The Eternal Purpose

Transcript

Alright thank you very much, and hello again dear radio friends. How in the world are you? Oh, I’ve just been praying that God would fill my heart with His love and His truths, so that it comes out through my voice and somehow you can sense His presence and His blessing, and something especially tailor-made for you by way of a truth that meets your need. That’s my daily prayer and I trust it may be answered again today, as we look at God’s Word in Mark chapter 8, just finishing that chapter.

We have discovered that following the Lord Jesus in response to His command, “Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me”. Following the Lord Jesus involves your life goals. What is it you wish to achieve? It involves your value system. What do you think is most valuable in your life? And it involves your basic loyalties, and we pointed out the fact that although loyalty may be related to job or paycheck or circumstances, primarily it has to do with your commitment to a person. “I am not ashamed for I know whom I have believed”, says Paul, “and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which have committed unto Him against that day”.

Two things establish loyalty to the Lord Jesus. Number one; believing on Him. That is to say opening your heart and trusting Him as your Lord and your Savior and second, committing your whole life and your destiny to Him for time and for eternity. When you’ve done that, you’ll be loyal to Him because all of your life is wrapped up with His eternal purposes, and so, we talked about that for a while, and the fact that the Lord Jesus wants us not to be ashamed of Him, but to be proud of Him, and the word confess that you have in Matthew 10:32, “Whosoever shall confess Me before men”, is the same word that’s used in first John 1:9 and it’s a Greek verb that means, to say the same thing, to agree with in other words. Agree with what the Lord Jesus Christ stands, for what He says and what He asks of you. “Confess Me before men”. He wants you to be proud of Him. He wants you to speak up for Him. He wants you to own up the fact that you belong to Him. He wants you to be loyal to Him, no matter what the pressures may be, “If any man suffers as a Christian let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God, on this behalf”. Actually, to give God the glory when you’re under pressure because of your connection with the Lord Jesus Christ, that’s what He wants you to do.

There’s a spinoff on this and I wanted just to touch of a before we went any farther, and that is that loyalty to Christ affects your other loyalties. Loyalty to Christ affects your other relationships in life. It will cut out some, it will strengthen others. Now, you can have, you could have friends all over the world. You can have friends among unbelievers. Jesus said, “Make friends of the mammon of unrighteousness then when ye are cast out, they may receive you”. You can have friends, but to be loyal is something else again, and that involves the holding of your heartstrings and the sharing of your life’s hopes and ambitions and desires, and so to be loyal to the Lord Jesus, I want to stress this for you, especially the young folk could listen, to be loyal to the Lord Jesus means that you are going to be very careful who holds your heartstrings, humanly speaking. You’re not going to fall in love with an unsaved fellow or girl. You’re not going to pal around with people who reject the name of the Lord Jesus or who were Godless or use His name in vain. You’re not going to pal around with the, with the crowd that’s into drugs and booze and sex. Loyalty to Christ beloved, affects your loyalties human wise, to human beings around you. Yes, be friendly with everyone. Don’t be a religious snob. The Bible nowhere teaches religious snobbery. The Bible says that God gets tired of people who stand by themselves and say, I’m holier than thou, He said, “These are stench in my nostrils all day long”. God considers people who are snobs, like a lot of burning trash, the smoke of which gets in your nose. That’s what He says, so that your nowhere required to look down on people, or to separate yourself from them as being better. They said of our Lord Jesus Christ, “This man eateth with publicans and sinners”, so you be friendly with people, but when it comes to who holds your heartstrings, with whom you’re going to fall in love and perhaps share the rest of your life, oh then, I beg of you, remember your loyalty to Jesus Christ, putting Him first, determines on which human beings are going to be put first in your life. Putting Christ first determines the matter of who as a human being, is going to be put first in your life. Loyalty to Christ does affect your loyalties in this world. Be friendly to everyone, but be loyal to those who love your Lord Jesus Christ.

Alright, there I think that wraps up Mark chapter 8 and we go on then into Mark chapter 9. Do you enjoy these studies? Well, I hope you do. Anyhow we’re in Mark 9 and Jesus said unto them, “And”, in other words another thing, “Verily I say unto thee, be some of them that stand here which shall not taste of death til they have seen the kingdom of God come with power”. Now obviously all of the people who were standing there have long since died, and the second coming, if this verse refers to the second coming of Christ, the second coming has yet to occur, so the must be some other meaning that the Lord Jesus had in mind, and I take it that it referred to the trans-figuration. We go on reading then in Mark chapter 9, “After six days, Jesus took with Him, Peter, James, and John. Leadeth them up into a high mountain, apart by themselves and He was transfigured before them. His raiment became shiny, exceeding white as snow, so is no fuller on earth can white them, and there appeared unto them Elias with Moses. They were talking with Jesus”. Peter answered and said to Jesus, “Master it is good for us to be here and let us make three tabernacles. One for Thee, one for Moses, one for Elias, for he wisped not what to say, for they were so afraid”. Dear Peter, he didn’t know what to say, but he opened his mouth and said something. Peter was always answering and said, right? Nobody asked him anything but he answered and said. “And it was a cloud that overshadowed them and a voice came out of the cloud saying, ‘This is my beloved son. Hear Him”. “Suddenly when they looked roundabout they saw no man anymore save Jesus only with themselves”. Now, what do you make of this? Well, we’ll start getting into it now, Time will run out before we finish our discussion, but we can start, can’t we? You can always start and no matter how little time you have, remember that as a principle of which you couldlive. You can do something even if you’re pressed for time.

Now, Jesus said, “There are some of you that are going to see the kingdom of God”, and then He takes these three and as my older theology prof in the Eastern Baptist seminary, Dr. Champion used to say, “You fellas know about a kerosene lamp, don’t you? You turn up the wick and the light gets brighter”. Well, when our Lord went up on the mountain, He turned up the wick of deity, so that the light was shining more clearly through Him. So it says, “He was transfigured before them. His raiment”, that’s His clothing, “became shiny, exceeding white as snow and yet Moses and the Elijah were there talking with Him”. Now, this description of Him, brief as Mark makes it, I think there’s a little more detail in Matthew’s description of the transfiguration, “His face did shine as the sun. His raiment was white as the light”, says Matthew. This tallies with John’s description of the risen, glorified Lord. Jesus said, “You’re going to see the kingdom come”. All right?

Now the glory of God, and John said, “I turned to see the voice that spoke with me in the midst of the seven candlesticks, one like under the Son of Man, clothed like a garment, gird about with a golden girdle, His head and His hairs were white like wool, as white as snow, His eyes were as a flame of fire, His feet like a defined brass, as if they burned in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters and He had in His right hand seven stars and out of His mouth went a sharp two edged sword, His countenance was as the sunshine in His strength”. See, it has little more detail, but it’s the same description, isn’t it?

So, what the Lord Jesus was saying to His disciples, you’re going to get a taste, just a glimpse of my post-resurrection glory. That’s what He was saying. And it said, “There appeared with Him, Elias with Moses and they were talking with Him”. In another passage it says, “They spoke of his decease, which He should accomplish at Jerusalem”. See, people on the other side, those who had gone before, they knew what it was going to happen. They knew that the Lord Jesus came to this earth to die for sin and sinners, and so they were talking of this.

Small thought here: When you’re dealing with the Lord Jesus you’re dealing with the eternal plans and purposes of God. Remember this, you get down on your knees to say your prayers, and you’re praying, you’re asking God for things that are on your heart. I know I do. When I start to pray there’s just a multitude of things that come tumbling into my mind, concerning which I need to pour out my heart to God. I’m sure that must be so with you, but in the midst of all of that, you and I need to realize that we are in the very center of God’s eternal plans and purposes. We’re part of His purpose for individual salvation. “Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost”. “The Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me”, says Paul in Galatians 2.

So, His plans involve individual salvation. His eternal plans and purposes have to do with the church, “That in the ages to come might be known by the church, the manifold wisdom of God”. A group of believers from all over the world, born again, filled with the Spirit of God, shining with an eternal light throughout all of the ages of eternity, as proof that God’s purpose is perfect and right and good. You’re in the midst of God’s purpose, His purpose for the world, “God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance”. God is waiting. The reason Jesus hasn’t come again is that God is still waiting for more to come to Him through faith in Christ.

His purpose for the world and His eternal purpose is that there be a new heaven and a new earth, and you and I will be in the very center of all that, it says, “His servants shall serve Him”. There’s going to be work to do in heaven. You won’t sit around playing a harp all the time, that’d be tiresome wouldn’t it? There’ll be work to do and God will be glorified and His eternal purpose will be realized, the devil will have been forever proved a liar, and God will have been proved to be true and righteous altogether.

Now, all of that is involved in this matter, it says, “They were talking with Him”. See, the plan of God involves more than the here and now, it involves yesterday and tomorrow, and God sees it all as one great panorama. Moses and Elijah, in that appearance there, were sharing, you may say, in that perspective. Well, we talk a little more about this the next time we get together. When you pray, remember you’re in the center of the eternal purpose of God, not just today but eternity is involved.

Dear Father today, may we realize every moment that we’re part of Thy eternal purposes in Christ, in His name I pray, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!