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Hi, this is Pastor Tom and I want to welcome you to Day 2 of our look together
through Mark chapter 9. We're going to look at verses 9 to 13 today and as we
look at these verses, they are verses that point to one of the main questions
that I hear about the ministry of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark. We're also going
to look in these verses at one of the disciples' main questions about the
ministry of Jesus and it's interesting, the answer to those questions point us
in exactly the same direction.

Let me read for you to begin, Mark chapter 9 verses 9 to 13, "As they were
coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they
had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They kept this matter to
themselves, discussing what rising from the dead meant. And they asked Him, 'Why
did the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?

' Jesus replied, 'To be sure Elijah does come first and restores all things. Why
then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected? But I
tell you, Elijah has come and they have done to him everything they wished, just
as it is written about him.

'" These verses interestingly go to two main questions. First, they approach
this question that I have seen again and again and again on our research team as
they've read through the Gospel of Mark. Again and again I hear this question,
"Why is it that Jesus keeps telling people not to tell who He really is?

" And we've touched on the answer a few times as we've walked through the Gospel
of Mark, Today I'd like to take a little bit longer to really focus in on that
question. Why didn't He let people tell? Why wouldn't Jesus want to broadcast
the good news as broadly, as quickly as possible?

Isn't that what we're supposed to do? Tell others? So why wasn't Jesus letting
the people who lived in His very day tell others, "Hey, come and see Jesus.

See Him heal. See what He does. " What was going on here?

Here's what was happening. The truth is the time wasn't right. The time now is
right to tell everyone as broadly, as quickly as possible, but in this moment as
Jesus walked the earth, the time wasn't right.

In fact it wasn't right for three reasons. Number one, Jesus needed time with
His disciples. Number two, it wasn't yet time to go to the cross.

And number three, the people didn't yet understand the whole story. The time
wasn't right, number one, because Jesus needed time with His disciples. If
everyone who was healed of every miracle that happened, they went and told
everyone as quickly as possible, the crowds that were so huge they barely had
enough time with each other, it would have been impossible for Jesus to spend
time with His disciples.

And He knew He only had three years with them. And so He had to have a mixture
of ministry where He did some healing, some teaching, but also some training of
the disciples. The second reason the time wasn't right is it wasn't yet time for
Him to go to the cross.

As we've talked about a little bit as we walked through Mark, Jesus knew that
there was a right time to go to the cross. I don't know how He had this
spiritual sensitivity, but you can see it in Him. You can see in Mark 9 and 10
how He's increasingly aware that the cross is approaching.

But it wasn't yet time. And Jesus knew that as He did miracles, not only would
it draw greater crowds to Him, it would also invite greater hatred towards Him
from His enemies, from the religious leaders who were jealous of the attention
that was given to Jesus, and who eventually, because of that jealousy, sent Him
to a cross. And so Jesus didn't let everybody tell.

Now, some told, even though He told them not to, there were many times when He
said, "Don't tell yet. " Those are the first two reasons. But there is a third
reason, a very powerful reason why it wasn't yet time for everyone to tell.

And it especially, especially applies to what happened here on the Mount of
Transfiguration. Jesus said, "Don't tell until you've seen the Son of Man rise
from the dead. " What's the third reason it wasn't yet time to tell?

Because they didn't understand the end of the story yet. Notice, Jesus says
here, "Don't tell until you've seen Me rise from the dead. " And immediately the
disciples began to discuss, "What does that mean, rise from the dead?

" They didn't understand the end of the story. And Jesus could have talked
Himself until He was blue in the face to try to explain to them what it meant to
be rising from the dead. They wouldn't have seen it until they saw it.

They wouldn't understand it until they saw it. Now, here's what's crucial about
this. Jesus did not want a message of transfiguration and miracles.

Jesus wanted a message of death and resurrection, because that's the message
that changes people's lives. That's the message that changes eternity. He might
heal me for a moment.

He might heal my friend for a moment. But it is understanding His death and
resurrection and what that means in my life, that's the message that people need
to hear. So Jesus told His disciples not to tell, because the story wasn't
completed yet.

That's our main question. Why couldn't they tell everyone? And that's a longer
look at the answer to that question.

The disciples also had a major question. Their major question involved what they
had learned in the Old Testament. And they asked Jesus here, "Why is it that the
teachers say that Elijah must come first?

" Now, it's very obvious why they asked this question. They'd just been on the
Mount of Transfiguration. They'd just seen Jesus with Moses and Elijah.

So this is a very natural question to ask. And Jesus' answer points them in the
same exact direction as our question points us. It points them to the cross.

Jesus begins to talk about Elijah. And He says, "To be sure, Elijah does come
first and restores all things. " Back in Malachi chapter 4 verse 5, the Bible
does say that Elijah has to come before the Messiah comes.

And Jesus says this is true. And Elijah has come and restored all things. He
even talks about Elijah coming and them doing everything to him that they
wished.

In other places we've seen that Jesus talks about Elijah is seen in the person
of John the Baptist. And John the Baptist came as the forerunner of Jesus. And
he came in the spirit and the power of Elijah.

And that is the fulfillment of these Old Testament verses. Now, before we talk a
little bit more about what this means about Elijah, let me just hit the pause
button for a minute and talk about prophecy. In that day, no one would have
predicted that this prophecy about Elijah was going to be fulfilled from a man
called John the Baptist.

Everyone would have said, "Oh, it has to be some resurrection of Elijah. "
That's not how God chose to do it. He chose to do it differently than anyone
expected.

And this goes to the fulfillment of prophecy today. As you and I read what's
going to happen in the second coming, we can make some spiritually educated
guesses about how God's going to do it. But of course there's going to be
surprises to us just like there were surprises to them.

Of course we don't have it all figured out any more than they had it all figured
out. What we do know is that God's going to keep his promise. What we do know is
that Jesus, just as he promised to come the first time, is going to come again.

And what we do know is that there's going to be signs of that coming again. And
what we do know is that we have to be humble enough to realize that we may have
to adjust our thinking as God teaches us about what those signs really are when
they come. Just as with Jesus' first disciples, they had to realize Elijah, that
means John the Baptist, and he has come.

And look what they did to him. And then Jesus says something extremely
important. He says in the middle of this talk about Elijah, "Why then is it
written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected?

" Here's what's happening. The disciples are focused on Elijah. And Jesus says,
"Focus on the Son of God.

Focus on the fact that he's going to suffer and be rejected. " The disciples are
focused on the fulfillment of some Old Testament prophecy through Elijah. Jesus
says, "I want you to focus on the cross.

That's where the focus must be in our lives. " A lot of questions that you and I
can have about life, about why my life has turned out like it has, why history
has turned out like it has. There's a lot of questions I can have about
Scripture.

What does the Bible teach about this and what exactly does this verse mean? We
should ask all of those questions. But in asking every one of those questions
and in listening for God's answer, the focus always has to be on the cross of
Christ and the resurrection of Christ.

That's what's at the center. Don't let the question come to the center because
it's always going to push the truth to the outside. You let the focus be on the
cross and the resurrection, and God through that answers the questions.

In fact, many times the answer is focus on the cross, focus on the resurrection.
When you focus on the cross, you see the love of Christ. You see the fact that
he gave his life for you.

That's how much he loves you. When you focus on the resurrection, you see the
life of Christ, the kind of life that he wants to give you. In the love of
Christ and the life of Christ, you and I can learn the kind of truth that he
wants us to learn in everyday life.

As we close this time together today, I want to invite you along with me to take
just a few minutes to focus on the cross and on the resurrection. Jesus Christ,
you see our hearts. You see the things we understand and the things we don't
understand, the questions we have and the questions we've had answered.

Right now, we want our focus to be on you, on the fact that you died for us on a
cross, that you were resurrected from the tomb. And God, let that be at the
center. Don't let anything else intrude on that center of our faith, of my
faith.

Let that be at the center today, in my thinking, in my deciding, in the way that
I act, in the way that I treat people. Let the love that I know that you have
for me and the life that you have given to me be at the center of who I am. I
pray this, Jesus, in your name, amen.

Tomorrow, as we continue our look through Mark 9, we're going to see how we
learn through failure.