Well, good afternoon, brothers and sisters. Such a joy to be with the people of the Lord—and the Lord whose people they are. Such a joy.
As we come to the study of God’s Word, I want to state again that principle. It is not only a principle of Bible study, but it is a principle of life that is absolutely indispensable: total reliance upon God’s Holy Spirit.
I know you know that, and I know it. But how we need to be reminded constantly.
The Bible is like our Lord Jesus, in the sense that there is a human side and a divine side. We need the laws of language. We need academics. We need to study to get the human side.
But if all we have is the human side, we are a poor people. Only God can unveil His Son to our hearts—that necessary revelation apart from which we will never be renewed in our minds; we will never be changed. We need to see the Lord. We need to behold Him.
He delights to unveil Himself. Far more than we desire to see Him, He wants to show Himself.
There are a couple of Bible verses I would like to share before we go to prayer. Isaiah 50 is a wonderful Messianic chapter. There is no question that it is speaking about our Lord Jesus Christ.
In Isaiah 50:4, it says:
The Lord God hath given me the tongue of disciples,
that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word.
He awakeneth me morning by morning;
He awakeneth mine ear to hear as a disciple.
That has its first application to the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus was awakened every day by His holy Father God to have devotion. Every day, He awakens me day by day. He awakens my ear to listen as a disciple.
If our Lord Jesus, the representative Man, needed to have His ear awakened to listen as a disciple, may I suggest we are in great need that God would awaken our ear to listen as a disciple?
Now, this afternoon I want to share a little bit on the Transfiguration. As I was studying that, this verse gripped my heart in a special way. Luke 9:32 says:
When they were fully awake, they saw His glory.
Well, we need to have our hearts awakened. We need to have our hearts fully awakened, because when they were fully awake, that is when they saw the glory of the Lord.
Can we pause a moment? Can we bow together and just ask the Lord to wake up our hearts, that we might listen as disciples? Let us bow.
Our heavenly Father, how we do praise You this afternoon that we are not on our own as we come to this Book. You have not required us to work up or create some attitude of childlikeness, but You have put it in us: Your life, Your Holy Spirit, crying, “Abba, Father.”
We know that You have promised to reveal these things to babes. Enable us to come hungry. If there is any of Your inheritance that happens to be parched this afternoon, confirm Your inheritance, we pray.
Rain water upon the thirsty. We know You will not turn anyone hungry away. Meet us, we pray. Show us in a living way our Lord Jesus, and then grace us to appropriate that revelation.
We thank You in advance that You are going to over-answer this prayer—not because in any way we deserve the answer to our prayers, but because our Lord Jesus deserves it. And so, for His sake, we claim it. In His name, amen.
Yesterday afternoon, when I had the opportunity to address you, I said the issue—the topic that was chosen for this weekend—was a matter of life and death. I did not realize how powerful that statement was. The more I hear about what it means to have our minds transformed, it is a matter of life and death. It is a matter of life and death.
So may God take us forward again this afternoon.
When we closed yesterday afternoon, I called attention to Isaiah 26:3-4:
Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace,
whose mind is stayed on Thee;
because he trusteth in Thee.
Trust ye in the Lord for ever;
for in the Lord is everlasting strength.
Whose mind is stayed on Thee—spiritual-mindedness. It is a mind that is stayed on the Lord Jesus. I suggested in our two sessions together that we would meditate on that reality: the mind stayed on the Lord at all times, continually.
Yesterday, we looked at the mind stayed on the Lord no matter what in life, in every situation and every circumstance. There is a river. Our God is with us. The Lord of hosts is with us.
This afternoon, I would like us to look at what it means to have our minds stayed on the Lord in our study of the Bible and our study of the Scriptures. He is not only the Teacher of that precious Book; He is the curriculum. He is the subject. He is the theme.
Ask your Lord, please, to open your heart as we meditate together on this.
For years as a believer, I did not study the Bible to know the Lord. I studied the Bible to know the Bible. I think there are many people who have not understood what it means to study the Bible to know the Lord.
The illustration that I have chosen is the story of the Transfiguration. That is not the point; that is the illustration. It illustrates that very burden that is on my heart.
We are going to be going back and forth between four passages. It might be helpful, if you desire to read along with us, to mark those passages: Matthew 16, Mark 9, Luke 9, and 2 Peter 1. Those four chapters.
Each account in the Gospel is slightly different. As we touch the precious principles, I will attempt, by God’s assistance, to pull the record together in order that we might have God’s heart on this.
Our Lord Jesus told the disciples—Peter, James, and John—not to say anything about the Mount of Transfiguration until after He had risen from the dead. Well, He is alive now, and so the law of silence is not on our lips anymore. We can talk about it.
This afternoon, I want to proclaim it: this great revelation that He gave us, illustrated in the Transfiguration.
In order to get this meaningfully to our hearts, I would like to underscore the importance of the Transfiguration as it appears in the Bible record. Once again, we can read these things, la la la, and become experts on the letter and miss God’s heart—miss the Lord, miss the spirit of the whole thing.
The Transfiguration is a strategic event in the history of redemption. One illustration of how strategic it is can be seen in where it comes in the ministry of the Lord Jesus.
For the sake of illustration, let me give you a broad, general sweep. Do not nail this down right to the day or right to the week, but in a general way this is true.
The first thirty years of the life of our Lord Jesus were lived in relative obscurity. We know a couple of things; that is all. But His ministry, beginning with the baptism, we can pretty much trace out.
Commentators are pretty much agreed that His ministry was divided into three parts:
At the end of His Galilean ministry—at the end of three years—something happened, and it changed the ministry of our Lord Jesus from that day on.
By the end of the Galilean ministry, He had given many of His discourses: Nicodemus, the woman at the well, the Sermon on the Mount. He had already done twenty-six miracles and given twenty-two parables. His temptation in the wilderness was over. The Twelve had been chosen, sent out, and returned. The seventy had been chosen, sent out, and returned. The ministry of John the Baptist was finished; he had already been beheaded. There had been many conflicts with the scribes and Pharisees, and He had already been rejected twice in His hometown of Nazareth.
Only six months before the cross, something happened after that third year. How did it end? What happened?
Matthew 16:13 records it. It was in Caesarea Philippi.
Who do people say that I am?
After three years, after all that teaching, after all those miracles, after all those parables, after everything they had seen, does anybody know who I am? Who am I? Do they really know Me? Do they really see Me?
He is not talking about His enemies—not those destructive critics, the scribes and Pharisees. Their answer would have been, “He is from the devil, Beelzebul,” that kind of thing. He is talking about the general public. He is talking about the people.
After three years of ministry, who do people say that I am? You remember the answers: some say John the Baptist; some say Elijah; some say Jeremiah; others, one of the prophets.
You remember the turning point. He looked at Peter in Matthew 16:15 and said:
But who say ye that I am?
That is when Peter gave his wonderful answer:
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
In Matthew 16:17, our Lord Jesus said:
Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona:
for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee,
but My Father who is in heaven.
That was the turning point. In Matthew 16:21, there is a change:
From that time began Jesus to show unto His disciples…
There was a new direction: the cross, the sufferings, and so on. It changed right there.
That is true: after a few minutes, Peter stumbled and opened his mouth again, and had his heart and mind set on man’s interests. Forget this, brothers and sisters in Christ. For one moment—for one glorious moment—he got it right.
For one glorious moment, at the end of three years, he was spiritually minded.
Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee.
You hit something, Peter. You laid hold of something, Peter. Flesh and blood has not revealed it, but My Father in heaven.
Right after that, in every Gospel record, we have the story of the Transfiguration. I suggest to you that this record is very important because of where it comes in the record: right at the end of the Galilean ministry, after three years, when Peter finally got it right. For that one moment, he was spiritually minded, and God was pleased. It was followed by the Transfiguration.
Let me tell you another reason why I think the Transfiguration is very, very important. You can see that when you contrast it with every other revelation that God had ever given of His Son to that time. Notice, I did not say compare it; I said contrast it, because that is how great it was.
The Lord Jesus had appeared many times in the Bible: in the bush, on Mount Sinai, in the cloud, in the fiery furnace, in the lion’s den, in the visions of the prophets—Ezekiel, Daniel—many revelations.
But I am suggesting to you that in four thousand years of human history, since Adam and Eve, there had never been a revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ as glorious as this. Go through your Bible and try to find one. There was none—not like this.
What happened on that Mount of Transfiguration, when the Lord Jesus was metamorphosed, when He was transfigured—never before on planet Earth had anything like that ever happened before the eyes of man. Marvelous thing, this Transfiguration.
What all that glory meant—that the glory of His deity, the glory of His humanity, or a foretaste of some future glory—I will leave that to you theologians. But it cannot be denied, I do not believe, that since the beginning of time there had never been a vision like this: a glorious revelation of Christ.
That becomes important because God is about to drop one of the most glorious truths. In order for us to embrace that glorious truth, He gives this glorious revelation of the Lord Jesus.
There is a third indication of how important this Transfiguration is. On the level of earth, there were three eyewitnesses to this glorious Transfiguration of the Lord Jesus: Peter, James, and John.
The apostle Peter was there. He saw it. He is the one who, for that glorious moment, had it right. He was spiritually minded for a moment.
Thirty years go by. I do not understand how all of that inspiration worked, but somehow God came to him and inspired him and said, “I want you to write a letter.” I am talking about 2 Peter, his final letter.
“I want you to write a letter and tell the saints how to grow in the Lord Jesus.”
That is the message of 2 Peter. The last words in 2 Peter 3:18 are:
But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To Him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
God guided Peter to write about how to grow in the Lord. You ought to study it. It is marvelous. It is filled with all the safeguards against everything that hinders growth.
You want to learn how to grow? Read 2 Peter. You want to see all the things that hinder growth? Mark them. They are all in 2 Peter. Marvelous book. It ends with, “Grow in the Lord Jesus.” That is how it ends.
But that is not how it starts. How does it begin?
Thirty years had passed in Peter’s life. Peter looked back thirty years and said, “I remember an experience I had thirty years ago, and that taught me how to grow in Christ. I need to share that with you.”
Second Peter 1:16-18:
For we did not follow cunningly devised fables,
when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,
but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.For He received from God the Father honor and glory,
when there was borne such a voice to Him by the Majestic Glory,
This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased:And this voice we ourselves heard borne out of heaven,
when we were with Him in the holy mount.
What event is he talking about? Say it. Thirty years later, he could not shake it. Thirty years later, he looks back and says, “Something happened that day, and I will never be the same.”
For thirty years, he lived with this. Now God says, “Write a book. Tell them how to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.” He says, “All right, in order to do that, I have to go back to the Transfiguration.”
Brothers and sisters, do not just say, “Oh, the Transfiguration, I know that. Moses was there, and Elijah.” Let Peter explain it. He was there. Let the witness speak. Let him tell us what it is all about.
What is that Transfiguration all about? What does it mean? Do you catch the wonder of this event? It is so climactic.
I would like us to read not Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but just one account. I have selected Luke’s account. Turn to Luke 9, please. I would like us to read from Luke 9:23-36.
I would like to ask several of you to stand up, read a few verses, and someone else will continue. Just make sure you read loudly enough so that all the brothers and sisters can enter in. I know this is being taped, and I do not know if your voices will carry to the tape. So, anyone listening by tape, shut it off, read the passage, and then turn it back on.
All right, thank you very much.
Let me get straight to what I think is the heart of the message of the Transfiguration. I am sure, as in all Scripture, there are many truths that we can glean, but there is a primary truth. There is a basic revelation here. Why did God choose this illustration?
I think the truth is as glorious as the illustration.
Let me put it in simple words and then try to develop it. May God help us.
The end of all Bible study is to see Jesus.
That is what I think is the message of the Transfiguration. Peter is going to say that. If all you had were the Gospel records, I doubt if we could have come to the conclusion that this is what the Transfiguration was all about. Without Peter’s explanation, I do not think we would have gotten many things, but I think we would have missed the main thing.
The main thing is this: I must study the Bible in order to behold the Lord.
As I suggested earlier, it is not enough to study the Bible to know the Bible, to formulate creeds, to have doctrinal statements, and to have all these orthodox statements.
There is a strange creedal idolatry these days. People are so locked into getting the words right and everything that they are missing the Lord.
If God would open our hearts to what Peter is saying, I think we would be delivered from tons of Bible-study methods that leave us sterile and cold and wear out the saints: all this systematic effort to get everything right; to make sure you know all the languages and the Greek; to get the background and the culture and the geography; to tie it into this and get the right exegesis.
The flower does not belong to the botanist; it belongs to the artist.
The botanist knows more about it, but he destroys it. He takes it all apart, and he can tell you all about it. A lot of people have been studying that Book like that. When it is all done, they know all about it, but they have never seen it.
Never come with the heart of an artist, just to behold the beauty of the Lord. That is what this is all about.
Again, I say, Peter was an eyewitness. If anyone knew the secret meaning of the experience of the Transfiguration, Peter did. Let us allow him, by God’s grace, to tell his story.
Second Peter 1:16-21 is God’s commentary on Matthew 17:1-9, Mark 9:1-9, and Luke 9:28-36.
Let me try to break it apart a little, so that we do not miss this life-transforming reality. We will go back and forth from the Gospel record to Peter’s record.
In the story, there are three illustrations of this Book. Then there are three illustrations of something beyond the Book. We will call one the revelation, and the other the revelation of the revelation. We have to have both.
Second Peter 1:19 gives the first illustration of the Bible:
We have the prophetic word…
That is the first description of the Bible. It is called the prophetic word.
Why would Peter look back thirty years and say, “Something happened back then, and we have a prophetic word”? Let us go back to Matthew 16:27-28. Here is what precedes the Transfiguration:
For the Son of man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels;
and then shall He render unto every man according to his deeds.
Verily I say unto you, There are some of them that stand here,
who shall in no wise taste of death,
till they see the Son of man coming in His kingdom.
He says the same thing in Mark 8:38 through Mark 9:1:
There are some here of them that stand by,
who shall in no wise taste of death,
till they see the kingdom of God come with power.
Luke 9 says the same thing: the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father and the holy angels, and there are some of you standing here who will not taste death.
That is a strange word to precede the Transfiguration, but that is all it was: a word of prophecy, a prophetic word. “I am coming again. I am coming in the glory of My Father. I am coming to establish a kingdom. Some of you will not die until you see that.”
That is all they had: a prophecy, a prophetic word.
How that is interpreted, what that means—again, the commentators go everywhere. Some say it refers to A.D. 70. Others say it was fulfilled because, in a flash, they saw the kingdom in miniature. They saw the Lamb of God in the center. They saw those who die in Christ, illustrated by Moses; those caught up together, illustrated by Elijah; the resurrection body; the change; the overcomers in the three; those who were not overcomers in the nine below; the Jews below; the Gentiles down below. The whole thing in miniature—they saw the kingdom.
However you interpret it, we are going to come back to the simple thing: they had a word. He is coming in His glory, and some of you will not taste death until you see Him come.
If, after Jesus gave that word and before the Transfiguration, you went up to Peter and said, “Peter, do you believe Jesus is coming again?” he would have said, “Oh, yes. He gave me a prophetic word. He is coming in the glory of His Father. He is going to set up His kingdom. Some of us will not die until we see it.”
They had the Word. God said it. I believe it. That is settled.
There is a second picture of the Bible. Mark 9:4:
And there appeared unto them Elijah with Moses:
and they were talking with Jesus.
Only Luke tells us what they were talking about. Luke 9:31:
Who appeared in glory,
and spake of His departure
which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.
Moses and Elijah: the Law and the Prophets, the Bible, speaking about His death.
That was the rock Moses had smitten three thousand years before, and now the reality. That was the sacrifice that Elijah, twenty-five hundred years earlier, at three o’clock in the afternoon, laid on the altar. Now they are talking about the death.
When our Lord Jesus appeared on the Emmaus road to the two disciples, He said, in Luke 24:
O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!
Behoved it not the Christ to suffer these things,
and to enter into His glory?
Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He explained the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.
Moses and Elijah—Moses, the Law, and the Prophets—are another illustration of the Word of God. Hold that a moment, please.
There is a third illustration, and it comes from 2 Peter 1. As he is reminiscing, looking back, and talking about the Bible and something beyond the Bible, he uses a title in verse 19. He calls the Bible a lamp shining in a dark place.
In the Greek, the word dark is a squalid place—dirty, filthy, foul.
That is not new. It has been used before. The Bible is a lamp. Psalm 119:105:
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet,
and light unto my path.
So, I suggest that this is the Bible:
Peter also gives three illustrations of something beyond the Word. This was the secret ringing in Peter’s heart after thirty years, which God had discovered to him.
Second Peter 1:19 says:
And we have the word of prophecy made more sure…
That is an interesting expression. The prophetic word—the Bible—is not made more true. You cannot make it more true. It is as true as true can be. It is the Word of God. It is absolutely true.
But Peter is beginning to say, “I had the Word, but all of a sudden something happened, and I had it more sure—more vital, more alive, more real.”
What happened? What made the prophetic word more sure?
The answer is: once I had the word, “He is coming again.” Then I saw the Lord. When I saw the Lord, the prophetic word became the prophetic word made more sure. It became alive.
I saw Him as no man had ever seen Him. The countenance of His face was like the sun. His body was glowing and dazzling. Even His clothes radiated. They looked like lightning, says one of the Gospel writers; another says no fuller on earth could whiten them.
In that glorious moment, Peter, James, and John had the Word, and all of a sudden, when they saw Jesus, that Word became alive.
Back to 2 Peter 1. The Bible is called a lamp shining in a squalid place. Verse 19:
Whereunto ye do well that ye take heed,
as unto a lamp shining in a dark place,
until the day dawn,
and the day-star arise in your hearts.
Are you getting this, brothers and sisters in Christ? Do not miss it. Until the day dawns. There is the lamp, and there is the day star. They are not the same.
The lamp is a Book. The day star is a Person. And His name is Jesus.
Three times in the New Testament our Lord is referred to as the day star: once here, once as a promise to the overcomer in Revelation 2—“I will give him the morning star”—and in the final title of our Lord Jesus in the New Testament, Revelation 22:16:
I Jesus have sent Mine angel to testify unto you these things for the churches.
I am the root and the offspring of David,
the bright, the morning star.
That morning star in nature is the star that precedes day. It ends night; it starts day. If that star in nature could talk, here is what it would say: “Goodbye, darkness. Hello, light. Goodbye, night, and hello, day.” That is the morning star.
God says, “Pay attention to this. Do not neglect it. It is your lamp. Pay attention to it until the day star rises in your heart.”
I think some have become experts on the lamp, and they have never seen the day star.
Peter says, “I have to tell you how to grow. I remember thirty years ago I had a prophetic word, and something happened. I saw the Lord Jesus, and all of a sudden the prophetic word became the prophetic word made more sure.”
“I had a lamp—only a lamp—and I paid attention to the lamp. All of a sudden, the day star rose in my heart.”
That is what the Transfiguration is all about.
There is a third illustration. Second Peter 1:17-18:
For He received from God the Father honor and glory,
when there was borne such a voice to Him by the Majestic Glory,
This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased:And this voice we ourselves heard borne out of heaven,
when we were with Him in the holy mount.
The third picture of that beyond the Book is when that cloud came down and there was a special voice of God proclaiming the Lord Jesus and causing everything else to disappear.
We have the prophetic word and the prophetic word made more sure. We have the lamp and the day star rising in our hearts.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, if we are ever going to grow in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus, we are going to have to see the Lord Jesus in that Book. There is the prophetic word. There are Moses and Elijah. Then there is the reality: Christ Himself.
Through the years, I have noticed this: if I or some other speaker speaks to a group and says, “Look to Jesus,” everyone seems to respond to that. That is good. Even if you say, “Look to Jesus alone,” they respond to that. Their hearts say, “Yes, that is right.”
But I have found that if I say, “Look to Jesus—not this,” there is some resistance.
I think when you give somebody something to accept, they do not really know what you are talking about unless you give them something to reject. If you give them something to reject, then they understand what you are calling them to accept.
If I say, “Look to Jesus,” everyone says, “Amen.” But if I say, “Look to Jesus, not missions,” then: “Wait a minute, wait a minute now.”
Certain things have to disappear when you see Jesus alone.
Mark 9:7-8:
And there came a cloud overshadowing them:
and there came a voice out of the cloud,
This is My beloved Son: hear ye Him.And suddenly looking round about,
they saw no one any more,
save Jesus only with themselves.
It looks like they were looking for Moses and Elijah. “Where did they go? They were here a minute ago.”
It is amazing. I read all my commentaries, and everybody is talking about Moses and Elijah—the importance of their appearance. You know the most important thing about the appearance of Moses and Elijah? The most important thing about the appearance of Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration was their disappearance.
Exactly right. Exactly right. They must disappear.
They can point to Him and point to His finished work, and then they have to disappear.
You say, “Well, are you saying Moses and Elijah represent the Bible? Are you saying the Bible has to disappear?” I did not say it had to be annihilated. They were not annihilated. They were still there; they were out of sight. They just became invisible again.
This is not the first time that happened. Remember when Moses was upon the mountain and he saw the Lord, and his face began to glow? Exodus 34 says he put a veil over his face. His skin began to glow.
Why did he put that veil over his face? You say, “Well, it was so bright, and the children of Israel could not bear to look. It was such a bright glory.” No, no. That is not why he did it.
Second Corinthians tells you why he did it. Second Corinthians 3: not because it was so bright; it was because it was so dim.
The Bible says that Moses covered his face because he did not want them to look at a glory that was fading away.
Come to the Bible and you say, “It says a lot about family. It says a lot about missions. It says a lot about stewardship. It says a lot about discipleship. It says a lot about growing. It says a lot about spiritual gifts. It says a lot about fruit.”
Everything the Bible says about family is designed to turn your eyes to Jesus. Everything the Bible says about stewardship is designed to turn your eyes to Jesus. Everything the Bible says about discipleship is designed to turn your eyes to Jesus. Everything the Bible says about Antichrist is designed to show you Christ.
The future, the tribulation, the millennium—it is a revelation of God’s Son. It is a revelation of Christ.
Bless God for the messengers of pure grace who dare to put a veil over this Book and say, “That is off-center. We are not going to study that unless we see the Lord Jesus Christ.”
You say, “Well, is not discipleship glorious?” Yes—veil it. Elijah and Moses have to disappear. The day star has to rise in our hearts. We need to see the Lord.
It is not that we are trying to deny you those other things. We just do not want you to have them apart from Christ. They are in Christ. When you see Christ, then you are going to have those tremendous things.
Our brother Stephen, this morning, with a passion, was telling us how important it was to have our minds renewed and to present our bodies a sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto the Lord—reasonable service in the light of all His mercy.
Yield. Surrender.
My question: surrender to what? Surrender to what? You say, “To Jesus.”
What if you are not seeing Him? What if you are not seeing Him?
I think the problem with most Christians is not surrender. I think most Christians are totally surrendered to a Christ that big.
You surrender to one horsepower, you are going to do a lot of pushing. You surrender to one hundred horsepower, you are going to do a lot of riding.
You do not need more surrender. You need a larger revelation of Christ.
For years, I was totally surrendered, but my vision of the Lord was only that He was the Lamb of God. I do not mean only the Lamb. Even in heaven, we will never come to the end of that.
In the Old Testament picture, the fire consumed the lamb. In the reality, the Lamb consumes the fire. You will never come to the end of that—the glory of the Lamb.
That is all I knew, and I was totally surrendered to that. I knew I was going to heaven. I knew my sins were forgiven. I knew God accepted me. I knew I was not going to hell, and I wanted everybody to know that. I went out telling everybody that.
But I had no victory over sin in my life. Someone said, “Surrender.” I did.
But I never saw Jesus as the end of the Law. I never saw Him as my righteousness.
You need to see the Lord. Pay attention to this Book.
Do you remember the first time you saw Jesus, the Lamb of God? Did anything happen in your life? You were changed.
I am suggesting that every time you see Him, do not stop seeing Him. That is what it is all about: seeing the Lord. Come back again and see Him again. The more you see Him, the more you will be changed.
Our natural hearts have such a hard time letting go of the letter. We want to build a tabernacle. We want to encase it in a creedal statement. We want it locked up. We want to do some program or something like that. We want to retain it.
God says, “Pay attention to the lamp until Christ shines in your heart.”
I can hear someone saying, “You do not know my heart. I want so much to die to self.”
There are some of you who will not taste death until you see the Lord in His glory.
You say, “I want to be changed. I want to be transfigured.” That same word, metamorphosed, is used for the Christian. We come with unveiled face to behold the glory of the Lord, and we are transfigured from one degree of glory to another.
When the Lord was glorified, His body was glorified, and you are His body. We are glorified. Even His garments—usually material things stand in the way of spiritual things—but when you see the Lord, even the material things are going to radiate His glory.
You say, “I want ministry.” Watch what happened. We do not have time to develop it, but after the mountain they went down, and it was ministry—wonderful ministry.
Everything you need is by seeing Christ.
Our brother said, “Surrender,” and I am saying, “Surrender to Christ as He is revealed.” He shows Himself to you as the Potter: surrender to that. He shows Himself as the Smelter: surrender to that. He shows Himself as the Vine: surrender to that. He shows Himself as the Bridegroom, Lover of your soul: surrender to that.
As you begin to see Him by God’s life and God’s revelation, you are changed and your mind is renewed.
Any change that comes in my life or yours in any other way than by beholding Jesus Christ in that Book is unreal. It is not a real change. Oh, may God help us.
You say, “All right then, that is what I am going to do. I am going to set my heart right now, and I am going to start seeing Jesus every place. I will study the two hundred and fifty titles of Him in the Bible. I will study all His names: Elohim, Jehovah, Jehovah-nissi, Jehovah-rapha, Jehovah-shammah, Jehovah-raah, El Shaddai, Adonai—all these wonderful titles. Then I will look at all His attributes. Then I will find Him in the parables, in the miracles, in the types, in the history of redemption.”
No, that is not how it works.
Did you notice? Go back to 2 Peter 1, and we will wrap it up. I used to think that Peter got off the subject here in verses 20 and 21.
How could I lose my glasses? All right, 2 Peter—what? Not much place to go.
Knowing this first,
that no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation.
For no prophecy ever came by the will of man:
but men spake from God,
being moved by the Holy Spirit.
I thought he was saying, “Here is how to grow in Christ, and here is a proof text for inspiration.” That is all it ever meant for me. It is a wonderful proof text, by the way, but that is not what he is saying.
What he is saying is that the Bible writers did not wake up one morning. Ezekiel did not say, “I think I will write about dry bones.” That is not how it happened. Isaiah did not say, “I think I should write a whole section on the Servant.” That is not how it happened.
The Holy Spirit moved, carried along, and bore these prophets.
You cannot decide what revelation of Christ you are going to see. You cannot decide, “I think tomorrow I will see Him as the Rock. I will take ‘rock’ and trace it through a concordance. I will look up ‘rock’ in every place it is used, and now I have seen Jesus as the Rock.”
You cannot decide Monday, Potter; Tuesday, Smelter; Wednesday, Husbandman; Thursday, Vine; Friday, Shepherd; Saturday, the God of all comfort. You cannot decide that.
God knows the revelation of Christ that you need. Just like He carried along those men who inspired the Word of God—it never came by the will of man—God says, “You just pay attention to this Book. You study this Book.”
God is doing two things in your life and two things in mine: either showing you Christ or getting you ready to see Him. That is what He is doing.
You just pay attention to this Book. God knows the revelation you need. You do not know. I do not know. As you study this Book and pore over this Book, the day star will rise in your heart, and you will be changed.
Renewing of the mind—you have to surrender every day, but you have to have a Christ to surrender to.
May God help us to ask the Lord to increase our vision of Him, to grow in Him, to have the prophetic Word made more sure by a present revelation of the Lord Jesus.
Have the lamp—amen for the lamp—until the day star rises in our hearts, saying goodbye to darkness and hello to light. Until the cloud comes over and the only voice we hear is:
This is My beloved Son. Hear ye Him.
Everything else passes away, and there is Jesus only. Oh, may God help us.
What happened back then will probably happen now. Only a remnant—only a remnant—will lay hold of it.
Some of us, no doubt, are going to go back, study the Bible to know the Bible, become experts in theology, and be able to answer all the questions.
Some of us are going to say, “Lord, we want to know You. You have given us this Book that we might know You. You gave that great Transfiguration to teach us how to know You—to have this and to have this.”
Blessed art thou, Simon,
because flesh and blood did not reveal it unto thee,
but My Father who is in heaven.
Let us pray.
Our Father, how we praise You this afternoon for Your truth. Once again, not the little bit we think we know, but everything You have put in Your Bible: work it in our hearts. Write it indelibly in us.
Cause us to be serious about spiritual-mindedness. Give us a heart to know the Lord. Give us a desire to see Jesus revealed in the Book.
And we know, when we see Him, we will be like Him. In Jesus’ name.