| Devotional Hours with the Bible |
Chapter 28 |
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Another element of the Transfiguration was the witness from heaven. It was the Father who spoke and said, “This is My beloved Son: hear Him.” The disciples had been greatly shocked by what Jesus had told them six days before — that He must suffer and be killed. Now from heaven the Father speaks, assuring them that Jesus is indeed the Messiah, and that they should listen to His voice, and to His voice only. Even if they could not understand, and the things He said seemed to destroy all their hopes, they must be content to hear. There are times when God’s ways with us seem very hard, when we think disaster is coming to ever fair prospect in our lives. In all such hours we should remember that He who rules over all is the Son of God, our Friend and Savior, and our trust in Him should never fail. We should listen always quietly and submissively to what He says, and when everything seems strange and dark, we should never doubt or be afraid. What so staggered the disciples then we now see to have been the most glorious and loving wisdom. Through the cross there came to the world the most wonderful blessing the world ever received. So in our strangest trials there are the truest wisdom and the highest love.
As Jesus and the disciples came down from the mountain the next morning, He charged them that they should tell no man what they had seen until after He had risen from the dead. There are many things that it is hard or even impossible for us to understand at the time, but which become clear enough when the other events follow and cast their light upon them. One riding along a road approaches a building which has no beauty and which seems to be only a confused pile. But when he has passed by and looks back at it, he sees a structure graceful, impressive, and beautiful. He saw it first from the wrong side. One looks at an artist at work on his canvas and sees only rude daubs. The picture has not yet been completed. By and by it is finished and is a rare work of art. We must wait for finished work before we judge. A boy enters the academy, and a page of Greek is put before him, but it has no meaning for him. He cannot read it. He spends a few years in the study of the language, and again the same page is presented to him. Now he reads it off with ease, and every word glows with some high thought. We are in Christ’s school now, and there are many things we cannot understand until we get farther on and learn other things, and then the former will be made plain and clear.
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