Well, good evening.
What is that about the hairs of your head? That’s an encouragement.
My, I grew up with a mother who was a beautician—a hairdresser. That’s what happens when she’s cutting your hair and she’s mad at your father.
Before we bow in a word of prayer, let me read a verse of Scripture to prepare our hearts for our study in God’s Word tonight. Joshua 3:3. This is an amazing verse. Oh, it’s not on the handout.
And they commanded the people, saying, “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, then you shall set out from your place and go after it.”
Now, I know that’s history. Joshua told the people that when they saw the ark of God being carried by the priests, the people were to follow the ark. Every time the ark went out, you get up and follow the ark.
But I think there’s a principle in that history that may apply to our study of God’s Word, and it is this: Go after all the Lord that you see.
When we come to God’s Word, our goal is to see the Lord Jesus. And we ask the Holy Spirit to work a miracle in us, that we may, with the eyes of our hearts, see the Lord.
But after that happens—you know, after the Holy Spirit works that miracle in us and we see the Lord—we need yet another miracle. We need to go after the Lord.
It’s not enough to see the Lord. We need to go after the Lord we see. In other words, I’m talking about my faith embracing the revelation of Christ that we see, that God opens up to our hearts.
As we study God’s Word tonight, let’s not just look at the Lord and watch Him pass by. You know, we’re trusting Him, right, to pass by from His Word.
But as He passes by, may the Lord enable us by faith to lay hold of the revelation of Christ that the Holy Spirit discloses to our hearts.
We need a miracle for that, brothers. Or else things that we see of the Lord will just go right by, and we’ll just miss out, and it’ll be vague and intermittent and not on target.
So let’s bow in a word of prayer together.
Heavenly Father, we ask that You would open up Your Word and open up our hearts and show us the Lord Jesus in a way that He is engraved—the image of our Savior is engraved—upon our hearts.
We know that we can come together and look into Your Word, and it’ll just be another Bible study if You don’t intervene. So I’m thankful, Father, that it’s Your desire to intervene for us tonight.
Deliver us from all human flesh, from all that is of man. And again, write Your Word, the Lord Jesus, upon our hearts.
Stamp His image in our souls, that we will not forget. In Jesus’ name, we’re thankful. Amen.
Now, I’m not going to review a whole lot this evening for, well, I guess, three reasons. One of them is I don’t think you need review very much. Also, we’re going to review as we go, and then in the end we’re going to kind of sum up the weekend.
But also, the third reason is, you know, I went online last year and found the studies videoed. I didn’t know that anybody was videoing these studies. Are they videoing the studies?
Okay, well, they’re probably going to be online. But the thing is, you know, they end up on many different websites. I went on a few of them—not to watch myself—but just to see where they were. I wanted to see what was going on.
I don’t think a lot of believers where Ed and I minister together know what we’re doing, because Ed and I minister to the Lord individually when the Lord has opportunity, but we also minister to the Lord together. Some groups don’t understand that.
Ed shares with them the verse about how the Lord sent them out two by two. And so that’s what we do. We go out two by two, but sometimes they don’t seem to get that. They had a lot of questions about it: “What do you mean, two by two?”
So sometimes when you go online, my point is, if you type in my name for this weekend, you’ll see two messages. Then you have to type in Ed’s name to get the other two messages. People who type in my name or his name only get two messages.
So if this is being videoed, if you’re watching, this is number four. This is the last in the series. I’m not going to review; you have to check out numbers one, two, and three.
You know, we seek the Lord, and we try to make every message stand on its own two feet because we’re seeing the Lord. People can pop in anywhere. But that’s nothing like a series of studies. You start out with number one and end with number four. So this is a conclusion.
Okay, with that off my chest.
Mark 11:1–11. This is number four of our series: Conformity to Christ’s Vision. We want to see as Jesus saw. We want to see what He saw, how He saw it.
So what we’re going to do tonight is look at two main passages of Scripture. We’re going to look at Palm Sunday, and that’s going to be coupled with the Lord’s cleansing of the temple. Then we’re going to look at the last time we see that special Greek word for “look,” when the disciples looked in that way.
Mark 11:1–11:
As they approached Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, He sent two of His disciples,
and said to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, on which no one yet has ever sat; untie it and bring it here.
If anyone says to you, ‘What are you doing? Why are you doing this?’ you say, ‘The Lord has need of it,’ and immediately he will send it back here.”
They went away and found a colt tied at the door outside in the street, and they untied it.
Some of the bystanders were saying to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?”
They spoke to them just as Jesus had told them, and they gave them permission.
They brought the colt to Jesus and put their coats on it; and He sat on it.
And many spread their coats in the road, and others spread leafy branches which they had cut from the fields.
Those who went in front and those who followed were shouting:
“Hosanna!
Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord;
Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David;
Hosanna in the highest!”
Jesus entered Jerusalem and came into the temple; and after looking around at everything, He left for Bethany with the twelve, since it was already late.
Now, in discussing these stories, what has helped us so far this weekend in seeing the heart of our Lord is to zero in on what the Lord was looking at. That’s been our key. Whatever Jesus looked at, and the way He looked at it, that’s what we want to examine.
His look in each of these passages reveals spiritual principles precious to His heart. And it’s our prayer that more and more our Savior will open the eyes of our hearts to see what He saw, that His vision may become our vision. As we live by His life, we want to live by His vision.
So when it comes to this passage before us, that unique word for “look” used in each of these stories is found, as I said, in verse 11. Mark 11:11: Jesus entered Jerusalem, came into the temple, and after looking around at everything, He left for Bethany with the twelve, since it was already late.
What was it that Jesus was looking at in this passage? Well, the answer is: He was looking at everything. It says that in verse 11. He looked around at everything.
So in order to get the principle of this passage, in order to see what’s important to the heart of our Lord here, we have to look at everything. I hope you’re not in a rush to get to bed this evening as we look at everything.
And if I get too long, you can just hop into the bathroom and hit that blower, and then it’ll end it, I guess. So, everything. We want to look at everything.
Now, some think that the word everything here only includes everything in the temple. But in terms of the heart of our Lord, Ed and I think that the word everything includes much more than that.
It includes the temple, of course, but we think it’s bigger than that. It’s interesting to see how Kenneth Wuest, in his expanded translation of the New Testament, translates verse 11. It’s on the handout:
He entered Jerusalem and the temple, and after He had given all things a comprehensive inspection, it being already the evening hour, He went to Bethany with the twelve.
So Mr. Wuest gives the impression that the Lord’s look—or, as he puts it, the Lord’s comprehensive inspection—not only had to do with the temple, but also with everything concerning Jerusalem. And that’s how we see it.
Now, in order to get some sequence of events here, I think it’ll be helpful. You’ll notice from verse 11 that after Jesus came into Jerusalem and looked around at the city and the temple, He did not spend the night in Jerusalem.
No, after looking around, He left for Bethany. According to the other Gospel writers, Jesus spent the night with His dear friends Lazarus, Mary, and Martha in Bethany, because Bethany was only about a mile’s walk from Jerusalem—not very far.
Then we learn that the next day Jesus returned to Jerusalem and again walked into the temple. And you remember what He did then. He raised havoc.
Look with me at Mark 11:15–18. This is the next day after His initial entry into Jerusalem.
Then they came to Jerusalem. And He entered the temple and began to drive out those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves;
and He would not permit anyone to carry merchandise through the temple.
And He began to teach and say to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a robbers’ den.”
The chief priests and the scribes heard this, and began seeking how to destroy Him; for they were afraid of Him, for the whole crowd was astonished at His teaching.
All this to say: when Mark 11:11 says the Lord looked around at everything, we think the everything had to do with everything the Lord saw in Jerusalem—not just what He saw in the temple, but everything He saw in and about Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and even the day after Palm Sunday when He cleansed the temple.
He looked around at everything. So tonight, let’s look at everything the Lord looked at.
Now, will we look at everything literally? No, I’m not qualified to do that. But we hope to touch on everything that we believe ties in with what our Savior is directing to our attention by that look, that by His Spirit we might come to see as He sees.
The way I want to develop this is very simple. I just want to isolate the major facts concerning everything the Lord saw. We’ll look at the Lord’s triumphant entry. We’ll look at His cleansing of the temple. I’ll mention a few other things that took place. And from all that, I just want to emphasize one principle.
One principle. I’m telling you up front so that we don’t get all lost in all these facts: all the facts illustrate one principle.
So, as we look at all the facts, if you start to think, “Where is this guy headed with all this?” you’ll know where I’m headed, right? One principle.
In fact, let me give you the principle. Why should I wait, right? It’s very simple, very foundational.
The principle is this: if you miss Jesus, you have missed everything. And nothing is right if Jesus is not in view.
Again, if you miss Jesus, you miss everything. Many precious things, of course, are revealed about our Savior in Mark 11. But Ed and I believe that one of the main things is the truth that Jesus is everything.
And if you miss Him, everything from top to bottom is wrong. It’s completely wrong. There’s no middle ground. If you miss Jesus, I don’t care what you have—you’ve got nothing. Because if you miss Jesus, you miss everything.
So that’s the main principle that we believe all the facts in this chapter reveal. Let’s look at the facts, and we’ll start, as I said, with the Lord’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Many, many facts. So may the Lord help us here.
We’ve already read the record, so let me point out some observations. You know, I get why believers call this the Lord’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem. It was triumphant because it illustrates His lordship.
Many wonderful facts bear that out. When Jesus tells two of His disciples to go into Jerusalem and get a colt and a donkey—Mark only mentions the colt; Matthew mentions the colt and a donkey—when a bystander sees them taking these animals and asks the disciples what they are doing, once they hear the disciples say, “Well, the Lord has need of them, and when He’s done, He’ll return them,” they say, “Okay.”
They didn’t have any problem with the disciples taking these animals because, in reality, they knew that the owner of these animals did not own them. Jesus owned them. Jesus is Lord and owner of all things.
He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, the wealth in every mine. And it was a donkey that had never been ridden before. But that was no problem for Jesus, because He’s Lord of all. He’s in control of everything. It’s His lordship here. It was a triumphal entry.
Christ’s lordship is also illustrated in what the crowd was doing and saying that day. They’re taking off their outer garments, cutting palm branches down from trees, and laying them in the road. They’re shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!”
In other words, they were calling Jesus their King. So I understand why people call this the triumphant entry of our Lord.
But if you look a little closer, you’ll see it was not very triumphant. A number of facts bear that out.
First of all, He rode into town on a donkey. Now, many say, “Well, that’s a picture of our Lord in His humiliation.” I get that. But as King, shouldn’t He have been riding on a white stallion, or riding in a golden chariot with many teams of white stallions?
One day, when He comes as King, He’s not going to come on a donkey, right?
Another indication that His entry was not so triumphant lies in the fact that the praises of the multitude were very short-lived.
They were shouting, “Hosanna!” And the word comes from, as you probably know, two Greek words: the words save now. They were shouting, “Save now!”
In other words, they wanted Jesus to set up His kingdom and overthrow Roman occupation. That’s what they were saying on this day.
But in a few days, we know that their shouts would change. No longer “Hosanna,” but they’d be saying, “We have no king but Caesar. Crucify Him. We do not want this Man to rule over us.”
And, of course, that’s exactly what the scribes and Pharisees had been saying all along. They wanted Jesus dead.
And so this was a triumphant entrance into Jerusalem. Look with me at Luke 19:41–44, and if this is all there was, it would be enough to make the point.
When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it,
saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes.
For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side,
and they will level you to the ground, and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”
As Jesus rode this donkey into the city, He was weeping. And the word for weeping here does not mean to become sad and teary-eyed.
I’m told that this word for weeping in the original means a severe heaving of the bosom. Scholars tell us that this word is the strongest Greek word used in the Bible for crying. It refers to agony with loud lamentation.
So try to picture the scene. Everybody is shouting, “Jesus! Hosanna! We want You to be our King!” The people are rejoicing. It’s a happy day for them. And Jesus is on this donkey, and He’s crying His heart out.
I wonder what they must have thought when they saw this.
Now, in connection with this, in Mark 13, on the next day, here’s what we read. Mark 13:1–2:
As He was going out of the temple, one of His disciples said to Him, “Teacher, behold what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!”
And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left upon another which will not be torn down.”
So all they could see was the physical, the material, that which is of the earth. They saw marvelous buildings, marvelous things. Herod’s temple was absolutely beautiful. I mean, it was gorgeous.
Josephus, the Jewish historian, said that at noon on a bright sunny day, you couldn’t look at the temple because you’d go blind. That’s how shiny it was with gold and white marble.
In every detail, it was beautiful. I don’t know if you’ve seen pictures of the temple, but have you ever noticed those golden spikes on top of the wall? They put them there so the birds wouldn’t land and mess up the walls of the temple. They were golden spikes. It was a beautiful, beautiful temple.
And Jesus said, well, they were blind to spiritual realities. With His look here, He’s drawing attention to it. They saw the glory of the temple, and He saw ashes. Ashes.
Now, His entry into Jerusalem sets the tone, but it’s His cleansing of the temple that brings us to a climax. So hold that, and let’s briefly look at the cleansing of the temple.
This is actually the second cleansing of the temple in the Gospels. Jesus cleansed the temple before, at the very beginning of His ministry.
As the Gospel of John records that first cleansing, it mentions this quotation. John 2:17: “Zeal for My Father’s house has consumed Me.” Another translation reads, “Zeal for My Father’s house has eaten Me up.”
The word zeal is actually the word jealousy. Jesus was jealous for His Father’s house. It was a jealous love that caused Him to cleanse this temple.
Now, why was Jesus consumed—eaten up—with jealousy? Well, as you read the record of this cleansing, there are two things I think the Spirit highlights, and this is all part of His looking at everything.
Two things that our Lord focused on. The first has to do with the buying and selling of sacrificial animals. Mark calls it merchandise. Merchandise.
Let me reread it. It’s Mark 11:15–16:
Then they came to Jerusalem. And He entered the temple and began to drive out those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves;
and He would not permit anyone to carry merchandise through the temple.
Usually, you think of merchandise in Walmart, right? No, this was merchandise in the temple.
Now, I’m not going to go into all the Old Testament references to back up what I’m about to say, so I guess I’m asking you to trust the Lord for me in this. Don’t trust me, right? To trust in any man is to be a fool, according to Proverbs. But you can trust the Lord for me.
Much of this is in the book of Leviticus, but what isn’t is widely accepted among historians. I think most of you are familiar with this, but for those who may not be, three times a year Jewish men were required by God to come to Jerusalem for the annual feasts.
Each time they came to Jerusalem, God required them to bring a sacrifice. Those who could afford it were required to bring a lamb. Those who could not afford a lamb were required by God to bring a pair of birds—doves. That was the choice of the day, the doves.
And if you were the poor of the poor and could not afford to bring a pair of birds, all that God required of you was that you bring a pinch of flour.
See? That’s an amazing picture of the grace of God. He wanted everyone to come with a sacrifice. And if you could not afford a sacrifice, He still wanted you to come. Just bring a pinch of flour. He would accept that.
But over the years, many who could afford to bring animals began to think it was quite tedious to bring animals three times a year to Jerusalem. So some businessmen began selling what could be called convenience animals at the temple.
The idea was, why bring an animal so many miles and have to feed it along the way, tend it along the way? We’re going to have animals here at the temple that you can purchase for the required sacrifices.
And so they set up a marketplace in the court of the Gentiles. That seems obvious to put it there, right? They didn’t like the Gentiles anyway.
In this marketplace, you could purchase just about any animal you needed for a sacrifice. Well, now, the common currency in the land of Israel was Roman money. But Roman money, of course, was not recognized in the temple. At the temple, you had to have Jewish money.
So if you came to the temple without an animal for sacrifice, hoping to purchase one at the temple marketplace, first you had to exchange your Roman currency for Jewish currency.
And so there were booths set up with money changers. For a small fee, of course, they would exchange your Roman currency for Jewish currency, and then you could purchase an animal for sacrifice down at the temple marketplace in the court of the Gentiles.
And this selling of animals and changing money became pretty lucrative for the temple vendors. Try to imagine what it must have been like.
You come to the temple, and you need to buy a lamb or two birds. I picture more than one vendor being there, and perhaps there were all different prices based upon the size of the lamb, the age of the lamb, or the color of the lamb.
Probably white was premium, you know—ten percent less, maybe, if you got a black lamb. A multicolored lamb might be twenty percent less.
As you walk down the aisles, the vendors might have been saying things like, “Come buy one of my lambs. I’ll give you a good price. I’ll set you up with a good lamb.”
Another vendor might have been saying, “Cheap lambs for sale here.” Another may have said, “We’re having a closeout sale. You get two lambs for the price of one. If your cousin’s with you, your brother, your sister—two lambs for the price of one.”
Can you imagine what our dear Lord Jesus thought of that when He saw it happening? Because that lamb pictured Him.
In just four days, He would become the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world. And here in the marketplace at the temple, you could bargain to get the best price for a lamb. Merchandise. It was called merchandise.
So, see, having the picture is not having the real thing. They had lambs, but they didn’t have Jesus. And to miss Jesus is to miss everything.
That’s one thing our Savior saw when He walked into the temple that day. There was a second thing that caught His eye, right? Because He looked around at everything.
Mark 11:17:
And He began to teach and say to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a robbers’ den.”
Now, when Jesus said that, He did not mean that there was to be a lot of praying going on in the temple, although I’m sure that was the case. But prayer is an illustration in the Bible of a spiritual truth.
The spiritual truth behind prayer is a relationship to God—intimate union with God. That’s why we often see the words prayer and fasting together in the Bible.
Prayer has to do with embracing the Lord. Fasting has to do with letting go of the world.
Now, we can go through the physical acts of prayer and fasting, but unless in our hearts we’re embracing the Lord and in our hearts letting go of the world, we haven’t really prayed and fasted. We just go through the motions. It’s just a physical, material thing.
Having the pictures is not having the real thing. So the temple was to be a house of prayer—a house filled with relationship with God. That’s what was pictured.
So, see, if you miss Jesus, you miss everything. And a house of prayer becomes a den of robbers when you miss Jesus but still keep the picture.
The temple was built as an amazingly beautiful structure because it was meant to picture relationship with God, which is beautiful. But as Jesus sees it that day, as He looks around at everything, the temple, to His vision, is not beautiful. It’s disgusting. Spiritually, it was dirty.
And in His eyes, it needed cleansing.
It’s quite a remarkable scene we see here. The behavior of our Lord in the temple that day is something we don’t see a whole lot of in the Gospels. The Lord’s behavior at this temple was not His normal behavior.
I mean, to come into the temple and start overturning tables and chairs and chasing people out—another Gospel writer says He made a whip, and He’s whipping people in the temple to get out, forbidding them to come back in with merchandise—that doesn’t seem to fit the whole fact of a gentle, humble Savior, you know?
Why did He behave this way? It’s because of what He saw. And He saw everything. And it was all wrong.
They had everything, but they did not have Him. And if you have everything but you don’t have Jesus, you have nothing.
They had a beautiful temple, all the animal sacrifices, and gathered together on a regular basis for worship and teaching. They had all the right words. They sang all the right songs. They had all the Scriptures that spoke of Him. They read them every Sabbath.
And they didn’t have Him. They refused Him.
As the Lord enables us to see what He sees, as His heart is grieved because of what He saw, you can count on your heart being grieved when you see the same thing.
In Jerusalem and in this temple, as the Lord looked around, everything there pictured Him, but they didn’t see Him. They missed Him in everything. And that made everything spiritually worthless—dirty.
If you miss Jesus, you miss everything.
When Jesus spoke of the destruction of the temple, you remember how the scribes and Pharisees freaked out, you know? “This Man speaks blasphemies.” They had a hard time hearing about the destruction of their temple, but they had no problem crucifying the One who was pictured in the temple.
What’s that all about? You know, don’t take away the picture. “Well, you can’t give that up.” The picture was dearer to their heart than the reality—the person of Jesus Christ.
It’s the same thing that got Stephen stoned, right, in the book of Acts. The Jews were saying, “Well, it’s all about a place—the temple, Jerusalem.” And Stephen said, “No, it’s about a person. The place is nothing without the person.”
At his trial, you remember, they said, “Stephen, he speaks against the temple.” I don’t think that was a lie. I think Stephen spoke against the temple.
He was one of the first believers in the New Testament to see that pictures fade away as we embrace the reality, the person of Christ. All pictures of Christ are worthless when we do not embrace the Lord through them.
I have a picture of my wife on my computer screensaver. When she’s away, I look at that picture. But I don’t need that picture when I’m with her. When I’m with her, I have the reality. I don’t need the picture anymore.
Now, in Luke 19:44, as Jesus gives us the specific reason why He was crying, notice what He said. Why is He crying as He comes into Jerusalem on the donkey? He said they did not recognize the time of their visitation.
Ever hear of the Williams translation of the New Testament—the Williams translation? I didn’t think so.
In 1937, Charles B. Williams—a well-known Greek scholar at that time; I collect translations, just as a hobby—published what he called The New Testament in the Language of the People.
It’s not real good. It’s kind of a paraphrase, you know, but bless his heart. I wanted him to have some reward in heaven. So this is the way he translated the verse. I think it’s on the handout:
Because you did not know that God had visited you.
They did not recognize the time of their visitation. They did not know that it was God who visited them.
They had all the pictures. They had all the ceremonies, the temple, the sacrifices. Those who followed Jesus had seen many miracles. They had seen many healings. They saw the dead raised—I think four times.
They rejoiced at these wonders, but they did not rejoice in and did not recognize the day that God visited them.
They had their palm branches. They were saying all the right words. But they were missing Him and His visitation, and therefore everything—everything—was wrong.
Now, I mentioned that this is the second time Jesus cleansed the temple. That means that after He cleansed the temple the first time, they put everything back the way it had been when He was done, right? Because He had to do it again.
The first time He overturned the tables of the money changers, He threw them out. And when He left, they walked right back in, put up their tables, and nothing changed. They hadn’t listened to a word He said.
We needn’t read it for the sake of time, but during this visit to Jerusalem and the temple is when Jesus cursed the fig tree.
Jesus did not curse the fig tree because it did not have figs. No, no, no. The Scriptures tell us that it was not the season for figs. None of the fig trees had figs, but He didn’t go around cursing all the fig trees because they didn’t have figs. It wasn’t the season for figs.
He cursed that one fig tree because, from a distance, it gave the impression that it had fruit when it did not have fruit. It was something about its leaves. I don’t know; the details are not given.
But in cursing the fig tree, Jesus was not cursing fruitlessness. He was cursing pretense. He was cursing hypocrisy.
That’s what He saw when He looked around all over Jerusalem and in the temple—all around the temple: hypocrisy. Everything looked so good. Everything looked so right. Nothing was right because everything was missing Jesus.
That’s truly the spiritual essence of hypocrisy: presenting Christ as preeminent in all things, but not having Christ preeminent in all things.
Aren’t you glad, though, that Jesus does not curse fruitlessness? See, if you’re not fruitful, but you want to be and you’re honest about it, the Lord will patiently deal with you.
But if you’re not fruitful and you try to fake it, watch out. Don’t ever fake it. Why? I mean, He knows what’s in your heart anyway. Why fake it? You can’t fake Him out.
Be honest. Be real. Come before Him as your true self. Say, “Lord, there’s no fruit. Help.”
He can’t resist the cry of help.
The point is, Jesus looked at everything, and in everything they missed Him. If we miss Jesus, we will miss everything.
Now hold that, because we’re not done with it yet. This weekend, we have one more passage to look at: the sixth passage in the Gospel of Mark where the Holy Spirit has used this unique word for “look”—look around. And this will help shed some light on what we’ve just considered.
Now, even though in God’s Word it is not the last time in Mark’s Gospel where we see this word for “look” that we’re considering, I’m sure we’re sharing it last for two reasons.
Number one, we think it fits perfectly as the counterpoint, or the contrast, to what we just looked at with the Lord’s visitation to Jerusalem and His cleansing of the temple.
But also, the reason we saved this sixth one for last, even though it’s out of chronological order, is because even though the word is the same, it is not used of the Lord as in all the other passages we’ve looked at this weekend. It is used of the disciples of the Lord.
And here it is: Mark 9:1–8. You’ll recognize it.
And Jesus was saying to them, “Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.”
Six days later, Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John, and brought them up on a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them;
and His garments became radiant and exceedingly white, as no launderer on earth can whiten them.
Elijah appeared to them along with Moses; and they were talking with Jesus.
Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three tabernacles, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah”—for he did not know what to answer; for they became terrified.
Then a cloud formed, overshadowing them, and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is My beloved Son, listen to Him!”
All at once they looked around and saw no one with them anymore, except Jesus alone.
Verse 8—that’s the word. The disciples looked around and saw no one with them anymore except Jesus alone.
Now, what I’m not about to do is teach a study on the transfiguration of Jesus Christ. First of all, this passage is so amazing that nothing I could say in, what, twenty or twenty-five minutes would be complete.
Secondly, no matter how much time I had, nothing I say about this passage could be complete, right? So if you come to me afterward and say, “Tom, that was such a shallow look at the Lord’s transfiguration,” you will have no argument with me. Okay? It’s a shallow look.
All I want to do with this passage is look at the look, right? The disciples looked around and saw no one save Jesus alone.
Now, having just considered the cleansing of the temple, I think you know where I’m going with this.
On Palm Sunday, everything in Jerusalem and in the temple was wrong because if you miss Jesus, you miss everything.
But now we come to the transfiguration of Christ. We come to the Greek word again for “look,” and the message is this: If you have Jesus only, you have everything.
Right? If you miss Him, you have nothing. If you have Him, hey, you’ve got everything. It’s a fitting conclusion to our series of studies.
I guess the Holy Spirit knew. It’s the only time the word look is used of anyone except Jesus—right here with the disciples.
In all these passages, through this look the Lord brings to the forefront that which is foundational in our walk with Him. As the Holy Spirit engraves these foundational principles upon our hearts, the end result will be what? What can you expect when you begin to have the Lord’s vision, conformed to His vision?
What do you expect to have? Jesus alone. That’s what you can expect in your life: Jesus only.
In that regard, here are just a few observations about this transfiguration of our Savior. The principles behind Palm Sunday and the cleansing of the temple were the sad reality of that day.
The principles behind the transfiguration were what could have been the reality of that day. But it’s the reality that Jesus longs to establish in my heart and the reality He wants to establish in your heart.
Now, many commentators, when they come to this passage, spend a whole lot of time with Elijah and Moses. They try to figure out why it was Elijah and why it was Moses on that mountain with the Lord that day.
Luke, in his Gospel, tells us that Elijah and Moses were talking with Jesus about His victorious death upon the cross. But for many, they seem to want to know more than that, and so they go into all kinds of theories.
Look it up. Well, don’t look it up. Don’t read it. All kinds of theories about Elijah and Moses, Elijah and Moses.
I find it fascinating that they put so much emphasis on Elijah and Moses because that’s just what dear Peter did, right?
Here the Lord is transfigured. He’s standing before them in an amazing glorified state. He’s brilliant, radiant, shining. But in verse 5, look at what Peter says.
When he sees Elijah and Moses with Jesus, he wants to build three tabernacles: one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.
Now, there’s all kinds of speculation as to why Peter suggested that. Some say he wanted to keep the experience alive in his heart, and so he wanted to build a memorial of the event and maybe even one day make his home up there on the mountain in these tents.
I bet his wife would have loved that, you know?
Luke says that Peter did not realize what he was saying when he suggested these tents. So it’s very possible that Peter did not know what to say, but he thought he had to say something.
Verse 6 says that Peter was terrified. So maybe he said something stupid because he was afraid.
Why would the Holy Spirit include this about Peter’s response to Elijah and Moses? Why, for heaven’s sake?
Well, Matthew tells us that while Peter was speaking, he didn’t have time to finish what he was saying. Matthew 17:5 says:
While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear Him!”
So as Peter is making his suggestion to build three tabernacles—and I know I’m being hard on him; maybe that’s not reasonable—as he is making this suggestion about three tabernacles, our heavenly Father interrupts him.
He overshadows Peter, along with James and John, with a bright cloud. They’re enveloped in a bright cloud.
So when it says that God came in a cloud and overshadowed them, it could be translated, God came in a cloud and tabernacled them.
See, Peter wanted to build tabernacles for Jesus, Elijah, and Moses. And it is as if our heavenly Father said, “Wait a second, Peter. That’s not what I have in mind.”
“Here’s what I have in mind: You want to build something for Me? I want to build something for you. I want to build a tabernacle for you to dwell in.”
That’s what the word overshadowed means—the same word, tabernacle. What I build for you, Peter, is going to center in My beloved Son. Hear Him.
See, the most important thing about Elijah and Moses in the passage, as I see it, is not what they were doing up there with Jesus. I think it’s the fact that when Peter noticed them, they disappeared.
I think that’s the most important thing about having them in the record. They disappeared.
Verse 8 says that when the cloud lifted, they looked around and saw no one with them anymore except Jesus only.
It’s like the disciples were looking around to say, “What happened to Elijah and Moses?” But they were gone.
They saw no one with them anymore except Jesus alone. No Elijah, no Moses—only Jesus.
Very simply, that’s the message, I think, of the Lord’s transfiguration: Jesus alone.
On Palm Sunday, Jesus wept. They missed Him. And if you miss Jesus, even though you have everything that pictures Jesus, you have nothing.
And here on this mountain, all the pictures fade away, and all that is left is Jesus. Because when you have Jesus alone, you have everything.
Now, we don’t want to leave this up on the mountain. You know, that’s where they saw Jesus only, but that’s not where we see Jesus only.
God does not encourage us to go up on a mountain in order to see Jesus transfigured. This is a picture. Under these facts are wonderful spiritual principles.
Where do we see Jesus only, glorified? The answer is: the Bible. It’s the Bible.
That’s where we are to look for Jesus. And that is where we will find Him in all His glory and majesty and brightness. That’s where we’re going to see Jesus alone.
You say, “Well, we’re going to see Elijah and Moses and a whole host of other characters in the Bible. We’ll see all kinds of things in God’s Word.”
But it’s the Lord’s will that once we see all that, it’ll disappear. And through all that, we’ll see Jesus only, when the cloud lifts.
Now, you might be thinking, “Well, Tom, that’s a bit of a stretch. You surely have spiritualized this one. How do you get the Bible out of the transfiguration of Christ?”
Well, I’m not saying I’ve never been guilty of spiritualizing, but not this time. This is not my idea. This is one hundred percent 2 Peter. This is one hundred percent the spiritual intention. And it’s perfect to conclude what we’ve been looking at.
Look with me at 2 Peter 1:16–19.
You know, along with all of you, Ed and I want this principle—Jesus alone—to be something very practical in our lives, something we can hold on to.
We don’t want it to be something so high and so mystical that we can’t get it and we can’t hold on to it.
Sometimes, at a conference like this—and I’m talking to myself—I go home and think, “You know, it was so nice to hear that, you know, Jesus alone.”
What is meant by the fact that they saw Jesus alone in all His glory on that mountain? What spiritual principle is behind that fact? That’s what I want. I want the reality of that, and I’m sure you do.
2 Peter 1:16–19, and with this we’re going to wrap it up:
For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.
For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory: “This is My beloved Son with whom I am well pleased”—
and we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.
So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.
But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation,
for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.
What mountain? He’s talking about the transfiguration of Christ.
Some question whether or not the apostle Peter understood the transfiguration and what the Lord was teaching him at that time. Well, he might not have understood it then, but he certainly understood it when he wrote these words in 2 Peter.
In this passage, Peter thinks back to the mountain of transfiguration, and he doesn’t even mention Elijah and Moses—not this time.
No, in verse 19, he says, “We have the prophetic word made more sure.” Now, in context, it’s clear that what he means by the phrase the prophetic word is the Bible. That’s the prophetic word.
Because look: he also refers to the Bible in verse 20. He says the Scriptures were spoken by men moved by the Holy Spirit. That’s the Bible.
In verse 19, he refers to the Bible as a lamp shining in a dark place. All throughout God’s Word, the Bible is called the lamp—a lamp to my feet, a light to my path.
So in this passage, Peter is referring to the Bible as the prophetic word, the Scriptures, the lamp.
If I understand it correctly, the point Peter is making is this: he says it’s not enough to have the prophetic word to see Jesus only—to see Jesus only in the Bible. We need the prophetic word, the Bible, made more sure.
Now, you can’t have the Bible made more true. It’s as true as true can be. But you can have the Bible made more sure.
How do we have the prophetic word made more sure? Well, you have the prophetic word made more sure the same way they saw Jesus glorified on the mountain.
There they had the prophetic word made more sure by a present revelation of the Lord Jesus. See, when they saw a vision of Jesus glorified, then they had the prophetic word made more sure.
What word am I talking about? Well, Jesus had said to them many times over, “I’m going to die. I’m going to rise from the dead.” They heard those words. They didn’t understand those words.
That’s why they didn’t believe it when Mary Magdalene knocked on the door and said, “He’s risen. His body’s gone.” They didn’t know.
Two of them went on the road to Emmaus because they didn’t know. They were frustrated. They were disappointed. They didn’t understand those words: “I’m going to die and rise again.”
In order for them to have those words made more sure to their hearts, they needed to see a present revelation of the Lord Jesus. And that’s what they saw on the Mount of Transfiguration.
It was the present revelation of Christ that put fire in their hearts concerning the Lord’s prophetic word.
And so Peter says, because he’s thinking back to that day, “You may have the Bible. You may have Bible facts. You may have doctrine. You may have theology. You may have the commands of God and the promises of God from the Bible.”
“You may know all the shadows and all the types and all the pictures and all the history, but your heart will not know Jesus in reality in any of that until the day comes when the prophetic word is made more sure.”
And when does that happen? When the Holy Spirit, through the Bible, presents to your heart a present revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In verse 19, he says we should pay attention to a lamp shining in a dark place. Pay attention to God’s Word until—until what?
Until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your heart.
The lamp is a book. The morning star is a person. It’s the Lord Jesus.
The Bible made more sure in your heart is seeing Jesus alone in the book.
Peter says, “I learned. I learned on the Mount of Transfiguration that it’s not enough to have the letter. I need the Spirit. I heard His words. I didn’t understand them.”
“I need more than His words. I need the Spirit. It’s not enough to have the prophetic word. I need the prophetic word made more sure to my heart.”
“It’s not enough to have a lamp shining in a dark place. I need the morning star rising in my heart through the shining lamp.”
How do I see Christ alone? How am I delivered from the tragedy of a dirty temple—knowing so much precious truth, knowing the facts of God’s Word, but missing Jesus?
Pay attention to the lamp. Come to the Bible. Look for Christ there. Make seeing Him in the Bible the only goal of your heart in Bible study and in your Christian life.
Through that, you’ll see Jesus alone. As you do, the Father will overshadow you, tabernacle you, and the morning star will rise in your heart.
You’ll see Him alone if you search for Him alone, because all who seek find.
Then you continue coming to the Bible to see Jesus there until the Father overshadows you, and the morning star rises in your heart, and you see Jesus alone again.
And you enjoy that revelation of Christ. Then you continue coming to the Bible to see Jesus there until the Father overshadows you, and the morning star rises in your heart, and you see Jesus again.
And you keep coming, looking for Christ. The Father takes the Book and unveils the Lord Jesus to your heart through the Book. Seeing Christ alone in the Scriptures—that’s the essence of the Christian life.
That’s the essence of this look.
There are so many things in the Bible that we can focus our attention on, but all of it has been given for one purpose: that we may know Jesus alone.
If our goal is not Christ in God’s Word, we’ll have the Bible and we’ll miss Jesus. And if we miss Him, we miss everything.
But if we come to the Bible to see Him alone, we’ll have everything. Everything.
Well, we have Sabbath rest as He sees it—walking with Him in the grain fields, being fed by the Lord Jesus—when we come to the Bible and see Him alone and have everything. Everything.
We’ll have, number two, relationship with Christ: trusting Him as the Overcomer, enabled to do God’s will. That’s what we have, because if we see Him alone, we see everything.
Number three, we’ll have His sweet, sweet touch of faith. Our touch of faith will be sweet because He’s so sensitive to our touch. We’ll have everything.
If we’re seeing Christ alone in this Word, we’ll have surrender as He sees it. We don’t want it as we see it. It’s a work as we see it. But if we have Christ alone in the Word, if that’s what we see, if that’s our goal, we’ll have surrender as He sees it.
If we see surrender as He sees it, we’ll be allowing Him to pick us up as helpless babes and work His miracle of surrendering us.
Conformed to Christ’s vision.
There’s a wonderful verse in the Gospels. The reference numbers evade me now, but you know where it says, “If your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light.” Anybody know that reference? Thank you. Can you narrow it down?
If your eye is healthy—one translation reads, “If your eye is single”—if it’s single, your whole body is full of light.
God wants to give us a single eye, a single eye for Jesus.
I was sitting next to a brother today, and he’s only been saved a few months. He turned to me and started telling me about the simplicity of salvation—simplicity.
We turned to that verse where Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11:3, “I’m afraid for you that you have left the simplicity and purity of devotion to Jesus.”
Remember how it was when the Lord first saved you. It was so simple. You had one goal on your mind: you were going to come to the Book to see Jesus.
Nothing’s changed. That’s still the goal of the Christian life: to come with a single eye focused on Christ. Because if you have Christ, you’ve got everything.
Well, thank you for listening, and thanks again for the weekend. May the Lord engrave our hearts with these precious truths, especially the one truth: You have Jesus, you’ve got everything.
Heavenly Father, how thankful we are for the wonderful things You’ve shown us.
But more than that, we’re thankful for the wonderful Person You’ve shown us this weekend: the Lord Jesus.
We’re thankful that if we have Him, we have everything, because the Lord Jesus is Your everything.
Everything we need, we have in Him. He has become our everything. We’re complete in Him because He’s everything.
Show us, we pray, all that we have in our Savior. And work in our hearts a purpose, a goal, that will not be satisfied with anything less than the reality of the Lord Jesus.
So that when the cloud is lifted, we’ll turn, everything will fade except Christ alone.
In His name, we’re thankful. Amen.