Mark 9 (Part 1)

All right, Mark chapter 9. You there? Beginning of verse 1:

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(ESV) Stop there. Let's pray. Lord, we invite You through your Holy Spirit to speak words of grace and insight to us today on these verses here from Mark chapter 9. Use them, Lord, we pray. Minister insight. Most of all, Lord God, give us things to lay hold of so that we can walk out of here not just smarter, but stronger with an opportunity to apply Your Word in our lives. We ask this, Lord, in Jesus’ name, amen. You'll notice that this chapter begins with a prediction of the fact that some of them would not taste death before they see the kingdom of God in power. That's an interesting prediction in light of the fact that at the end of the last chapter they really heard some pretty devastating things in their mind, at least, because Jesus began to be very pointed about the fact that He was going to be rejected by the religious leaders, turned over to the Gentiles, ultimately crucified, and then rise again on the third day – although they seem to forget that last line. It was such a negative thing in Peter's mind. You remember the chapter ended with Peter actually pulling Jesus aside and rebuking Him and Jesus rebuking Peter back? And then we had that whole thing about unless you take up your cross, deny yourself. Those are heavy stuff, right? Just really heavy stuff for the guys to listen to, to hear, to try to lay hold of. And so, Jesus then goes on and makes this prediction, and says that some of the you who are standing here will not taste death until you've seen the kingdom of God until after it has come, and you'll see it with power. This has confused a lot of people about what Jesus was talking about. Was He saying that some of the disciples literally wouldn't die before His return in power and glory? No, I don't believe that. In fact, the phrase in that verse, “after it has come,” speaking of the kingdom of God. “…after it has come” is really represented by just one Greek word, and it just means, to come. That's all it means. And so, Jesus is basically saying, there are some standing here who will not die before they see the kingdom of God come with power. In other words, He's talking about how they're going to see the power of the kingdom with their own eyes. They're going to see a glimpse, a preview of coming attractions, and they're going to get to witness it with their own eyes. And you can tell by the fact that immediately Mark begins to talk about the transfiguration. Then he says, and six days later— and he begins to tell about the transfiguration, and he's connecting the two. He's connecting the prediction with the event, and this is the fulfillment of that prediction. As Mark says, some six days later, when Jesus took just three of the disciples, Peter, James, and John—they were the closest to Him of the 12. He took them places; He didn't take the other guys. He took them into Jairus, his daughter; took them into special kind of close, intimate sort of settings, and here again on the Mount of Transfiguration. It says here—we call it the Mount of Transfiguration because it says there He was transfigured.

I don't know how often you use that word in your daily vocabulary – I don't. But it, literally, in the Greek, is where we get our word metamorphosis, and it refers to a change on the outside that comes from the inside, or because of the inside. It's really a beautiful kind of a word, but it is very difficult to describe, as you could tell, because Mark starts to give you a description of this. He says in verse 3: “and his clothes became radiant…” And by the way, that word radiant is an interesting word. It is used to describe metal when it's been polished to a gleam that is almost blinding. It's so bright, like gold or brass or something like that, that's just polished to the point that you can hardly look at it when there's light reflecting off it. He says: “…his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.” He starts saying they were really, really white. And we, in our minds think, wow, okay, I know what really white looks like. But then he goes on to say even more. He uses— he goes beyond human experience, beyond human explanation. It was beyond what anybody could possibly get them white. Mark doesn't say it, but if we were to read the same event in Matthew's account, Matthew tells us that also Jesus’ face began to shine. Matthew says, like the sun – which is pretty amazing. However you slice it— and by the way, this event is in the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Whatever words you try to use to describe the amazingness—I don’t think that's a word—of this event, this is crazy incredible for these guys to witness, as they are seeing here a manifestation – literally a foretaste of the glory that is, or that belongs to Jesus, and will one day just be the way He appears all the time during the Millennial Kingdom and beyond. So pretty amazing. But that's not all that's amazing. Then we have the people who appeared in the midst of the transfiguration. Verse 4 goes on; it says: “And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus.” And at this particular point, people read this, and they like to ask the question: Okay, all right, how did the disciples know that was Moses and Elijah? This is a long time before photographs, and there weren't any drawings or sketches of these guys. They'd lived a long time before. The question probably, notably, comes up: How would we begin to even— how would they begin to recognize these men?

I want to remind you of something. Jesus told the disciples— He said: there are some here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God come with power. Did you catch that? He didn't just say, I'm going to give them a little view through a peephole. He says they're going to see the kingdom of God come with power, and part of that power is that this kingdom is quite different from the kingdom of man – the one that you and I live in. See, the reason we asked the question, how could they possibly know that this was Elijah and Moses, is because we're projecting the limitations of our kingdom upon them. But remember, they were looking into— getting a look into the kingdom of God with power. So, they just knew. How did they know it was Moses and Elijah? They just knew because they're being catapulted literally into a different kingdom right now. They're seeing this. They're enveloped in this other kingdom where they just know. Listen, when we are in the kingdom of God, when we are in the never-removed presence of God after we've left this life, or been raptured to be with the Lord, the Bible says that we're just going to know. We're going to know as we are known. That's what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13. We're going to know as we are known. And do you know who you are? I sure hope so. Well, you're going to know other things just like you know yourself, and even as you are known by the Lord. You are going to know. And so, what we're seeing here is this little glimpse of heaven where, when we stand in the presence of the Lord in paradise, you're not going to walk up to people and go: you're familiar, but I don't know, did you do something different with your hair? And, I'm not really getting it with the whole glorified body and all. You're not going to do that. You are going to just know people. You're going to know them. Have you ever had kids even ask you: Am I going to know you in heaven? Am I going to know? Kids always want to do that. My son, Aaron, when he was little boy, he wanted to hold my hand in the rapture. He said: Dad, can we hold hands on the way up? I said: No problem, bud. We just want family members will say that to one another. I just want to be with you, and will I know you there? Of course you will. And you'll know instantly. You'll know everybody you look at. And this is this interesting, wonderful preview, if you will, that these guys have. They literally just know this is Moses and Elijah.

Now, Luke, in his account of this event, actually tells us—Luke tells us that Moses and Elijah were talking to Jesus. Mark doesn't give us this insight, but Luke does. Let me show you this one on the screen. Luke 9:30 goes like this:

So not only are these men there; they're also talking to Jesus about current events. They know that He's about to make His final trip to Jerusalem where He will be rejected, where He will be turned over to the gentiles and be crucified, and they're talking to Him about it. They're chatting about this thing, right? Do you find that cool? Because I do. I just think that's pretty cool. All right, as we keep reading, we find something else amazing happening. Look at verse 7 in your Bible. It says: “And a cloud overshadowed them, (and that's very significant, I'll tell you why in just a second. It goes on to say) and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is my beloved Son;…”” All right. Cloud – this is big stuff. Remember, these are Jewish boys, standing there with Jesus, and they knew the significance of a cloud. Let me show you an interesting quote that I pulled out from William Barclay, who's himself with the Lord now, but he wrote: In Jewish thought, the presence of God is regularly connected with the cloud. It was in the cloud that Moses met God. It was in the cloud that God came to the tabernacle. It was the cloud which filled the temple when it was dedicated after Solomon had built it. And it was the dream of the Jews that when the Messiah came. The cloud of God's presence would return to the temple. —William Barclay In Jewish thought, the presence of God is regularly connected with the cloud. It was in the cloud that Moses met God. It was in the cloud that God came to the tabernacle. It was the cloud which filled the temple when it was dedicated after Solomon had built it. And it was the dream of the Jews that when the Messiah came. The cloud of God's presence would return to the temple.

Now, of course, we know that in His second coming, Jesus will come with the clouds of heaven. But in the first coming, of course, that was not the case. He came humbly, born as a baby. But the cloud has this enormous significance to Jewish thought and understanding of the power of God. Then they heard the voice of God as they're enveloped in this cloud. And what an amazing incredible event this was for these men that they certainly would have remembered for the rest of their lives on earth. But as we're looking at this thing, the real question that we're going to ponder this morning is: Why did God do this? It's cool and all, and I would have been probably jazzed to be part of it all. I think— I honestly think I might've been overwhelmed; I think I probably would have come down off the mountain and just weirded out, not able to put it into any kind of a context. It's so other-worldly. But so why did God do this? What was the purpose of it? Let's just remind ourselves again of what Jesus had just told His disciples. All these things that were going to happen to Him, and all of the difficulty they had with understanding what He was saying, and what they did understand, actually made them very sad. We see this from other passages in the Gospel accounts that they were literally overcome with grief at the idea because Jesus kept telling them: I'm going to go to Jerusalem and there I will be rejected by the leaders. This was just so contrary to what they believed the Messiah would be. He was a conqueror, not a conquered. To them it was just confusing. It was hard to swallow. It was devastating to hear all of these things that Jesus was saying to them. And now, here they are on the Mount of Transfiguration, seeing what they are seeing. There is a great deal of what God is doing here in this event to minister to these three men – their hearts and minds – about the things that are about to take place. And bringing Moses and Elijah into the deal was a pretty powerful move on God's part. You ever stopped to ask yourself the question: Why Moses and Elijah? There's a lot of really cool biblical characters that I think would have been just potentially as meaningful on the Mount of Transfiguration. It would have been cool to have David there, the greatest King of Israel from the standpoint of his devotion to the Lord. How about Abraham? Abraham is considered the father of the Jewish race. It seems it would have been fairly appropriate for him to appear on the mountain. Maybe even Jacob, Abraham's grandson – because you remember it was Jacob who was renamed Israel. Literally, the nation is named after this man, the man who wrestled with God and thought that he could actually win. Or how about Daniel? Would have been cool to see Daniel because he was such a pivotal prophet related to prophecies of the end times. Next to Revelation, the book that we probably learn more about the end times with is Daniel. In fact, there are great— Revelation and Daniel are two wonderful books to study simultaneously to really get a good grasp of end times eschatology and so forth. But those aren't the men who appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration. It was Moses and Elijah. And it was very significant that it was Moses and Elijah when we look at what these men represent, specifically to the Jews, but to us as well. Remember Moses is the law-giver. He's the one through whom the law came. And so, when we look at Moses, we see almost like an embodiment, if you will, of the law. And it is very significant, by the way, that Moses did not take the nation of Israel into the promised land. You know how significant that is, don't you? Because the promised land is a picture of victory in Jesus, and the law cannot give us that. It had to come through Joshua, who literally has the same name, Yeshua, as Jesus, who takes us in to the wonderful promises of God, and so forth. But the interesting thing about Moses is that he represents the law. And then you have Elijah – perhaps the greatest prophet of all in Israel, who is, for the Jews, the embodiment of the prophets. And you know, don’t you, that they didn't call it the Old Testament? They called it the Law and the Prophets. That's what they called the Word of God: The Law and the Prophets. Here you have these two men standing there in the midst of the disciples, with Jesus, talking to Him – literally the human embodiment of this aspect of God's revelation to mankind through the Law and the Prophets. And here comes the voice of the Father from the midst of the clouds. Saying what? This is my son. Here He is standing with the Law and the Prophets, but here's My Son. Listen to Him. Listen now to Him.

The message is unmistakable: that God is directing the heart of the Jews in their understanding of the revelation of mankind from God to the person of Jesus Christ – the new embodiment of all that is true and authoritative. Isn't that exactly what the writer of Hebrews said when he opened up that wonderful book we call Hebrews? I love this first couple of verses:

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers (through the course of the Old Testament, right? He spoke to them through the prophets and so forth. But what does he go on to say?) but in these last days he has spoken to us (how?) by his Son, (in other words, the final authority, the final revelation, the final declaration of the will of God, the purpose of God, is found in the person of His Son) whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he (literally made or) created the world. It's a powerful thing that's going on here on the Mount of Transfiguration as God is basically communicating to these men from the Old Testament, the Law and the Prophets, to the person of Jesus Christ, and moving them that direction. This is My Son. Listen to Him. Listen to Him. It's a wonderful thing that we're seeing here. Now, before we look at these last couple of verses of what we're going to see here this morning, I want you to think for just a moment about what else seeing Moses and Elijah there on that mountain would have done for these three disciples. Think about it for a minute. Right there, standing in front of them was evidence of life beyond this life. Pretty amazing, huh? Think about it. This— Moses and Elijah, who they knew because they were seeing them within the power of the kingdom of God, this was proof positive of life beyond the grave. Elijah actually never went to the grave, we know— and that's another interesting thing these two men represent. Do you understand that Moses represents all of mankind who died and went to be with the Lord, and Elijah represents those who are caught up to be with the Lord? And so, here we have again another picture that these two men represent of all mankind. We will all be—all who are believers, those who died in faith, and those who are caught up by faith in the time of the rapture, we'll all be with the Lord together. And these men represent those expressions as well. But think about this for just a moment. Moses had passed from the scene 1,400 years before this event at the Transfiguration took place. 1,400 years had passed since he had passed from the scene! And for Elijah, it had been 900 years since he had gone to be with the Lord. And yet, here they are, alive and doing good, talking to Jesus about current events, right? How incredibly powerful to be able to see that, and for these men to be able to walk down off the mountain and know that they know that life is bound up in God, right? He keeps it—and when this organic shell that we all have ceases to function, if the Lord tarries, that will just step into the next element of life with Him, right? We'll step out of these shells and step into the never removed presence of God. We will literally step from life to life, and it will be the life that Paul says is truly life, when we step out of these shells. And we can know that. These guys got to know that because there's Moses, there's Elijah, right? They're alive. They weren't dead. They're alive! Isn't it amazing how many people in the world make determinations about what happens after death without having any information? I just find that really fascinating. How many of you have died and come back to life again? Yeah, I didn't think so. And yet, it's amazing how many people come to a determination about what happens after this life. There's a good many people in this world who believe that when you die, you simply cease to exist. They see their physical body as all there is. They are nothing more than an organic, natural body, and when that expires, life expires with it, and they are just gone – which is a pretty hopeless philosophy of life, if I don't mind saying. What's interesting about that conclusion is, you could ask somebody who— if somebody said that to you, it's like, I believe that when we die, we just cease to exist, you can ask them, how do you know? You know what? They don't! They have absolutely no clue! They just believe it. That's called human arrogance, by the way. That's what that is. We make up our minds about things with zero evidence. It's just really crazy. These guys, Peter, James, and John, got all the evidence they needed to contradict any ideas related to that, and now they could see that there is life. They knew it from the Word of God, but now to see it in front of them.

All right, verse 11. Let's deal with these last couple of verses we'll look at here today. “And they asked him, “Why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come?”” And I can understand their question. They had just seen Elijah, and they had heard the scribe saying that Elijah is going to come before the Messiah. So, they're wondering, I suppose, in their minds: Is that it? Was that it? Was it just for three of us that we got to see this? Or is there something more that's going to be happening related to that or what it is? Now, it wasn't the scribes who actually said that Elijah would return to this earth. It was God who said it, and He said it through the prophet Malachi. Let me put this one on the screen for you as well. It's from Malachi chapter 4, and it says:

“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.” And by the way, that is right there—what you're looking at is the very prophecy that the Jews had during this time, and this is the one that the disciples are asking Jesus about that the scribes had referred to. And then you'll notice that Jesus gave a response to their question. Look at verse 12 in your Bible. It goes like this: “And he said to them, “Elijah does come first to restore all things. And how is it written of the Son of Man that he should suffer many things and be treated with contempt? 13 But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him.” Now Jesus makes a few things very clear in His response here. First of all, you'll notice He acknowledges the fact that Elijah is supposed to come, is supposed to come again, and restores all things. But He also says this restoration will not negate the fact that the Son of Man still needs to come and suffer for the sin of mankind. In other words, the restoration that Elijah accomplishes is not going to change any of that both for the first and second coming. But anyway, he goes on here— and the second thing Jesus makes clear is that Elijah has already come. He says it right there. He says, “Elijah has come.” Now, Matthew even goes a little bit further to give a little commentary. Let me show you this one on the screen from Matthew chapter 17:

This is Matthew's take or comment on this same event that is going on after the transfiguration. Some of you are thinking to yourself: Okay, now, I'm confused. Malachi said that Elijah would return, and Jesus says that John the Baptist fulfilled that. That doesn't make sense. What did John the Baptist and Elijah have to do with each other? Well, there's a connection. When you look back at the beginning of the Gospel according to Luke, Luke goes back and tells us how all the details concerning John's birth and how it was foretold to John's father, Zechariah, of his coming birth. You remember what the angel said to Zechariah about his son that would be born? Let me put this up on the screen from Luke 1:17:

…and he (John) will go before him (the Messiah) in the spirit and power of Elijah,… Now this is a very interesting statement. It doesn’t say that John is Elijah. That would be reincarnation. We don't believe in reincarnation, so don't let this whack you out that somehow the Bible teaches reincarnation. It does not. It does not say here that John will be Elijah. It says he will minister or go before the Messiah in the spirit and power of Elijah.

Do you guys remember when the religious leaders came out to the Jordan to ask John who he was? They said: Who are you? Are you the Messiah? Nope. They asked him specifically: Are you Elijah? He said: I am not. Okay, so was John Elijah? No. Did he minister in the power of Elijah? Yes. That's the connection that Jesus is making reference to, and that is why John the Baptist provides a fulfillment of the prophecy in Malachi that we looked at. But stay with me here, guys. We also see huge signs that he did not fulfill that prophecy completely. All right? This is one of many Old Testament passages that has a dual fulfillment. This is huge in the Old Testament, and if you don't recognize it, you get confused. Many Old Testament passages have a near and a farther fulfillment of the very same prophecy. Let's look at Malachi once again, and we'll look at one of the things that is said here:

I want you to notice there, Malachi says very clearly the prophet Elijah will come. All right, he is saying that, and I believe that we can take that literally. All right? This can only mean that there's coming a day that is still in the future when Elijah will literally return and then we will have the ultimate and final fulfillment of the passage in Malachi that speaks of the coming of Elijah. But when? When is that going to take place? Let me put this up on the screen again from Malachi. First of all, in the ESV.

--- Now, awesome—we use that word today here in the United States of America to mean good things. If I got a new car, I'd go, awesome! This is not a positive term, okay? If you look at it in the New King James Version (NKJV) of the Bible, you see a very different tense. Malachi 4:5 (NKJV)

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. So, awesome literally means awe-filled because it is a terrible, dreadful day. Now listen, this is the prophecy in Malachi. The first coming of Jesus was not dreadful. It was gloriously good news, and Jesus went around telling people to believe the good news. And so, His first coming was not dreadful. That's why we believe that this prophecy in Malachi still has a future fulfillment regarding something that will be dreadful. And notice the very last four words of this prophecy in this verse. Verse 5: Malachi 4:5 (NKJV)

It'll be the great and dreadful what? Day of the Lord. Do you know that those— that phrase, “day of the LORD” is exclusively used throughout Scripture to describe the last days, the coming of the Lord, and the judgment and wrath that God is going to pour out ultimately upon mankind because of their rejection of his Messiah? So, the day of the Lord is a powerful term that speaks of future events, not things that have already transpired. We're still looking for Elijah. Now, I'm going to say something— and I want you to file this under personal opinion, okay? I don't often do this, but when I do, I always try to be very careful to tell you this is my opinion and nothing more. And I reserve the right to be 100% wrong.

I believe Elijah is going to be one of the two witnesses that comes during the tribulation period. That's just my personal belief, and if you disagree, we're going to continue to fellowship, and I love you. But you know what I'm saying? That's just where I'm at. I think he's going to come, and he's going to do some pretty powerful things along with the other witness who many other people believe is going to be Moses as well, by the way. But that's another issue altogether. As we're talking about all this stuff about the day of the Lord, as we're thinking about wrath, I know that there are some people who really get very uncomfortable whenever the Bible starts talking about wrath, when we start talking about judgment, when they read passages in their Bible that talk about condemnation and stuff like that. There are a lot of Christians who really—they shudder in their heart and mind because they just don't have that assurance that they're— in other words, they have a hard time hanging on to some various passages about there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:1) The Bible says, you and I were not appointed unto wrath, but unto salvation, because we're in Christ. Why? What difference does that make? Jesus took the wrath of God. Some of you guys— in your Bibles, you have this long word in the New Testament called propitiation. Again, not a word you probably use every day or ever, but the word propitiation means to turn aside wrath. Jesus propitiated God for us. He is our propitiation – meaning that He consumed the wrath of God for us. In other words, there's no wrath for you and I, right? There is no wrath. There is no judgment for you and I. Why? Jesus took it. And we were reminded, even when we took communion this morning that when Jesus died, one of the last glorious things that He said on the cross with great victory was:

(John 19:30) He was declaring that it was paid in full. The wrath of God was paid in full through His own suffering on the cross. And now, if we will just believe and receive Him as Savior, the wrath of God is literally taken out of the way as it relates to you and I. Listen, that's a wonderful offer you've been made, and I trust that everyone here has accepted that. But I'm smart enough to know that that's probably not true,

--- and there are probably some people here who have not yet embraced that promise. Let me end with just this wonderful Scripture from John 3. It says:

How did Jesus save us? By taking the wrath of God, by literally consuming it for us. Now we trust in Him, trust in what He did on the cross, and you are saved. That wrath is transmuted; it is gone from your life because Jesus bore it on your behalf. Now, what I didn't put in that passage is what it goes on to say – because it goes on to speak about those who do not believe and who reject Jesus. For them, condemnation remains. Why? Because they have refused to accept that it was Jesus who bore the wrath for them. They refused to embrace and receive that forgiveness, and so, the only option is for them to bear that wrath on their own, which is what we refer to as being lost. And that's an eternal lost condition. Like I said, this is the best offer we've ever had. And I want to just— I want to make sure everybody's laid hold of it. You don't have to be weird, wacky, or strange. Just accept Jesus and what He did on the cross. Just say: Jesus, I believe that what You did on the cross was for me. I accept it for me. I believe that what You did is You turned aside the wrath of God by bearing the wrath of God. You guys remember what Jesus said on the cross while He was bearing that wrath? I believe that there was a point when the darkness just overtook the land in the middle of the day because Jesus was suffering so greatly as he bore the wrath of God for you and I. I believe that the Father for the first time in eternity could not bear to look upon the Son as He bore that wrath for you and I. For the first time in eternity, there was a separation between the Father and the Son, and Jesus cried out of just a heart of agony:

Listen, people. He was forsaken, so you would never be forsaken. Jesus even bore your forsaken condition and mine, that we might have life and have it to the full, amen? ---