Majesty on the Mountain and Majesty in the Valley

All right, let's turn to the Word, and we're in Luke chapter 9, Luke chapter 9, and I'm going to read 37 through 45, Luke chapter 9, 37 through 45, Luke 9, 37. Now it happened on the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, that a great multitude met him. Suddenly a man from the multitude cried out, saying, Teacher, I implore you, look on my son, for he is my only child. And behold, a spirit seizes him, and he suddenly cries out. It convulses him, so that he foams at the mouth, and it departs from him with great difficulty, bruising him. So I implored your disciples to cast it out, but they could not. Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here. And as he was still coming, the demon threw him down and convulsed him. Then Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the child, and gave him back to his father. And they were all amazed at the majesty of God. But while everyone marveled at all the things which Jesus did, he said to his disciples, Let these words sink into your ears. For the Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men. But they did not understand the saying, and it was hidden from them, so that they did not perceive it, and they were afraid to ask him about the saying. And so remember the context is that they had been up on the Mount of Transfiguration the day before, and Jesus had been glorified, and they caught a glimpse of him in his glorified state as he had before he became a man, before his humiliation, and that he would return to after the ascension. There was also with him Elijah and Moses, and so and of course there were the three disciples Peter, James, and John who were there and observed this. And so they they come down from the mountain, and it says that it happened on the next day. So we don't know what time they came down, we don't know the times, but the next day. And of course again Luke is very detailed. Now just by the way the the same account appears in Matthew and in Mark in and with a lot more details. Luke cuts the story down to the essentials, but there are certain things that he highlights. And one of the things that he highlights is that it is the next day. And so he is contrasting what happened the day before with what was happening on this day. And so it happened on the next day that when they had come down from the mountain that a great multitude met him. So they came down from the mountain and there's this multitude. And of course there is this confusion going on, because there is in the midst of the multitude this man with his son who is demon-possessed. Matthew says that he was a lunatic in the King James. The modern translations say that he was epileptic. Now that's a modern addition to try and explain away demon possession. Now the contrast is for me the the point of this story, and I want to focus on that this this evening. And there is a painting which I want to show you now. Before I show you the painting, I don't believe in icons. I don't believe in pictures of the Lord Jesus. But a classical artist called Raphael drew this picture of the transfiguration. And I believe that what he saw in the transfiguration is significant and is the heart of this particular story. Here's the picture, and I'm not sure how much you can see, but the picture is cut in two halves. In the top part of the picture is Jesus on the mount of transfiguration together with Moses and Elijah and the three disciples. The bottom half of the is the next passage that we're dealing with today. The crowd and the boy who is demon-possessed and the father who comes and brings him to the disciples. And I believe that the artist saw something that in fact very few modern commentators have noticed and have paid attention to. And that is the contrast between these two events. The one on the mountain, the other one on the plain or in the valley. The one showing Jesus in his glorified beauty, and the other one showing the brokenness of the human condition. And these two things are put next to each other in order for us to see the contrast in terms of the glory of the Lord Jesus on the one hand, and the ugliness of sin and of demon possession and of the condition of man. So these two things are put right next to each other, and that's what the artist has done, is he's put these two, and you'll see that the top picture is bright and airy, and the bottom picture is dark. And that really is, I believe, what is going on here. I believe he's really captured this very well. And so I'm going to, and this is not my own, I've taken this from someone else, but I believe that it really highlights the points here. And so I'm just going to give you these contrasts. The one happened on the mountain, as I said, the other in the valley. The one shows Jesus in his glorious majesty, and in fact we'll see that word majesty a little bit later. And remember that Peter in his epistle, in his second epistle, chapter 1 around verse 15, says that we beheld his majesty. So the of the Lord Jesus, contrasted with the ugly violence of Satan, as he takes this young boy and just throws him down. Matthew says that he would throw him into the fire, and other times he would throw him into the water, just totally seeking to destroy him. And remember that that's what the evil one does, is he comes to rob, to kill, and to destroy. And so you see the glory of the Lord Jesus on the one hand, and you see the ugly, destructive nature of Satan on the other hand. You see the God-possessed son, the Lord Jesus, and the demon-possessed son, this young boy. The one son pleases his father. This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased, hearing him. And on the other side is the son, who brings heartbreak to his father. And obviously it's not his fault, because he is demon-possessed. But at the same time, you can see the contrast between the one that brings heartbreak, and the other one who pleases the father. The one son is fulfilling God's wonderful plan of salvation. The Lord Jesus is fulfilling the plan, and he's talking about the fulfillment of that plan, as he would die on the cross of Calvary, as he speaks about his decease, or his departure with Elijah, and with Moses. The other one is in desperate need of salvation. And again, these two contrasts are brought together in this passage. The one is the destroyer of demons. The other one is destroyed by the demons. And then finally, the one son was restored. The demon-possessed son is restored. He is healed, and he is restored to his father. And just like the girl who was dead was given back to her parents, this young man, this young boy, is given back to his father, to his parents. But the other son is killed, and he rises again, and he is restored to his father. And so I believe that these things are not coincidence. These are not things that are there just by chance. But this is God's glorious word. And Luke is contrasting these two things. If we would only see the glorious son, the Lord Jesus, and then this demon-possessed son. And obviously, as I said, there's no shade on the son. We're not saying it's his fault at all. But this is the cause or the work of the evil one. And so we can see these two things. And so as Jesus then comes down, a man from the multitude, it says, cried out, saying, Teacher, I implore you, I beg you, look on my son, for he is my only child. Jesus is the father's only begotten son. This young boy is his father's only child. And then in verse 39, and behold, a spirit seizes him, and he suddenly cries out. It convulses him so that he foams at the mouth. You can see where they make the connection with epilepsy. It convulses him so that he foams at the mouth, and it departs from him with great difficulty, bruising him. So the demon comes and goes. And when the demon goes, he throws him down, and leaves him scarred and broken. And in fact, the other Gospels tell us that he was also deaf and dumb. He could not speak, and he could not hear as a result of the work of this demon. And so I implored your disciples to cast it out. But they could not. Now remember that earlier on in the chapter, Jesus had sent his disciples out, and he had given them authority over demons. And they had gone out, and they cast out demons, and they come back, and they're rejoicing because the demons are subject to them. And now suddenly, they're not able to cast the demon out of this man. Now the reason for it, and we'll see that in a moment, Jesus says, it's because of your unbelief. So it's not like some commentators say, well, you know, this demon was more powerful than the others. Jesus doesn't say, well, this is a more powerful demon. Jesus says, it's because of your unbelief that you were not able to cast the demon out. So what happened then between the first time he sent them out, and they obviously had faith, and the demons are obeying them, and this time? Well, I don't know. It doesn't tell us what happened. But again, I think it illustrates our own situation. There are times that we are full of faith, and we can trust God for our circumstances, that we can trust God to provide for us. We can trust God to protect us. We trust Him for the future. And then there are other times when we can't trust Him, and our hearts fail us for fear. And remember, it wasn't long before this that the disciples were in the boat, and they said, well, you know, don't you care? We're going to die in the storm. So there are times when we believe, and there are times when we're not. And obviously, it's in the times that we don't believe, that we're overcome by doubts, that we're overcome by fear, that we're overcome by the enormity of the challenge that faces us. And when we face these things, sometimes our faith fails us. So what do we need? We need to trust Him. Now, I think that one of the contrasts that we see here is that Jesus, and while we understand He is God, I think that there is a lesson in the story for us also, in that Jesus goes up into the mountain, and He is in the presence of the Father. And He comes down, and He comes with power and with anointing, and He's able to deal with the situation. The disciples, on the other hand, were stuck in the valley, and their doubts and their fears overcome them. And I think that one of the important lessons in this passage is the need for us to spend time in the presence of the Father. And we see over and over and over how that Jesus goes up into the mountain, and He spends time with the Father. Luke emphasizes this over and over. And as Jesus spends time with the Father, He is empowered again, and He is able to come, and He's able to do the works that He does. Remember that we believe that Jesus did the works that He did, not necessarily because He was God, but because He was a man empowered by God to do these things. And so we implored your disciples to cast it out, but they could not. They were powerless. And so the reality is that there are many times when those that we look to to help us in our time of need are helpless. There are many times when I, as a shepherd, find myself helpless. I look at situations, I look at people's needs, and I say, I don't have what it takes to fix the problem. It's only God who can fix the problem. It's only God who can intervene. And I think that the point is that we need to recognize that there really is only one who has all power, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. And so while men are able to help us, while the disciples were able to help at times, and later on they would be endued with power as they came to the day of Pentecost, but at this time there is only Jesus. He is the one who has all the power. He is the one who has the answers, and who has the solutions. And I think that this is a wonderful testimony on the part of this man. We don't know anything about him. We assume he was a Jew. We don't know if he was a good Israelite, or whether he was so-so, or we know nothing about him. But what we do know is that he recognized that Jesus had the answers. That while the disciples, while men don't have the answers, Jesus has the answers. And he comes to Jesus, and he says, please look at my son. And no, it's not just look at him, but look on him with pity. Look on him with mercy, that you might be able to help him. And so the expression of faith on his part, while there is an expression of unbelief on the part of the disciples. And so again, the question is, can we come to him with faith? Can we trust him for our circumstances? All of us have needs. All of us have find ourselves with problems. They may not necessarily be demons, but they are issues in our hearts, and issues in our minds, and issues in our bodies, and financial problems, and all sorts of stuff that we deal with day by day. Jesus has the answers, if we can only come to him and put our trust and our confidence in him. And so he comes and he says, we implored your disciples. He implores Jesus, begs him, we begged your disciples, they could do nothing. And Jesus answers and said, faceless and perverse generation. Faceless and perverse generation. This word perverse is the same word, and remember that today we use this word mainly in a morality sense, and an immorality sense. That's not the only meaning to the word. But this word perverse, God uses this word concerning Israel in the Old Testament, when he provides for them the manna, and he provides for them water from the rock, and he reveals himself in the pillar of fire, and in the cloud that we spoke about last week. And day after day after day he proves himself. And then the next time they come against a problem, they come against an enemy or some need, suddenly they want to run back to Egypt. And God uses the same word, and I believe that Jesus uses this word with purpose. Oh wicked and perverse generation, God says concerning Israel. God had proven himself to them over and over and over, and yet they could not trust him. Every time a new problem came up, they wanted to run back to Egypt. Every time something happened, they despaired, and they could not trust God. And here again the same thing, these disciples had seen Jesus perform miracle after miracle after miracle. I think if I remember right, this is the 12th or the 13th miracle that Luke records. Remember, not all the miracles are recorded. The gospel writers only select certain samples, if you will, to give us an idea. But this is the 12th or 13th one that is recorded. Jesus has probably performed hundreds of miracles by now, because remember it speaks about the fact that he healed everyone in the crowds that came to him. And yet when the next problem comes, they can't trust him. They can't trust God. And of course the problem is that we look at them and we say, you know, what's with these guys? Can't they get it? Can't they just trust Jesus? What's with Israel? Can't they just trust him? I think there are certain things that stuck in my memory, and I suppose all of us have the same thing. And there are certain things that stand out in my memory going back many, many, many years. Many years ago, 25 or so years ago, I was teaching a group of farmers in South Africa. And I was teaching about the exodus, about the people of Israel coming out of Egypt. And one of them turned to me, and this is the thing that I'll never forget. He says, I don't understand that. He says, if we saw these things, if we saw the manna, if we ate the manna, we drank the water from the rock, we saw the pillar of fire in the cloud, we saw the Red Sea opened, I would have believed. I turned to him, and I'm not going to use his name, but I said to him, you and I are no different. God proves himself to us day after day after day. And yet next, the next time we have a problem, we don't believe. We have certain things that Israel didn't have. We have the scriptures, the New Testament. They, in fact, didn't even have the Old Testament. We have the Old and the New Testament. We have the Holy Spirit in the New Testament era. We have the testimony and the witness of Jesus having walked as we're studying the Gospels right now. We have the evidence of the cross. We have the proof of the resurrection. We have all of these things. We have the church. We have the ministries that He has given to us. We have so much more than what they had in the Old Testament. Remember, what they had in the Old Testament was simply shadows and types. We have the reality, and yet we turn to them, and we say, well, if we were in your position, we would believe. But in fact, we have far more than they have, and we still don't believe. These disciples were walking with Jesus. They saw the miracles day after day after day, and yet when the crunch came, they could not trust Him, and they could not believe Him for a miracle. And so, a faceless and perverse generation. How long will I be with you and bear with you? I think the first part of the question, and obviously this is not a question that he's expecting an answer on, but the first part of the question is, don't you understand that I'm only with you for a short while? I'm not going to be with you a long time. And in fact, as I said in the last couple of weeks, this is in the last year of His ministry. He had now already passed, the second last Passover was gone. So, He was into the third year of His ministry, if you will, and at the next Passover, He would be crucified. So, this is between six and ten months before the cross. And so, He's in effect saying to them, because He just told them, He's going to be crucified. He's going to tell them again, in the next few verses, He's going to be crucified. In other words, when are you going to get it? Because I'm only with you for a short while, Jesus says. And then He says, how long will I be with you and bear with you? Most of the other translations, English Standard Version and New American Standard, say, how long will I put up with you? I think that that's a more literal translation of Jesus' mind as He's expressing His frustration with them. How long must I put up with you? How long must I put up with your lack of faith and your lack of trust? And I suppose we can ask the same question of ourselves. How long will He put up with us? Well, I thank God for His grace and for His mercy, that He, that there is no end. He is long suffering. He is patient with us. We see how He deals with Israel year after year after year, and finally brings them into the Promised Land. Forty years He puts up with them. Then He puts up with them for a couple of centuries after that, before eventually He carries them away. Yes, there is an end to God's patience. But I thank God that He is still patient with us, that He is still long suffering, that He is still pleading with us to trust Him, to put our confidence in Him, to not despair, particularly in the time in which we're living. Many are despairing. Many are just turning aside and giving up because it's getting too hard. How long will He put up with us? Well, He will put up with us as long as we have just a little bit of faith. In fact, one of the other Gospels says that the man says, Help my little faith. Help my little faith. And as long as there's a little faith, He's promised that He will not quench the smoking wick or smoking flax. He will not break the bruised reed. And so He is patient, and even in our weakness, He is there, and He is strengthening us, and He is longing for us just to look to Him, and just to put our trust in Him, that He might be able to bring us out of that situation again. And so He says, Bring your Son here. And again, the practical application of faith, not just, Well, Lord, I believe. No, do something. Prove your faith by bringing your Son to me. This is something we've emphasized over the years, that all of the New Testament is not just, most of the New Testament has a practical dimension to it. It's no good just saying, Well, Lord, I believe. No, I need to do something, and I need to obey what He tells me to do. Verse 42, And as He was still coming, the demon threw Him down and convulsed Him. Presumably the demon understood what was coming. The demons knew who Jesus was beyond any doubt. And so there's a last desperate attempt to destroy this little, this young boy, to kill Him. And then Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, and He healed the child, and gave Him back to His Father. What a wonderful restoration. And of course, this is the gospel again. This is what Jesus has come to do. He has come to seek and to save that which is lost. He has come to heal that which is broken. And one of the contrasts in this whole picture is the glory of the Lord Jesus on the one hand, and the brokenness of the human condition. And yet He has come to fix. He has come to heal. He has come to restore. He has come to sanctify. He's come to bring us back into a relationship with our Father. And so maybe tonight we find ourselves in a situation where, and I don't think there's anyone who's demon possessed, but where we are, where the devil is giving us a hard time, Jesus wants to heal us. He wants to restore us in our relationship to the Father. There are many in the world today who find themselves in the same situation. They're just being beaten up by circumstances, beaten up by the devil, and broken and destroyed by everything that sin and that the flesh and that the devil has brought upon them. Jesus is the great healer. Jesus is the one who wants to restore and bring us back into a relationship with the Father. And maybe if you have never come to Jesus and accepted Him as your healer, as your restorer, as your savior, He is still there. And I want you to notice that even though He had come from the Mount of Transfiguration, where He had heard the voice of the Father, He has seen Moses and Elijah, He had been glorified, He is not too busy to reach out to this young boy. And even today He is not too busy to reach out to those who will come to Him in faith and say, Lord, help me. Help my unbelief. Lord, I don't have the answers. And I'm sure that this man has tried everything to try and cure his son, but there were no answers. Jesus has the answers. Problem is that sometimes we need to come to a point of desperation, a point where there are no more solutions, there are no more answers, where we've tried everything. But even in that situation, He is willing to reach out and to heal us and to give us back to our Father, the Heavenly Father. And they were all amazed at the majesty of God. Just this one act revealed the majesty of God. Now remember, His majesty was revealed, His glory was revealed on the Mount of Transfiguration. But His majesty is also revealed in salvation. And so Peter writes and he uses the same word in 2nd Peter that I've quoted earlier, 2nd Peter 1, and he says, we beheld His majesty, His majesty. Speaking of the mountain. So Peter and Luke are using the same word of Him on the mountain and Him in the valley. And in both situations, His majesty is being revealed. His majesty and His glory is not just revealed in His magnificent, glorious self as He is in the presence of the Father and the express image of the Father. That light that we can't even approach. But His glory is also revealed in His ability to save and His ability to heal. And in fact, that is equal. Peter and Luke don't rate these at a different level. The glory that was in the Mount of Transfiguration and the glory that is revealed in healing and restoring and saving is the same glory. Unfortunately, we minimize sometimes the glorious work of salvation. And we say, well, you know, it's just one of those things. And in fact, I think it's this coming Thursday in Peter, he speaks about the fact that we have forgotten that we were cleansed from our former sins. We forget the glory that happened when God took a sinner and converted him to a saint. We forget the glorious thing that happened when He set us free from the bondage of sin, forgave us, wrote our names in the Lamb's Book of Life, changed our desires, changed our destiny. This is the glory of God. And we may not be able to see Him in His glorious presence today as He manifested His glory in the Shekinah of the tabernacle and of the temple or of the Mount of Transfiguration. But we can still see His glory in His healing and in His restoration and in His salvation as He still touches men and women and lives today. His glory and His majesty is still on display in the world today. And they were all amazed at the majesty of God. Notice, not the majesty of Jesus, but the majesty of the Father revealed in the Lord Jesus. As John says, we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father. And while everyone marveled at all the things which Jesus did, He said to His disciples, again, look at the detail here. While they were marveling, Jesus says to the disciples, the cross. See the contrast again. So He comes from the Mount of Transfiguration. He comes into the valley and He changes the situation, reveals His glory, and then immediately reveals the cross again. You can never see His glory without the cross. These two things are inextricably linked. They are connected. And the moment you destroy one, you destroy the other. And so He says to His disciples, let these words sink down into your ears. I like that. It's just so graphic. In other words, don't let it fly past. Don't let it go in one ear and out the other. Let this sink into your ears. Let it get a root into your heart and into your mind. And what is it? The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of man. So here's the first time Jesus is talking about His betrayal. Judas is there with the twelve. Whether Judas at that stage knew he was going to betray the Lord, we don't know. But certainly Jesus knew. Can you see the contrast again? Oh, glory to God. This wonderful thing. Jesus has just set this man free. He has just healed this man. He's able to speak again. He's able to hear. He's sane. He's normal. I'm going to be betrayed. You see, you can't have the healing. You can't have the salvation, the restoration, without the cross. And of course, that's the problem. That's what the world wants today. They want the blessings, without understanding that those blessings cannot come without Jesus having died on the cross of Calvary. You can't have the glorious resurrection or the ascension without the cross, and with all of the blood and the gore and the shame of the cross of Calvary. But they did not understand the saying. And it was hidden from them, so that they did not perceive it, and they were afraid to ask him about this saying. They didn't get it. They didn't get it. And they didn't understand even after he was crucified. Remember, they're on this road to Emmaus, some of the disciples, and they say, well, he's dead. It's all over. It's all gone. They didn't understand. And as I was meditating on this verse during the night, something struck me. Jesus made it very clear to them over and over. We just saw it last week, and we saw it the week before. I'm going to the cross. I'm going to die. I'm going to be raised. I'm going to be betrayed. He explains it to them, but they don't understand. They don't believe what he is saying, because it seems to be so unreal. And I believe that there's a parallel to where we are today. I believe that Jesus is coming, and he's coming soon. He has said, I'm coming. And he says, I'm coming at a time that you don't expect. And yet at the same time, he gives us signs. And while we don't rely on the signs exclusively, we must pay attention to the signs, because he says, you look at the sky, and you say, well, tomorrow is going to be a good day, or tomorrow is going to be a windy day. Can't you read the signs of the times? And folks, there are signs in the sky right now. And in all of the years that I've been a Christian, 50 years, 48 years I've been preaching this gospel, I've never been in a time when I believe that we've been closer. And I'm not speaking statistically. I'm speaking in terms of the signs that we're seeing around us, that we're seeing in our own nation. Everything is set, and everything is ready for the Antichrist to come, and for Jesus to be revealed. And I'm not going to give you a lesson on the second coming and on the sequence of things. That's not the point. But I believe that we are at the very door of the Lord Jesus coming. He is at the very door, the scripture says. But we don't understand. And here's the problem, is that the majority of Christians are living as though there's no tomorrow, or as though there is a tomorrow, as though Jesus is never going to come, because they don't understand. As much as the disciples did not understand the cross, Christians today do not understand the second coming. And I'm not talking about all of the theology about the timing of the rapture and the tribulation and the Antichrist and all of those things. I'm speaking about the simple fact that Jesus says, I'm coming to receive you to myself, that where I am, you may be also. And I believe that one of the things that's happened in 2020 is that He is saying to us, cut your ties. He is helping us to lose confidence in the flesh, to lose confidence in the world, to lose confidence in our circumstances, and to begin to say, Lord Jesus, come, because we've had enough. We're tired. There is no hope. There is nothing in this world except your return. And so I pray that we may be able to be a little more discerning than these disciples. While Jesus had plainly explained and told them what was going to happen, it just was unreal. It was surreal for them. They just could not put that into practical reality. And even when it happened, they still did not believe. And I believe that we find ourselves in a similar situation today, where Jesus has told us He's coming. He's told us the signs. The signs are there. But the vast majority of Christians don't believe. It was hidden from them. That's a difficult part of the verse, and I'm not going to deal with that. But they did not perceive. They did not see. They did not understand. And they were afraid to ask Him about the saying. Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You, Lord, for the glory of Your Word, Lord, for the magnificence of the inspiration of the Spirit that puts these things together in a way, Lord, that we're able to dig and able to see the wonderful contrast, the wonderful glory of the Lord Jesus in the mountain and in the valley. Lord, I pray that You would help us to understand, help us to appreciate Your Word. But more than that, Lord, help us to be those who have faith, who trust You in the times of the valley, not just in the times of the mountain and wanting to camp there and build a tabernacle. But Lord, even when we find ourselves in the valley where the devil is having his way with people, Lord, even in that situation, we may trust You because You're the same God, whether You're on the mountain or in the valley, whether You're in heaven today or whether here on earth. You are the same unchanging God with the same power to heal, with the same power to restore, with the same authority to sanctify and to forgive and to make new creatures. So, Lord, I pray that You would help us to believe, help us, Lord, to act on our faith and come to You, not just say, well, Lord, I believe, but Lord, that we may, like that man brought his boy to Jesus, Lord, that we may bring ourselves to You, that we might be restored to the Father. Help us, Lord, to believe Your Word when You say You're coming soon. Help us, Lord, to not just say, well, I don't understand, but Lord, help us to believe and help us, Lord, to live as those who are living in the last days. Lord, I believe that these disciples would have lived very different lives if they only understood that they just had one more year with Jesus on earth, and yet they thought He would always be there. Lord, I pray that You'd help us to understand, help us, Lord, to effect change in our lives, those things that You're asking us to do and to change. But, Lord, at the end of the day, thank You that it's not up to us, but it is Your great and glorious power that is able to transform us, that is able to change us, that is able to do the impossible in our lives, the impossible in those in our families, those around us. Lord, we pray that You would do those things for us in Jesus' name. I pray that You'd go with us now, Lord, keep us, protect us, bring us together again safely on Thursday, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.