Divine Radiance (Part B)

The divinity is flashing out before us. God is saying, I control it all. I have some problems with that. I have problems with the sovereignty of God sometimes.

Not too deep, but they're there. Because I don't know why he doesn't exercise that sovereignty sometimes when I think he should exercise it. Now, Lord, would be a good day to flex your muscles. He doesn't listen to me. And I'm submitted to him. That's the arrangement we have.

Okay. Not my will, but your will be done. Today, Pastor Rick will continue his message called Divine Radiance. This message is from Mark Chapter 9, but he'll begin in Malachi Chapter 4. Moses represents the law, Elijah the prophet. Malachi says to the Jews, Remember Moses? Remember Elijah?

Because you people have departed from what these two men were all about. Malachi 4, Remember the law of Moses, my servant, which I commanded him in 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 Yahweh. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse. So there, Malachi couples the two together, Moses and Elijah, the law and the prophets. And Jesus said, Don't think I came to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them.

Everything they were pointing to, I am making complete in me, my life. So these men appear to talk with Jesus. And after their lives had ended, their lives are continuing. There they are.

They're not dead. Incidentally, the law could not bring Moses into the promised land. The great lawgiver could not enter the promised land. It took Jesus to get him in.

There is a whole sermon right there to be written. Moses eventually died, of course, when he ministered to his people. He now stands in the promised land that he was forbidden from entering. Yet he lives in glory. Elijah, having not died, stands in the promised land also.

He also, currently, when this event was taking place, lives in glory. So we're in the face of splendid things. Divinity is flashing out before us. God is saying, I control it all. I have some problems with that. I have problems with the sovereignty of God sometimes.

Not too deep, but they're there. Because I don't know why he doesn't exercise that sovereignty sometimes when I think he should exercise it. Now, Lord, would be a good day to flex your muscles. He doesn't listen to me. And I'm submitted to him. That's the arrangement we have.

Okay. Not my will, but your will be done. But this is what we're looking at here. When we sing these songs of praise to God, they're built on these kind of things from the scripture. We mustn't get lost in our New Testaments and not see how critical a moment this was.

Again, so critical. All of the Gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, that is, the Synoptics, they write about it. Moses, he died, and he is here, up from the grave. What encouragement that would be.

How many lessons are in that? Elijah did not die, and he's down from glory. All one world with God. One universe, I should say. Only Luke tells us what they were talking about.

Because you say to yourself, why? Why are we looking at this, and why are these two men talking to Christ? Luke chapter 9, speaking about them, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus.

It's translated, his deceased, his death. That's what they were speaking to him about. Of all the things to speak to Jesus about, these two men were speaking to him about his crucifixion. How important is the crucifixion? It's everything.

You know, we're stuck without it. This is what made Peter, when he said, Lord, it's not so that you're going to go to the cross. And Jesus said, get behind me, Satan.

This is serious business. I'm going to the cross. And I'm not going as a victim, I'm going as a victor. And so he says, he spoke to him of his death, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Because from this point, this is a turning point in the ministry of Christ, this transfiguration. From this point, he is now focused on the cross. He's no longer going up into, you know, Galilee and then down to Judah and then up to, you know, the Gentile regions and doing miracles and preaching. Now he is heading toward Jerusalem, and he knows they're going to kill him there. His death was no accident.

It was an achievement. Never was he out of control. Every aspect was an event that he was prepared for because he prepared it.

Sovereignty of Christ. Never was he surprised. Never was he put on defense. Not real defense.

Never was he at a disadvantage. That's what the story is telling us. And so if you're these three men and you're on this mountain, what you're supposed to come away with is that he is God. You think that, well, when they figured that out before, they still were just shadows. They had bursts of recognition, and then it would sort of evaporate.

Then they'd get another one. I mean, when he stilled the water, who can this be? Only God can do this. He raised the gyrus' daughters like, man, this is more than Moses. And so they get this, verse 5. Then Peter answered and said to Jesus, Rabbi, it is good for us to be here, and let us make three tabernacles, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. No one was talking to you, Peter.

Peter answered. Nobody was talking to you. You were supposed to be an observer. You were not a participant. Now, they were terrified in the moment, too. I mean, what would you do if Moses walked down the aisle? First thing you'd do is say he doesn't look anything like the movie guys.

The first thing, no, you would not. Jesus said, and he said to Jesus, Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Well, no kidding. That's why I brought you up.

Anywhere with me is good to be. But they're comfortable in calling him pastor, which is, Rabbi, teacher. It's the equivalent of the Gentile, or the Christian, not Gentile, the Christian pastor, the shepherd of the flock.

Anyway, and let us make three tabernacles, one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah. The blunder of placing anyone on the same level as Jesus. That's what he's doing. He doesn't get what his own – you are the Christ, the son of the living God. But do you know what that means, Peter? Do you know what it means to be the son of God? He did not know.

He's learning. And those who equated the Lord with, you know, some say you're John, some say you're the prophet, Peter's making the same blunder here. Unintentional blasphemy. Again, because put others on equal ground as Jesus Christ.

John's Gospel, chapter 5. Therefore, the Jews sought all the more to kill him because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was his father, making himself equal with God. Okay, that's what he was doing.

That was exactly what he was doing. So when the Jehovah Witnesses would say, well, Jesus never said he was – well, you know, the people that were there back then, they didn't – they don't agree with you. They felt he was making himself equal with God. And in case you missed that, Paul comes out and says that, of course, Philippians 2, 6, who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God.

And that's what we're seeing happening here. Verse 6. And I'm going to tell you, I don't know how it is possible to claim to be a Christian and not see Jesus as God the Son.

If you see him as equal with somebody else, you missed it. Your Christianity is not matching the biblical requirement. Verse 6.

Because he did not know what to say, for they were greatly afraid. Well, one of the lessons is, when you don't know what to say, don't say it. But we all do. We all do. At some point, we all do. I've got to say something. And this is not the first time it happened to Peter. He was zealous.

Let us make three monuments. It was supposed to be flattering. God was supposed to be impressed. It was a lot of work. He was willing to serve hard.

Go get the materials up on the mountain, scurrying around, hurry up before they go. But it was wrong. Many times, Christians, they have a passionate idea to serve, but it's wrong. And this passion was unacceptable to God, and God was going to address it.

He was not going to look the other way on this one, because it is that important. Verse 7. And a cloud came and overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is My beloved Son. Hear Him.

Well, when the cloud came over, it took the sun out of the picture for a minute, the sun in the sky. That was a New Testament Shekinah moment that got their attention. But the Father does not tolerate the notion of an equivalent to His Son.

Neither Moses, Elijah, Mary, or anybody else dare be in His class. They are created beings. They are sinners in need of a Savior. And if anybody doesn't like it, tough. I disagree with them.

I disagree with them to their face. And I don't care whose feelings it hurts. I'm not trying to hurt their feelings. But I'm sorry Mary is not to be prayed to, to be talked to, to be worshipped. And if you are doing it, you are committing idolatry, you are messing with, you might as well go have a seance, trying to talk to the dead.

It is forbidden. And the fact that over a billion people do it means nothing to me, and it should mean nothing to anybody who's interested in the truth. I'm not interested in what billions of people do.

They go to McDonald's. The sign says, Billions Serve. I want to know what God says, and it's hard enough doing that. I don't know if I'll ever suffer full-out persecution, but I sure hope that if I do, I go out singing the praises of God in the middle of the flames of whatever they throw at us. Well, this voice was heard at his baptism, which the baptism of Christ was the beginning of his public ministry. And there the Father spoke. It's heard again when Jesus spoke of his death. John chapter 12 verse 28, Father, glorify your name.

Then a voice came from heaven saying, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again. Do we lose sight of our quest to bring glory to God? That's what we wake up in the morning for. Well, coffee's right after that for some of us. But you can lose sight of it.

Pain just takes away, you know, will shut everything down. And that's why I mention these men, they went to their persecutions and their deaths in the light of this experience. It did not fade. Again, decades later, even telling the story to Mark, Peter recalled, for we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power, the majesty, the coming of the Lord.

He's talking about this moment. Verse 9, suddenly, when they had looked around, they saw no one anymore, but only Jesus with themselves. Well, that's just how the Father wanted it. They saw no one but Jesus. And Matthew adds this, and when the disciples heard it, they fell on their faces and were greatly afraid.

But Jesus came and touched them and said, arise and do not be afraid. I wish he would tell me don't be afraid more often. Maybe he's tired of telling me. I told you so many times.

You're going to, at what point do you participate in this? None. He doesn't help my weakness. I noticed that about Jesus Christ. He does not help my weaknesses.

He does help my strengths, though. There's a great lesson in that, I think, at least for me. Well, Matthew, he adds this, when the disciples heard it, they fell on their faces and were greatly afraid. But Jesus came and touched them and said, arise and do not be afraid.

So I reread that for us to understand fear is not what God is encouraging in us. God has far-reaching plans for his servants. He had far-reaching plans for Moses and Elijah. How many thousands of years later are they still serving him in the presence of witnesses, helping him to carry out his mission? And God has far-reaching plans for all believers.

Not on the same scale, doesn't have to be, but he's got a plan. So Satan does, too, incidentally. Satan's plan is to disrupt God's plan, and that's where the fight is going to be on. And so a display of life after this life in the service of God is taking place here. Verse 9, now as they came down from the mountain, he commanded them that they should tell no one the things they had seen till the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

Jesus sure puts the kibosh on a lot of things. He shows them quite a few things. You know, don't go tell anybody about this because not everybody can handle these things.

And mishandling them will cause a problem. We saw it in some, you know, when he could no longer enter into the city because, you know, the guy blabbed it out and the ministry was interfered with. So he's telling them, I don't want you to talk about this. He knows he's heading towards the cross. They're not so mindful of it. And he knows that the opposition is going to grow, become more bitter, more organized until finally it achieves its objective, his death.

And he doesn't want these things to be thrown off kilter. Verse 10, so they kept his word to themselves questioning what the rising from the dead meant. Well, a good thing is they kept his word until after he was risen again.

They didn't tell anyone. But still, they don't get the whole dead thing. And, you know, that he's going to be killed but only for three days. Imagine somebody said, look, I'm going to die but only for three days and then I'll come back. Well, no one would believe it nowadays and no one believed it then either.

But that's precisely what he was telling them. Many of the Jews expected a general end time resurrection and judgment of the dead. When her brother Lazarus was dead, Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Well, that theology was moving around.

Of course, Jesus said, I am the resurrection. They did not expect God to raise a single individual prior to that great and awesome day to come, not literally in their lifetime. That's what they were missing. They did not think he was going to die and rise again in their lifetime. And so they were perplexed because he keeps bringing this up to them periodically.

This comes out. And they probably didn't like to hear it. He's talking about the whole death thing again. Verse 11, and they asked him saying, why do the scribes say Elijah must come first? Well, that's kind of an odd reply to, you would think, to his statement about death, but they just saw Elijah. And I don't know if they're trying to change the subject or they're trying to figure out, well, then how does this fit in with Elijah's coming? If you're going to die and it's just going to bring in the end of the, you know, what's going to happen here?

Trying to reconcile these things in their head. Elijah did not die, as I mentioned. He's taken up to heaven alive. And as a result of Malachi's prophecy, many Jews believe, rightfully so, that Elijah would return. The Jews believe he would return literally. The New Testament teaches it's the spirit of Elijah, more than likely.

Not reincarnation. But God has got moves he's not fully revealed. But we know this, that this is a two-fold fulfillment concerning Elijah coming back and ministering to the people.

And I'll get to Malachi in a moment. Verse 12, and he answered and told them, indeed Elijah is coming first and restores all things. And how is it written concerning the Son of Man that he must suffer many things and be treated with contempt? So he directly answers the disciples' question. The prophecies of Elijah's coming are fulfilled in John the Baptizer. That was one part of the fulfillment. Remember, we've covered this quite a few times in biblical prophecy quite often.

There is the near fulfillment and there is a far fulfillment. And the near fulfillment of Elijah's return was in the spirit and ministry of John the Baptist turning the people to the hearts of God. That's what John was doing with his baptizing. His repentance, his message of repentance is not the same message of repentance through Jesus Christ. His water baptism is not identical to the water baptism in Jesus Christ. But it is a forerunner to it, as he was the forerunner.

It was part of the process. And again, Elijah's ministry was to return the Jews back to Yahweh as given in the law of Moses. And in Elijah's day, it was Jezebel that really introduced the paganism in heightened levels. And Elijah combated these very things. And many individuals benefited from Elijah's ministry.

And many refused. And so it says here in verse 12, And how is it written concerning the Son of Man that he must suffer many things and be treated with contempt? We'll come back to Elijah. This reference to the Son of Man, Daniel 7, is joined with the messianic prophecies of the suffering of Messiah in Isaiah 52 and 53. In other places too, in Psalms 22 for example. But Jesus had many foes and he had many friends. And his foes hated him immensely, but his friends loved him dearly.

And that is ongoing to this day, those who hate him and those who love him. Verse 13, But I say to you that Elijah has also come, and they did to him whatever they wished, as it is written of him. Now I mentioned I was going to quote Malachi.

And I'm going to do that, lest you go home and say I lied. Malachi chapter 4, closing of our organization of the Old Testament is Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament. And there in Malachi chapter 4 verse 5, Well verse 4 we'll start, Remember the law of Moses, my servant.

As I read this earlier, I remember now. Which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel with the statutes and judgments. Behold I will send Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. So there's a coming of Elijah that was fulfilled by John the Baptist. And there's a coming before the great day.

When is that one going to be fulfilled? Well now we're into the book of Revelation. And the two witnesses that will be dispatched from heaven with miraculous powers. Fierce powers.

They can call things down, judgment down on people just like that. Just like Elijah did. And they will, from their ministry will come 144,000 Jews. And from the ministry of the 144,000 Jews will come tribulation converts.

Jew and Gentile alike. There's a lot of work to be done after the rapture. There's a lot of work to be done in the midst of the great tribulation period that involves saving souls. And so we Christians are supposed to be soul-centered people. When we talk about, you know, we present our bodies a living sacrifice to the Lord.

What does that mean? Does it mean, okay I'm just going to sacrifice pleasures just to please God? Well how does that please God? Oh you didn't eat a donut, God's happy?

That doesn't make any sense. What makes sense is I'm trying to be a vessel for God. So he can use me for his purposes. What is his purpose? Essentially to get people into heaven. Because he's willing that none should perish. And his tool to do that is us. Otherwise, get us out the way and send the angels.

But no, it's up to us. So these are dual achievements. I say to you, verse 13, Elijah has also come and they did to him whatever they wished. That means they killed him as it is written of him. Nowhere do we have a description that is written of Elijah or John the Baptist or any of the forerunners being killed. It's likely a reference to Elijah comes as is written to him.

And he throws in this word concerning they did to him whatever they wanted to do to him. But Revelation chapter 11 will give you more insight onto these two witnesses that are coming. Chapter 7 will tell you about the 144,000 Jews that will be used to preach the gospel there in that great tribulation period. They will be untouchable, incidentally.

Antichrist won't be able to get to them. And so Jesus is sort of rationing out these revelations. We get it as fast as we can read it or hear it preached to us. And then we have to study it and have charts and understand. If you want to be a serious Bible student, you've got to have charts and maps. Because there are too many fragments of information. And when I say fragments, I don't mean they don't make sense. I mean they're separated by books. You mean you may have one piece in Ezekiel and then you have another piece in Matthew 24.

How do you get them to come together? Well, that's what charts will do for you. And that knowledge of the word is supposed to be ammunition. To launch you, fuel, to be useful to God. The more you know about the Bible, the more you can use it to preach to those who don't.

So you can say to someone that doesn't know the Bible, who acts like they know the Bible, you can say the only thing you know about it is you don't know anything about it. That's not original. I stole that from Bob Gibson, the baseball pitcher. We've got a minute left and it's baseball time. So the catcher was coming out to tell Bob Gibson something about his pitching. And Bob Gibson said, go back.

The only thing you know about pitching is you don't know anything about pitching. And I have found that to be true in Christianity. And so I stole it. And I'm not giving it back. And they did whatever they wished to him.

They killed John. So I close with this. We must utilize invested divine radiance. When something flashes out from God, it is for us to use in some form. Many times it's personal. Many times I need this to keep moving forward personally. But many other times it's for me to share.

And the more you use it, the better at it you will get. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the Book of Mark. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. To learn more information about this ministry, visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. Once you're there, you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. That's all we have time for today, but we hope you'll join us next time as Pastor Rick continues to teach through the Book of Mark, right here on Cross Reference Radio.