Jesus has just been transfigured before these three men who were the three that he chose to reveal Himself to more intimately than the rest. They were chosen out of the apostles to be the ones to whom Jesus would reveal Himself more intimately and from whom He seemed to expect more than He did from the rest. At least, He gave them the opportunity later on to be with Him.
As we see this transfiguration of the Lord Jesus Christ, and see the change that came over Him there, we are struck by the words of St. Peter which have in them really, a suggestion to do something, but they were simply words that were spoken out of the awed mind. He spoke, but no doubt he hardly realized what he was saying; he hardly knew what to say because he had become sore afraid.
We talk about ourselves as changing people, and surely we are. We have many sides to us and we change quite a lot. If we know ourselves at all, we know that we cannot depend upon ourselves and we cannot promise ourselves anything of ourselves, except that one thing we know, that we are not to be depended upon when it comes to spiritual faithfulness, truth and light except as the Lord Jesus Christ takes full charge. Whatever part He is not in, we are not trustworthy. One day it will break down to our discomfort, shame and regret. We are changeable and sometimes we are apt to say—many do say, and in a great it is true, that God changes not, that Jesus changes not, but that is not entirely true. Jesus does change, and quite a lot, and one of the things that is so striking in this passage of scripture is the fact that Jesus was changed. He was a different Jesus and so suddenly, so completely, so strangely, so unforeseen was the change that it caught Peter by surprise. He did not know what was coming as he saw Jesus with His raiment shining, exceeding white as snow, and one writer said, His raiment was as the light. As He was lifted up there before him, this Man who had trudged the roads with them, His clothes dusty and soiled from travel, as they stand there, very suddenly, through a supernatural moving He becomes something else unto them. The same Jesus, but a different Jesus. A Jesus that they cannot get close to; a Jesus who smites their hearts with awe until Peter mumbles out, hardly knowing what he said because words failed him. There appeared a changing Jesus.
We see Jesus in many different roles, and if we did not know it was the same Man, we would have a difficult time linking it up. We see a Jesus who said, “Suffer the little children to come to me,” and He gathers them together and blesses them. We see another who takes a whip of cords and drives the money changers out of the temple and up turns tables. We see another Jesus who tells men that He is an austere man. Here He is changed so completely, so suddenly, that this man had nothing to say. This time that came to St. Peter was an experience that not everybody had had at that time. Those who did not come close to Jesus were not awed by it. Those who did not go on the Mount, quite possibly, noticed very little difference when He came down. They knew nothing at all about it except, perhaps, what these who came down with Him, told them. They had not had an experience of that kind of their own. They were not saying, “Master”, mumbling something they hardly knew what they were saying. Yet these who went had a unique experience, and not only something to tell about but something that we may be sure deepened them; something that gave them something to think over; something that made them know that this man was not One who just healed the sick, went about doing good, but He was in link with something higher, with something with power that could change Him and lift Him up and do supernatural things before their very eyes. We may be sure that after this time they were not the same; that this experience put upon them a stamp; that it stamped them as being personal who had seen Jesus in a different light from what they had seen Him before or anyone else had seen Him.
We see it not only there, but we see it happen again under very different circumstances. As Jesus came to the cross, as He came very close to it, as the shadow fell across His face and the agony of it worked in His life, He needed prayer, and went in the garden. He took with Him the disciples. He took the three with Him and He went there to pray. He wrestled with God and came out to see how things were going with the disciples. He found them asleep—asleep. He said. “Simon, sleepest thou?” He went again to pray and came out again to see how they were coming along. He found them asleep again, and as they looked up into Jesus’ face, that night, they saw not a Jesus who had His clothes supernaturally glistening, His face shining, the supernatural light of God upon Him, but they saw a Jesus who had been wrestling with God, with agony upon His face; sweating drops of blood, and looking at that Jesus, the same thing happened. They had no answer to make. They said nothing. There was nothing to say……nothing to say. Then, years later, we see one of these three on the Isle of Patmos and He saw in the spirit, the Lord Jesus different again. He saw Him with eyes as flames of fire, His hair as wool, and he fell at His feet as one dead.
How different are these appearances? Yet, all the same Jesus. How they do even now to read about them, affect us, and make us question ourselves, “How would I have acted at that time?” I believe we would have done the same thing. In the first place there was nothing to say when the supernatural was realized. There was nothing to say when they failed so terribly, and there was nothing to say I suppose, when John saw Him as he did. Yet, we find ourselves expecting a Jesus who is the same all of the time, but if we would go on with God, we will not get it. We will not have a Jesus who is the same all of the time. As He changed before, and He does change, we may see Him first as a Saviour; as One who is only interested in wooing us; as One who wants to bring us to Himself and save us from sin. That is one side of Him surely. He seems at first, terrible in His judgment of sin. He seems later altogether lovely as He washes our sins away. But, not very long He becomes to us a stern person and we realize we are not saved for our own salvation alone, but that we might bring in other men, and this, with its connections can be a terrible thing. Jesus can have a dozen things happening to us in terrible forms and shapes. Not terrible as would be horrible to see to the eye, but the suggestions that He makes to our lives. Not sacrifices, but things that must be done if we would come to walk with Him in any way near like He would have us to. The way He puts the questions to us, gently and insistently, time after time, the same thing, and never letting us go. This speaks of a different Jesus from the One that we first thought He would be. He seems to reveal Himself as we can take it. He seems to reveal Himself stronger and stronger as time goes by. I suppose that is the way it is but if we are looking or believing to go on in about the same old way, we will go alone without the Lord Jesus, because He is every changing. He never changes as far as His principles are concerned, but as far as your life and mine, He is ever changing. Changing to challenge us to new yieldednesses; changing to release us from other bondages; changing to reveal Himself to us in new and oftimes, in strange ways. Jesus appears in many strange forms to us. He reveals to us ways in which we can find Him. Ways in which we can please Him. They are very strange in the eyes of the world. They are strange in our eyes too, and we find ourselves sometimes, at the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ in the place that St. Peter was in when he wist not what to say, and you know that words, though we use them so much, have a very small part in the actual business of our dealings with God. We put our “Yes” when we mean “No”, and “No” where we mean “Yes”. We do not have to say anything, He knows without the words. We put too much stress on words. The times when God deals the most, we are afraid to say yes or no. We get into the place where Peter said, “Thou knowest.” If there is anything good in us, He knows about it. Too many words, too much glibe talking reveals a person who is shallow in God. Men and women who know God deeply do not try to chatter with Him. He is not a chatter-box, and He does not want to talk to us to keep us employed. He does not speak from time to time for our entertainment, but God is dead in earnest, and I would we were as earnest as He. He reveals Himself to us sometimes in a supernatural way that will awe us. Another time, He is asking us to do something possibly by putting someone or something upon our hearts. He comes in different forms to see how we are making out, and He may have to say to us sometimes, “Simon, sleepest thou? Sleepest thou?” What do we answer? Ah friends, there is no answer. We realize when failure has been made that there is nothing to say, and that is right. There is nothing to say, but there is a lot to see. Not much to say, but a lot to see.
Peter in his drowsiness that night, did not give one of his famous speeches, but I believe he saw something. If he did not then, I believe he did later when he denied his Lord, and he wept bitterly. When Jesus reveals Himself to us there is something to see and something to profit by. Glory to God! Then there may come times when God deals along certain lines and we are not willing just then. We put it off, let it slide, then a little revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ we see how far short we have come. How different it all seems. How different it seemed when we came to know the Lord Jesus and what we thought it was from the outside. We could not realize and we could not understand. Yet, I believe there are revelations of the Lord Jesus Christ that will startle us as much as the early ones. I believe He will reveal Himself to us in such a way that will surprise us. Peter, James and John knew nothing of shining raiment or flashing light. They never experienced that, it was something new. But God has new things. He has things that are ever new; ever revealing; ever progressive, and in all of them the flash upon you and me makes us stand in silence, awed by the mighty revelation of the Son of God. Hallelujah!
We have had our times surely. We have had our times when God revealed Himself to us, and we have been awed by it. We have seen Him working in unmistakable ways, and there is nothing more to say. As it is in life, so it was with Jesus. When things are done in life there is no sense talking. When a man dies, there is no sense talking for he is dead. When God’s Son reveals Himself to men and women or a group, it is not a thing to chatter about, and they do not chatter. There is such a tremendous difference between that than what we have come to know is not that. We are so awed, that we are not able to say anything. God is trying to give us a deeper experience in Him. He is trying to give us a place on the Mount; a place in the garden lying at His feet. Everybody will have one of these places, and some, possibly, all three, but we will have to be ready for surprises, and that is what most people will not have. They have a Jesus of their own. One whom they have learned about in childhood. They are not ready to accept any new idea, or light, or revelation, but when we stop accepting new things, we stop with God because God works new things every morning. Men and women who simply want to go a tread-mill way can do so, but they cannot go with God. God goes on steadily, doing new things, and I believe He is going on in the immediate future. The way God will reveal Himself in those days will be terrific, but I believe, first, possibly, during that time, He will reveal Himself to a group of men and women so unmistakably that they might measure up to the days that are coming.
We need a new revelation for a new day. Moses needed a revelation to take the children of Israel on. Paul needed a heavenly vision. Even the Son of God needed a revelation from His Father. He needed to be in touch with the throne of God. So we need a fresh revelation to our hearts, of the Son of God that we might be lifted above the shadows, awed into silence if necessary, to see our weakness; to sit with Him in the garden or such places that we might be brought into a place where we have nothing to say when it comes to self-vindication or excusing ourselves. “For all we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way.” Not only did we go astray before our salvation but since then. We have turned to our own ways more than once, but God stands ready if we will have it so.
If we will lay aside the weights, He stands ready to take us upon the mountain and reveal Himself in a fresh way. God knows there is a need for fresh testimonies, fresh revelations, fresh yieldedness, fresh prayers and new notes, higher, truer, more sacrificial, more loving, tender, charitable, in all of our lives. We tend to the downward way of hard hearts, a tendency to look out for No. 1; a tendency to forget whose children we are and unless God brings us up sharply we come to the place after a while, where we figure things as we used to. We have spiritual words and that is all. We are present in the Assembly, but not much more. God stands ready as He sees the old way getting lax and hard, to reveal Himself again.
My friends, that is the only way it can be done, knowing men as they are. If men would act definitely, Jesus could take us on on the old revelation, and give us new things little by little, but experience shows that men must be shocked time and again. There must come over us that revelation of the Son of God; of seeing Him lifted up suddenly; looking searchingly, shockingly, until we see what we have been doing will not do; how we have been yielding will not fill the bill; that the way we are walking is not pleasing to Him. We must catch a new vision of Him, and walk in His power and light. It has been God’s will all along to send new movings from the time the light came until now. I believe it is God’s plan to reveal Himself again to men and women in these days. How can we know that we are the Lord Jesus’? By having our hands in His. It is the only thing worthwhile in this whole world. The only thing that will stand in the judgment. It is the only thing that will bring us through victoriously. Oh how terrible to be outside of Christ! How terrible not to know Him and to be in the way of the transgressor which is hard! How hard it is! How hard is the way of the transgressor! Everything about it is hard—hard—until in the end you go down into hell. God stands ready to reveal Himself fresh, to every heart. He stands ready to save. He is mighty to save, strong to deliver.
If there is anyone here tonight outside of Christ, God stands ready to save; Jesus stands ready to reveal Himself to you in a way that will be as striking as it was to Peter on the Mount. His revelations are progressive. Our first one is as striking as the last one. God stands ready to reveal Himself to men and women through Jesus Christ; ready to free from sin; to speak peace to your souls in such an unmistakable way that you will say, “I did not realize it was like this.” We never do. We cannot stand on the outside of Christianity and talk about what is on the inside. A man or woman would have us believe that that they can read scripture, quote it and that is all there is to it. No, it comes by yielding to the Son of God, saying, “Lord Jesus, have mercy on me.” Repent of your sins with the idea of forsaking them. As you lift up your head and believe you will get the witness within yourself. It is something the world cannot give and cannot take away. As this is revealed to you you will be days, months and years may be marveling at the mighty change God to work when we fulfil a few simple conditions. Simple and plain, yes, but all things considered, the most important step a man has to make. It is plain, yes plain and clear except where men try to mix it up. The way to heaven is as plain as the way to Baltimore Street. The way to repentance is simply by looking up and saying, “Lord make me clean.”
Those in the text wist not what to say. Peter did not know what to say. Well, I did not know what to say years ago when He washed me clean from my sins, but I do know what to say tonight. Thanks be unto God who giveth us the victory through the Lord Jesus. This victory is for everyone here. You who do not know Him, I beseech you that you do not let this night go by in not letting the Lord Jesus have His way. “Now is the accepted time, today is the day of salvation.” Amen.
