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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Norman McNulty

Eyewitnesses of His Majesty

Well, good morning, Advent Hope, and happy Sabbath to all of you.

It's always a special treat to come back to Loma Linda, and I spent 10 years of my life in this place, but I've been gone long enough now that I've been gone longer than I was here.

But Advent Hope still has a very special place in my heart and it's so good to see many familiar faces and to be with you this Sabbath.

I kind of chuckled at the reaction to having the son that I have now.

You know, the appearances that we kept trying until we had a boy.

And we're grateful for God's blessing in that regard.

I'm just going to ask the Lord to be with us and we will begin this message.

Father, we thank you for this beautiful Sabbath day.

We thank you that we can worship you and come together.

And I just pray that as I speak this morning that you would guide my mind and give me the words to speak that would be just what each 1 of us needs.

This morning as we prepare for the soon return of Jesus.

We thank you for the blessing to be here today and I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

The title for the message this morning is Eyewitnesses of His Majesty and I want you to turn to 2 Peter chapter 1 and we're going to be starting in verse 16 of 2 Peter chapter 1.

Here the Apostle Peter says, Here the Apostle Peter says, "'For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, "'when we made known unto you the power and coming "'of our Lord Jesus Christ, "'but were eyewitnesses of his majesty, "'for he received from God the Father honor and glory when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory.

This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.

And this voice which came from heaven we heard when we were with him in the holy mount.

The apostle Peter is giving a message to the Christian church saying, we are not following cunningly devised fables.

Sometimes you get the idea when you talk to some people who are out there that the Bible and Christianity and even the Adventist faith is just a cunningly devised fable, a neatly put together set of ideas as atheists like to say religion is the opium of the masses.

And yet the Apostle Peter could say we're not following cunningly devised fables.

He could say, I can tell you as an eyewitness that I saw with mine own eyes and I heard with mine own ears the voice of the Father, and I saw Jesus transfigured, I can tell you with certainty that what we believe is true." Now this story of the transfiguration, which obviously made such an indelible impression upon Peter that he was writing about it decades later is a story that is worth reflecting upon for a few minutes this morning.

And when we look at this story and we make some applications from this story, we will see just how valuable and how powerful that story is for us today.

So I want you to go to Matthew chapter 16.

And the setting for the Mount of Transfiguration, when you look at verse 13 leading into the story of the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus is speaking to his disciples, and of course he's dealing with the fact that the Jewish nation has not accepted him to be the Messiah.

And Jesus asks his disciples, who do you say that I am?

Well, the disciples respond, some say that you're John the Baptist, some say that you're Elijah, Jeremiah, or 1 of the prophets.

And then Jesus says, but who do you say that I am?

And Peter answered, you are the Christ, the son of the living God.

And Jesus commends him and says, flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my father which is in heaven.

Now, you know, we could learn from this story because how often have we received a compliment from someone and then we turn right around and step right into it in our very next breath.

Because as the story proceeds, Jesus then goes on to say, okay, that's great, you understand that I'm the Messiah, now I'm gonna go up to Jerusalem and be put to death by the the leaders of this nation.

And Peter's response is, be it far from you, Jesus.

And Jesus goes from saying, flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father which is in heaven, to saying to him, get thee behind me, Satan.

That's kind of a stinging rebuke after he feels like, wow, God the Father has given this thought to me and then Jesus says, get thee behind me, Satan.

As the story continues, Jesus goes on to say in Matthew 16, 28, "'Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here "'which shall not taste of death "'till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.'" And very clearly what Jesus is referring to is his transfiguration, which as we come into Matthew 17, we see takes place 6 days later.

So 6 days after Jesus says, there will be some of you who are standing here that will not taste death till you see me coming in my kingdom." 6 days later we see the story.

So Jesus takes 3 of his disciples, Peter, James, and John, with him to this mountain.

So that's why Peter is the 1 who writes about this later on in 2 Peter 1.

And you can see this story in the Gospels in Matthew 17 Mark 9 and Luke 9.

And just to summarize What happens, they climb to the top of this mountain.

They're tired when they get to the top of the mountain.

It's taken some effort to get to the top.

And when they get to the top, they all enter into a season of prayer.

Now, the disciples did not immediately fall asleep.

They engaged in a season of prayer with Christ.

They understood that this was a special moment where they had been set apart from the other 9.

Jesus had picked them to have a special moment.

Now they did not know what was about to happen, but they knew that it was a special moment.

So they are in a season of prayer with Jesus, but they're tired because they've hiked up this mountain at the end of the day, and Predictably, they all fall asleep.

Sometime after they fall asleep, after Jesus has continued in hours of prayer, they are suddenly awakened.

Now I have to tell you, 1 of the scenes from Scripture that I definitely want to see when I get to heaven is this scene.

Because this isn't just any old story that happens to Jesus and the disciples as part of his 3 and a half years of ministry.

Yes, every story about Jesus in the Bible is special, but this story is especially significant.

Because Jesus says, there will be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.

So this is a picture of Jesus of what he will be like when he comes in his kingdom.

So this is a very significant moment in the ministry of Jesus.

And when the disciples wake up They don't see the same Jesus that they saw when they fell asleep.

They see Jesus transfigured in a glorified state the way he will appear in heaven.

And not only do they see Jesus glorified as he will appear when he comes in his kingdom and as he appears in heaven, they see Jesus standing with Moses and Elijah.

Now just minutes, hours earlier, the disciples are, you know, they are with who they believe to be the Messiah, and they're having what seems to be an ordinary earthly experience climbing up a mountain, and now they wake up from sleep and they see the heavenly kingdom.

And it's a moment that I wanna see when we get to heaven.

Now, it's interesting that Moses and Elijah were the 2 glorified human beings who were called from heaven to come down and minister to Jesus.

Notice what Ellen White says in Desire of Ages 425.

These men chosen above every angel around the throne had come to commune with Jesus concerning the scenes of his suffering and to comfort him with the assurance of the sympathy of heaven.

The hope of the world, the salvation of every human being was the burden of their interview.

Now it's interesting, that's from Desire of Ages.

If you read that whole chapter, there's not a lot of detail about what Moses and Elijah said to Jesus, and the Bible doesn't give us much detail either.

We just see that Moses and Elijah are there, and that Moses and Elijah speak to Jesus.

But we can use some sanctified imagination to think about what might have been said in that conversation.

We're told that the hope of the world, the salvation of every human being was the burden of their interview.

Before the cross, everybody who accepted the sacrifice of Christ for their sins did so by faith.

Because Jesus had not yet died as the Lamb of God, as the sacrifice of the sins for the whole world.

So when Moses and Elijah come down to the Mount of Transfiguration, they have some personal motivation.

Have you ever thought about what would have happened to Moses, Elijah, and Enoch if Jesus had not gone through Gethsemane and Calvary?

Their sins, which, as the Bible says, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and we can point to some sins of Moses and Elijah.

Now Enoch, there's no record, but the Bible says all have sinned.

Moses lost his temper and struck the rock in anger just before entering the promised land.

Elijah, after his Mount Carmel experience, then gets discouraged and runs off into the wilderness.

And what could have been an even greater revival in Israel was stunted by him fleeing away when Jezebel said, I'm gonna put you to death.

But obviously that was not the end of the story of Moses when he lost his temper.

That was not the end of the story of Elijah when he fled into the wilderness.

But they needed the blood of Jesus just like we do.

Without the blood of Jesus, they would be lost.

But notice that Moses and Elijah, we're not told that they specifically asked Jesus to save them personally.

What we're told is that they reminded Jesus that his mission involved the salvation of every human being.

So 1 of the things that I'm going to do when I get to heaven in addition to thanking the Lord is to thank Moses and Elijah for their role on the Mount of Transfiguration.

They were chosen for this special task And I do want to hear exactly what they said.

When we get to heaven, I wanna know what did they say exactly to Jesus?

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Eyewitnesses of His Majesty

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