Sunday, February 9

Our Scripture reading this morning comes from 2 Peter 1, beginning in verse 19. "And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention, as to a lamp shining in the darkness, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing, first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of a man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." This is the word of the Lord. Let's have a word of prayer, and then we'll dive into it this morning. Father in heaven, be with us as we gather around your word. May your Spirit be at work with us. We encourage us to teach us, to make

things clear to us, to help us as we hear these words, as we study these words. Be with us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. It was January the 6th, 1850, and a young 15-year-old boy was on his way to church, and it was in the middle of a snowstorm. And the storm was so bad that he detoured into a small chapel. The preacher couldn't make it because of the snow, but one of the members of his church opens his Bible to Isaiah chapter 45, and reads these words, "Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other." And this young man, he will relate the content of the sermon. It wasn't very long, and it wasn't very eloquent. He says, this guy who's running out of things to say, looking up into the congregation and seeing someone he didn't recognize, says this:

"Young man, you look very miserable." This young man says, "Well, I did, but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made on my personal appearance from the whole." However, it was a good blow struck. The preacher continues, "And you will always be miserable, miserable in life and miserable in death if you do not obey my text." "But if you obey it now, this moment you shall be saved." And then he shouted, as only a primitive Methodist can, "Young man, look to Jesus Christ." And this young man later in life relates that the cloud was gone, darkness rolled away, and he saw the sun. And he said, "I could have risen at that very moment and sung with the most enthusiastic of them, the precious blood of Christ." That young man in the middle of the snowstorm, as some of you probably know, is one of my favorite stories, and it's one of the reasons we don't cancel church on snowy Sundays, is Charles Spurgeon.

A few years before this, in 1819, Adoniram Judson had been ministering for six years in Burma, what is now Myanmar. And after six years of labor, they prepared to baptize their first convert. And Adoniram's wife, Anne, writes this about the new man who's bound to be baptized. A few days ago, I was reading with him Christ's Sermon on the Mount, and he was deeply impressed and unusually solemn. He looks at her, she's reading the Bible to him, and he says this, "These words, they take hold of my liver and make me tremble." Years before this, God, the prophet Isaiah says, "All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to me, declares the Lord, but the one to whom I will look is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word." And so the word of God, which brings this light into the life of Spurgeon, grabs hold of the liver for this young man.

19. Same word, if you go back, not just a few years, but a few centuries. There is a monk in the 1500s who is struggling with God. He can't understand God's righteousness and his own unworthiness, and he is doing his best to try to make himself righteous and failing. And he comes to the book of Romans, to this verse specifically, revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith." And he is not just struggling with this, but he says, "I was angry at God." And he doesn't give up. So this monk says, "I beat upon Paul at this place, desiring to know what he wanted. And at last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of these words. Namely, in it, the righteousness of God is revealed. As is written, "He who through faith and righteousness shall live." And then I began to understand the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives is a gift of God by faith. And here I felt I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open

gates. There, totally another face of Scripture showed itself to me. And he goes on to recount how he then goes through all the Bible with new eyes, seeing how this one place that he struggled so desperately with, and he beat upon and did not give up, changed and transformed. Not just him, but through Martin Luther, this monk, the world. No, or hundreds of years before this, but more than a thousand in the 300s, 300 years after Christ, in Milan, a young man, and some of you will know this name, Augustine, he is struggling both with his sin, and his immorality, and his desire to follow Christ, because part of him wants to follow Christ, and part of him wants to do what he's been doing his whole life, and is pursuing every pleasure of the flesh.

that he can find, and he's running after that, and he's trying to run after Christ, and sitting in this garden with his friend, he has what we would only call today an episode, right? Where he is overcome with this struggle to run after sin or run after Christ, and he doesn't know what to do, and he's pacing around the garden. If you want to see how the providence of God moves, he says, "I was saying these things and weeping in the most bitter contrition of my heart when suddenly I heard the voice of a boy or girl I know not which coming from the neighboring house." Neighbor kids are out playing in the backyard, and they're playing a game, and part of the game is to say, "Pick it up and read it. Pick it up and read it." And he goes, "Well, that's a good idea." And so he runs back inside, opens up his Bible, and he opens it up to these words: "For let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in the orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and

sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires." And in the providence of God, this passage that Augustine comes to speaks directly to the sin that he can't escape from. The sin he's trying so hard to run away from, but doesn't really want to run away from it. Yes, I wanted to read no further, nor did I need to. For instantly, as the sentence ended and it was infused in my heart, something like the full certainty and all the gloom and doubt vanished away. And it's in that moment, through the Word of God, that he says, "I will no longer chase after these things, but I will make no provision for the flesh." And one of the things that we find, not just throughout history, but throughout the world, is that God's

Word, when we encounter it, whether we hear it proclaimed, whether we read it, whether we hear it read, that it is powerful. The writer of Hebrews says that it is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, and when we encounter God's Word, it changes and transforms us. Not just for Augustine in 300, or Martin Luther in the 1500s, or in Myanmar, or for Charles Spurgeon, but for us. Not only does this Word transform by the power of God, it strengthens us to stand. In fact, Martin Luther, in the midst of his opposition, and in a changing world, there's a struggle politically and a struggle spiritually. He will stand before judgment of kings and church officials and say, "Unless I can be persuaded by Scripture." I can't take back what I've said, and it's here I stand. I can do no other, so help me, God.

Brings us to our text this morning. In our text in 2 Peter, it's great and wonderful, and it's a deep well of wonderful theology. It's a wonderful picture of how God inspires His Word. And I want us to see this because there is so much here, and there is so much that is wonderful, and it takes us deep into marvelous oceans of God's grace. But I want us to see this morning how Peter applies the Word of God and the inspiration of Scripture to our struggles as Christians. Because what is happening, as Peter writes, is that the church is struggling. There is a spiritual struggle going on. In fact, in the very next verse after our text finishes, it says this in 2 Peter 2:1, "But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who brought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction."

These trials that they are going to undergo for their faith, and now He is speaking about the struggle within their faith as these false teachers arise in the church. And what's interesting is He starts by saying this: the struggle doesn't look like a struggle. He says they are going to secretly bring in destructive heresies. They're not going to show up with a t-shirt that says, "Hello, my name is Heretic." Right? They're not going to show up looking like someone who is bringing dangerous words into the church of God. And what you find is all of 2 Peter chapter 2, all of 2 Peter chapter 3 is spent dealing with these false teachers. And what's interesting is it seems like there are three big categories that Peter deals with in the rest of this letter. The first one is this: there are those who will ignore what God has said. In fact, that's the first group that he begins to deal with. Those who

know what God has said, but they simply ignore it. And he compares them to an Old Testament situation where God's people are coming toward the promised land. There's a neighboring nation who doesn't want them to come. And so they hire a prophet, sort of a mercenary prophet, to come. And God says, "I don't think you should go with them." The prophet says, "The payday is too big." And you probably know the story. If you don't, we're going to get to it in a couple weeks. The prophet's donkey turns out to be a little smarter than the prophet saving both Balaam's life and for at least a moment, it seems, changing his heart in regards to what God has called him to do. And it proves this wonderful point, right? That there is talking donkeys that God uses today. And at least for me, it's a little more poignant sometimes if you read that in the King James.

Stephen, this animal that everybody thinks is dumb, to proclaim his word. The second group we see in 2 Peter are those who oppose what God has said. And they simply show up and go, "No." Right? Don't you know? "No." I'm not going to do that. It's not a lot of explanation. It's not hard to understand. Right? The first group, right, kind of wants to do their own thing. This group just simply opposes and says, "No." And then the third group are those who will twist what God has said. It's like going to your kids, and they're in their pajamas, they brush their teeth, and you say, "Hey, why don't you go jump into bed, and I'll come tuck you in." And you walk into their room, and this is just a hypothetical story, and there they are jumping on the bed, and you go, "You're supposed to be in bed, not jumping on the bed." And they said, "All we heard was jump in bed." Right? You're like, "That's not what I meant."

There are people who will take the Word of God, and do the same exact thing, and twist it, and turn it. And Peter says, "There are people who are coming, and I'm seeking to defend you, and protect you, and prepare you, and make sure your foundation is solid, so that when they come, you will be ready." And he does so, in this place, not with a bunch of good advice, not with a bunch of just words He just simply says, "Look to the Word of God. Understand the foundation of the Word of God. Understand the source and the seriousness, and understand in its sufficiency, it meets all of your needs." And so Peter seeks to anchor us to our foundation. He does so by reminding us of who we are in Christ, that we have been saved, and we've been transformed, and we've been

called, and we've been equipped, and we've been encouraged, and that we grow in grace. And then he continues on to remind us, to encourage us, but also to warn us of the dangers that we face. He reassures us of our hope in Christ. He reminds us that Jesus is returning. We looked at this last week, "For we did not follow cleverly devised myths. When we made known to you the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." And he's speaking here of Jesus' return. The word he uses in the New Testament when it's used of Jesus for coming is always about the second coming. Peter's one major point in the chapter three is that Jesus is coming back. And so he tries to encourage us and seeks to encourage us with the return of Jesus. And so when we come to our text, I want to read it one more time, and then I want to point

you to three sort of big things to take away from this. And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as a lamp shining in the dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this, first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man. The men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. And Peter starts in verse 19 by saying, "We have a solid place in which to stand." And I remember when we moved from Arizona and we went, before we moved into Vermont, we stayed with Aunt Judy in New Hampshire for a little bit while we were getting everything figured out. And it was my first real winter. And I'd seen snow, but in the field behind their house, there's like this little creek or runoff area filled with ice.

So, as an Arizona kid, it's like, oh, there's ice, right? And it turns out if the ice isn't super frozen, they don't teach you this in Arizona, like you jump on it, and then you end up, in this case, thankfully, like three inches of water, which is really, really cold on your feet, right? And so one of the things you learn before you go on ice, you test it, right? You put your foot on it, and you see if it cracks, you stand on it, you can kind of jump on it a little bit. You want it to be solid. There's no place to stand, right? This is not cracking like ice. It's not something that will collapse upon the weight of your struggles or your enemies or your difficulties, but the Word of God is strong. He talks here about the prophetic word more fully confirmed. And he's just got done saying, "I saw with my own eyes and I heard with my own ears the glory and the power of God." And then he says this, "We have the prophetic

word more fully confirmed." He says, "Beyond my experiences, there's something that's outside of my experience." It's the Word of God and the prophecies therein. And what he is saying, in a sense, is that this word is greater than my experiences. And he's not saying experiences are bad, right? He's just got done relating the transfiguration of Jesus and what he's seen and heard in and how that confirms the truth. But what he is saying is more than that, regardless of our experiences, Scripture remains unchanged. And think about this for a minute, because it makes sense. In a world which we live in, right, we can manipulate perspectives. We can manipulate emotion. In fact, so much in our world is about manipulating how you look at things and how you feel about things. And Peter says, "In a world full of where your emotions are moved, and your perspective is shifted, and it's going back and forth, there is a place to stand, a word that is more fully confirmed in how you see and interact with this world." And it's the Word of God.

And so he says, "We have the prophetic word more fully confirmed. We will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns, and the morning star rises in your heart." So how is this Word that is more fully confirmed, how do we know it's solid? So there's nothing faster than a dog or a child when you say to them what's in your mouth, right? They both just take off running. Now I'm usually less concerned about the dog, more concerned about the child, but with the child it's not just what is in your mouth, it's where did you get it, right? Is the gum you're chewing because you have a pack of gum or because you found some gum under that picnic table over there, right? Not just what's in your mouth, but where did you get it from?

One of the reasons that this prophetic word is more fully confirmed is because of where it comes from. When we look at our beliefs, what's the source? Where do they come from? Peter starts by saying this, that there is a source for Scripture. "For no prophecy," this is verse 21, "was ever produced by the will of men, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." This is deeply wonderful that God, the Father through God the Spirit, carries these authors along. The picture there is like a ship being moved along by the wind. The authors as they write, they're not writing as typewriters, but God in His power and His wisdom, He uses their vocabulary and their experiences and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And because this comes from God, it's a solid place to stand.

And so the question is, what are we doing with it? We have a solid place to stand, it comes from God, it's a big deal, but what are we doing with that? Every day when we get the mail, it's always a disappointment. I remember when I was a kid, you used to get exciting mail. Maybe that's just because I was a kid. We got to the mailbox, and it's bills, put those in the neighbor's mailbox. Junk mail, sometimes we'll take it and look at it or throw it away. Political advertisements, those also go in our neighbor's mailbox, right? And then very rarely, you'll get a card or a letter. And if you open your mailbox, right, most of it's like, "Eh, it doesn't matter, doesn't matter, doesn't matter, doesn't matter." But then you get that letter or that card, and it does matter.

And what Peter is trying to help us see, in a world filled with voices that are calling you here and there, trying to manipulate your emotions and perspectives, saying that there is a place for you to stand, right? You treat that letter differently than you do the junk mail. And Peter says, "The source of Scripture moves us to the seriousness of Scripture." In fact, he says this, "Knowing, first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation." Now in these words, Peter is warning and defending us, and I want to try to explain just briefly what Peter means by this. There have been people in the history of the church who said, "Well, you can't learn what God wants from the Bible." And those are generally the same people that will come along and say, "But I can tell you what God says from the Bible."

You can't learn it, but Peter is not saying that God's people are unable to understand or interpret the Word of God. In fact, that's one of the reasons why we are given the Holy Spirit. He's not saying we can't understand Scripture. Now, there's two ways to understand his words here when he talks about prophecy coming from someone's own interpretation. One is, for example, prophecy doesn't come from the minds of the guys who write it, right? Isaiah, going and looking at the events of his day and the struggles of his people, goes, "You know what? Maybe I should write something about this." Right? That's not what's happening when Isaiah's writing. He looks around. He gets inspired. He writes a book. What happens is that God, through the Spirit, moves him along using Isaiah's words and vocabulary and experience to portray this wonderful message of truth to us.

So, in part, this can mean that nobody just makes it up out of their own mind. Now, that's not Peter's intention here, although that is a biblical truth. Peter's intention, remember, is in the context of those who would twist and turn Scripture for their own meanings. What Peter is saying here, and it sounds so simple, but it's deeply profound, is that the meaning of Scripture comes from God. God is the one who gets to decide what it means, right? You don't get to change the meaning of Scripture. You don't get to twist it to your own ideas and your own plans and your own perceptions, right? We're really good at twisting things, right? Sometimes we're even good at twisting Scripture. So Valentine's Day is coming up. So guys, whether you are, you know, speaking to your wife,

maybe you're not married, you have a girlfriend, or you're looking for a girlfriend, I'll give you a little biblical help here. Right? You go up to the lady in your wife, and you go, this is from Hebrews 11, is your name Faith? Because you're the substance of things that I've hoped for, right? Now, it's Bible, but that's not what that verse means. See, I told you they'd think it was funny. Rachel does not. Also looking for a place to stay for like two or three days. That's a silly example, but it's so easy to just pull a verse out of context and just say what it wants to be. 2013. This is like a core memory. Rachel was there. Derek was there. We were downstairs watching the Super Bowl in the church basement. And Ray Lewis comes on and goes up to the camera and goes, "No weapon formed against us shall prosper."

Right? That verse is not about winning the Super Bowl. It's not about a dumb football game, right? It's easy. And sometimes not even intending to. Right? It's one of the reasons the church and Scripture and the Holy Spirit is so important to us. But there's a darker reality here. The reality is that when it comes to sin and salvation, there are those who have become experts at redefining what God has said. That's not really a sin. It doesn't really mean that kind of sin. I don't think that God would really do that. I don't think that God would really mean that. And by ignoring context, both historical and literary, by ignoring and twisting the meaning of words, by ignoring the testimony of the church, you find that we face a danger in this world for those who would twist Scripture to their own interpretation.

The very first question in Scripture is Genesis chapter 3. It's Satan speaking to Eve, and do you know what he says? Did God really say that? From the very beginning, Peter says, "Knowing first of all, no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation." God decides what it means. So there's a foundation. It's solid. And it has its source in the greatness of God. And there is this warning to take what God has said seriously to those who would counterfeit or to seek to move you from your foundation. Peter is warning, and he is defending you. And then, Peter, in an overview of this passage, directs us to the sufficiency of Scripture. The sufficiency of Scripture is just a fancy way of saying this. The Word of God has all that we need. Right? The solid rock given to us by God, whose spirit and whose church and whose people helps us to understand.

Or, as Peter said, all things pertaining to life and godliness. What we need to see, what we need to know, to see our brokenness, to see our Savior, to know Him and to be saved by Him. And it's what's needed to defend us. And what Peter is going to do in the next chapters is he's going to go back to Scripture, specifically the Old Testament Scriptures, and say, "Let me defend you by the Word of God." That this has what you need for your brokenness, and for your hurt, and for your loss, and for your defense, and for your strength, and for your mission. The Word of God is sufficient. And what Peter is doing is he's pointing us to hope that there is a place to stand. That we are defended by God as we stand there through His Word, and that it has all that we need.

And there is this picture we touched on briefly last week. We have this prophetic word more fully confirmed. "To which you will do well to pay attention to as a lamp shining in the dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your heart." Peter is directing you to hope. In a dark world, we see the light of Christ, not just in His person, who He is, but also in what He's done. And in the Word made flesh, it brings light into our darkness. And not just outwardly, but inwardly. And this prophetic word is also a prophetic word from Peter. He says, "Until the morning star rises in your hearts." In the physical world, that picture is the planets before the dawn breaks, and you see the star, the bright star in the morning before the sun rises,

signaling that the sun is about to come up, but it's deeper and more wonderful than that. At the end of the book of Revelation, Jesus says this, "I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright and morning star." And as Peter says these words, directing us to a place that is solid to stand, saying that there is light in the darkness. He's not giving us hope in this moment, but he's directing our eyes to the future and to the return of Jesus. And as we look to Jesus, our morning star, hear these words that come in the very next verse. "The spirit and the bride say come, and the one who hears say come, and let the one who is thirsty come, and let the one who desires take the water of life without price."

And Peter says in the darkness and difficulty of this world, there is light and there is a solid place to stand, and it's found in Jesus. But also, it's a light of welcome. It's a light that says come. Come out of the darkness and into the light. Come to know Jesus, to be transformed because He has called you. He can transform you. He will equip you. He will encourage you, and He will grow you through His grace into a fruitful tree for God's glory. And so we come to this prophetic word from Peter, and we hear this invitation. Let the thirsty come and let the one who desires take the water of life without price. Let's pray. Father in heaven, I thank you for Jesus, and I thank you for grace. I thank you for your church, and I thank you for your word.

Help us as we walk through a world that often twists and turns our emotions and our desires and seeks to influence us. And may we stand upon the foundation of your word, strengthened by your spirit, equipped by your son, and looking forward to that future together with you for eternity. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We're going to stand and we're going to sing based on this Scripture.