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I hope by now that I have been able to persuade you that one of the major lessons conveyed to us by the second epistle of Peter is that this present world is temporary. It is a time of change, where change is possible. A world designed of God that in it we should make progress, according to the plans that he has in mind for us, and in view of the great eternal world that lies beyond. This world, then, is temporary.
There is an eternal kingdom. Because there is an eternal kingdom, all true, genuine progress has eternal consequences. And Peter writes to us so as to persuade us that we will use all the God-given resources that lie to our hand to cooperate with God and develop our personalities, so that when we enter that eternal kingdom, we shall not simply enter and be secure eternally, but that there shall be ministered to us an abundant entrance into that eternal kingdom.
When we concluded our last talk, we were thinking together of what entrance into the kingdom means. Of course, to enter is to enter, in one sense, the Father's house, to be at home with the Lord, to be eternally secure, to know that there is no more death, crying, tears, sorrow, no more curse. But on the other hand, it is not a question of entering merely into a place, but entering into an experience. And not only entering an experience, but entering into all those glorious activities that God has designed with which to fill eternity.
And because of the very glory of those coming experiences and activities, it is essential that we are properly prepared, so that we may not only enter, but enter to the full. All true believers will enter the eternal kingdom. But the extent to which we enter, in the sense of the extent to which we are fitted to enjoy and make the most of that eternity, will depend upon the progress that we have made here.
Hence then, the practical importance of the things that Peter is bringing before us. So just let's recap for a moment and refresh our minds on the short flow of the first eleven verses briefly before we move on to the second half of chapter one. In order to encourage us to prepare ourselves aright for eternity, that there might be ministered unto us an abundant entrance into that eternal kingdom, we start off with grace and peace on the basis that all things pertaining to life and godliness have been given to us.
Now, it is important that we start there. Let's just recap. There are some people who feel that in order to get to heaven, they must indeed make moral and spiritual progress, but they attempt to make the progress without first coming to the right starting point. Life in the sense of eternal life, acceptance with God, eternal life here and now, that is given us. We don't have to develop. And if I gave you the impression this morning that eternal life is simply a potential, uh, we can't really have it, but it's, it could be potentially ours, then let me make it abundantly clear that eternal life is the present possession of every true believer.
The moment we trust Christ, that moment we receive the gift of eternal life. Gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. To put it another way round, if we are to make progress in the Christian life, we must first of all receive that life. I couldn't make any progress, and as you see, I was a very late starter in life. Uh, progress very poor, not very far because, but then you see, I couldn't start progressing until I was born, and I wasn't born till nineteen twenty five.
Some of you have been around since eighteen eighty. Of course you've made a lot more progress, but you can't begin to progress until you're born, can you, in physical things? You can't begin to make any spiritual progress until you have been born again. And the glorious thing is, that's why we can have grace and peace. We can have grace and peace right at the very start on this basis, that eternal life, the very life of God, and with it divine nature, has been, not will be, has been given us. And through the knowledge of the Lord Jesus, we receive it through personal contact and faith in him.
We receive the gift of eternal life. With that eternal life comes a divine nature. We have it already if we are believers. But just as physical life, when we receive it, is a present possession, and yet it has potential for the future, and that potential has to be developed, so is it with the life of God that we receive through faith in Christ, a present possession, but carrying potential that needs to be developed. Hence the great exhortations that fill this first paragraph. We are therefore, because we have these gifts, then on that very ground we're to add all diligence, to supply on our part all diligence, and supply that long list of Christian qualities, uh, and characteristics that we were thinking about this morning.
If we do it, we shall be fruitful. Our knowledge of the Lord Jesus will make us fruitful. If we don't, we are blind, and we're going around in circles, forgetting what the whole thing was really about when we first came to Christ and were saved. The whole idea was not merely to deliver us from the wrath of God and give us eternal security. The idea was that being delivered from the wrath of God and being born again, we should now develop. And it is possible, of course, for true Christians to forget what the scheme is really about, and to settle down, to wander, to make little progress.
Therefore, all the more, if we have been called and chosen, then we're exhorted to give all diligence to show in the way we live the earnestness with which we seek to make progress, to show it, to demonstrate it, to put it beyond doubt, that we have been called and have been chosen. If we do this, we shall not stumble. It doesn't mean that we shall be sinless. In many things, we all offend and go astray. But what Peter is concerned that they shall not happen to us is that as believers, we shall come a cropper.
Peter himself had an unfortunate experience, didn't he? Unprepared. When he could have been prepared. Unprepared for the tests of life. He fell and denied his Lord. He was brought back. And by God's good grace, as our Savior said to him before it all happened, when you are brought back, Peter, strengthen your brethren. So now he does it in this letter. He wants to establish us, so that we should be strong to face life's disciplines, examinations, trials, lessons, and make genuine progress without coming grievously unstuck at one stage or another.
And how that can happen, we shall see, God willing, particularly next week, when we come to consider some of the opposition that there is against our making progress. Peter's failure in the goodness of our Lord was turned in the end to his benefit and to our benefit. It doesn't do any away with the sad thing that did happen when he denied his Lord. He never forgot it. I think he'll never forget it for all eternity. Better not to have experiences like that.
How can I avoid them? The only way to avoid them is to make progress. Just to stand still is a very dangerous thing. If we give this diligence to make our calling and election sure, then, says Peter, for thus we'll not merely enter the eternal kingdom, as all believers will, but there shall be ministered to you an abundant entrance into all the experience and the activities of that eternal kingdom.
Thus far, then, the thought flow of the first half of chapter one. We have already seen how the second paragraph opens, and I put it there just once more for completion's sake. We've got to get this lesson. Peter is determined to remind us of it, so he says. Not only to remind us of it, but to stir us up. It won't do for us as we read, it won't do for us here today to say, oh yes, oh yes, I remember having heard what that man was talking about today. I, I, I heard that before, you know. As a preacher came, let me see, as a preacher came, uh, thirty five years ago and told us about that.
Well, yes, yes, yes, I remember, yeah, yeah. And leave it like that? Peter would stir us up. This is serious business. This is life's real business. It's why you go to work, you know, gentlemen, ladies. I hope you're not a pack of old Gentiles. You know what the Gentiles go to work for, don't you? They go to work, um, to make, get food and clothes. We'll say, well, come half a minute, that's why I go to work. You do? You old Gentile, you. Wow! You go to work to get food and clothes.
Well, you say, what man in his right mind goes to work for any other reason? I, I wouldn't go to work at all if I didn't have to earn food and clothes. You would not? Well, now you do surprise me because you are a veritable gentile. That's what the gentiles do. That's what the unconverted man does. You say, but I do need the food and clothes. Of course you do. The food and clothes are only the secondary dividend, aren't they? First reason for going to work, why God sends us to work anyway, is, as he puts it, to seek his kingdom, his rule in our lives. So that as I'm faced with my daily responsibilities, and I have to decide how I'm going about them, now I've got the chance to do a little exercise.
Now, what am I doing it for? Primarily to make money? I hope not. Primarily for the sake of pleasing the Lord. Primarily as an opportunity to develop goodness, patience, self-control, godliness. And you will not need to tell me how complicated life can be, can it not? Now, I've got to make a go of the business. My wife's health and children depend upon it. I must provide things honest in the sight of God. These are difficult times.
To keep the business afloat, I've got to work all the hours that there are. Yes, we mustn't escape responsibility, may we? But then, would be a disaster, wouldn't it, to keep the business afloat and be successful and never have any time for the development of spiritual life, the reading of God's word, prayer with God, my church responsibilities, and for the sake of physically keeping alive, lose the spiritual progress that was the whole point of living. Let alone when it comes to questions of morality, what shall I do in my daily work when I'm tempted to cheat?
You say, but if I don't cheat, I shall lose the order. I'm a commercial traveler, you know. Ha! And if I don't cheat, well, the other chap will cheat and he'll get the order, so I- you're obliged to cheat. Oh, I see. So having a job was there, as God understood it, to give us the opportunity to put true Christian morality into practice. If I go and cheat, I've lost the prime purpose for which God sent me to work. That's what life is all about primarily.
Of course, it's about getting food and clothes, but primarily about seeking God's rule in my life, and therefore his righteousness and the righteous character that will build up in me. As in all of life's departments, I try to be godly. That is not walk around with a long face and look pie. My long face is because of my gout, nothing to do with my Christianity. Uh, you'll see. Uh, godliness that in all my affairs, I'm constantly practicing consulting God. Now, how does this affect God? How does this affect his interests? Where does this fit into God's scheme for me and God's purpose for my life?
Godliness. Yeah, so we have to be stirred up. And then not only stirred up, but he wants so to keep on reminding us that, um, we shall presently be able to recall it without his help. That's how thoroughly he wants us to get hold of second Peter. Jolly good. Well, now let's move on. And, uh, because these matters are tremendously important, he now cites to us his authority for telling us about this eternal kingdom.
He says, for we did not follow, verse sixteen, 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. And so he goes on to talk to us about the transfiguration of our Lord. And he's citing it as the authority for what he is saying. This idea that there is an eternal kingdom, this is no myth. We were with him on the Holy Mount. We saw with our eyes.
We actually heard with our ears. This is no myth. We are relating to you, says Peter, something that actually happened. This was an historical happening. This is not a myth. Now, in our second session this afternoon, we shall have to consider the business of myth. It's been much in the air recently, hasn't it? When a very prominent cleric in England has been telling the world that the story of the incarnation and the virgin birth is a myth, and that the story of the resurrection is a myth. So it's currently in the air. It is interesting to find that Peter denies it outright.
Talking of the Transfiguration, he says we have not followed cunningly devised myths. Peter knows what a myth is, and he says the story of the Transfiguration isn't one. So we shall have to think about that in our second session. Now, for the moment, for a few moments in this first session this afternoon, I want to to take liberty to consider with you the Transfiguration in and of itself. It is one of those momentous events in the life of our Lord, and so let's spend some time this session thinking about its possible significance. Now, you will find that it is recorded in three of the Gospels, and the narrative in which it re- is recorded takes that form.
On each occasion, the narrative first records a promise. There be some standing here which shall not taste of death until they see. And then about a week later, the narrative records that our Lord took three of his disciples up a mountain, and there he was transfigured before them. And then the narrative on each of the three occasion records that when they came down from the Mount of Transfiguration, there met them a father with his son, and the son was demon possessed, and he besought the Lord that the Lord would heal his son because he had brought that son to the nine disciples left at the bottom of the mountain, but they had not been able to cast out the demon.
Now, in all three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, this is the pattern and sequence of the narrative. You may care to notice that by turning to the passages, uh, as you, uh, find them in the gospels. Let's look at the, um, promise as it occurs in those three Gospels. Pardon? Oh, that's too bad, isn't it? Don't you read backwards? Ha. In Luke, the passage is found in Luke chapter nine, Luke nine, verse twenty seven.
But I tell you of a truth, there be some of them that stand here, which shall in no wise taste of death till they see the kingdom of God. And it came to pass about eight days after these sayings, he took them up the mountain. I wonder if you'd noticed the exact phrase that Luke uses. Some stand here which shall not taste of death until they see. Now, what shall they see? According to Luke, what they see is the kingdom of God. Full stop. Put your thumb, if you care, or else your finger, into that, uh, passage in the New Testament and keep it and turn over to Matthew's account. You will find that at the end of Matthew chapter sixteen.
Matthew sixteen verse twenty eight: Verily I say unto you, there be some of them that stand here which shall in no wise taste of death till they see. Now what, according to Matthew, did they see? Until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. If you've got, uh, a finger and a thumb, put them both in and turn over now to what Mark, uh, says in his narrative. That likewise comes in chapter nine of Mark, verse one.
And he said unto them, verily I say unto you, there be some here of them that stand by, which shall in no wise taste of death till they see the kingdom of God come with power. So all three evangelists record the same event, but they invite us to look at different particular things within that event. And first of all, Luke says that if we watch our Lord on the Mount of Transfiguration and what there happened, what we shall see is the kingdom of God.
We shall see in the first place that it really exists, that it is there. It's not only a something that will come one day, it already is. Now that is very important, because some learned commentators and theologians have doubted whether the promise, there be some that stand here that shall not taste of death until they see the kingdom of God, they have doubted whether that promise refers to the transfiguration, and they've said to themselves, no, it can't do. You see, when the Lord made that promise, the transfiguration was only a week away.
What sense, they say, would it make to say to Peter, James, and John, look here, gentlemen, you will not taste of death until you see the kingdom of God, if they were going to see it in six days time. Um, you going home to tea? Hope you are. If not, to dinner, good man. Right. What sense would it make of me to say to you, thou shalt not taste of death till you've had dinner tonight at eight o'clock? Well, you're not expecting to die so soon, are you? And they say, if I, if this transfiguration thing was going to happen within a week, why would our Lord say you won't taste of death until you see it? So they suppose the promise refers to some much more distant thing.
I humbly submit that they're not quite right. Consider this kingdom of God. It will come in a future day, but it already exists. Look at it. There was our Lord, his two feet were on earth on top of that mountain in Palestine, and yet, and yet, and yet. While Caiaphas was going about his daily job and Annas was going about his, and the fishermen were fishing, and the women were washing the clothes and baking the bread. Yet, while all that was happening on here, there was that eternal realm. There was Moses, there was Elijah.
There they were in glory, says, uh, Luke, talking with the Lord Jesus. That eternal kingdom already there, already real. Possible for the Lord Jesus to be in both at one and the same time. Demonstrating himself to be the link between man and that eternal kingdom and its reality. The point of the promise to the disciples, you will not taste of death until you see it, is this. That normally ordinary human beings like ourselves...
enter that eternal kingdom by one of two methods. We either die... and we enter it. Or else we wait till the Lord comes, when he comes to take us there. For Peter, James, and John to be allowed to see it before they died, and without dying, and without waiting for the Lord to come. That was a remarkable privilege. That is what happened. And Peter wants to tell you and me, look, that eternal kingdom is real.
I've seen it. This is not a myth and a fairy story like Red Riding Hood to put us to bed at night, to keep us afraid of from being afraid of the dark. It's real, says Peter. I was there. I saw it. And I heard the conversation, literally heard it. Right marvelous it was, and we haven't time now to talk about it. There was Moses and Elijah. They lived in widely different centuries when they were here on earth. Here they were together. As they were there, says Luke, they talked of our Lord's decease, that is his exodus that he must accomplish at Jerusalem.
They were looking forward to his cross. Down on earth, the disciples had just been told that our Lord was going to die, and to them it was a tremendous shock. They couldn't take it in, and some of them didn't want to take it in. Up there, it was talked about as the eternal plan of God, known in advance. And Moses and Elijah talked with our Lord about it. Luke points us then to the present reality of that eternal kingdom. Ma- Mark, what does he talk about?
Well, he says, according to the promise as he relays it, you shall not taste of death until you see the kingdom of God come with power. So he's not interested merely in the kingdom itself, but in it, in the kingdom as an exhibition of power. Oh? Well, now we want to ask Mask, ask Mark a few questions. In, in what particulars did you notice anything to do with power when you were up that mountain? The Greek word is dunamis, of course. Dunamis, power. Was it such a great exhibition of power? Tell us, Mark, we say, what was it that impressed you about the power of that eternal kingdom?
Did you see some gigantic heavenly volcanoes or something. Did you see a supernova explosion or something in the heavens? Some gigantic expression of power, Mark. What did you see, Mark? Tell us about the power of that place. I will, says Mark. Listen. He was transfigured before them, and his garments became glistening, exceeding white, so white that no laundry man on earth has power to whiten them. What about that for power, he says. Mark.
Okay. In my idea of eternal power, being able to outdo the laundry men in Belfast, admittedly, some of them don't make a very good job of cleaning our shirts, but, but then... Power to make people's garments white? What's there in that mark? Ah, now that's a point, isn't it? Peter is interested because he's been talking to us in his first paragraph, hasn't he? Seeing his divi- divine power has given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness.
It's about time we revised our ideas of power, isn't it, here on earth? In fact, our civilization stands teetering on the edge of potential complete destruction. Why? Because we have developed almost unlimited technological power. We can split the atom, we can go to the moon. We can get get back messages from space. Power! And we can't control our own tempers. We can't control our own lusts. And our modern civilization wallows in its uncontrollable lusts, violence, and vice.
What's going to become of our civilization? The more physical power we get into our hands, the more perilous it becomes unless we can learn to control ourselves. How shall I, allow me the phrase, whiten my garments? Ah, there is a power, you know. Let Peter tell us, I went up the mountain and I saw it. I'm not telling you a myth, he says, when I make known to you the power of our Lord Jesus. The power that Mark is interested in, along with Peter, is that power that made his garment so spotlessly white that he glistened with an almost impossible to look upon brightness.
If that's what the kingdom of God is like, if that's how they dress up there, and I talk in metaphors, don't I? If that's the purity of their behavior in heaven, oh, how shall I, whose mind is dark, whose native sphere is dim, before the ineffable appear, and on my naked spirit bear that uncreated beam. There is a power available to make us holy. It's a power that has its origin in that eternal kingdom.
And Mark follows his story, doesn't he? For when he comes down to the mountain to tell us of that father and his boy, he, he fills in more details than the others, and he says, you know, when the father came to Christ, he said to the Lord, have mercy on us. Lord, I brought him to your disciples and they couldn't cast out the demon. But if you have the power to do anything, he said to Christ, if you have the power to do anything. Wait a minute, my man, he said. Now stop there. What do you mean? If you have the power to do it. It's not a question of whether I have the power to do it, says Christ. It's a question is, can you, have you the power to believe? All things are within the power of him who believes.
And the man perceiving that the responsibility lay with him, and realizing in that moment how desperately weak his faith was, did what all wise men and women do. Oh Lord, he said, I do believe, you know I do believe, Lord, but my faith is wobbly. Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. And mercifully, Christ didn't say, no, you don't count. That's only forty percent achievement. You, you don't get anything until you learn to get a hundred percent, my boy. No, no. Forthwith, however wobbly and insufficient the faith was, our Lord began to meet the man's need. So will Christ do every one of us.
He's taking you on if you have committed yourself to him. He's taken you on, knowing everything about you, knowing exactly where you start. I don't mean physically, I mean emotionally now and temperamentally, morally, spiritually, just where you are. Knows us, each one, through and through. Now that he receives us, he's got to bring us home to glory. And there is power for it. And he must train us to lay hold of that power by developing our faith. Mark's interested then in, in, in power.
What's Matthew interested in? Ah, according to Matthew, says Matthew, our Lord promised them you shall not taste of death until you see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. Oh, what a glorious sight that will be. For the kingdom is already, but one day that kingdom shall come. Don't we pray that? Hope you do. Thy kingdom come. And then, if we're good Christians, we add on earth. Hope you believe it. Or is your concept that you're really saying, good Lord, don't make it come on earth, but take me home to heaven? Thy kingdom come on earth.
Yes, one day it will. And what it will be like when the Lord comes? What will he look like? Well, Matthew says, I've seen what he'll look like when he comes. His face shone as the very sun in the heavens. And I must leave your imagination to work around the details that Matthew supplies us. Matthew has it that it is a forevision of what the Lord shall be like when he comes. But Matthew is showing us how this answered a problem that the apostles had. For our Lord, in the context, had just revealed to Peter that he, that is our Lord, must go to Jerusalem, be crucified, suffer, killed, buried, rise again.
Peter said, no, no, no, Lord, that ain't gonna happen like that. No, no, no, no, Lord, excuse me, there you've got it wrong. There were places where Christ got it wrong according to Peter, now and again. And that's one of them, says Peter, you see. No, no, you mustn't think defeatist thoughts like that, Lord. You want to, power of positive thinking, you know. You want to say to yourself every morning when you get up, I'm going to Jerusalem, I'm going to be successful, I'm going to be successful, the crowds are coming around, and then they will, you see. No, not be rejected. No, no, Lord. And of course, Peter had a vested interest, didn't he? Huh. For the Lord's sake, he'd left his boat and his job and followed the Lord. He'd put hours of time into it, praying and preaching and giving out tracts and goodness knows what else.
And if the Lord was going to be rejected, that's all gone down the drain as far as Peter is concerned. He's lost the lot. No, no, you're not going to be rejected, Lord, he said. Ah, but Peter was reckoning without a thing, wasn't he? You know, if you're going to keep your life, you've got to lose it, said our Lord, haven't you? And if you manage to keep it, you will lose it. What did he mean? The riddle is solved by the fact there are two worlds. You live for that world. Sooner or later, you'll find how much it costs in this one, following the Christ and taking your cross and being prepared for sacrifices in the course of following him and in the course of developing a godly life.
You'll lose your life here as men count it. You'll keep it in that other world. Keep it in this world. Okay. You stand to lose it in that. You are a lot of chumps, if you don't mind my saying it, aren't you? It's a lovely Saturday afternoon with sun shining. Think what you could have been doing. Coming and spending. I say what next? six hours or more in a stuffy old hall, reading the Bible, when you could be out playing football, golf, or playing those dodgem machines.
The world thinks you're crackers, you know. You've just lost this whole Saturday, and there aren't all those many Saturdays in life. No, sorry, we haven't. Well, we've lost it as they count it. We've kept it. Oh, we should praise God eternally for this Saturday. His little six hours brought an eternal harvest in that eternal world. And the other Christian, he went out and played his football. Well, perhaps he needed it for his health, and there's nothing wrong in doing that if you need it for your health. Or did this and that and the other. He kept it as the world counted it. I wonder if he's lost it.
You see, there are two worlds. And when it comes to invest- investing the whole of life, a redeemed life given us by Christ and bought by Christ, oh, ponder well where you invest it, which world you invest it for, for this is a temporary world. That world is eternal. We didn't make known to you myths when we made known to you the power and coming of the Lord Jesus, says Luke. Oh? So the Transfiguration has to do not only with the power of Christ, but has to do with his coming.
It does indeed. What makes you think that the Transfiguration is a pledge of the second coming. I'll tell you, says Luke. You see, and here he relates Peter's experience. They were up the mountain. And up that mountain, as Moses and Elijah appeared with Christ in glory, they began to talk, and they began to talk of Christ going. He was to come down from the mountain, he was to go on to Jerusalem, he was to go to Calvary and the cross with all its shame and suffering to redeem mankind.
And Moses was talking of it, and Elijah was talking of it, how that the Lord Jesus must go, how it had been planned from all eternity that the Lamb of God must go to Calvary. Peter was asleep. It gets stuffy at a quarter to three of a Saturday afternoon, some place. And, uh, Peter was asleep, and then he suddenly woke up, and you know how it is when you wake up a bit embarrassed and you think, ooh, I must say something unless they, they'll think I was asleep. So Peter, waking up, he's got to say something. Lord, he said. And at that moment, they were beginning to go as they were going.
Lord, let's stay, he said. It's nice up here. Why not stay? Why not stay? Can you answer the question? Oh, if he had stayed, there would have been no eternal kingdom for you or for me either. And from the glory of that mountain are, and indeed a greater glory of the Father's house, he'd come down to our wretched planet. And now had come the crucial moment when he must face the reality of what it would mean to go to Calvary. And Peter was saying, stay.
No, even as Peter made the remark, Elijah and Moses turned to go, and Christ turned to go. Now this was it. Now Calvary. And against all temptations to stay, he would go. And at that moment, now listen to Peter, there came to him such a voice from the excellent glory as at that moment of going, the cloud descended, and God couldn't contain himself any longer. Now was his son going to the bitter shame and hurt of Calvary, and God couldn't constrain it.
As he saw him go, he came with a cloud, and he said, this is my beloved son. Oh, wonder of all wonders in all God's universe, that the man Jesus was prepared to go to Calvary to redeem the likes of us to God. And God gave him at that moment that tremendous accolade of glory. This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. In that you will see the guarantee that one day Jesus Christ, who suffered Calvary, will come in glory. The argument is simply this. He obeyed even to death. Wherefore God has highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name.
God will see to it that the Christ who went to Calvary shall be vindicated. He shall come one day in glory. Such and such things and much more beside, is the Transfiguration story about. I trust now we begin to see how it relates to this question, the relation of time to eternity, and the plan of God, and our need as redeemed people to believe in the reality of that eternal kingdom, to look forward to its coming, and by God's grace to lay hold of the power of that kingdom that shall transform us ever more nearly into the image of God's dear Son.
Let's go to our classes. Questions on the third session, the significance of the Transfiguration. Question one: According to Luke chapter nine verse twenty seven, the Transfiguration gives us a glimpse of the Kingdom of God. Does that kingdom already exist, or will it begin to exist only when the Lord comes? According to Luke chapter nine verse twenty seven, the Transfiguration gives us a glimpse of the Kingdom of God.
Does that kingdom already exist, or will it begin to exist only when the Lord comes? Question two: Where are Moses and Elijah now? Where did Peter go when he put off his tabernacle? Two Peter chapter one verse fourteen. Where are Moses and Elijah now? Where did Peter go when he put off his tabernacle? Second Peter chapter one verse fourteen. Question three. At Second Peter chapter one verse fifteen, Peter speaks of his departure or decease.
What lesson about departure was he taught at the Transfiguration? Luke chapter nine verses thirty one and thirty three. Question four. Mark chapter nine verse one. tells us that the Transfiguration was a glimpse of the kingdom come with power.
One example of power is given us at Mark chapter nine verse three. Do you see any connection between this and second Peter chapter one verses two and three and sixteen? Mark chapter nine verse one tells us that the transfiguration was a glimpse of the kingdom come with power. One example of power is given us at Mark chapter nine verse three. Do you see any connection between this and second Peter chapter one verses two, three, and sixteen?
Question five: What, according to Matthew chapter sixteen verse twenty eight, will the Lord Jesus look like when he comes again? Question six: Moses died and was buried. Elijah went to heaven without dying. How will we enter the eternal kingdom? See first Corinthians chapter fifteen verses fifty to fifty two.
Question seven: At what point, according to Luke chapter nine from verses thirty three onwards, did the voice come out of the cloud? How is that a guarantee of the second coming? At what point, according to Luke chapter nine, from verses thirty three onwards, did the voice come out of the cloud? How is that a guarantee of the second coming?
