. But the Lord resolved that for
him while he was there. In Matthew 24, we have an example
of some other ones that are in the presence of the Lord. In
Matthew 24 verse 4, and here we're talking about the tomb
after the resurrection. In the past, they were much perplexed
because they rolled away the stone and there wasn't anybody
in there. They found not the body of the Lord Jesus, And it
came to pass as they were much perplexed there about, behold,
two men stood by them in shining garments. And they were afraid
and bowed their faces to the earth and they said to them,
why seek ye the living among the dead? And so their appearance
was like Moses was like to them it was, oh, this is not, this
is not normal. And you know, we have to think
back about Adam before the fall. The Lord said, let us make man
in our image. And when that spiritual death
came on him, that image, that kind of faded out, and he says,
uh-oh, now I'm naked. The scripture says, God is light,
and in Him is no darkness at all. And these men that are at
this tomb in Matthew chapter 28, let's turn over there and
get Matthew's account there. In Matthew 28, the first half a dozen verses there. In the end of the Sabbath, as
it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene
and the other Mary to see the sepulcher, and behold, there
was a great earthquake, for the angel of the Lord had descended
from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door
and sat upon it. His countenance, the angel of
the Lord, his countenance was like lightning. His raiment was white as snow. The keepers did shake and became
as dead men. It's a continuing theme that
we find usually when people get a glimpse of the glory of God. It's like, oh, woe is me. I am
undone. I'm a man of unclean lips in
the midst of a people. That's what Isaiah wrote. So we have this image of Christ,
He's still the Son of Man, but He has His glory restored in
their presence. His face became different. His face shone as lightning. His raiment became white, just
a sudden change. He took these three disciples
with Him to see that. And to hear what was going to
be talked about. And the three disciples are representative
really of all those that were, as we read in that John 17 prayer,
of all those that were given the Son by the Father and mentioned
in that prayer. And bringing these three also
fulfilled a requirement of the Lord of the law which the Lord,
in the mouth of two or three witnesses, it says everything
must be established. And you know what that has to
do with? If you go back to Deuteronomy chapter 17 and 19, that has to
do with somebody being put to death. You don't put somebody to death
with just one witness. But for them to even be there
and talk about it and observe the things that were going on
and this heavenly display, there had to be two or three witnesses. then you can look that up in
Deuteronomy chapter 17 and Deuteronomy chapter 19 if you want to later
on. We're not going to do that for sake of time today. But again,
it had to do with someone being put to death. And as we noted
earlier, it says, it names them. There were three witnesses and
there were two that came and spoke to Jesus concerning his
decease. It says that he should accomplish
at Jerusalem. And I was just enjoying this
morning when we were sitting around, Norm mentioned from his
sermon this morning on Numbers 1, verse 1, it said, Jehovah
spoke to Moses in the wilderness. And what are they talking about
here? They spoke concerning his decease
and where it should take place at Jerusalem. He was getting the lowdown in
the wilderness. They talked. The Lord talked
and Moses did a lot of listening, I expect is probably how that
went. And many times Norman has brought
out that Moses represented the law. The law that we could not
keep, which the Lord that our Lord Jesus Christ did keep in
our place. And Elijah, the other person
that came. Elijah, if you look that up in
your Strong's Concordance, you'll find that kind of translates
to, my God, Jehovah. My God, the self-existent, the
eternal, the Lord that love me from eternity. And he's representative of all
the prophets of God who brought forth the gospel of the substitutionary
death of the Son of God. The law and the prophets. And you know Elijah, he figures
kind of prominently in our study of Luke, as you remember back
in chapter 1. The angel of the Lord came to
Zechariah and said, you're going to have a son. He's going to
come in the spirit and the power of Elijah. And he's going to
turn many unto the Lord, their God. And you can find that in
Luke chapter one, verse 13 through 17. He shall go before him in
the spirit and power of Elias. It says in your Greek rendering
of that. Many of the children of Israel
shall he turn to the Lord their God. So, you know where he got
that? That was from Malachi chapter
four. We go right back to the Old Testament
where everything we find here. We find Psalm 104, his garments
are light and majesty. Malachi four, remember ye the
law of Moses. Again, Moses is brought up here
in Malachi. and who we have here but Moses
and Elijah. Remember ye the law of Moses
my servant which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel
with the statutes and judgments. I'm giving you the law, I'm giving
you the law through Moses that you can't keep. And I'm sending
you Elijah to tell you more about him that can keep it, that did
keep it. Behold I'll send you Elijah the
prophet before the coming of the great in dreadful day of
the Lord, and he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the
children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest
I come and smite the earth with a curse." So, anyway, we find
that recorded here and also mentioned there by that angel in Luke chapter
1. So, you know, if you go back
and read 1 Kings, where you find most of the writings about Elijah,
You know what you find in there a lot? The Lord spake unto Elijah. The
Lord spake unto Elijah. Thus spoke the Lord unto Elijah. We find that that happened a
lot. He spake to Moses in the wilderness. He spake to Elijah. And we find
that with all the prophets. He's just representative of the
prophets. Because when you go back to Isaiah
or any of them, the word of the Lord came from Malachi. The word of the Lord spoke to
them. We've been... putting on sermon audio all these
messages from Numbers. And there's like four or five
of them in there about Jehovah spoke. Because it's important
what he said. And I encourage you to listen
to those on sermon audio if you get a chance to from Numbers.
So Moses and Elijah spoke to the Lord of his deceit, which
he should accomplish at Jerusalem. They knew about it all along. And now they're there to encourage
him and say, Moses said, well, you obeyed all the law that we
could never do ourselves. You fulfilled all the commandments
of God. You fulfilled all the law. And
Elijah said, everything that we wrote about you in the Old
Testament, you have fulfilled. And how often do we find that
in the New Testament? As it is written, in Luke chapter four, I have been sent to give sight
to the blind, to heal the lame, to heal the leper, to raise the
dead, to preach the gospel to the poor, All those things, and
he said, this day is a scripture fulfilled in your ears. I have
done all that. All those things that were written
in Isaiah, the book of Isaiah that he picked up and read, is
fulfilled, I'm here. Luke chapter 24, verse 44, said,
he spake unto them, and these are the words which I spake unto
you, The Lord Jehovah spake, as we find in Numbers. These
are the words I spake unto you while I was yet with you. And
He's talking to them in His resurrected body. He's saying, all this had
to take place. The Son of Man must go as it
was written of Him. These are the words which I spake
unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be
fulfilled Remember we had the lesson on the four musts, the
son of man must, the son of man must, must be delivered, must
be betrayed, must be slain, must be buried, and must be raised
again. All things must be fulfilled
which were written in the law of Moses and in the prophets. Boy, we just had examples from
all three of those categories. We read about his countenance
being changed in Psalm 104, his very existence changed. Then
in chapter 18 of Luke, he took up unto him the 12 and said,
behold, we go up to Jerusalem and all things that are written
in the prophets concerning the Son of Man shall be accomplished. For he shall be delivered to
the Gentiles, shall be mocked and spitefully entreated and
spit on, And they shall scourge him and put him to death, and
the third day he shall rise again. And so what do we have the reaction
of these disciples? I just read that and I just saw
myself in the same thing, you know. The Lord's praying this
powerful prayer to the Father. He's talking to Moses and Elijah
in there. They're heavy with sleep. How frail we are, even in the
presence of such majesty of Him who died for us. Our nature, as men, we're often
found to be heavy with sleep regarding spiritual things. And
we don't worry. We were talking about that this
morning a little bit. It's all there in the scripture.
It just depends on what you're looking for. If you're not looking
for it, you're not liable to see it. We all have, we have
things that, we settle in our mind how we think things are
and how we want them to be, and we have a mental image of it. And I'll say, Ivana, I can't
find Zojo. And she'll say, oh, it's right
there. And she'll go point it out to
me and say, oh, I was thinking it looked like something else.
Nope, there it is. It was there all the time. But
I had a mental image of something else in my mind about what I,
I thought it was green instead of yellow or something. And she
said, nope, there it is right there. And that's the way it
is with the scripture, you know? See, there it is right there
in Psalm 104. There it is right there in Numbers.
There it is right there in Genesis. The Lord God Almighty and His
lights are just Everywhere. So, these disciples, they're
heavy with sleep. You know it says when they were
awake, they saw Him. And you know what causes that
awakeness is the Spirit of God revealing that to us causes us
to awaken out of this heaviness of sleep that we're so easily
engaged in. And then, they still wanted to
worship all three of them. is, oh, this is good to be here.
Let's build a tabernacle, one for Jesus, one for Elijah, and
one for Moses. It's interesting that they didn't
seem to have any trouble identifying those. You know, if you go back
to 1 Kings, you say, well, Elijah was a hairy man, and he had a
leather girdle on, but now their countenance is different, that
they still knew who they were, and they wanted to worship, and
they get this This cloud comes over and this is my beloved Son,
hear Him. So, that's just what we're up
against. And thank God that He gets us over
that little issue that we have. And Moses and Elijah, they search
the Scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life,
and they are they that testify of me, is what Jesus said. in
Luke, he said he expounded to them in all the scriptures the
things concerning himself. You see all these scriptures
and all these Old Testament things, he's in there. Hopefully the
Lord will awaken us out of the heaviness of sleep and allow
us a glimpses of him from time to time. So we'll stop there. Next week I'll be filling in
for Norman at the 11 o'clock hour, so it'll probably be a
couple weeks before we get back into Luke again. So, thank you
for your attention, and as always, be free.