Alright, Mark 9, verses 1-8. And he said to them, truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power. And after six days, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them. And his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. And Peter said to Jesus, Rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah. For he did not know what to say, for they were terrified. And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, this is my beloved son, listen to him. And suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them, but Jesus only. Thus ends the reading of God's infallible, inerrant, and life-giving word. Let us pray. We thank you, Father, for this word that you have by your Spirit given to us and preserved for us. We pray that even now you would use me, that I might speak it and explain it and apply it faithfully, accurately, and clearly to the hearers, and also that you would, by your spirit, attend to the preaching of the word and cause it to have entrance into their hearts, and that it might take root there and grow and bear much fruit. And we pray and ask this for the glory of Christ, which we so clearly see in this text. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. you may be seated. Well, it's a delight to be back with you. Not quite as delightful as if the youngest Mr. Irati had made an appearance, but a delight nonetheless. I'm sure you're all looking forward to meeting him. I think Jason kept him tucked away so that I couldn't preach his first sermon, but in any case. Well, years ago, and many of you know my wife Janice, my daughter Katie is with us, I dragged my wife to a debate that she wasn't overly excited to attend. It was going to be a debate between a Christian and an atheist. And my wife doesn't have as much toleration for the blasphemy that is usually uttered by atheists as I apparently do. And I dragged her to this debate. She was pregnant with our daughter Katie. And in that debate, one of the things that the atheist was saying was he was quoting a number of passages from the Old Testament that he said make God appear to be bombastic. You can think of passages with me that he might have thought of, and he was saying things like, I, even I, am the Lord, Deuteronomy 32. Or, I am the Lord, therefore do this. And to him, these things appeared bombastic. They appeared to suggest that God had an over-inflated view of himself. Well, when the Christian had opportunity to reply to this, he rhetorically quipped, as you might imagine he would have, who does God think he is? Who does God think he is to speak this way? And, of course, what he is referring to is the fact that God is God. God is the majestic and glorious One who, as the exalted and majestic Lord, has the inherent authority and right to command us, angels, every other creature, to do whatever it is that He is pleased to require of us. In fact, our confession uses almost that language. Because He is God, He has the right and authority to command us. Well, in our text this morning, we're going to see much the same thing with respect to our Lord Jesus. In fact, it's very providential that you guys are currently looking at the section of the Confession that you are looking at. Today, we're going to see the glory of Christ's person, His essential unity or oneness with the Father, and therefore, the consequent necessity of listening to Him as we would listen to the Father. We're going to see that under three points. First, in verses 1 through 3, we're going to see the glory of Christ unveiled. In verses 4 through 6, we're going to see the superiority of His glory. And then in verses 7 and 8, we're going to see the sufficiency or exclusivity of His glory. And so I hope you'll have your text open this morning and follow along with me. Well, in order to see what purpose this revelation of Christ's glory was to serve for the disciples and then also how it is intended to function for us, we need to understand what has come before. What is this given in response to? Because my argument will be that it's a response to something. This is something that's being done for a reason, and it's related to what has just been said in the context. If you look back across the page from Mark 9 to Mark 8, you'll see that we're told there the great account of Peter's confession. Peter has just made the good confession that Jesus is the Christ. In fact, I saw on the sign out front, it has the question there that Peter was asked, who do you say that I am? And Peter has just been asked that question, and so have the other disciples, and speaking on their behalf, Peter says, you are the Christ. Now you might remember from Matthew's Gospel that he gives us a fuller account of this. Mark is much briefer. He's a lot more interested in getting to the point and getting us to the great conclusion that he's trying to work towards. But in Matthew's fuller account, Jesus says, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And then Jesus blessed Peter's insight and faith as given by his heavenly Father. But we quickly see, not only in Matthew and Luke, but also in Mark in our text, or at least in Mark 8, that Peter's insight and faith was as yet imperfect. Peter did not yet fully understand the full implications of what it meant to say that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. And so when Jesus begins to elucidate that, when he begins to explain what that means, When he goes beyond what the Jews had at that time proclaimed concerning the Messiah, and begins to expound the Old Testament Scriptures, he tells them that he is going to suffer and die in Jerusalem. And this, as you see in Mark 8, is a stumbling block to Peter. In Peter's mind, all he understood was that the Messiah was going to reign in glory. He was going to usher in a glorious kingdom, and everyone was going to submit to him. And those who refused would ultimately be destroyed by his wrath. But Jesus tells Peter that he is going to suffer, he is going to die before he enters into his glory. What Peter didn't understand and what the Jews of his time didn't understand is that unless Christ suffers and dies, not only would he not enter into his glory, which was the agreement made between him and the Father in eternity, that he would give himself as a ransom, but unless he did that, then we couldn't enter into glory either. Our glory was bound up with his accomplishment of his work. Unless Jesus died, then that righteous kingdom would not be good news to sinners. It would spell our destruction. This is what Paul says in his comments to the Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul says, Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. You get the point that Paul is trying to be somewhat exhaustive here, but even then, Paul has not filled out everything that he could have said. But Paul says quite pointedly, the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom. In other words, apart from the good news, the gospel of the kingdom, the kingdom itself is not good news. And thankfully, because Christ did die, because Christ did suffer, Paul could go on to say immediately after that, but such were some of you. but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God." And that's essentially what Jesus is telling Peter in Mark 8. Well, because Peter and the other disciples have had their faith shaken by this reference to the fact that Jesus is going to suffer, Jesus goes on in the context to affirm for them that he is going to reign in glory, consequent upon his suffering. You can see it there in Mark 8.38, but he tells them that they're going to have to be willing to suffer shame and reproach and suffering along with him, on account of him, for his namesake. He says in 8.38, And I'm here using the NAS. I've neglected to recall that you guys typically use the ESV as your pew Bible, but in the NAS it says, For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father and the Holy Angel. So he will come in glory. Well, this brings us to verse 1 of our context. which I'll submit to you is something of a hinge between what has just been said and what's going to be said. Jesus, in verse 1, calls our attention to the importance of this verse. The word truly, which begins the verse, indicates its certainty and its importance. So, we need to pay attention to this statement of Jesus. Jesus said, Well, what is Jesus referring to here? Well, remember in the context, and this might be surprising to some of you, but it's not an overly common interpretation today, but I would argue, and I'm going to argue, that it's the only one that does justice to the text and context. The only one that's faithful to the words of Jesus and doesn't try to squirm around them and do something with them that fits in better with popular thinking. But this thinking goes back to the Puritans, to our Reformed forefathers. and so it has a strong pedigree in our tradition. But more than that, I think it's the teaching of Scripture. Notice that Jesus in verse 38 had just said that His words have particular relevance to that generation. Jesus said that this sinful and adulterous generation, right, in verse 38. And then in verse 1, He says, Truly I say to you, some of those standing here will not taste death. Well, what is Jesus referring to? What Jesus is referring to here is the coming destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. In AD 70, the kingdom of God would visibly demonstrate itself with the destruction of Jerusalem that Jesus had ascended to the throne and was reigning at the right hand of the Father. And this is exactly what Jesus said in Mark 13. Remember in Mark 13, the apostles come to Jesus and they point out the temple and its buildings to Him? And they say, look at how beautiful all this is, look at how magnificent this is. And Jesus, well aware that all of that served as a picture of the reality that was being fulfilled in Him, told them that that entire glorious edifice that they had been pointing to and they were marveling in was going to be destroyed. Because Jesus was going to die on the cross, it was going to serve its purpose and no longer serve any need for the people of God. So Jesus goes on in the context to tell them that whole thing is going to be torn down. Not one stone here will be left on top of another. And then this is what He says later in the chapter. He says, "...at that time they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with power and great glory." And then he goes on to say, all these things shall come upon this generation. Now, some people have trouble with interpreting this as a reference to the coming of Jesus because they think it demands that the people literally would have seen Him. Even though throughout the Old Testament, the Old Testament, there's only one, throughout the Old Testament, The coming of God in judgment is often spoken of in this same way. You can look later, we won't turn there now, but you can look later at Isaiah 19, where it says that when God was going to come and judge Egypt, something that took place in the past, it says that He was going to ride upon the clouds and come into Egypt, and they would be struck by His majesty and glory, and their hearts would melt within them. Well, God wasn't literally riding on a cloud into Egypt. The Egyptians didn't literally see him. Their hearts didn't literally melt like wax. This is apocalyptic language, figurative language, that refers to God's providential activity and judgment in overthrowing men and nations. Now, what's interesting is what we find so difficult sometimes to recognize is actually what the Jews understood when these things were taking place at the destruction of Jerusalem. I would encourage you all, I mentioned the other night to Joseph Dykes, I was going to mention Josephus in the sermon, I was trying to encourage him to read it, because we don't read it as much today and what we don't realize is that Josephus, who was an eyewitness to Jerusalem's destruction, an unbelieving Jew, wrote what was really an unwitting commentary on the fulfillment of our Lord's prediction. When you read Josephus' commentary on the destruction of Jerusalem, it reads like he's going line by line through Mark 13 or Matthew 24 or Luke 21. I'm going to relate to you just one example of this from Josephus that most people don't know about. Josephus describes that when the Romans surrounded Jerusalem, One of the things they were doing was they were setting up their catapults, their engines as he calls them. And they were going to shoot from these catapults massive stones, white stones in fact. And he tells us that these stones were so white that when they went through the sky they let off a kind of brilliance, a magnificence that people would look at and marvel at. In addition, these stones weighed a hundred pounds. And so he said that when these stones flew through the sky, they let off a terrible sound, and the people could hear them from afar off and then see it and be terrified even before it struck. But here's what's most interesting. Josephus tells us that when the first of these great stones was being hurled from the catapults, that the watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem began to cry out and warn the people below, and here's what they were saying. The sun is coming. The Son is coming. S-O-N. The Jews on the wall interpreted this. Remember, they had the words of Christ and the apostles ringing in their ears. They had the words of Christ spoken not only to the disciples on the Mount of Olives, but to the Sanhedrin. What did Jesus say to the Sanhedrin when the high priest said, I adjure you by the living God, tell us whether you are the Christ or not. What did Jesus say? I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Taur and coming on the clouds of heaven." Jesus told them they were going to see this. They were going to see the terrible display of His outpoured wrath against them, demonstrating that He was reigning at God's right hand and at the wheel of providence. Well, you might be wondering what all of this has to do with the Transfiguration. Well, Jesus obviously thought it had something to do with it, so you can be assured that it does. Well, essentially what Jesus is doing is the disciples have just been told that he's going to suffer, and this is a stumbling block to their confidence in him as the one who will reign in glory. And so Jesus has just affirmed that he is going to reign in glory, and then told them that some of them are even going to be alive to witness the powerful display of this in Jerusalem's destruction. And so what Jesus is doing on the Mount of Transfiguration is He's giving them an advanced glimpse of His glory. He's pulling back the veil. He's showing them the glory that has always been His as the Son of God, and the glory that will also be on full display in the future to the disciples. Now this also has relevance for us, by the way. What Jesus is doing is he's providing for them the very encouragement and support they will need in order to bear up under sufferings. And just like Jerusalem will lay ahead of them, so ahead of us lies a much greater day than Jerusalem's destruction, the great day of God's final judgment, when the Lord Jesus comes from heaven to be gloried at and gloried in by all of his saints. And so even as we, like the disciples, live between these two periods when our Lord has come and will come, so we are to look to his glory and, in light of it, bear up under suffering. Pastor Roddy in his sermon made allusion to Paul's statement. In fact, if I can splice several of them together, Paul teaches us that we can Consider our trials even now as light, momentary, inconsequential, in light of the eternal weight of glory that is ours in Christ. There isn't anything that we're suffering in this life that won't be overabundantly compensated in the life to come. And when we look back on all of this, we'll see it in the light of glory. will continually and eternally praise the Lord Jesus for it. Well, that then brings us to the revelation of His glory in verses 2 and 3. In verses 2 and 3, we're told that Jesus took Peter, James, and John, that inner circle of disciples, up the mountain with Him. And there He was transfigured before them. The word for transfigured is the word from which we get metamorphosis. It means that His form, His outward appearance changed. His outward appearance changed and showed them that form that had always characterized him as the eternal Son of God, the one who was with the Father in eternal glory. And it also reminds us, by the way, of the great condescension of the Lord Jesus, the one who dwelt in eternal glory even before going to the cross, which was an even further humiliation, but even in clothing himself in our flesh had taken an incredible step down. But the root of this word that Mark uses is the same word that Paul uses in Philippians 2, another passage Pastor Roddy made allusion to. It's almost as if he was reading my mind. In Philippians 2, Paul, speaking of Jesus, said, Although existing in the form of God, he took upon the form of a servant. It's the same term. So here Jesus is revealing to his disciples that form that was his from all eternity. There's a beautiful picture of this in John 13. I think we often miss it. But you'll all recall the event where Jesus took off his outer garments and then wrapped himself with a towel and proceeded to wash the disciples' feet. Well, that wasn't just a nice story to tell or something to do. Jesus was illustrating something. And John doesn't leave us questioning what Jesus was doing. Here's what John says in the first verse of John 13 before he recounts this. Here's what was on Jesus' mind. Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come forth from God, and was going back to God, got up from the supper, and laid aside his garments, and taking his towel, he girded himself. In other words, what Jesus was doing was illustrating before the disciples what he had done for them in becoming incarnate. In leaving the presence of the Father and coming to earth, he laid aside his outer garments, if you will, the outward appearance of his glory, and he took on the form of a servant. He came as a real human being. And that's what this text, again, is a reminder of. It shows us that Jesus is inherently glorious. and what he did for us in clothing himself in our nature. This point is further borne out, by the way, in the fact that we're also told that his garments were changed before then. His garments were changed. His garments were radiant and intensely white, as it says in the ESV. What the disciples saw is essentially that which Isaiah saw in his great temple vision. Remember when Isaiah describes the vision that he had of God in Isaiah 6, he says, I saw the Lord seated in the temple and the train of His robe was filling the temple. And then the seraphim in response began to cry out, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of His glory. His glory. In fact, in John 12, before the incident I just talked about, the foot-washing incident, John actually tells us that Isaiah saw the glory of Christ. It was Christ's glory that he saw. And here on the mountain, that's what Peter, James, and John are seeing. And the conclusion that they should have reached is that Jesus is not just the greatest prophet who had ever come, not just perhaps the whittled down or watered down version of the Christ that they had always understood from their Jewish background, but that he is all that the Old Testament said he would be, eternal God, very God. Isaiah 9, 6 said that the child who would be born would be mighty God. The Old Testament Scriptures taught them to anticipate this, and this is what the disciples should have realized. Now, they may well have realized it at this point, but we're told that Peter, in the next verse, says something that's entirely inconsistent with it. And it may just be, as Mark says, because he was fearful. He doesn't know what to say. He's blurting this out, you know. He's in the presence of this glory of Christ. And even the company of Elijah and Moses, and so he blurts out just something to say. I'm sure we've all done this on occasion. I've done it more than my fair share of times. But Peter on this occasion in fear blurts this out. Well, what we see in this section is not just the glory of Christ, but the superiority of it. This section drives that point home, verses 4 through 6. Because here we have Elijah and Moses appear with Jesus, two of the greatest Old Testament saints. In fact, one thing that points up their greatness is many people think that miracles were just happening all over the place in Old Testament times. And our times are unusual. We don't see miracles unless you're believing in the false hysteria of some of the TV evangelists. But we don't see those things and we kind of assume that this was just a commonplace in the Bible, but it really wasn't. There are only two great periods in the Old Testament where we see miracles being done on any kind of widespread scale, and that's during the period of Moses, with whom we might connect Joshua as a unit, and then the ministry of Elijah and Elisha, those two prophets that succeeded each other. That's it. We don't see miracles all over the place. It was isolated to those two great periods. And so these are, no doubt, two of the greatest prophets of the Old Testament. And they appear here, and no doubt, having just come from the presence of the Father, they would have been glorious as well. They were in the presence of the Father. Remember when Moses was on the mountain and spoke face-to-face with God, Moses was glorious. He came down, he had to cover his face before the children of Israel, who were terrified by the sight of it. Terrified by the sight, by the way, don't miss the connection. So they were no doubt glorious, but Mark says nothing here of their glory. And obviously he's drawing a contrast. Many people think that the reason Elijah and Moses appear here is to make a comparison between Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. But notice, that's the very mistake that Peter makes. Peter says, Lord, let's set up three tabernacles. One for you, one for Elijah, and one for Moses. And then Mark tells us he said this because he was afraid. And the point is, he was wrong. This is mistaken. They're not equal. We don't need three tabernacles. Why don't we need three tabernacles? Because the true tabernacle was already in their midst. Again, Pastorati this morning made reference to John 1.14 where it says, The word became flesh and dwelt among us. The literal word there is tabernacle. The word tabernacle, among us. That's the great message. That's why Jesus, throughout John's gospel, begins to compare himself to the temple. And says that he is the replacement of it. The fulfillment and replacement of it. Remember in John 2, Jesus said, destroy this temple, and in three days I'll raise it up. He was referring to the temple of his body. That's the true temple. That's what the temple was pointing to. John 4, he says the same thing to the Samaritan woman. Remember, she said, which mountain are we supposed to worship on? Jews say it's over here in Jerusalem. But my fathers, the Samaritans, say this. It's supposed to be over here in Gerizim. And Jesus said, woman, an hour is coming, and now is when true worshipers will worship the Father and Spirit and truth. Not on this mountain or that mountain. That's going to be irrelevant. And that's because I am the embodiment of everything that the temple points to. So this text teaches us the superiority of Christ's glory. And not only that, by the way, as an aside, this is one of those great texts that teach us that saints, between death and the resurrection, have not been annihilated. They're not in a state of unconscious sleep. Here's Elijah and Moses, long since physically dead, appearing with Jesus. They're alive. So when those people that come knocking on your door, don't be naive, by the way. So many people think that they're nice people, they're dressed in suits, and they can't be wrong. I had a lady once when I was in Utah, and I was talking to people about Christ and the fact that Mormonism, following Joseph Smith, has corrupted what Christ said about himself. And the lady pulled out of her wallet a picture of Joseph Smith, and she says, but just look at that face. Just look at that face. And I couldn't believe my ears, but she was saying to me that he, how could that guy be a deceiver? He looked so nice. And by the way, the Mormon Church has doctored the image of Joseph Smith. They actually have changed the way he looked, and the pictures make him look much more handsome. But in any case, that's not a basis for believing anyone. And people who come to your door are not going to announce themselves as cultists who are peddling heresy, who have corrupted the teachings of the Lord Jesus. That's not how it works. That's not a good sales pitch. But when they come to your door and they tell you that there's no awareness between death and the resurrection, they're not telling you the biblical truth. The truth is that people are alive during death and the resurrection. Well, before we turn to verses 7 and 8 and see the sufficiency of the Son's glory, I want you to notice something that should have already occurred to you, that feeds into all of this. All of this is, and would have been, a reminder to the disciples of events that were well known to them. And this is what leads some people to make the mistake that Jesus is being equated with Moses and Elijah. In the Old Testament, for example, the two great figures who had great theophanic experiences, meaning encounters with God, were Elijah and Moses. And they both had these experiences on a mountain. Remember in 1 Kings 19, God appeared to Elijah. In Exodus 24 and many other places, He also appeared to Moses. And what's interesting is we're told that He appeared to Moses after six days. The glory cloud came down. Here we're told that it's after six days that Jesus leads them up the mountain, and this happens. But what's interesting, and this is what shows that it's not making a simple comparison between Jesus and Moses, is the fact that Jesus is transfigured before the cloud comes down on the mountain. Did you notice that? In verses 2 and 3, Jesus is transfigured before the glory cow comes. Which means that this isn't simply Jesus reflecting the glory of God like Moses was, but Jesus is the glory of God. As the author of Hebrews says, He is the radiance of God's glory. The exact representation of His nature. One essence with the Father. One substance with Him. But I want you to turn to Exodus 24 because there's something very interesting. I want you to turn there and notice an interesting statement. This was actually observed by ancient Jews. You can find this in Jewish writings. If you're interested in this further, you can ask me afterwards. But Jews, in reflecting on Exodus 24, verse 1, had a problem, especially in light of Christianity. Here's what it says, then he said to Moses, come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and 70 of the elders of Israel. Notice, by the way, that there's three people in particular who are especially said to be going up the mountain with Moses, just like Peter, James, and John with Jesus. But did you notice here that Moses is told to come up the mountain to the Lord, to Yahweh? Well, where's the problem, you might ask? Why might a Jew stumble over this? Well, because it's the Lord who's speaking. In context, the Lord is the one telling Moses, come up the mountain. So why does he refer to the Lord in the third person? Come up the mountain to Jehovah. Now, somebody might say, well, this is not uncommon. People can refer to themselves in the third person. Well, but here's why it was so difficult. Turn back in Exodus 23. In Exodus 23, right before this event, where Moses is called up the mountain to meet Yahweh, this is what the Lord says. Behold, I send an angel before you. And here you have to realize that the word angel just means messenger. It doesn't necessarily refer to a heavenly being. to one of the created angels. It's often used for human beings, in fact. John the Baptist is referred to as a messenger in the book of Malachi. I'll send my messenger before your face. The word messenger is the word angel. The word translated angel. So it doesn't tell us what kind of beings in view. But here's what it says, "...Behold, I send a messenger before you to guard you on the way, and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. Pay careful attention to him, and obey his voice. Do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him." This messenger who would prepare the way for Israel is said to bear God's very name and have the authority to forgive or not the transgression of the sins of Israel. He's going to lead them into the promised land. This is that same angel who appeared to Moses in the burning bush. If you go back to Exodus 3, you'll see that it says that the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in flames of fire in the bush. And then God called out to him from the bush. And did you notice, by the way, that it says, pay careful attention to him and obey his voice? The literal Hebrew here, especially when translated into Greek, is identical to what you read in Mark 9. Listen to him. Listen to his voice. Essentially what's happening then in Mark 9 is Jesus is being identified as the very God who appeared to Moses. The very God who appeared to Elijah. And hence his glory and person is superior to Elijah and Moses. Jesus is not to be put on equal footing with them or anyone else. Well, that brings us then to verses 7 and 8. And this is in direct response to the fearful statement of Peter. Peter has just said, let's build three tabernacles for all of you guys. And then we have the Father coming and it says, then a cloud formed overshadowing them and a voice came out of the cloud, This is my beloved Son. Listen to Him. Listen to Him. This is my Son. And all at once they looked around and saw no one with them anymore except Jesus alone. By the way, notice that the Father coming in a cloud was not seen by the disciples. The disciples don't see Him. They hear His voice, but they don't see His form. The same thing that happened for the nation of Israel when God appeared and spoke the law to them. They heard the law, they heard God speaking from the mountain, but were explicitly told they saw no form. Well, the point of the father's words is to identify Jesus as his son. To identify Jesus, not Moses, not Elijah, and if not Moses and Elijah, then certainly not anyone else as his son. His true son. His proper son. Not his son by adoption, as we are. Not his son by redemption, as we are. But his son, his eternal son, his essential son, the one who had been with him forever. The One who condescended to be with us and did so for us. Well, this shows us not only the superiority of the Son's glory, it also shows us its sufficiency. Since Jesus is the embodiment of God, we don't need anything beyond Him. There's nothing more that we need beyond Jesus. Otherwise, we're saying that we need to make three tabernacles. One for Moses, one for Elijah, and one for Jesus. Now remember the words that Jesus said to Philip. Remember in John 14? Philip said, after Jesus said, I'm going back to the Father. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. Philip said, Lord, show us the Father and that will be sufficient for us. Sufficient for us. In other words, you're great, we're happy you were here, but show us the Father and that will be sufficient. We lack something. And how did Jesus reply? Have I been with you so long, Philip, and you don't know me? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How then can you say, show us the Father? He who has seen me has seen the Father, because Jesus is one essence, one substance with the Father. And this is similar to the whole point that the author of Hebrews is making. Remember, in fact, in the book of Hebrews, what's going on? In the book of Hebrews, The Jews living towards the end of that generation, towards the end of that period during which Jesus said he was going to visibly display his glory in the destruction of Jerusalem, well Jerusalem is still standing. And they see the pomp going on, the ritual, everything happening, and the Jews are probably rubbing it in their face. But where is this Jesus who said he was going to destroy the temple? Where is this destruction that was being spoken of? And the disciples, or the early Christians, were being tempted to go back to Judaism. Go back to those things. And what does the author of Hebrews say? Jesus is superior to all of that. And Jesus is sufficient. Don't go back to that. That was just pointing to Jesus. That's a type in the shadow of things to come. There's nothing to go to there. Jesus is the embodiment of it. And not only that, the author of Hebrews says it's about to disappear. In Hebrews 8.13, he says that's all going to disappear in a short while. Well, that's why the author of Hebrews begins the book by saying this. In the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets. Prophets like Moses and Elijah. But in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son. Not just his son speaking through people like Moses and Elijah, but now speaking to us directly, in his own person. He appeared among us. And that's why the author of Hebrews says that we don't need anything beyond him. He is sufficient for us. But the author of Hebrews goes on to do something else. And I'm going to submit to you that this is also what's going on in Mark 9. The author of Hebrews goes on to say the Son is superior and sufficient not only because He is the exact representation of God. It says, God in the past spoke to our forefathers by the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He's spoken to us by His Son. who is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His nature. He goes on to say, when He had provided purification for sins, when He had provided an all-sufficient basis for salvation, atonement, it says He sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven. In other words, the Son is sufficient not simply because He is all that the Father is, but because He provided true atonement that which is necessary and sufficient for our salvation. Well, I don't have the time to unpack it now, but I told you this is also what's in view in Mark, or at least it's hinted at. But if you come back this evening, let this be an incentive and encouragement to you, you'll get the fuller account of this, the fuller explanation. But what the Father says here is not just that Jesus is His Son, He calls Him His Beloved Son. Which means not only that Jesus is the eternal object of the Father's delight, the one in whom all His favor rests, and then also everyone who's in him is also a participant in that grace and favor. Jesus refers to him not just as the object of the Father's delight, but it's a term used throughout the Old Testament in a special way. It's a term that always points to someone who has either... he's the special son of his Father who has either died or is about to die. And the Father is hinting at that right here. I won't say too much regarding that because I want you to come back this evening and hear it, but what this points to is that there's coming a day when Jesus, even as he said to the disciples, was going to trade that glory that they see here on the mountain for shame as he suffers crucifixion on a hill. His garments that are here, changed along with him, are going to be exchanged for bloody garments on that same hill. The same Jesus who is here in the presence of two glorious figures, Moses and Elijah, is going to trade them out for two malefactors at his side, both of whom curse him, though happily, by God's grace, one later repents and confesses Jesus. But the same Jesus who is here, overshadowed along with the disciples by the majestic glory of the Father, and is even shining for His own glory, is going to be on the cross as the heavens go dark, showing the disfavor of the Father. That same Jesus, whom the Father here honors with this great declaration, as Peter tells us. He mentions the transfiguration in 2 Peter chapter 1. He says, God the Father here honors the Lord Jesus in our presence. That same Jesus is going on the cross to say, in the absence of any voice of the Father, the Father doesn't speak at all. He appears completely absent. Jesus is going to cry out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And that's what this passage points to. It points to the fact that Jesus is not only our Lord, our God, and therefore the one to be listened to, but our Redeemer, and also to be listened to for that reason. How do the Ten Commandments begin? The Ten Commandments, the preface to the Ten Commandments, remind us who God is and what He's done for us. Right? I am the Lord your God, the one who created you, brought you into existence, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, the one who redeemed you from captivity, from slavery." Well, that's essential. And remember, Moses received the Ten Commandments where? On the mountain. This is exactly what's going on here with Jesus. We're not given new commandments. We're to listen to the Son. But Jesus is being identified as both God the Creator and God the Redeemer, and therefore the one who is to be listened to for that reason. Well, I will close with this. I mentioned to you the destruction of Jerusalem before, and I hinted at the fact that this, or stated that this is, every judgment of God throughout history is a pointer, it's a small-scale picture, a reminder of that great day that's coming in the future. The day that Paul referred to as the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. That day is yet future, and it's going to make Jerusalem's destruction look like child's play. That's a day on which the wrath of God will be all the more terrible than it was on Jerusalem. And maybe you don't know how terrible Jerusalem's destruction was, but it was horrific. That's why I encourage you to read Josephus. It was a horrific form of destruction. One thing we know is that the city, just before its destruction, it was a festival occasion. And so Jews from all over the empire were flooding into it. And it's like Jerusalem was being fattened up for the slaughter. But Jews from all over, so it was swelling with people more than normal. There were over a million Jews within the walls of the city. Over a million Jews perish in the conflagration. And Josephus talks about blood being up to the people's knees flowing through the city. And obviously there's some license taken there. But that's his description of it. You know who escaped that destruction? There was a group of people who escaped that destruction. Now pay attention to this because it tells you who it will be who will escape the destruction to come. Jesus, in the Olivet Discourse, warned his disciples what to look for. Remember, he gave them certain signs. He told them what was going to precede this event. And he told them when they saw this special sign, we don't have time to get into, when they saw this sign, they were to know that Jerusalem's destruction was nigh and they were to flee the city. And so Eusebius, the father of church history, actually tells us that the early Christians all escaped Jerusalem's destruction. When Jerusalem was destroyed, the only ones who escaped judgment were those who listened to the Son. The only ones who escaped Jerusalem's destruction were those who listened to the Son. Those who believed that He was the eternal and ever-glorious God, the One who had cloaked Himself in human flesh and who was therefore worthy of being heard. The same One who would also offer Himself on the cross. And so, this morning, the great exhortation that I would give to you is not only look to Christ in all suffering and remember what it is that He did for you and the glory that shall be ours in Him, but also to listen to Him. His words can be trusted, and only those who do trust them and obey them can hope for glory in Him. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you for the great depths of your condescension for us, completely undeserved by us, completely demerited by us. We thank you that you provided an atonement for us, those of us who have not listened to you as we fully ought to have done. We thank you that part of listening to your words also means listening to your promise to forgive those who come to you in faith and repentance. We pray that even now, by your spirit, you would give us grace to hate our sin, to apprehend your mercy, and turn from our sin to walk in obedience, and therefore glorify you and the Father through you. And we ask and pray this in your name. Amen. Thank you, brother.