So we are in the gospel according to Mark chapter 9, picking up in verse 2. We included verse 1 in what we looked at last week. And we're going to look at the transfiguration account in Mark's gospel. Let me pray before we begin to read this text. Our Father and our God, we pause before I read your word publicly to acknowledge that we're handling reverently the very word of God. And Lord, we know your word is powerful and mighty. And Lord, we just need your help. Lord, our minds tend to drift. Like your disciples, we tend to fall asleep when we should be awake. So God Almighty, we pray that you just help us open our ears, open our minds to understand, open our hearts to receive the implanted word. And Lord, we thank you for that. In Jesus name, Amen. So Mark is the, if you've been coming here for a long time, Mark is the fourth gospel that I've preached verse by verse. We've kind of taken diversions to some epistles and some Old Testament books and we'll come back to a gospel. So I've preached through this area of the story of the transfiguration in Luke and also in Matthew. And I'm going to be importing some of those verses because you get a more full-orbed view of what's going on in this account. But to begin with, let's just read Mark chapter 9, beginning in verse 2, down to verse 13, and then we'll start kind of looking at it. Now after six days, Jesus took Peter, James, and John, and led them up on a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them. His clothes became shining, exceedingly white, like snow, such as no launderer on earth can whiten them. And Elijah appeared to them with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. 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. Because they did not know what to say, for they were greatly afraid. And a cloud came and overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved son, hear him. Suddenly, when they had looked around, they saw no one anymore, but only Jesus with themselves. 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. So they kept this word to themselves, questioning what the rising from the dead meant. And they asked him, saying, Why did the scribe say that Elijah must come first? Then he answered and told them, Indeed, Elijah is coming first, and restores all things, and how it is written concerning the Son of Man, that he must suffer many things, and be treated with contempt. But I say to you that Elijah has also come, and they did to him whatever they wished, as it is written of him. Thus far, the reading of God's holy word, and we'll try to unpack this a little bit at a time. Quite a scene, quite a scene, and I hope as we work our way through it, it becomes tremendous to you, because it was to me as I studied this. So they go up on the mountain apart. Actually, the Bible says Jesus wanted to pray. And he takes that inner three, that little core group, Peter, James, and John, and they go up on the mountain. It says in Mark 9.2, after six days, Jesus took Peter, James, John, and led them up the mountain. And all three synoptic gospels give that time reference. It's about a week after what we looked at last week. And that's significant because what we looked at last week was Jesus very plainly telling his disciples, not in parables, not in mysteries of some sort, but very plainly that he was going to die and rise again from the dead. And they did not like that. Peter took offense of that and took Jesus aside to rebuke him. Jesus didn't know what he was talking about basically. This will never happen to you. And he did not have the things of God in mind but the things of man, Jesus said. So it's about a week later when this transfiguration takes place. That time link is there because what's going on here is connected to what we looked at last week. Mountain experiences in the Bible are significant. And that's also what's going on here. It's a significant occurrence. Moses goes up Mount Sinai to meet with God, to receive the law, and to come back. Elijah hears a word from God. on a mountain. So you'll see that through the scriptures when these tremendous pivotal events take place in the Bible. Many times it's on the mountain. When Peter writes his epistle much later, after Jesus rises from the dead and Peter's filled with the spirit and he begins to write the epistles, he calls this experience, this mountain that they went up, he calls it the holy mountain. And it was the holy mountain because God was there. That was holy ground. What Mark leaves out, Luke will tell us in Luke 9.32, it says, but Peter and those with him were heavy with sleep. And when they were fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him, Moses and Elijah. So these guys are exhausted. Maybe it was a hard hike up the hill. I don't know. All the ministry that's gone on, and they're exhausted, and they're heavy with sleep, and they're sleeping. When all this is going on, and Jesus is having his experience of meeting with Moses and Elijah, and they got a discussion going on, they're talking, and they almost missed it. Because they were asleep. And they wake up and they realize, you know, this is the glory of God being shown through the person of Jesus Christ. I thought of myself, and this is why I prayed the way I prayed before I started preaching, because we are so weak as human beings, fallen human beings. And beloved, I have sat where you're sitting and listened to sermons. Karen and I go away to conferences, and I love to hear preaching, and we'll go to a preaching conference. And somebody's preaching the Word of God, and it's glorious, and I'm there struggling not to get my eyes to shut, because we're so weak as human beings. You think of really almost foreshadowing Gethsemane. where Jesus tells his inner core, you stay, you watch, you pray. And Jesus went a little farther and he prayed. He comes back and they're sleeping. Every time he comes back, they're asleep. Think of the apostle Paul, when he's preaching his all night sermon, he preached into the night, and somebody falls asleep and falls out the window. And Paul goes down and brings them back to life. So it's just interesting to me that it's just our humanness. We're just weak. We tend to have our minds drift. We get sleepy. And that's what's going on here. So the glory, it says in Luke 9.29, and I think this is significant. It says, as he prayed, the appearance of his face was altered and his robe became white and glistening. It was as Jesus prayed. Remember, the disciples, there was something about Jesus and his intimacy with the Father when he would pray that it even led the disciples to say, would you teach us to pray? I mean, John the Baptist taught his disciples how to pray. Would you teach us how to pray? And we get what we call the Lord's Prayer as Jesus instructed them. But it's as Jesus prayed. that this appearance, the appearance of his face changes and this almost like light streaming out of the being of Jesus. It says his face was altered. Matthew 17.2 says, and he was transfigured before them, his face shone like the sun. If you can imagine that. And I think The gospel writers, even though they're led by the Spirit, the Spirit superintends all of scripture, there's a lacking of human language sometimes in the Bible to really describe what they saw. If we saw it, we may say, well, it's so much more than what you said. But they're grappling for words to describe what's going on here in the transfiguration. I went to a couple other places in my study, and I want to take you there too, just to help us understand a little bit of what's going on with the glory of Jesus being revealed in the Mount of Transfiguration. And I thought to myself about the story of Moses. When you remember Moses, he asked for the big one, and we all probably would ask for this. And he asked God, he said, show me your glory. And God said, I can't show you my glory. No man can see my glory and live. So the full, absolute full radiance of the glory of God, that's impossible. So pull that thought into your thinking as we understand what's going on in the Mount of Transfiguration. But when you read that story, God accommodates Moses, if you remember, and in Exodus 33, it says, The Lord said, Here's a place by me you shall stand on the rock, so it shall be while my glory passes by, that I'll put you in the cleft of the rock, I'll cover you with my hand while I pass by, then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back. But my face you shall not see. No one can see the face of God, if you will, and live. So he accommodates Moses and he allows him to have this view, the Bible actually puts it, of his goodness, of God's goodness. But it's sort of a dimmed picture, a dimmed experience of the glory of God. And then in verse 30, It says, after Moses has this experience and he comes back into the camp, it says, so when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. Now think about that. Jesus has this accommodation made by God. It's not the full-blown glory of God. It's his goodness. It's his backside, if you will. And he allows them to have that experience. And the impact of that on Moses is that he's shining with the reflected glory of God Almighty, to the point where they don't even want to see it. Moses ends up covering it up with a veil. The Bible gives us more insight of why he did that elsewhere. R.C. Sproul on that said this in his commentary, he says, The glow of Moses' face was a mere reflection of the glory he saw in the presence of God. Moses' face was not the source of the light, rather the light of God was rebounding from the face of the creature. On the Mount of Transfiguration, however, the disciples witnessed the actual glory of God, not a reflected glory. Matthew Henry comments, the shining face of Moses was so weak that it could easily be concealed by a thin veil. But such was the glory of Christ's body that his clothes were enlightened by it." It gives you a little bit of an insight into what these three men got to experience and see. It says that not only was his face altered, but it says his robe was brightened. It says in Mark 9.3, his clothes became shining, exceedingly white like snow, such as no launderer on earth can whiten them. Do you see Mark grabbing for words, trying to really describe the indescribable there? Matthew puts it this way, his clothes became as white as the light. And his glory is inherent in the being of Christ. It's shining forth from his very being and illumines his clothing. Hebrews 1.3 ties right into this. Speaking of who Jesus is, the writer of Hebrews says, "...who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power." That's our Lord Jesus that we worship. One thing I really love about the true story, the historical account of the transfiguration, is that it shows Jesus in his glory very unlike what the world thinks of Jesus. They think of the baby in the manger, and maybe a great teacher, but maybe less than a God, and a human spiritual leader from years ago. But to understand who Jesus is in his unveiled glory, it completely paints a different picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. I remember when I came to the faith in my twenties and I began to understand that I didn't understand who this Jesus was. And I remember the first time my wife and I sat and read the book of Revelation and where Jesus is returning in incredible glory with his holy angels. And I thought, this is not the Jesus that I saw in the Christmas specials. But it's the biblical true Lord who we worship that's being portrayed here. Another little place we can go to get a little insight into the radiance of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ is the story of Saul's conversion. And so in Acts 22, Saul, who became the apostle Paul, retold that conversion story over and over in the book of Acts, as he was before different people. So in Acts 22.6, he says, Now, it happened as I journeyed and came near Damascus at about noon, suddenly a great light from heaven shone around me. Now, when he retells that in chapter 26, four chapters later, he says, at midday, O king, along the road, I saw a light from heaven brighter than the sun. Put that into your mind. It's a sunny day today. Now when you're out, don't look right at the sun. But imagine the Lord Jesus coming in a brightness that's brighter than the sun that you can't even look at. Imagine that. He says, I saw a light from heaven brighter than the sun shining around me and those who journeyed with me. He says in chapter 22, those who were with me indeed saw the light, and they were afraid, rightfully so. And then it says, but they did not hear the voice of him who spoke to me. Jesus didn't have a message for the others. He had a message for Saul. Why are you persecuting me? Who are you, Lord? I'm the Lord Jesus whom you're persecuting. In chapter 22 of Acts, verse 11, Listen to how he phrases this. He says, if you remember, Saul, who was converted, became Paul, was blinded for a time. And it says in Acts 22.11, he says, and since I could not see for the glory of that light, It was the glory of that light that lost my sight. I could not see for the glory of that light. And then he said, I was led by hand by those who were with me and I came into Damascus. So that gives you a little bit of a hint or a little bit more of an insight into this experience on the mountain, the holy mountain, where this transfiguration takes place. Not an easy read, but I'll prescribe to you John Owens, who I actually do like to read. He's very methodical in his writings. He's very much outline-driven. He'll have just very logical outlines to every book I've ever read by him. But he has a book called The Glory of Christ. The entire book is nothing except really expounding on what we're talking about today, the radiant glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. I'll read two quotes from him, one here and one a little bit. They're not the easiest quotes to understand, so kind of listen in. But Owens writes, For no present grace, advanced unto the highest degree whereof in this world it is capable, can make us meet, and that's an old way of saying make us fitting or prepared, can make us meet for an immediate converse with Christ in his unveiled glory. In other words, he's saying there's no way we can prepare ourselves and actually go and see the absolute unveiled glory of Christ, can't be done. He says, how much more abominable is the folly of men who would represent the Lord Christ in his present glory by pictures and images of him? When they have done their utmost with their burnished glass and gildings, an eye of flesh cannot only behold it, but if it be guided by reason, see it as contemptible and foolish. In other words, anybody would try to do a painting of the glorified Christ, you can look right at it. He says, that's not the glorified Christ. He says, but the true glory of Christ, neither inward nor outward sight can bear the rays of it in this life. So whatever these three experienced in the glory of Christ shining through in the transfiguration, it had to have been somewhat limited, or else they would have been blinded by it. They would have been just engulfed by it, really incinerated by it. So to be in the presence of Christ in his unveiled glory, that is the longing of every true converted Christian. Our longing is to see Jesus in his unveiled glory, what the old theologians used to call the beatific vision, when we see him as he really is. In John 17, Jesus prayed for this for you and for me. Jesus prayed to the Father and said, Father, I desire that they also whom you gave me may be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which you have given me. For you loved me before the foundation of the world." So that's been prayed for and that prayer will be answered one day. You will see the unveiled glory of the radiance and the holiness of the Lord Jesus Christ whom we serve. John touches into that a little bit when he writes his epistle first, John, in chapter 3 verse 2, where he says, Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when he is revealed, We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. That day is coming for us, beloved. And that should be the most exciting day on your calendar. We got little trips planned, that's nothing. To see Jesus in his unveiled glory. Now I told you I was gonna read two quotes from John Owens. This is the second one, and I think he taps into something interesting here. And again, I'll try to expound on it a little bit because it's a little old. It's a little hard to understand. But he says this. He says, there are three things to be considered concerning the glory of Christ. Three degrees in its manifestation. And here they are. The shadow, The perfect image and the substance itself. He says, those under the law, meaning Old Testament saints is what he's talking about. Those under the law had only the shadow of it and of the things that belong unto it. They had not the perfect image of them. In other words, they just had types and shadows from the Old Testament, the prophets and whatnot, that we knew that Messiah would come and he'd be like this, and there's little hints of the glory, but just they're all tied up in types and shadows. And then he says, under the gospel, that's us, Under the gospel, we have the perfect image, which they had not, or a clever, complete revelation and declaration of it, presenting it unto us as in a glass." Now what he means there is we're looking through a glass dimly. In other words, we don't see it perfectly, but we have the gospels. We know Jesus more thoroughly because we have the New Testament, and it's a clear picture, but it's in a glass. We don't see it perfectly, but we see it better than the Old Testament saints. That's kind of what he's saying there. He says, but the enjoyment of these things in their substance is reserved for heaven. We must be where he is that we may behold his glory. Now there's a greater difference and distance between the real substance of anything and the most perfect image of it than there is between the most perfect image and the lowest shadow of the same. If then they long to be freed from the state of the types and the shadows to enjoy the representation of the glory of Christ in that image, and he means the gospel, which more ought we to breathe, and here's his point, to breathe and pant after our deliverance from beholding it in the image of it, that we may enjoy the substance itself. And then he says, for whatever can be manifest of Christ on this side of heaven, it is granted unto us for this end, that we may more fervently desire to be present with him. Now, if that didn't make any sense to you, he's saying the Old Testament saints had types and shadows in the Old Testament. The New Testament saints, you and I, we've got the New Testament more clear a picture of the glories of Christ, but it's not the substance of the glory of Christ, and we'll have that when we get to glory, when we get to see Him face to face, or when He returns in His blazing glory. John Newton said, Weak is the effort of my heart, and cold my warmest thought. But when I see thee as you art, I'll praise you as I ought. Keep that in mind. We love to praise the Lord at church, and I love coming to church to praise God. He's so deserving of it. But wait till we see him face to face. You know, and Jesus in his radiance, in his glory, in his holiness. Remember John, for instance, as an example. John was the beloved disciple. He liked to recline on the bosom of Jesus as they reclined at the table. But when John sees the revelation of the holiness of the unveiled glory of Christ, he falls dead at his feet in the book of Revelation. Right? So it's Jesus. He's not coming back. veiled in flesh without the glory that was somewhat hidden in his first earthly mission. So let's look at who's there. The company on the mountain. Well, we have the New Testament representatives. The apostles, Peter, James, and John, the inner three. We have Old Testament representatives. We have Moses, who would represent the law. And we have Elijah, who would represent the prophets. So we have the law and the prophets, and we have the New Testament apostles. Romans 3 says, but now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law. although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe." In other words, we couldn't keep the law. Jesus is our law keeper. He goes and dies for our sins. He's raised for our justification. We put our faith in Him and we're cloaked in that righteousness. But he does say, Paul in Romans, that the law and the prophets bear witness to it. And there they are with the Lord Jesus who's in the midst, and he's representing, if you will, the gospel of grace. So we have the law, we could not keep the prophets who kept telling us we couldn't keep the law, and we have Jesus Christ who accomplished it all for us in that glorious scene. And it is a glorious scene. Warren Wiersbe commented on this and said, the word transfigured That's in our Bible, the word transfigured. He doesn't get into this, but the original language is the word where we would get the word metamorphosis. The translators don't like using the word metamorphosis. That's like when you describe a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. They don't like using that word in the translation because there's pagan connections and understandings of that. So transfigured is what's used, at least in my translation. But anyway, Warren Wiersbe says, the word transfigured describes a change on the outside that comes from the inside. It is the opposite of masquerade, which is an outward change that does not come from within. Jesus allowed his glory to radiate through his whole being, and the mountaintop became a holy of holies." That's exactly what it became. So I told you that they wake up, and Jesus is there in his glory, and there's Moses, and there's Elijah. And they're not just like, you know, high-fiving each other or something. They're having a talk. They're having a discussion. And they kind of walk into the middle of this discussion. It's not a discussion for the apostles. Jesus is talking to Elijah and Moses about something. Well, Luke tells us in Luke 9.31, it says that, and he spoke of his decease, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. We're going to look at that original language a little bit, because it's a little clunky, isn't it? He's speaking to Elijah and Moses, and he spoke of his decease, which he was about to accomplish. It seems like that word would be, he was about to suffer, but it's not. He's about to accomplish something, but it's through whatever this decease is that he's got to go through. So he spoke of his decease, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. The ESV, English Standard, puts it this way. Instead of decease, they choose the word departure. And I'll tell you, that's probably a good translation. He spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. And the reason why is because the original word there, where it's translated in my New King James to decease, Because it is talking about his death, so that's not a bad word. But the word in the original language was the word that you're going to know, is the word exodus. He was about to accomplish exodus in Jerusalem, is really what the original language is conveying. Robertson, the Greek scholar, says, Moses had led the exodus from Egypt. Jesus will accomplish the exodus of God's people into the promised land on high. That's what Jesus was going to accomplish in his dying and in his resurrection. J.D. Jones picked up on that too. I always like to quote that old commentator. But he picked up on the same thought. This is what he said. He said, they talked of the exodus which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem. Notice the cross is not presented as a death which Christ endured, but as an exodus which he accomplished. It was not something which he suffered. It was something which he achieved. What does the very word exodus suggest? It suggests emancipation, redemption, deliverance, and that was what the cross meant. Emancipation, redemption, deliverance for a world. Christ's disciples did not understand this. The bare mention of death flung them into a panic of despair. But the saints in glory knew what the cross meant. It meant not defeat, but deliverance. By dying, Christ was to accomplish an exodus. And they came and talked with Jesus about it. Peter and the rest would fain keep Jesus from the cross. To them it meant the overthrow of all their hopes. Moses and Elijah knew better. They came down to strengthen Christ's hands in God. They talked about the exodus, the great deliverance he was to accomplish at Jerusalem. And that's why I started off telling you there is a time connection of this is about a week later after Peter, being the spokesman for the group, said, this shall not happen. This is not your destiny, not the cross. We won't permit it. And now, here Jesus is with two Old Testament saints, and I believe that's exactly what's going on in that discussion, is they understand now in their perfected state, from glory, that now they understand and they're encouraging Jesus, because they know what Jesus is going to accomplish, even though it's through suffering, even though he really does endure I know where J.D. Jones was going, but he doesn't endure the shame of the cross, because he knows what's coming beyond it. But Jesus knows it's truly His working, the ultimate exodus, of not leading His people out of Egypt, but leading us out of bondage and sin into glory. And that's what Jesus is accomplishing. Peter, understandably, maybe I would have stumbled around with the same language. He doesn't want it to end, does he? Peter answered and said to Jesus, Rabbi, it's good for us to be here. Let's make three tabernacles. One for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah. Because he didn't know what to say, for they were all greatly afraid. He's stammering. He's just spitting out words. He doesn't even know what he's saying is what the Bible is saying there. But I understand that. Let's just hang on to this. The Feast of Tabernacles is coming up. Let's just do it right here. We don't have to come down off this mountain. And isn't that how we are? You ever have a mountain experience with the Lord? You're on your way to a retreat and you just don't want it to end. But we all have to come down off the mountain eventually. And that's what he's going to do. Before he does, though, you have this voice from the cloud. Mark 9, 7 says, and a cloud came and overshadowed them. Had to be the Shekinah glory, right? And the voice came out of the cloud saying, this is my beloved son, hear him. Matthew records the more fully, Matthew 17, 5. This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased, hear him. hear Him, listen to Him, right? They're terrified. They went from being somewhat scared to being terrified in the cloud. And they identify who Jesus is. This proclamation of identification, this is my beloved Son. That's who this is, who stands before you radiant in your presence. That's my Son. The affirmation that the father is well pleased in the son because of who the son is and because of his perfect obedience to the father. And then he commands them to listen to him. Now, think about that with what just transpired a week ago where they didn't want to listen to him. He spoke plainly about his coming death. They didn't want to hear anything of it. And now the father says, listen to him. He's here talking to Moses, Elijah about his coming death. Listen to him. Don't put that aside. Listen to what he has to say, right? And then the silence. You ever have to keep a secret? Pastors have to keep all kinds of secrets. You better be a good secret keeper if you're a pastor. Because people confide in you. And you have to be above board with that and say, no, that's between us. I won't share that with anybody. Listen to what they have to keep secret. How hard would that be? Verse 9 of Mark 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. So they kept this word to themselves and they didn't understand. So is this a parable? What does he mean by rising from the dead? Is some parable about something that's going to happen? But they keep the story to themselves. Remember in John's gospel, the ministry of the Holy Spirit was part of the description of the ministry of the Spirit in the lives of the apostles. He would bring back to remembrance all that Jesus did and said. And I doubt if they ever forgot this experience. But I think, would they remember that he said, you could reveal it after I've risen from the dead? But I believe when the Spirit was poured out, if they didn't remember that, they remembered it then, as God was guiding them to write the Gospels. And they remembered, oh, we can share this now. You know what happened? Oh, we wanted to tell you so bad, but he said not to tell anybody yet. What a difficult thing that would have been, not to share that with anybody. But listen to what happens later. This is later with John and what Peter will write. So with all that thought, listen to how John describes this later, after the resurrection, when he writes the gospel to John. He says in John 1, beginning of verse 10, speaking of Jesus, says, he was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him, but as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh. and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." I think as long as John lived, when he would tell somebody about his experience, I think Peter too, you know me, I'm always playing the movie in my head, but I think if you had been there, just you and John, just like, tell me about this amount of transfiguration, I think John's eyes would have kind of glassed over, he would have been looking not at you anymore, He would have been looking back in his mind at the memory of what he experienced. And you'd see his eyes kind of looking up to the trees or someplace. And he would say, we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father. Never got over that. Never got over that. And Peter's the same. Listen to what Peter writes later on in 2 Peter, his second epistle. He says in chapter one, verse 16, speaking of the gospel, he says, for we did not follow cunningly devised fables. We made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. What's he talking about there? He's talking about the Mount of Transfiguration. We were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when such a voice came to him from the excellent glory. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And we heard this voice, which came from heaven, when we were with him on the holy mountain. Now it's the holy mountain. Because God was manifest on that mountain. Honor was bestowed. Because of Jesus' perfect obedience, glory was revealed. It's inherent in the Savior. And then they go on logically. They have a question. And I'll read the passage, but think of it this way. They're asking a question about the timing of things, the sequence of things. So listen to what they say. It says, they asked him. Saying, why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first? Do you see that? It's a sequence question. Because what did they experience? Well, they experienced Jesus coming first. The Messiah came first. Jesus is announcing the kingdom has come. It's upon you. And now later, after a couple years of ministry, now Elijah's here. And we've experienced Elijah. Why do they say that Elijah had to come first sequentially? And so Jesus answers and says, indeed, Elijah is coming first. In other words, they were right. He comes first and he restores all things. And how it is written concerning the Son of Man that he must suffer many things and be treated with contempt. But I say to you that Elijah has also come and they did to him whatever they wished as it is written of him. So the scribes taught this because of Malachi 4 verse 5 where it says, Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. First Elijah, then the kingdom. But what do we see here? Jesus comes and then they see Elijah. So Jesus says here he came. Here he came and they did whatever they wanted to him. Sinful men did whatever they wanted to him is what he's saying. The disciples understood, Mark doesn't tell us this, but Matthew says very clearly, when Jesus taught this, it says Matthew 17, 13, then the disciples understood that he spoke to them of John the Baptist. John the Baptist was not the physical manifestation of the return of Elijah. He had the spirit of Elijah on him. And that's what's prophesied in Luke 1.17. He'll go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah. The prophecy about John the Baptist. He'll go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah. to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just. In other words, he's going to preach repentance. They're going to come to the Jordan and be baptized. So he explains that he did come. And then the last thing is this cryptic foretelling about suffering. He goes right back to that subject. He says that it's written of the son of man. He turns right to that, how it is written concerning the son of man that he must, there's that language again, He must suffer many things and be treated with contempt. And he links that to saying, just as it is in writing, that they were going to do whatever they wanted to the forerunner, to John. In other words, what Jesus is saying, kind of cryptically, is they killed John, and he was beheaded, and I'm about to go to Jerusalem to also lay down my life as a sacrifice and be killed. Last quote, and then I'll wrap up. R.C. Sproul says, here then was another reminder that the glorious Lord the disciples had seen on the mountain was about to undergo great agony and distress. Before exaltation, there would be deep humiliation. Let's close with that for today. Our Father and our God, we thank you for your word. Lord, thank you for this incredible historical account, this eyewitness account of the transfiguration. Lord, it gives us a little bit of a foretaste of what's in store for every believer when we see you face to face, Lord Jesus, when we see you in your absolute, unveiled, radiant glory. And Lord, every believer longs for that. And we thank you, Lord. As we wait that day, give us grace to live out this life in a way that honors you. In Jesus' name, amen. Remember, there's a meal downstairs ready for you. So please, if you can say, do so. And I'll pronounce God's benediction over you. And then maybe after that, Paul, can you pray for the food? The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Go in the peace of Christ Jesus to a world that desperately needs to hear the gospel. Paul? Father, we thank you for this message that we've heard today. We thank you for the fellowship that we have. And the fellowship we will have dining together downstairs. Bless the food to our bodies and bless the hands that have prepared it. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.