Taking up the cross

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You’ve all got, I think, the programme in front of you which gives you the times. There may be one or two small hiccups, but basically they are going to stick, those times.

We’re going to have no opportunity for recap on the lectures in part 1. Obviously, if I start doing that, we’ll never get off the ground. So let me remind you that the 2 things in the Gospel are: one, the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Mark is about salvation. And secondly, it is about the preparation of the disciples to serve that Gospel in the world without Christ when he has returned to glory.

And the disciples received, as we know in Mark, that privilege which very, very few of our church members ever receive, and that is some kind of training in Christian work.

You wouldn’t be in full-time ministry if someone hadn’t taken the trouble somewhere along the line to give you that kind of training. It may have been university CU, it may have been young people’s camps, it may have been Navigators, whatever it was, somebody took some time to build you up. That’s why you are in Christian work. We can’t serve without being trained in some way and, uh, But what this Gospel so wonderfully shows is the kind of Saviour that we have but also the kind of training in discipleship that he gave. Now the opportunity for detailed study is in the personal study times, the small groups, the workshops, the come and the times of talking together.

I’m not doing that, as you know, so much in the lectures or we couldn’t possibly get through the material which is now part 2 of Mark. There’s time only for me more or less to give an overview. Some of this may be new to you. I hope it will be new to you even this morning. Some of it may not be right, and I don’t stand here infallible, especially on Part 2.

It always happens that one’s travelled over the first part much more often than the second part, and certainly I don’t feel as confident in some parts of Part 2 as I do in Part 1, so that I’m very much looking forward to things you have to say over the meal table and in the comebacks sessions. We start then at the crucial watershed in Mark chapter 8, verse 33, saying farewell to the first part.

Not wholly farewell, because as you know, tomorrow we’re hoping that many of you are going to give us feedback at 2:30 on work that you’ve done with that. In chapter 8, verse 33, Jesus turns and rebukes Peter and says, get behind me, Satan. You’re not on the side of God but of men. You don’t see things as As God sees them, you see in human terms only. Now that verse has become for me much, much more key, I think, in the last few months.

I have seen much more clearly that it is this rebuke that opens out the second half of Mark. You remember that the disciples went on misunderstanding the person of the Lord. He went on patiently teaching them. Finally we get to that miracle where he opens the eyes of the blind man in chapter 8 verse 22 and after that you remember Peter’s eyes are open and he says, you are the Christ. So there we get to the climax of part 1.

But it’s essential to realise that when Peter says, you are the Christ, his eyes are only half open. It’s essential to understand that. See, it’s a bit of a shock to people today, isn’t it? The young convert at last gets it and says, Jesus is Lord. We have sermons on it, we sing choruses on it and we feel we’ve arrived.

Now Mark tells us, far from it. To say that is not to have arrived. It is to have got to the place where I know who Jesus is but I don’t understand the gospel or my part in serving that gospel if I don’t realise that that Lord is going to be a suffering Lord.

Now I touched on that I think at the end of last course but it is very, very important. I determined to know nothing amongst you except Christ, and him crucified. Not meaning that the apostle taught only the atonement, of course, but meaning that the Christ he was preaching about, whether he was preaching the incarnation, the resurrection, the ascension, or the coming again, was the crucified Christ. That’s what he means by that. In other words, it’s not a text for old-fashioned evangelicals.

It is a text for modern evangelicals who are faced with a triumphalism in the church that wants constantly to be talking about the risen triumphant Christ and failing to recognise that we are still in the situation where the Christ we follow is leading us along the way of the cross. And it’s because people are so immature today— thank God for the new life in the church— but it is so immature that people think when you’ve got as far as Jesus is Lord, you’ve got the answer. I went to an opening of a magnificent new evangelical church recently where and preached on the opening day and they have under the pulpit, Jesus is Lord. See, now, now fine, but that’s not the full storey. That’s what Mark is saying to us.

Your eyes have got to be fully open, Peter. You think Jesus is Lord and it thrills you. You think therefore that it’s going to be a triumphant way now for the disciples, that nothing can stand in your way. You don’t know what’s coming. And so the whole of the second half tells Peter what is going to come.

Following this Saviour and it’s going to be quite different from what they thought. Their naivety is going to be shattered.

We live in a day of so-called kingdom theology. Most of that is a misinterpretation of the victory of Christ. It is trying to have heaven before heaven has arrived. It’s trying to have the power and the glory before the power and the glory can be ours. And that’s the storey which we’re going to follow out for 3 days.

Don’t get depressed, brothers. It just will bring you in touch with reality, that’s all, and you may find that very much more exhilarating.

Now the 3 prophecies of the Passion I think you know. I mentioned those at the end last time. There they are for your notes, and we’re not going to follow those up today, though we are going to follow up the first one. Those are the 3 prophecies of the Passion that introduce the second part of Mark.

But we’re going today to look at these 3 sections under Lecture 1, which follows the confession and the rebuke. I become more and more persuaded that Mark arranges his material often in threes. I look for them now. If I seem to look for them too absurdly, then just knock me on the head and say, you’re getting the structure out of— you know, we all do that, don’t we? Some people get to the place where they can’t preach except with 3 points.

I think Marx more or less got to that stage.

And if I get it wrong and you think I’m forcing the material, just come and pour a bucket of cold water over me. I’m just going through that phase at the moment of being a bit too enthusiastic about it. Now I’m going to start the wrong way around, and I’m in trouble with my queue over this because you are meant to be studying the 3rd one in your study period. I still think that’s because I’m sure I’m not going to exhaust it, but I was really on duty not to say very much about it. I found that impossible because I can’t really get you to the heart of these 3 without looking at that 3rd one as well.

I wasn’t going to do 1 and 2. Sorry about that, but Mike will explain my faults later. So let’s start with 9:14-29, the epileptic boy.

I think I won’t read this one since you’re going to study it later. It’s so well known. It’s a marvellous storey. It’s a pathetic tale, isn’t it, of this lad so wracked with demon possession. It’s very long, but its chief significance for us is that it is a miracle storey par excellence, and in part 2 of Mark there are really no miracle storeys.

So it stands It stands out like a sore thumb. There are only 2 miracles in the second part of Mark: this one at the end of chapter 9 and the giving of sight to Bartimaeus before they finally enter Jerusalem.

The mighty acts, the signs and wonders in part 1 pointed to the incarnation. They pointed to Christ. But now that Christ is pointing to the way of service, these mighty acts of power begin to disappear from the storey. There’s great significance in that. Mark part 2 is not primarily an arena for miracle.

So why is it here? That’s the question. Now the scene is a familiar one. It’s one that will become more and more clear to us in Mark and probably is already to you. Verse 19, for example, O faithless generation.

We met that at the end of chapter 8. Whoever is ashamed of me, verse 38, in this adulterous and sinful generation. So here is a scene that’s going to be familiar to us. Christ portrays mankind as a faithless generation. Secondly, what we see in this storey is a powerless group of disciples.

That’s the testimony of Papa in verse 18: Whenever it seizes my son, it dashes him down. I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able. Surely that’s one of the saddest sentences in this part of Mark. And sad for us because it’s often true of us.

Not only the testimony of the Father but the testimony of the disciples also in the little private instruction they have afterwards in verse 28: Why could we not cast it out? Now the puzzle here of course is because of chapter 6, verse 7. In chapter 6, verse 7, he called to him 12, began to send them out 2 by 2, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits, Now, however, they don’t seem to be able to do what they’ve done before. It’s very like Samson. Before they’d been able to cast them out, now they seem to have no strength at all.

Sorry, I can’t read my own writing.

Let’s go back to the beginning of the storey and try to understand why this is. In verse 14 and 15, Jesus comes down from the mountain and he is met with amazement. Is it because his face is shining? Well, there’s absolutely no evidence for that very popular interpretation in the storey. Is it that Mark is making a contrast between the ecstasy of the mountaintop and the agony of the valley?

That’s Raphael’s interpretation in his great painting. Well, I think that gets closer and warmer, as they say at children’s parties. I’m not sure if it’s the full truth, but it may put us onto the clue. Let me put it like this. What we’re being taught in the second part of Mark, and he plunges straight into this, is that Jesus belongs no longer here on earth.

That is, he’s been rejected. This great theme of rejection that went right through part 1 and as you taught it, it probably became a bigger and bigger shock to you as you saw how much that was. His rejection is really part now of the whole storey. That’s what he’s been teaching Peter at the beginning of this section. His future is going to be 2 things.

There are 2 words that are used to describe his future from now on. One is rejection and the other is resurrection.

He’s going to be rejected all the time until he returns to glory.

Of course, he’s got to explain how you can add these up to the totally confused disciples who can’t understand how the Lord of glory can be rejected. And if he is rejected, then they can’t see any hope. Thankfully, we don’t have to go into that confusion because we know the whole storey.

But of course, that’s the reason— the difficulty that the disciples are facing in death and resurrection is the reason for the Transfiguration here. It is essential that God shows these disciples, now that He is going to face them up with the cross, that the crucified Jesus is still the glorified Jesus. They must see this. And so very graciously they are given a peep into the glory so that they can stand what is ahead of them. They wouldn’t have been able to stand it if they hadn’t had that preparation, that assurance, that he is the glorified Christ.

However, we who are reading the story— I have to remind you constantly of this— that everybody who read this storey is a post-resurrection Christian. Remember that. The Gospels are written not for the disciples but for us.

Everybody who read this knows the happy ending.

Everybody knows that who’s reading this therefore, that the old days of part 1 are over. No longer will the church have their Master amongst them wonderfully casting out all devils, healing all diseases, overcoming all powers of nature and so on. We shall never see that again until he is manifest in power and great glory.

Let’s flip over to 2 Peter 1:16.

2 Peter 1:16, a very, very key chapter, by the way, because it interprets Mark 9 better than any other chapter. I mean, Scripture interprets Scripture. And in verse 16, Peter says, we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and of our Lord Jesus Christ, for we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. That’s a most fascinating phrase, isn’t it? Referring to the Transfiguration, he says, we saw his majesty, and he describes the majesty as the power and coming, referring of course to the second coming.

What we saw on the Mount of Transfiguration was an anticipation of that great day when he will come again. We were reassured that the Saviour who’s going to die is in fact the King.

And what we had to learn, and this is going to be very painful, excruciatingly painful for us to watch the disciples learning it, what they’re going to have to learn is that those old happy days of Mark 1 to 8 are over and they’re never going to return until he returns. Then of course there’ll be no problem anymore. All satanic power, all sickness, all error, all these things will be seen no more when he returns in glory. But they are going to live through a period that they think is going to be a very short time, but we know has lasted for 2,000 years, and therefore it makes the agony all the greater. They are going to live through a time when the King has departed When he’s going to come back in great glory and reveal and manifest his power, but meanwhile he is away from them.

What kind of a world is it going to be therefore in which they work and serve? That’s the question that’s before us today.

This is the crucial question. He is just as much with them, of course, by his Spirit, and yet he is a rejected Lord.

Now with that in mind, looking at this epileptic storey, what bursts into significance of course is verse 19. He said to them as he comes down from the mountain— remember now really that the mountain is in a sense symbolically his proper place. He’s going to ascend to the hill of the Lord. He’s going to leave this dreadful old world and the valley behind. However, he comes down again only for a very short time.

He comes down again and what does he say when he comes down again? Notice what he says: O faithless generation, what? How long am I going to bear with you? Be with you? How long am I to bear with you?

And the answer to that is, a very short time. That’s the point of the question. You’re not going to have me, you know, coming down off the mountain constantly to sort up all your, sort all your failures out. You have got to get used to the fact that I’m not going to be here.

So in fact the storey in this part of the world, it pictures what we are going to see for the rest of the church age. What are we going to see? We’re going to see the scribes arguing. Well, have you ever seen that come to an end? The church sets up discussions and criticisms of anything that ever happens, doesn’t it?

It’s no nearer finding any of the answers, is it? I mean the sort of what you might call the established churches. All that the scribes do really is to argue, isn’t it? That’s all our lifetime that’s happened. It’s not likely to stop.

There’s going to be no difference there. The faithless generation, is that going to change? Of course it’s not going to change. We’re going to be constantly brokenhearted because we live in a faithless generation. And we are constantly going to be aware of the fact that amongst the joyful victories, yet the disciples are constantly wringing their hands and saying, why can’t we handle this and cast out this unbelief in the church and deal with these problems?

Why are we constantly failing?

That’s going to be repeated many, many, many times.

Well, you say, wait a minute, are you saying that because Jesus returns to the glory that all the power goes with him and the church is left without the power? Now obviously that’s a vital question, isn’t it? And the answer that is given here is a very, very interesting answer.

In part 1, Jesus was with the disciples and the 12 were an extension extension of his ministry. That was very clear, wasn’t it, in 6, chapter 6, verse 6b and 7. In chapter 6, 6b, he went out among the villages teaching and he called the 12 to do the same. The 12 are always identified, aren’t they, with the Lord Jesus Christ. The apostles are always identified with the risen Lord.

That is, they are bound up together with him. His power is their power, they represent him, they are unique.

While they are the 12 in that sense, they share his power. But now we’re in part 2.

He is no longer going to be on earth.

How will the disciples, who of course are not going to be the 12 in the future, they’re going to be you and me, how now are we going to receive his power now that he is not on earth but in heaven?

Now the answer is bound to be— you know the answer before you start every question.

I mean, let me give you the answer to every question I’m going to ask in 3 days, then I will put you out of your misery. Well, like the first Sunday school I ever ran as a curate, you know, whenever I asked a question, there was a little girl in the front used to put up her hand and say Jesus with a lisp. It used to infuriate me, but she was usually right because he usually was the answer to the questions I was asking. So let me tell you the answer to all the questions I’m going to ask these 3 days and then you’ll all know. The answer to every question is the way of the cross.

How are the disciples going to have the power to live in a faithless generation with these terrible tragedies all around them? And the answer is the way of the cross and you’ll see that in verse 29. They go into a little house, they ask him privately, why could we not cast it out? You gave us the power and we pressed the button and it didn’t work.

And the answer is given: This kind cannot be driven out but by prayer.

Now my brother, what does that mean? What does prayer mean? Why is it so humbling? Why is it so hard? Because that’s the way of the cross and you see my prayer constantly reminds me that power belongeth to God.

It no longer belongs to me. I have to go to him and ask him every day.

That’s what we learn, isn’t it, as disciples, that everything is in him. I have, if I want anything, daily bread, anything else, I have to go and ask him for it. I baptise, you remember the great theme of John, I baptise you with water, he baptises with the Holy Spirit. The only minister in the church of God today is Jesus Christ. This is Mark’s message, isn’t it?

He alone does the work. Nobody can be a Christian without an individual touch from Jesus Christ. Each of you is here because Christ ministered to you. Nobody saved you but Christ. No minister saved you, no preacher, no Big Billy.

Nobody can save you except Jesus Christ. That’s Mark’s message. And therefore how do I get anything done in the church to which he sends me? Well, he’s got to do it so I’ve got to go to him and bring him constantly all these problems. Let me ask you how long you spend in prayer.

Answer: very little time. How long do I spend in prayer? Very little time. What’s the hardest part of my ministry? Prayer.

What’s the hardest part of your ministry? Prayer. That’s now the way of the cross.

Don’t hear much about it today, do you? Very little emphasis on intercession in the prayer meeting because it’s so hard, isn’t it? So difficult.

He says Satan’s kingdom now is cast out that way. The price will be shouldering the cross. And this is just an illustration. Put it down as the first. You’re going to get about 30 before we get to Friday night, but this is one of them.

This is Cranfield, a brilliant note on the addition of fasting. We conclude that and fasting in inverted commas is not part of the original text, and that behind this addition lies a radical misunderstanding of Jesus’ point.

Matthew’s form of Jesus’ answer gives the true point. Don’t worry about turning to that because we don’t need to. By prayer he means not merely prayer as a pious exercise but rather the sense of complete dependence on God from which sincere prayer springs. It was early misunderstood in the sense of a meritorious human pious activity, as though what the disciples needed was a greater holiness of an ascetic sort. It would seem that the disciples had thought of the gift of 6:7, chapter 6, verse 7, as given to them in such a way that they had henceforth the disposing of it, and therein had lain their lack of faith.

They had to learn that God’s power is not given to men in that way. It has rather ever to be asked for afresh and received afresh. To trust in God’s power in the sense that we imagine that we have it in our control and at our disposal is tantamount to unbelief. For it is really to trust in ourselves instead of in God. That’s the most important note, isn’t it?

All unreformed views of the ministry locate power in the guy himself. You get that in the whole Roman idea of the priest. He’s actually producing Christ there.

And that is anathema to Mark’s view of the ministry. I baptise you with water, that’s all I can do. I’ve got, if anything is going to happen, I have to step out of the way and say, he does it and I have to call upon him to do it for you because it’s no good your calling upon me because if you call upon me and put your trust in me then the situation of chapter 9 will repeat itself over and over and over again.

Now is this a right interpretation of the storey? Let’s go back then now to 1 and 2. With that in mind, we had a look at that. I’ve tried to give you what I think is the, the key to understanding it that unlocks it. Now let’s see if I’m right by looking at these other 2 storeys, and we may make some progress.

34 to 38. These are so familiar that I can leave the details on one side. I want to read it, so short, and I want you to see which is the key verse as I read it and what lines it up with the epileptic. He called to him the multitude with his disciples and said to them, if any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.

For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? For what can a man give in return for his life? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

Now the key verse is of course verse The key phrase is the phrase, when he comes.

When he comes, then that will be the time when power and glory is revealed.

If I want to partake of that power and glory then, what will I have to partake of now?

It would be lovely to think that I can anticipate the power and glory now that some of that heavenly gold, so to speak, can be shining out of my pocket now.

To think that I can share in that glory of the King here on earth. But no, no, not now. What is the mark of the man who’s on his way to power and glory? That’s the question, isn’t it? What is the man who is on his way to the day, that glorious day when Christ says, I acknowledge that guy there.

As my servant. He was my servant. You say, Lord, we, we put on magnifying glass, we couldn’t see him. Well, the answer is because he’d lost his life, hadn’t he? That was the mark of him.

His life was now known not by crown but by cross, not by gain but by loss. In other words, he had said to himself, I I’m going to deny myself as the world offered its glittering prizes. He said, I’m going to lose my life for Christ.

I’m going to run life at a loss, not a profit.

Well, what does that mean then? And what are we talking about? Is that just words? What does he mean by Christ? Well, if you look at the parallels in the Synoptics we haven’t time for that now, but Matthew— for your notes— Matthew 10:39, Matthew 10:39, Luke 17:33, Luke 17:33.

You will find a marvellous thing. You will find that Mark uniquely adds to the word Christ, first in verse 35, he loses his life for my sake. And the little thing that Mark adds is and the gospel, typically, because the gospel is a key word in Mark. And in verse 38, the phrase that Mark adds and no one else: For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words. Now, my brothers, if you were here in part 1 and you can remember it, here is how the jigsaw fits in.

What was the priority in Mark 1? It was the gospel. How is the gospel to be proclaimed? Mark 4: by the word. The gospel and the word are the same thing.

My words is my gospel. My gospel is given to the world in my words. Never underestimate words, that’s how the gospel is given. What is the mark then of the man who’s going on to glory? He’s the man who’s not ashamed of the gospel, And not ashamed of my words, because his whole life is given to that.

That’s what he’s been standing up talking about.

But from your earliest days— I was converted as a teenager. I mean, the thing that was clearest to me in all the world was to stand up for the words of Christ. Well, just to stand up for Christ at school was the hardest thing in the world, wasn’t it? And then you went to theological college and said, now it’s going to be wonderful. And you find that stand up for the words of Christ was very hard, wasn’t it?

And it’s true now, you see. Go to the Anglican Evangelical Assembly and you hope everybody’s going to be a blood brother, and you find people saying, well, not quite sure about Scripture these days, not quite sure we can really stand for that in the way that those old fundamentalists did.

The uncomfortable words begin to be left out.

But you see, this is Mark’s message. He says the mark of the servant of Christ is that he takes up the cross. Mark, what does it mean to take up the cross? It means to lose your life for Christ and the gospel. There’s no distinction between those.

You can’t live for Christ and not live for the gospel. And not be ashamed of him and his words. There’s no distinction there. If you’re ashamed of the words, you’re ashamed of Christ.

So that you see, what we stand up for now, the world sees as cause for shame.

And if we don’t understand that, then we’re not preaching the real words, the real gospel.

And that’s not going to change.

So again you see the emphasis is on his coming. He’s coming but not yet. This is the great problem of the early church, isn’t it? Read right through 1 Corinthians 15, right through Romans 8, this is the problem. How does it all fit into timing?

We know he’s triumphant but isn’t it time he came? The answer is, he’s coming But you’ve got to take up the cross, and that means there you’ve got to pray, and that means there you’ve got to be a gospel word man. That’s what it means to take up the cross. And once you say the way of the cross is too tough for me, as Christian is constantly tempted in Pilgrim’s Progress, then you will slip off that main road and your ministry will no longer be marked by gospel words and will be no longer marked by painful intercession. That just means you’ve left the main road and been taken up with anything else, however good.

If you don’t stay on that road, then you’ve lost, you left the way of the cross. Very easy to do, I know. I’m sure you know.

See, actually to give yourself to either of those, and this is so painful but we all know it in the full-time ministry, to give yourself time for either of those two and the people in the church haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re doing because you’re at home so you must be watching the telly or having a snooze or helping with the children or doing the garden. And I mean nobody understands the time that either of those involve, do they? And nobody thinks they’re work.

You ought to be raising money for the spire that’s falling down or painting the back door of the church or running another committee or going up to London for another committee or whatever it is. But none of that’s not work, it’s just by the way. Right now let’s look at 9:1-8.

Do you want a minute’s breather, Bob? Do you want a minute’s touching toes or not? You’re all right. If Bob is all right, then we’re all right. Let’s go on.

Let me read it.

He said to them, truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.

Well, there are many attractive interpretations of that, as you will know. Perhaps one of the most attractive is that of Alan Richardson, who refers that to the Acts of the Apostles.

But I think we are actually hedged in. Mark clearly understood this to refer to what happened 6 days later, verse 2 to 8. And I’m afraid we’re stuck with Mark’s interpretation. Going to be loyal. Barrett throws a lot of scorn on it, says what incredible bathos to say you won’t taste death and then the thing to happen in 6 days’ time.

But I wonder if that’s really so. So remember what Jesus is doing.

He— and this will become clearer to you as we go on— he’s preparing the disciples for rejection. He’s preparing for the fact that the great days of power in the way that the world understands it are over.

And, and yet he knows that they cannot possibly survive without having an assurance of that power. And one day as they’re walking along, he says, well, cheer up.

Those of you who are standing here with me, you won’t taste death before you’ve seen the coming of the King kingdom in power. That’s typical of the kind of enigmatic remark that he makes. Do you remember that remark on the lake in chapter 8 about the food, the bread? Typical of that kind of teaser that he leaves them with. You’re going to see the kingdom with power.

I thought you said we weren’t. Well, just wait and see.

So it doesn’t seem to me to be difficult to understand this if you understand that Jesus is constantly leaving the disciples with these really blockbuster teasers that, that really do take a lot of thinking through.

After 6 days, Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John, led them up to a high mountain apart by themselves, and was transfigured before them. And his garments became glistening intensely white, as no fuller on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and and they were talking to Jesus. And Peter said to Jesus— oh, I’m so thankful, aren’t you, that Peter always chats away? And of course Mark is thankful because Peter got it wrong every time, and therefore he’s a marvellous example by contrast to getting it right.

It’s a bit one of the best ways of teaching, isn’t it? Though a painful way. Master, it’s well that we are here. Let us make 3 booths, one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah. For he did not know what to say, and they were exceedingly afraid.

A cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, this is my beloved Son, listen to him.

Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only.

What is the mistake Peter makes, or what are the mistakes that Peter makes? First, he evidently in some sense makes a comparison with Jesus and the 2 great ones, Elijah and Moses, and that comparison is wholly wrong. To get a picture of this, come back to Deuteronomy 18:15, a very vital cross-reference. I’m going to waste a little time on it. Deuteronomy 18:15, please.

The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren; him you shall heed.

Deuteronomy 18:16: Just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire anymore, lest I die. And the Lord said to me, They have rightly said all that they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you, from among their brethren, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. In other words, they were quite right to say, we cannot stand listening to God directly, we cannot live with that. Would he please raise up a man to speak his word to us?

And God says, yes, I will raise up a prophet who will speak my word exactly. And whoever will not give heed to my words which he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. And then, but the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name which I have not commanded, etc., etc. Very, very important language today about presumptuous speaking in God’s name.

So God had promised a prophet who would perfectly give the people his word. Now I think this is the key that unlocks this great occasion. Elijah and Moses are, if you like, the authentic voice of the prophet. They are the great spokesmen for God. They represent those in Old Testament days who spoke for God and have been translated to heaven.

Now it’s not simply that the voice of prophecy is over, though the voice of prophecy is over, it is that the voice of prophecy which was a genuine voice of prophecy in the Old Testament, namely Moses and Elijah— listen to this very carefully because it’s vital— it is that Moses and Elijah can now be understood only through Christ.

This is vital, isn’t it, for our whole preaching of the Old Testament. We are no longer living in the Old Testament so we cannot preach the Old Testament. As some evangelicals of the older school in the Victorian era did, in that bran tub way where you went into a storey of Elijah or whatever it was and you pulled out whatever you liked devotionally. You see, we can only read the Old Testament with one pair of spectacles on, that is Jesus Christ. We have to preach the Old Testament as a Christian book.

We must do. We cannot preach it as it is preached in the synagogue. We can only preach it through Christ. Moses and Elijah have been subsumed in Christ. He is the great prophet who brings the whole thing to a last word.

God, who has spoken to us by various prophets and so on, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son. Full stop.

So you see, when we ask that that great authentic voice of prophecy may remain because Moses and Elijah are so precious to the church, the answer is no, they do not remain. Because now that we have Christ, we no longer need them as, so to speak, separable entities. They speak through Christ. His word is their word.

Calvin puts this beautifully, quote, when he enjoins us to hear him, hear him in italics, he appoints him to be the supreme and only teacher of his church. He alone is appointed to be our teacher, that in him all authority may dwell. Isn’t that a magnificent statement? Let me read it again. When he enjoins us to hear him, He appoints him to be the supreme and only teacher of his church.

He alone is appointed to be our teacher, that in him all authority may dwell. Now I said just now, and we got that from earlier Mark, there is only one minister in the church, isn’t there? There’s only one who can deliver this satanically possessed boy, and that is the risen Christ. You can’t. And there is only one who can teach the church.

You can’t. He teaches the church. If only we can get this back into, into the church today, that we are not teachers. He is the only teacher. Our job is to let his teaching be heard.

Once we’ve got this clear, it takes so much of the strain away. Therefore, any idea that we have to be like a prophet, receiving a message from God is out to Mark. That’s not the way it works. We go to Christ and sit at his feet and we pass that teaching on to the church today.

So you see, you get the 2 great prophets of God standing alongside Jesus Christ and Peter says, this is glorious. Now we can have the whole thing.

And the answer is, don’t be an idiot.

And Moses and Elijah disappear.

And what is the message? It’s the great message of Mark, isn’t it? Listen. But who do we listen to? Well, if we don’t listen to Moses and Elijah, we’re certainly not going to listen to you, brother, are we?

Whatever you may claim for yourself. So stop listening to all these gurus who appear on the scene. Who apparently have some new and exciting message. It’s not your job. Your job isn’t to listen to them.

Your job is to be listening to Christ. But if you do that, you will go against the stream always. You will take up the cross. That’s not what people want. That’s not what people want.

The day will come when they will no longer listen to sound teaching but heap up for themselves teachers because they have itching ears. You see, not ears to listen with, ears to be scratched. The world doesn’t want to listen, it’s far too much trouble. They like a little massage occasionally, especially on our favourite itches.

I don’t know if you do semaphore. Being a naval man, I can remember my semaphore. It’s amazing, once these things are dinned into you, you can’t forget them. Now which is the line that Satan is going to snip to get me out of touch with God? That’s what we were all taught and quite rightly.

I mean, that’s what I was taught as a very young Christian. My devotional life will be snipped at by Satan and so it will.

But actually you see what the Bible is saying to you as a Christian teacher is it’s not only that line, your prayer life, but it is that line that is so vital that Satan is going to snip at. It is that line that makes you go back constantly to the historical Christ for your teaching. If Satan can snip that and make this the only line, then we’re in the end lost. A lot of our staff are helping City University with their mission this weekend. At our staff meeting yesterday, they were saying how astonishingly incapable the young Christian are of explaining anything to do with that line at all.

They can’t take their faith back into the Gospels and point any friend to some Gospel truths. All they can say is, well, I know that Jesus is with me. It’s great that they can say that, but you see, our staff came back just holding their head in their hands and saying, we’ve just got to give them some explanation So that they can actually, don’t have to have us around the whole time, but that they can tell the gospel to their friends. We know that. It’s so much the world in which we’re living.

Now that’s how Peter understood the transfiguration. Turn over to 2 Peter 1 again. I’m winning. I’m going to finish on time, but I’m, I’m there. We keep going.

Pinch yourself if you want to stay awake, or pinch your brother. It’s a hard life.

Verse 12 of 2 Peter 1. Sorry you’ve heard me on this before, but you’ll hear it many times before I finally push up daisies. I’m going to go on saying it while the Lord gives me breath. Verse 12 of chapter 1 of 2 Peter 1: Therefore I intend always to remind you of these things, although you know them and are established in the truth that you have. I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to arouse you by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me.

And I will see to it that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things. For we did not follow cleverly devised myths; we made known to you what God said to us, and therefore you jolly well remember what we said.

Not because we are jealous of the new teachers who are coming along, but because we are unique teachers.

We were the only people who saw the Lord, but not only that, we were the only people who heard God say what the Lord— what it meant. So I’m going to make quite sure that you will always remember what I said.

So that’s actually how we practise our ministry. Can you believe it? If I came into your church and heard you taking a wedding You have got oceans of literature to tell young people how to put it all together today, and they need this advice, don’t they? So everyone’s giving it to them. So what do you do?

Because, of course, you’re half-witted. Of course, you take in your hands a book which is 2,000 years old and you say, I’ve got some advice to you which is 2,000 years old. And you read Ephesians 5, and in the middle of Ephesians 5, you tell— it tells you to go back to Genesis 2. So you say, sorry, we’ve got to go even further back. I can’t tell you how many thousand years that is, and young people, you’re going out into today’s world to live together as a married couple and the best advice I can give you is Genesis chapter 2.

Now that’s madness, isn’t it? By any account unless you believe what this says. But God’s word all that way back has— you’ve got to go back to that, bring it into Saturday afternoon and say to this young couple, this is God’s Word, the only way on which you can build a happy marriage. If they understood what you were saying, they wouldn’t listen to you, would they? You’re saying, don’t read any of the garbage that is written today about it unless it happens to expound the Bible, because God tells you once and for all the only way it’s going to work.

Then you go to the crematorium and you’re faced with a situation where really something’s got to be said that means something. And what do you do? You go back to John chapter 11. Because nothing else is any good.

So if you’ve lost John 11, of course, and you’ve lost Genesis 2, then you’ve got nothing to say, which is no wonder why when people have lost these things they move out of that kind of ministry.

You know, we really have got to believe our beliefs, that we have got nothing whatever to say in the crematorium except something which is 2,000 years old. Either we’re going to be satisfied with that Or we’re going to be like mad things rushing around trying to find the latest article that can help us to be relevant.

Now that’s this message, isn’t it?

The divine voice— this is funny language, I’m afraid. These chaps who live in studies use this kind of language, but it’s a brilliant comment nonetheless.

Here the divine voice expresses a revelation word to men and confirms Jesus’ status as Son of God directly to the disciples. They are commanded by God to listen to him. All emphasis is here placed on the word that Jesus brings, and in the present context, that word is of the Son of Man’s coming, suffering, and death, the very word Peter does not yet understand.

It is commonly thought that Moses and Elijah figure in the storey as representatives of the Law and the Prophets. Prophets, etc., etc., but in the Deuteronomic passage that is clearly echoed here, it is not as lawgiver but as prophet himself that Moses predicts the coming of the eschatological prophet. In terms of the Markan storey, the fulfilment Jesus brings is in fact in striking contrast to everything that has gone before. The vision’s splendour fades. The great prophetic personages who belong to the heavenly world to which they have been translated disappear from view and only Jesus and the word he brings remains.

Got it? The vision fades, no more visions, the great heavenly personages fade, no more heavenly prophets coming, all that we’ve got is Jesus and his word.

Unlike Moses and Elijah, Jesus had not been raptured to heaven from the mountain but moves back again to his earthly road to rejection and death, 9:9-13. It is likely that Mark has placed the storey of the Transfiguration where he has because it furnishes him with yet another opportunity to testify to the great paradox that the way to ultimate triumph for Jesus and his disciples is not the way to the mountaintop of apocalyptic expectation but the way of suffering. Down into the valley you go. That’s where you belong, amongst the sorrows and turmoils of a faithless generation. That’s where you are going to live.

So what then is the way of the cross?

The way of the cross is to stick with Jesus and the gospel.

To the world that is to lose everything. The world has other fish to fry.

But in the last day the only people whom he will acknowledge are those who have stuck with his gospel. To do that they had to lose out. They had to be unashamed. They had to deny themselves. They had to take up the cross.

That’s what it meant to follow him. Second, exactly the same. What does it mean to believe that Christ has the power and the glory? Does it mean that we live on the mountaintop, that we live with the vision splendid, that we live with the prophetic personages? No, it doesn’t.

That all fades away. We’re only given that as a little peep to reassure us that we’re on the right track. But where we’ve got to live is with Jesus his word. That’s all we’ve got. That’s taking up the cross.

And what do we do in the valley?

Well, faced with all that sorrow and pain, there’s only one thing we can do, and that’s turn to the only minister in the church, Jesus Christ. But he’s now not on earth. He doesn’t belong there any longer. He’s rejected. He’s in heaven.

But we haven’t rejected him, and we know we can go to him. So we’ve got to go to him constantly. And as we do that, then we will see Satan’s kingdom continue to crumble.

But the way of doing that will be the way of suffering in the cross. There’s nothing harder than to get on your knees. Anything is preferable to that, even answering the telephone or chairing a committee.

You see, these are very, very simple things to understand, aren’t they? Hang together. What they tell me is, you see, I’ve left, I’ve just discovered that Jesus is the Lord, so my mind is filled with his glory and his power, and he starts talking in a most painful way about his coming death. And I say, Lord, you mustn’t talk like that, you must be a man of faith.

And he says, get behind me, Satan. You don’t understand, the things of God. The road to the crown must go this way.

You see, that road, that’s not just a storey of Mark’s Gospel, that’s the storey of the whole church age.

Must go that way. I’ve got to go the same way as the disciples. Remember, everybody who reads this book is a post-resurrection Christian. Filled of the Holy Spirit. How much they therefore need this message.

Otherwise life is going to be inexplicable, isn’t it?