I turn once again in your Bibles to the book of Mark chapter 9 and we will again read starting with verse 2 and read the verses that we read last week. Last week we looked at verses 2, 3, and 4 and this morning we'll be looking at verses 5 and 6 in particular. So we're here looking at the transfiguration of our Gordon Savior up on the mountain as his appearance was changed and the disciples were given a glimpse of his great glory, just a portion of that glory, but it was a moving experience as we see here in the scriptures. And we'll be looking at Peter's response to that in particular. here this morning. So they beheld there the glory of the Lord and in Peter's comments we're going to see the foolishness of human religion. The foolishness of human religion. Let's read our text Mark chapter 9 verse 2. And after six days, Jesus taketh with him Peter and James and John, and leadeth them up into a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them. And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can wipe them. And there appeared unto them Elias with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. And Peter answered and said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us make three tabernacles, one for thee and one for Moses and one for Elias. For he wist not what to say, for they were sore afraid. And there was a cloud that overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud saying, this is my beloved son, hear him. And suddenly, when they had looked round about, they saw no man anymore, save Jesus, only with themselves. Let's pray. Our kind and most gracious Heavenly Father, again, oh Lord, we are thankful to be in this place here this morning, to come together as a congregation to worship you in spirit and in truth. And Lord, I pray that this worship be found acceptable in your eyes. Oh Lord, I pray for your Holy Spirit to direct our thoughts and attention to your words, your holy scriptures here this morning, and help us to glean from them the things that you would have us to help us learn, oh Lord, about the false religions of our day. But better and greater than that, let us learn of the true savior and the true word of God, and how that should be the underpinnings of our religion. Lord, I just pray all these things in Jesus' name, amen. So as we look at these verses, verses five and six here this morning, we see some things I want to point out from Peter's perspective, but these, as I will comment, are things that you often find in human religion, false human religion. We see Peter in verse five, and Peter answered and said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here. So Peter here is beholding the glory of the Lord in this moment there upon the mountain. and this great transfiguration, and along with that, you have two, at this point, what can we say, but heavenly witnesses in Moses and Elijah who are there, and it's a big moment, and it's a big deal, it really is, and we don't want to take away from that in any way. And Peter beholds all of this, and he feels compelled to make, I believe, a sincere statement on his part, but also a very painfully obvious statement. He says, Master, it is good for us to be here. Now, I want you to note that he wasn't bidden to say anything. The word reads that Peter answered and said to Jesus as if he's responding to a question that Jesus had put to them. But he's not. Jesus hasn't questioned them. He hasn't said anything at all, in fact, and yet Peter feels compelled to answer. Now part of that is Peter's personality. You know, he was always out there. He was always quick to say what he's thinking. And oftentimes you didn't have to wonder about what Peter was thinking because he was gonna say it. That was his personality, okay? And there's not necessarily anything wrong with that kind of a personality, but you have to learn kind of how to rein it in a little bit, right? And I believe Peter does that as he goes along. But at this point, it's still a little bit unchecked and he just kind of throws it out there. And he just feels like he has to say something. He has to say something I've just had a thought or memory of something a long time ago When I worked at a place called Poland weed eater there down there in Nashville and worked at the time at the chainsaw plant. I was in charge of the materials, getting parts in and getting parts to the line and that kind of thing. And we had a lady that worked there, a black lady, who was a very sweet person and very much loved the Lord. And you could tell that in the way she conducted herself. And she was a really good line supervisor for us. And again, a very sweet lady. And her father passed away. The plant manager and me, we were kind of the designated representatives from the company to attend the funeral. And there might have been a couple of other white folks there, but not many, if there were. And so Jerry and I were sitting there. And Jerry was kind of like Peter in a sense that he always had something to say and he was always gonna blurt things out and that kind of thing. And what was really neat about this service was they asked for testimonials from the audience, from the crowd, from those who had gathered there for the funeral service. And it was really neat. And this person and that person stood up and shared some memory or some thought that they had about this, the person, the fellow who had passed away. And apparently he had touched a lot of people. And so all these people kept jumping up. And I was sitting there thinking, you know what, Jerry is going to jump up and he's going to say something. And it's not going to, he's going to be out, you know, just, you know, kind of out of the blue. And I got to fretting over that, and I resolved that if he made a move to stand up, my hand was going to clamp onto his thigh and keep him seated, you know? But he was that kind of person. He always had something to say, always knew something about everything, that kind of thing, right? Peter's kind of like that, and so I think he's kind of a, he is a leader among the other disciples, and I think they kind of look to him a lot to say things, and I just think he feels like, feels this compulsion at this point to say something here. And he blurts out, Master, it is good for us to be here. Now he says more, we'll get to the other part of what he says in a few moments, but he blurts out, Master, it's good for us to be here. Now, yes, it was good for them to be here. It was partly why, probably why Jesus chose the three of them to be there on that mountain with him. He wanted them to see this. It was a good thing that's happening here. And I don't want to be too critical of Peter, because after all, Peter is still relatively a new believer. And it's always struck me as very interesting that the disciples we read about in the Gospels are so very changed as we read about them as apostles, beginning in the book of Acts, and then as they come out in certain letters that are written. And there's just this change, and the changing factor here is the death of Jesus on the cross and his resurrection, and the coming of the Holy Spirit into them on the day of Pentecost. When you put in his ascension in the midst of all that as well, when you put all that together in a very short period of time, it radically changes these men, and they become much stronger in their faith. They become what they have to say. is much more spirit-led than what you often hear them talking about in the Gospels. And so I don't want to be too critical of Peter here. I think the way we should look at this is it does give us some insight into false religion, okay? and what people believe. So he makes this very obvious statement, and I think he's just caught up in this moment in such a way as to be looking at himself as much as he is beholding the glory of Christ. Now, we can do the same thing when we act as if our being at a worship service is something special that others should take notice of, okay? Attending worship services, attending Sunday school and Bible study on Wednesday nights, that's not some special act on your part, okay? That is our duty. That's our responsibility. It's our solemn duty, you might say. And yes, it's good for us to be here. And it's good for you to be at church. And yes, you will be blessed when you attend these things. And I just want to urge you to do that. Sometimes we need that encouragement. Sometimes we need to be reminded that how important it is for us to be at the service, not so we can be seen, but so that we can be part of the congregation and we can function as part of a congregation, a body of believers in our worship of the Lord. And it's very important, our attendance is very important. And I urge you to remember that, and I urge you to consider how important it is to be on time for these things. We have to have these reminders from time to time, we all need them. But we need to be on time for these things, and we need to see them as our solemn duty to be here. It's not, shouldn't ever be considered to be optional, We should be here and we should be a part of what's going on But but don't ever think that just because you are here you're doing God a favor That's totally the wrong idea to take, and I'm not saying any of you do. I'm just saying we need to guard against that, because that's the way our flesh will push us, and sometimes we'll do things just so we can be seen, and so that people will know that we're here, right? We're supposed to be here, and we should be here, and we'll be blessed. God will bless us if we're here. Hebrews, again, a very familiar passage, should be Hebrews chapter 10, verses 24 and 25. Together as the manner of some is but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching So we should encourage One another to to come to the assembly of the Saints. Okay, and it's it's that's that's what we should be doing Hebrews chapter 13 verse 15. I'm gonna put this verse in here by him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. Part of the reason we do assemble together is to give God praise from our lips. Our Sunday school class in here this morning, right off the bat before we even get into the prayer requests and the lesson itself, we were talking about praising God and how that's not just words that come out of our lips. And some people oftentimes will do for show in a service like this. But our praise to God should be built upon what we've done the past week and how we've conducted ourselves and how we've been obedient to the Lord. And that all builds up to a much sweeter worship on the Lord's day if we've done what we ought to have done. Now, we deal with sin throughout every week. I'm not saying that we have to be sinless in order to come together and worship the Lord. I'm just saying the more obedient we are, and the more we put sin in its place, and by the power and strength of the Holy Spirit of God, we resist temptation, then that's just gonna make our worship that much sweeter when we do come together. and the words are gonna mean more to God when they come off our lips when we've done that. If we're going out there and living however we want to throughout the course of the week and thinking, as some people do, and you find this in false religion, you find this a lot in modern religion, some people think they can just go out there and do whatever they want to all week, they can run over people, they can do whatever they want to do, disobey God blatantly, openly, And it'll all be okay because they'll show up on Sunday at the church service and that kind of is a reset button for them. We'll hit reset and everything's gonna be fine. Okay? Doesn't work that way. Doesn't work that way. All right, as we move on here now, continuing there in verse five, it says, he says, Master, it is good for us to be here and let us make three tabernacles, one for thee and one for Moses and one for Elias or Elijah. So Peter here looks at the glory of Christ Jesus And then he looked at the two witnesses to this, and his thinking is, and he actually makes a very foolish statement here, his thinking is, well, we need to build coverings, a tabernacle, a tent, a structure for each one of you, okay, for Jesus and for Moses and for Elijah. And the way Peter is demonstrating his foolishness here is, it appears that he's thinking that Jesus is on equal standing with Moses and Elijah, okay? Now, again, before we become too critical of Peter, we need to understand a little bit, I think, or show some understanding of where Peter is at in his knowledge of the Lord, okay? He's being exposed to some new thinking here by being around Jesus, especially as some of the things that Jesus has just told them that we have made really pointed to and pointed out in the last verses of chapter eight, where Jesus tells them, once they come to realize he is the Christ, the Messiah, he turns around and tells them, okay, your Christ, your Messiah is gonna suffer and die, and be risen again, you know, and that just blows their mind. So Peter's still in the process, I think, of comprehending everything that Jesus is telling them at this point and what they're coming to know. And I do believe that when they first started following Jesus, I think they thought he was just a man. They didn't see him as God. I think they probably saw him as a prophet, okay? And it's only in time that they begin to realize, you know what? This is the Messiah. This is the Christ. This is the Son of God. And so they're still dealing with all this. And so Peter probably thinks he's doing a good thing because two people that the Jewish people are going to hold in very high esteem are Moses and Elijah, okay? There are a few others in the scriptures that they really looked at, but they especially looked at Moses, they especially looked at Abraham, and they held them in high esteem. But now here you have Moses and Elijah, and I think Peter's thinking, okay, yeah, they're up here, you know, kind of got them on a pedestal a little bit, and Jesus, you're here with them. and he's missing exactly who Jesus is. So he ends up making a foolish statement. And listen, when we're new believers and we're just coming to understand the doctrines of the Word of God, we'll make foolish statements sometimes. We will. And that's part of the learning process. Hopefully we have someone there that will correct us and show us from the scriptures what the scriptures say, okay? And that's what we ought to be focused on, and that's what we as believers should do. We should share the scriptures with one another in such a way as to help us understand them and focus on what they're really saying. Because we'll take scriptures out of context. We'll take scriptures and derive some different meaning from them sometimes. So we need that. We need the Holy Spirit of God ministering to us to help us with that most of all. But apparently Peter here, he thinks elevating Jesus to the level that Moses and Elijah are on, But they're not on a level with Jesus. Okay, Jesus is way above them, right? We can see that clearly because we have the benefit of the complete revealed Word of God We know that but Peter was struggling with this at this point, but Jesus let us be clear Jesus is way above Moses and Elijah, you know, they were they were two good men They were men who were faithful to God. They demonstrate great faith in God. They serve God, but they were also sinners and They also needed Christ as their Savior, okay? Just like Peter did, and you and I do, all right? So definitely Jesus is greater than they are. They're just here to be a witness to His glory and a testimony to believers, starting here with Peter and James and John, that we as believers someday will share somewhat in the glory of Christ. We'll be given glorified bodies ourselves, okay? Now, we'll never be as fully glorified as Jesus, okay? But we will share in a portion of his glory, and that's a wonderful thing for us to know and to look forward to. He also, for some reason, by making the statement that he does, that we need to build three tabernacles here, I think he seems to think that God wants his servants to live upon a mountain in isolation from all others. I'm reminded of, and it's easy for us sometimes to get to thinking that we experience God, some deliverance that God provides, some wonderful thing that happens, and we know God's in it, and we glorify God, and we want to cement that right there. And we want to be able to come back to that and do that over and over and over again. But God doesn't limit himself to just one way of doing things a lot of the times. I'm reminded of our study on Wednesday nights right now. We're in the part of Genesis where Jacob has left home to go find a wife and everything. and that he is, along the way he has, he stops at a place he names Bethel, and he has a dream, he has a vision of God. And in this vision of God, he sees this ladder or this stairway from heaven to the earth, and God's at the top, and angels are going up and down, and Jacob is there at the bottom. And when he wakes up from this dream, A little bit like Peter, he is like, wow, this is incredible. I've been in the presence of the Lord and this is wonderful. And he wants to, and he does build an altar there. And you almost, you get the impression that Jacob may be thinking, well, this is the only place that God ever comes to earth. Okay, is that true? Well, I know it's not true. God can appear anywhere he wishes to, right? But sometimes when we experience those things, we wanna make a big deal of it, and we wanna cement that in so that we can have that same experience over and over again. Well, that's not necessarily how God works. But that's what I think Peter's thinking here. He wants to make a memorial of some type to all of this, and to remember all three of them, Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. And this kind of thinking mimics that of false religionists in our day. They seem to always be teaching that man can become equal to God and that even become gods ourselves, okay? I mean, let's go back to the Garden of Eden with Eve is this not what Satan deceives Eve into thinking that that she and Adam could be just like the like God or the gods if they just had the knowledge of that forbidden tree in Genesis chapter 3 verse 1 it says now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made and he said unto the woman and Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods. knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. Eve was deceived there into thinking that she could be up there with God if she just ate of the fruit of that tree. That's what the devil convinced her of. She was deceived. Now, Adam wasn't deceived, by the way. Okay? And that makes his sin greater, really, than Eve's in that sense. But she was deceived, and she believes this. And ever since, in our fallen natures, there's something about our flesh that wants to elevate itself to God's level, or even above God, and be in charge of us. What do we say when we're kids, you know, getting to fight with our siblings, and we say, you're not the boss of me? That's what our flesh says, wants to say to God, you're not the boss of me. I'm my own boss. I can do what I want to do. And that's wrong. But that has become a part of false religion. Because that's what they teach. So almost every religion other than Christianity teaches that you can become good enough to become like God or a God. And that's a quick clue to you that they're a false religion. Christianity is the only religion that teaches that God, we don't become God, God became man. He humbled himself to become a man so that he could die on the cross for our sins. All right? That's the difference right there. That's something to look for. But false religion believes we can elevate ourselves. And I think Peter's representing a little bit of this from his flesh, this idea that we can be up there with God. Now let's go on to verse six. Peter is so excited, and the other disciples too, and scared. that he just doesn't know what to say. Verse six, he says this, and then Mark follows, he says what he says in verse five, then Mark follows that up by saying, for he wist not what to say, for they were sore afraid. What Mark is saying, he didn't know what to say. They didn't know what to say, really. They're all afraid. They feel like you gotta say something, you know, and that's what Peter does. He says something, but he really didn't know what to say. He's afraid. Here they are on this mountain. They see Jesus in a way they've never seen Jesus before. And really, they wouldn't again until his resurrection, in many respects. They see him glorified here. And that is really kind of knock them off their foundation, so to speak. They're a bit off guard here. And so they respond, Peter responds in the way that he does. They see Moses and Elijah, and they know who they are, and they're starstruck, okay? Have you ever seen a quote-unquote famous person Maybe even got to speak to them, talk to them. We can get stars in our eyes sometimes, you know. That's kind of the way they felt. I mean, these are two heroes of the Hebrew faith. And they see them, they're there. And obviously they know who they are because it's recorded and there's not any doubt or them reasoning among themselves, who are these two men? They knew who they were. And they're a bit starstruck. And Luke adds one more thing. Turn, if you want to, to Luke 9, verse 32. In his account of this, he also gives us one more thing that we ought to take into consideration and show mercy and understanding towards Peter. Luke says that they just woke up from a heavy sleep. You know, like some of you may do sometimes during a sermon on Sunday mornings, you know? They just woke up. Luke 9 verse 32, Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep. And when they were awake, they saw his glory in the two men that stood with him. So they're just waking up. Now sometimes, as much as we feel compelled to say something, sometimes it's good just to remain speechless, isn't it? To not say anything at all. This is one of those times. What you would hope you would do in their shoes, although we'd probably just like them, you would hope their eyes would just go to Jesus and just start looking at him to see what he had to say, right? Because this is bigger than they are. What does Jesus have to say? And so there are times when we're left speechless. What should we do? Go to the Lord. In prayer, go to his word and see what he says in his word. See what he has to say. But he just has to say something foolish. You see, Peter is essentially saying here, much like modern religion does, that what he says does not account for the cross or the resurrection. Again, I think he's just seeing Jesus as a man. He's not seeing through this to what Jesus has told them must happen, that he must suffer, he must die, he must rise again, okay? They're not thinking these things. I think if they had gotten that and had been focused on that, they would have seen this whole thing maybe differently, okay? But they don't. And modern religion doesn't. To a lot of people, Jesus is just a good teacher and a good person. and someone who is willing to take on a whole lot of punishment and even die. But a lot of religion is built on that idea. And that's not the Jesus of Scriptures. If you leave out the cross, as some are prone to do, then there's no atonement. The gospel is no gospel. Remember, gospel means good news, There's no good news in the good news if there's no cross. Some people really don't want atonement. They just want good stuff from God. Give me the atonement. That's what we need most. If God never gave us anything else, Other than his gift of an atoning sacrifice for our sins and the promise of eternal life that comes with that, because he gives to us spiritual life, if he gave us nothing else, we should be most happy. But you see, some people, they really don't want that. They want the stuff that God will give you. They want the good health. They want the wealth. They want prosperity. But that's not what the gospel is about. Does Jesus, does God give us things? He certainly does. And we should be thankful to him when he does. Does he grant to us good health or healing when we're ill? Yes, he does. But I'd much rather have eternal life. And the only way for me to have eternal life is if Jesus goes to the cross. But that's offensive to some. They don't like a bloody cross. That offends their sensibilities. And I'm gonna tell you something, it's a sure sign you're lost if you're offended by that. If you're born again, You see that bloody cross. And you're thankful to God. That he brought it to pass. You're thankful to God. You're thankful to the Lord Jesus Christ that he was willing to go to that cross. For your sins. And it means something. The Atonement means something. Leave out the resurrection and there is no victory over sin. If Jesus had gone to the cross and died, and he was still in that grave, there would be no victory over sin. A sacrifice would have been made, but if we can't have eternal life, if Jesus doesn't rise again, if we don't have that promise that we too shall rise again, what do we have? We don't have victory over sin. And we need that victory over sin. We need that victory over death. We want that victory over the grave, do we not? How many funerals have you been to? I'll pray that most of them anyway, you had some assurance that that person that was being buried there is gonna be in heaven. Some cases you probably attended maybe a funeral or two or three or whatever that you're not sure. Or maybe that you have a strong feeling they're not. But we need the resurrection. We need what that means for us. And we need it to the glory of God. But some people don't want victory over sin. There's a lot of religion built around let me keep my sin and get to go to heaven too. I can sin and I can sin openly and nobody's gonna say anything about it because we're all loving and caring and we're with it. What's the phrase today, woke? Talk about that a lot in the, out there in society being woke. They can be woke all they want to. I want to be in Christ. And his resurrection gives me that victory over sin that I need. I don't want to keep my sin. In fact, when I sin, my heart is broken. because I think about what that costs Jesus. I don't want that sin. I long for that day when I'll be in heaven with a glorified body and sin will be gone forever. Oh, how precious that's gonna be. That's what I want. But some people don't, they wanna keep their sin and they want to go to heaven too. Folks, it don't work that way. It don't work that way. Turn to Hebrews chapter 10. I'm gonna read a few verses there, so you might wanna turn and read along. Hebrews chapter 10 in verse 12. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 12. But this man, and by the way, to be clear, that's Jesus. But Jesus, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever. Wow. That ought to stop us. We ought to start shouting right there, folks, okay? This is a good place to praise the Lord, all right? One sacrifice for sins forever. If you and I lived in the Old Testament, I don't think we'd have been very good Israelites. I don't. This whole idea of offering sacrifices for sin all the time, you know, which all that did was just kind of postpone everything until Jesus came to be this one sacrifice forever. I'm thankful Jesus kept that part of the law. And we don't have to. That ceremonial part of the law is done, okay? It's completed. After he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God. He's king. from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool, for by one offering he has perfected forever them that are sanctified. Oh, how we need that cross. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us, for after that he had said before, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their hearts and in their minds will I write them, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. I need the cross. Because that's where the offering for my sins was made. That's where the remission for my sins was finished. And I need my savior to be risen from that grave. I need him to be at the right hand of God where he has risen to now. Peter's thoughts back in our text betray what many in sinful weakness would do. Here's what many would do. They would avoid the cross. They would stay on the mountain. And they would make themselves comfortable there. For a lot of people, that's what religion's all about. They don't wanna think about a cross. because that makes them think about sin. They don't wanna do that. They wanna get up on a high place, have a good rousing worship service. That's their high place. And they wanna be comfortable. All of those go against the gospel. We've stated numerous times already in this message the gospel is built around that cross. So we gotta have the cross. The gospel teaches us that we're not always on the mountain, that we spend a lot of time in the valleys, but we have Jesus with us at the end. Scriptures also teach us that it's not always comfortable following Christ. Comfort comes in heaven, in glory. But here on this earth, there's gonna be sacrifice. There's gonna be pain and suffering. But we have Christ. We have the Christ of the cross. We have the Christ of the empty grave. We have the Christ who has risen and is at the right hand of the Father, where he is reigning over all of his creation, and also interceding for us in the ear of the Father. How precious is that? I don't want modern religion. I surely don't want false religion. I want, I need the gospel. What do you want to call Christianity? Do you want the crucified and resurrected Savior? Do you want the ascended King of Kings? Do you want the sympathetic high priest? Then you must have the cross. And the resurrection. You must have the suffering servant, the crucified sacrifice, the resurrection Lord, the ascended master. Do you have Jesus? This morning. Do you know him by faith? Have you been forgiven through grace? Those are the most important questions you'll ever answer in this life. And they need an answer. How do you answer them? Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, oh Lord, we are so, so thankful for our crucified and risen Savior. We're thankful, Lord, for your gospel. We're thankful for the eternal life that we have in Christ Jesus. Oh, Lord, help us to see more clearly who our Savior is. See him in his glory. Help us to come to a greater knowledge and understanding of him. And I pray, Lord, for there are some here this morning, I pray, that just need to come to know Christ. and know that he is their savior. Know that you have quickened them and given them eternal life so that they might believe and repent and follow Jesus. And I pray for that to happen. I pray these things in Jesus name, amen.