Wednesday, October 26, 2022

PT-2 "The Tapestry of the Scene" (Matt. 17:7-9)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/26/2022 9:48 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                          Focus:  PT-2 “The Tapestry of the Scene”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 17:7-9

 

            Message of the verses:  7 And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, "Arise, and do not be afraid." 8 And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one, except Jesus Himself alone. 9 And as they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, "Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man has risen from the dead."

 

            The first thing that Jesus did was to show loving care to Peter, James, and John, as He knew that this must have been difficult for them to see what they saw, even though it was truly a wonderful experience.  He knew that great fear was upon these men and so Jesus came to them and touched them and said, "Arise, and do not be afraid."  Perhaps it was a great relief for them to only see Jesus alone and back in the way that He was when they went up the mountain.

 

            John MacArthur writes “The impressions of the experience were now indelibly inscribed in their minds.  They could testify with certainty and boldness that Jesus had indeed manifested Himself in glory before some of them had tasted death (16:28).  Some thirty years later, Peter wrote, ‘We did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.  For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory, This utterance made from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain’ (2 Pet. 1:16-18)”

 

            Now as these men saw Jesus alone it must have came to them that they saw a preview of the second coming of Jesus Christ as He will come in His glory.  I have to believe that after thinking about this for a while that the first thing that they wanted to do was to tell others of what they just saw, as they probably could not wait to tell the other disciples of what they just experienced. But as they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, "Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man has risen from the dead." 

 

            In Matthew 16:20 Jesus told the twelve not to tell anyone that He was the Christ, and now He tells these three not to speak of what they just saw on the mountain.  We have talked more than once especially in our time in Matthew that the Jews were looking for a political Messiah, and so if this got out that He was the Messiah the Jews would want to make Him their political Messiah and this was not in the timing of God’s plan. 

 

            MacArthur writes “For the people to have learned then about the experience on the mount would, as already mentioned, only have incited them to try as they did on other occasions (John 6:15; 12:12-19) to make Jesus into a king of their own kind to fulfill their immediate selfish and worldly expectations.  But when they would hear the story after the son of Man had risen from the dead, it would be clear that He had not come to conquer the Romans but to conquer death.”

 

            In conquering death Jesus was fulfilling the plan that the Father had for Him before the foundation of the earth, and nothing was going to stand in His way from dying on the cross for our sins at the exact time that He was suppose to on the exact day He was suppose to.

 

10/26/2022 10:12 AM

 

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