Luke 9:33

It is good for us to be here

Raise up your eyes heavenward

I. If you frequently remember heaven, it will be A GREAT CONSOLATION IN YOUR MANY TRIBULATIONS HERE.

1. Affliction shall be no more.

(1) No separation.

(2) No grief.

(3) No pains.

2. In heaven we shall find an everlasting reward for our tribulations.

II. If you frequently remember heaven, you will be ENCOURAGED IS THE VARIOUS STRUGGLES OF LIFE.

1. Heaven is your peaceful home.

(1) No enemy.

(2) No struggle.

2. Heaven is the abode of infinite glory. (Joseph Schuen.)

On the top of Tabor

I. THEY HAD A VISION OF CHRIST’S DIVINITY. Not His distinct, unveiled Godhead--that would have been an insufferable blaze that Jehovah Himself hath told us can no man look upon and live. On the form of a servant He wears His coronation robes, and is at one and the same time a mystery and a revelation--God manifest in the flesh! What an honour and a privilege was this!

II. THEY HAD A VISION OF GLORIFIED SAINTS. Thou too, my friend, for good or ill, will live on through all the ages. Not only men, but retaining their individuality, in form and feature as in the days of their flesh.

III. THEY HAD A VISION OF THE FATHER’S PRESENCE. There came a cloud and overshadowed them; not an ordinary cloud, but the bright Shekinahcloud, in which Jehovah did ever manifest His presence--the medium through which He ever made His communications to a favoured few.

IV. THEY SAW A VISION OF JESUS ONLY. This, I think, was the chief end and aim of this great event. (J. J. Wray.)

Our wishes are not always wise

Peter’s instance showeth us two things.

1. That we are apt to consult with our own profit, rather than public good. It is our nature, if it be well with ourselves, to forget others.

2. How much we are out when we judge by present sense, and the judgment of flesh. Well then, let us learn by what measure to determine good or evil.

1. Good is not to be determined by our fancies and conceits, but by the wisdom of God: for He knoweth what is better for us than we do for ourselves.

2. That good is to be determined with respect to the chief good, and true happiness.

3. That good is not always the good of the flesh, or the good of outward prosperity; and therefore certainly the good of our condition is not to be determined by the interest of the flesh, but the welfare of our souls.

4. A particular good must give way to a general good, and our personal benefit to the advancement of Christ’s kingdom, and the glory of God.

5. This good is not to be determined by the judgment of sense, but by the judgment of faith; not by present feeling, but future profit. That which is not good may be a means to good. If we come to a person under the Cross, and ask him, What! Is it good to feel the lashes of God’s correcting hand? to be kept poor, sickly, exercised with losses and reproaches, to part with friends and relations, to lose a beloved child? he would be apt to answer, No. But this poor creature after he hath been exercised, and mortified, and gotten some renewed evidences of God’s favour; ask Him then, Is it good to be afflicted? Oh yes, I had been vain, neglectful of God, wanted such an experience of the Lord’s grace. Faith should determine the case when we feel it not. Well then, let us learn to distinguish between what is really best for us, and what we judge to be best. Other diet is more wholesome for our souls than that which our sickly appetite craveth. It is best many times when we are weakest, worst when strongest, all things are good as they help on a blessed eternity, so sharp afflictions are good. (T. Manton, D. D.)

Peter’s rash judgment

I propound six questions on this.

1. Could it be good for them that Christ should entrench Himself in Mount Tabor, and never go to Jerusalem to be crucified? Lord, grant us not our own wishes when we desire evil unto ourselves; for this apostle unwittingly desired as much mischief to fall upon his own head as the devil could wish.

2. And might not Peter counsel Him without offence against this ignominious death? No, my beloved; for it is not to be excused how he knew not the Scriptures, that this was the course appointed for the redemption of the world. The hungry could not eat their bread until it was broken; we could not quench our thirst with the water of life till it was poured out of His wounds.

3. I ask, if that condition of life be well chosen in this world which appears, as this did to Peter, to be exempted from all affliction? Danger is the best sentinel in the world to make us watch our enemies. Fear is the best warning bell to call us often to prayer. Tribulation is the best orator to persuade us to humility.

4. Where shall the dove rest his foot? If we would be contented with the present state we enjoy, yet all things will change, and though all things should remain as they are, and never change, yet we would never be contented. The sea is a new sea every tide, the earth is a new earth every month, or every quarter at the longest distance, the same mutability whirls us about, and the things that we possess. What content then could Peter take in one hill, though it were furnished with a most desirable vision? How quickly would it have cloyed him to have been long there, like a lark, hopping upon one turf of grass? Though God prepare for us a new heaven, and a new earth, yet He must give us a new heart likewise to delight in them for ever. For it is not the object alone, but the disposition of the soul which receives it, that must make us say, “When I awake up after Thy likeness I shall be satisfied with it.”

5. Should we call that good which is appropriated to ourselves, and not communicated to many? When every man is his own end, all things will corns to a bad end. Blessed were those days, when every man thought himself rich and fortunate by the good success of the public wealth and glory. Every man thinks that he is a whole commonwealth in his private family. Can the public be neglected and any man’s private be secure? It is all one whether the mischief light upon him or his posterity. There are some, says Tully, that think their own gardens and fishponds shall be safe when the Commonwealth is lost.

6. To the last question briefly in a word: Could it be the supreme good of man to behold the human nature of Christ only beatified? Surely, the human nature shining as light as the sun was a rare object, that Peter could have been contented with that, and no more, for his part for ever, yet the resolution of the school holds certain, that blessedness consists essentially in beholding the Divine nature which is the fountain of all goodness, and power; and in the fruition thereof, accidentally it consists in beholding Christ’s human nature glorified, and in the consequent delectation. These things must not be enlarged now, because I am prevented by the time. (Bishop Hacker.)

Balloon religion

Peter is in ecstasy amid these surroundings. He desires to remain on the Mount. He says in rapture, “It is good for us to be here.” He would rather remain there for ever, than go down from the mountain and engage in the practical duties of life. But his request is denied him. Sometimes, in revival meetings, you have felt in the same way. There are duties outside of the revival. Longfellow, in one of his poems, pictures a youth, who, in winter, seizes a banner and begins the ascent of a mountain. He gradually leaves behind him the fields, the stores, the workshops, the dwellings, and the neighbours. As he rises higher and higher he shouts, “Excelsior.” His voice grows fainter and fainter, until heard no more. He has gone so high, that the atmosphere in which he moves has become too thin to sustain life, and he dies. So it is no uncommon thing to see professed Christians taking the banner of the Cross and crying, “Hallelujah,” “Amen,” rise higher and higher, emotionally, until they leave behind them this practical world. They lose sight of the duties of every-day life. They are too high up to give much attention to such matters as speaking the truth, keeping their temper, restraining their tongue from slander, and paying their debts. They have become too religious to give much concern to these things. But these persons soon reach an altitude where the atmosphere is too thin for them to live, and they die. It is one thing to be religious on the Mount of Transfiguration, and another thing not to deny our Lord in the world below. Instead of this gushing religion, let us have one that touches the ground. (Irving A. Searles.)

A three-tent heaven

Peter forgot the other disciples, the great world beneath, and the generations yet to come. How narrow and insignificant this proposed heaven, compared with the one seen by the Patmos exile, who beheld “a great multitude which no man could number.” But Peter is not the only follower of Christ who would be satisfied with a little three-tent heaven. This spirit is the death-warrant of missionary enterprise. What shall be said of a Christian who is satisfied if he can only gain heaven for himself, even if the rest of the world is lost? Away with the idea of a three-tent heaven! (Irving A. Searles.)

Holiness in religious assemblies and in every-day life;

1. The wish Peter here expresses is exceedingly natural.

2. It is seemingly pious.

3. It expresses a desire not altogether free from selfishness.

4. Like other selfish wishes, Peter’s was mistaken. “Not knowing what he said” indicates the blind manner in which it was cherished and expressed.

5. We have said enough already to indicate why Peter’s wish was not gratified. But why, if in form it had to be denied, might it not have been granted in substance? Supposing that Peter’s main object in wishing to remain there was the better and holier mood which he would have been able to maintain, why might not the spiritual condition have been granted to him, even though the surrounding circumstances could not be perpetuated? The same questions in effect are sometimes asked now. Say some, “The Lord is able at once to sanctify you wholly.” But to ask why, if God is able to sanctify us, we are not sanctified instantaneously by His power, is very much the same as to ask, why does not God make us other than men? Why does He not change us into things into which He can put whatsoever He pleases, while, for the possession of it, as we have no will in the matter, we shall be entitled to no praise, as for the lack of it we are subject to no blame? The answer is, because He has destined us for something nobler; that, while free to choose the wrong, ours might be the merit of making the right the object of our desires and aspirations, and prayers and strivings, until having, through diligent and untiring effort, gained the victory over evil, and attained to the possession of all that is well-pleasing in His sight, we hear from His lips the eulogy which can never be pronounced on those who are made, only on those who do, and labour, and fight, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” &c. (W. Landels, D,D.)

The overshadowing cloud

Like the clouds that overhang and surround us, so the sorrows of life come and go, and alternate our days with changeful light and shade. Let us gaze at this cloud overshadowing these apostles, that we may learn something of the clouds that may now and hereafter overshadow our hearts.

I. THE CLOUD OVERSHADOWING THE DISCIPLES.

1. When did it overshadow them? At the moment at which they were witnessing a new and unexpected revelation of the majesty and glory of Jesus. How unlikely that a cloud should then arise!

2. What cloud was it that overshadowed them? It was a cloud of salvation. It came in mercy.

II. THE FEAR OF THE DISCIPLES AS THEY ENTERED THE CLOUD. Why did they fear?

1. Perhaps because it was a cloud.

2. Because there was mystery in the cloud. Their fear implied their deficiency of love.

III. THE VOICE IN THE CLOUD. The voice of God, testifying to them of Jesus. It was the very testimony they needed, and it was vouchsafed to them in answer to the prayer of Jesus. In all the clouds that overshadow us, in all the sorrows that assail us, there is a Divine voice addressing us; and the design of the testimony is to exalt Jesus in our hearts. (W. T. Bull, B. A.)

The cloud

Our whole happiness and power of energetic action depend upon our being able to breathe and live in the cloud; content to see it opening here and closing there; rejoicing to catch through the thinnest films of it, glimpses of stable and substantial things; but yet perceiving a nobleness even in the concealment, and rejoicing that the kindly veil is spread where the untempered light might have scorched us, or the infinite clearness wearied. (J. Ruskin.)

The fear of the disciples

What is meant by the expression “as they entered the cloud,” will be understood by all of you who have ever climbed to the summit of some high mountain, and may be imagined by those who have seen the lofty peak of some towering hill enveloped in a robe of mist. When, as you stand in the cool air of the mountain-top, the cloud descends upon you, you seem rather to be rising up into it, and as it hides from your view the way you have come, and the wide reach of the surrounding country, you are seized and oppressed with a sense of loneliness and mystery which may well explain what is said of the disciples in the text. And the kind of fear which is here spoken of is just that which is most trying and hardest to bear, that namely of some unknown evil that may befall you in the gloom. We create for ourselves more evils than we are called to endure. We climb the shadows before we reach the hills. To be the slave of presentiments is to deprive life of the pleasure which it was intended to have in store for us, and so to weaken ourselves that when the expected trouble befalls us it crushes and overwhelms us. (J. R. Bailey.)

The voice from the cloud

Is there not rich and consoling meaning to be got out of the fact that the voice spake to the disciples out of the fearful cloud? Does it not show that the cloud itself was the token of the Divine presence? Does it not teach us that the very events and experiences we fear the most may be those which shall most surely bring God nigh to us? The cloud and the voice are inseparably connected in the narrative--the cloud which conceals, and the voice which reveals. It is not that there was a cloud here, and a voice there. It was from the midst of the cloud that the voice came. And, did we but know it, there is a Divine presence in, and a Divine voice issuing from every cloud. Let us learn to be thankful for the cloud, instead of fearful of it, if, without it, we should not hear the reassuring voice. (J. R. Bailey.)

The overshadowing cloud

Think of the cloud as a symbol--

I. OF THE MYSTERIES OF REVELATION AND OF HUMAN LIFE.

II. OF THE SORROW THAT OFTEN VEILS THE PURPOSES OF GOD’S LOVE, AND YET IS THE KEY TO THE SECRET RICHES OF THAT LOVE. III.. OF DEATH--THE VEIL THAT HANGS BETWEEN US AND THE GREAT HEREAFTER. (J. Waite, B. A.)