Counterfeits are very good at being counterfeits, but if you know what the real thing is, you will identify it with the more sure word. One of the arguments against Christ is, you know, well, just put it this way, if God can create man, I think he can sustain his word. If he can sustain creation, I think he can protect his word. If God can tell the future and can do miracles, I think he can also protect his word. I think God can give us an authentic word. We continue through 2 Peter chapter 1 with Pastor Rick today and his message called, Our Trustworthy Bible.
We didn't follow fables. Paul is saying the same thing. We're no longer children tossed to and fro, carried about. And if you find yourself, ooh, tell me something exciting, ooh, ooh, it's exciting over here now, ooh, go to this church, it's really exciting, you got to see the music. It's like, oh, man, you make me, I'm tired just saying it. Why can't a simple word of God be sufficient for the children of God? No, no, you got a part to see every now and then. Well, Christianity is no myth and you know, hell knows it.
They're trying to keep it the best kept secret. And they have much success doing it, may we not help them. Verse 17, see, I told you we'd get out, I'm a prophet. For he received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to him from the excellent glory.
This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Well, this of course distinguishes Christ from every other created being as I mentioned. And we say it because it's true and that's why Peter is telling us this. But if you've been a Christian and you start meeting with doubt and there are, apostasy happens, it's promised in Scripture, we see it happen.
And I believe one of the strongest reasons why is because they want more than what Christ has to offer them in this life. And so when you have the doubts come your way and you say, well, I've thrown at it Scripture verses, but this is a big one. I'm having a hard time dealing with this doubt. I would suggest, well, what I have done is I remember the voice. So it's the same voice but not the same moment as these apostles heard. But I remember when I became born again, I heard Jesus speak to me. And I am never going to give that up so long as God helps me.
The voice, I love you, I am here. Have you not heard that? Have you not heard the voice of Christ?
In your heart that you know in connection to reading the Scripture, it is Him. Hell has no defense against that which is not to be. You know, we're not supposed to be so defensive minded.
We are supposed to be offensive minded. The gates of hell are not supposed to prevail. We're supposed to bust them down when allowed to by the Lord. That's what Paul did, that's what Peter did. I'm still not getting my head around suffering in my life. This is the way it is. And an inconvenience I classify as suffering.
Man, I've got to go look it up now on the Internet. I just suffer for Christ. What does that mean?
It's not cookie-cut. Just because Paul suffered this way and Peter suffered that way doesn't mean I'm going to suffer the way they did. It's under this umbrella of suffering and I better understand what my role is when faced with such things. And it's very simple, the just shall live by faith, trust me. Trust me, Jesus says, does not mean you escape that which is inconvenience, distasteful and etc.
On it goes. Trust means you trust. Because you've heard the voice, you've seen the face, you've heard the word.
You've confessed, you've made the confession, you've been immersed in the water because you believe. Now he wants us to act that way. Should the church be built on something else?
Should he have said, you know what, I'm really looking for a group of imposters that can fake it better than anybody. That when temptation and trouble comes their way, they don't have to adhere to anything. Of course not.
We do not honor such behaviors. Verse 18, now that Paul is there, there is a difference again, must make this clear, there is a difference between the Christian that wants to do well and struggles. That is not the same thing as the Christian who abandons. So when you see a Christian fall and to commit sin, it doesn't mean, oh they're going to hell now, it doesn't mean Christ disowns them. And that's why we have such verses as there is now no condemnation, that we have an advocate with the Father. So it's this bittersweet arrangement of constantly moving forward, moved by the Holy Spirit, and dealing with this sinful flesh that I can never excuse.
Yet I'm stuck with it and it's pretty powerful. And there will be times when I will be bruised and blackened, you know the black and blues, a boy's favorite color. Black and blue from bruises of the flesh. And so verse 18, and we heard his voice which came from heaven and we were with him on the holy mountain. That's the we, Peter, James, and John. John, you know here is this brother James, they appear in scripture to be close enough that where they had a business together, they served the Lord together.
There's no reason to think that they were at odds with each other as brother and brother. What happened to John's heart when word got to him, Herod has killed your brother because of Jesus. Lord, could you grant my sons one to sit on your left and one to sit on your right, the sons of thunder. Jesus said, can you drink from the cup I'm going to drink from? Oh yeah, we can, you will.
You'll get to drink, you'll have a sip of that cup. And that was it, that was one of it, one of them. And yet John kept following, kept serving, did not say that's it, Christianity is too much for me. First John, writing decades after, Peter is dead by this time, all of them are probably dead and gone by this time when John writes his three letters and his revelation. He said, that which was from the beginning, which we, there is that pronoun again, have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled concerning the word of life. Five times he references his brothers, the apostles, the we's, we saw him, we touched him, we were with him. He's saying the same thing Peter's saying, we're not following a fable.
We believe this, we know it's true and there's nothing going to stop us. Real people were on that mountain, real people heard the voice, real people saw the Christ glow. Peter is telling the facts like they were because that's the kind of man he was and if it weren't true he would have had nothing to do with it.
It was an eyewitness speaking, not a false witness. He says, when we were with him on the holy mountain. God, holy mountain is now what I'm addressing, Peter knew that every place that God touches down becomes holy in that instant.
When Moses stood up on Mount Sinai at that undisclosed spot, which probably people have walked past and never known that was the spot. It's not holy now, but it was holy when that bush burned and was not consumed. God said, do not draw near this place, take your sandals off your feet for the place where you stand as holy ground. Here's Peter applying that to Jesus Christ. He says, Christ made that ground holy, he and the Father. He is drawing from that moment in the past in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Had Christ not given him the power of the Holy Spirit, Peter would not still be there to preach these things. He says, when we were with him on the holy mountain, verse 19 now, and so we have the prophetic word confirmed, would you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place until the day dawns, and the morning star rises in your hearts. So we have, I like the alternate translation, we have the prophetic word made more sure.
You can trust it, the Bible is trustworthy. He says, here's how, the prophecies, nobody's got them like us. No one has got the prophecies. And they've been preached and many of them have already come to pass, and as we live there are prophecies from the book of Revelation and Thessalonians and the Old Testament that are materializing right in front of our eyes.
A cashless society is just one. Daniel 12, knowledge shall increase in the end days. You couldn't say that, or you could relative to what was known 200 years ago, but now, because of what happened 200 years ago, the momentum is extraordinary. Only the Bible calls it, and of course in our lifetime. How do you account for the nation of Israel?
Just do some research on Israel's war since 1948. Ain't nobody going to take them out of that land. It's the Bible, that's God's word. So not only do we say Israel back in their land as promised on schedule, line by line, precept upon precept, not only do we see that, but we also see so many surrounding prophecies being fulfilled, such as the group the Temple Mount Faithful, who believe that the third temple will be built, and they are already making preparations for it. Jesus said, when you see the Antichrist standing in the temple, committing the abomination, then you know the end is here. The rapture church won't see that, not from earth.
The Jews don't believe that as a people. The point is, the prophecies are coming true, and that's what Peter is saying. Peter is saying, if you don't believe my word, just go look at the prophecies, and go down and get yourself a history book and see what's already happened, and you know that these are your own unbelievers writing these things, fulfilling. Just look at the book of Daniel by the time that Peter was here, and you can just see a chain of fulfilled prophecies that Daniel called hundreds of years before, as much as hundreds of years, before the events took place, even long before Alexander the Great, for example, was born. And Daniel gives the images and the symbols that were unmistakable, long before they ever were developed. And Peter says, we got the prophecies.
How can you refute that? Well, you get yourself some liberal scholars, you put them in some seminaries, and even the conservative schools, you put them wherever you can put them, you put them behind lecterns and assembly places, and you have them inject doubt into the congregation, into the ears of those who would hear them. Or Daniel could not have been written if the prophecies are too accurate. That's the point of prophecy. It's just like they just factor God out because they don't want to conform morally.
They'd rather live in their sin without accountability than dare submit to God in His righteousness to be born again, have the darkness cast out that they should live forever. They don't believe it, and they go out of their way to dispute it. And some of their arguments, you know, they lie.
And let me just say that also. They lie. You get into a conversation with their most intelligent ones. Well, I haven't been in conversation with their most intelligent ones, but I've been in conversation with those who read their most intelligent ones, and they lie. You get to a point where you refute their argument, they say, no, it's been proven.
No, it has not. Where's the missing link? Oh, it's missing. That's why it's a missing link. And they will insist that it's not the case when it is.
Well, you're not in the laboratory with me. Anyway, we need to get out of chapter 1 today. 1 Peter chapter 10 where he says, Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of grace, the grace that would come to you. And it's here. You just read the prophecies of Isaiah concerning Messiah, and you say, it's here.
This wonderful counselor, he is here. He has come, and he has not left us without a record and a witness. We have these spiritual features that are missing from other religions that just insist they were told by God but have no proof.
There must be proof. God knows that. That's why Jesus, when he healed people, he said, For which other works do you condemn me?
I'm doing things you can't do that could only come from God. That was part of the struggle that he had with the religious institution and its members in his day. We have the spiritual features given to us from the scriptures, and others, they boast prophecy without a shred of proof. We have it. Isaiah, who dealt with this so much, there's just one part from Isaiah 48.
I think Isaiah 41, 42, 44, and 48, Isaiah really hits it going against the idolaters and their lack of proof. No spiritual feature. You have a little trinket, but he can't do anything. If he can do something, show me.
And they can't. And then Isaiah says, Well, I'll show you some things that God has said will happen. You can just take them to Genesis chapter 12. Look at Abram. Abram, he became Abraham, and look at all the people that have come from him out of Egypt. Go back and ask the Egyptians.
You'll find that tale told to this day, how we marched out of there. So, Isaiah says, Even from the beginning, I have declared it to you before it came to pass. I proclaim it to you, lest you should say, My idol has done them, and my carved image, and my molded image have commanded them. God is saying, Now I'm going to take that from you.
You won't be able to say you saw this happen because I wrote it down long before you came along. I had a coworker who was a devout evolutionist, and like those who Moses encountered, the magicians of Pharaoh, he would make good arguments for a while, but he kept going at it until finally he couldn't happen. No more comebacks were left. He was refuted. He abandoned evolution, but to my knowledge, we did not embrace Christ. He was that close, but he was slain by a woman.
Now, that's not a shot against our ladies. It just goes to say that there are people who reject the gospel because of some love other than Christ, and his then wife was so totally against Christ as he was beginning to come to Christ, he would share with me some of the things he said, and he shut down. Last I knew, that marriage ended in divorce, and my point, it was very heartbreaking to have so many victories that were not the victory because of serious business. Now, who knows? Maybe he's out.
He could be listening online right now. Well, let's get back to this and a few verses to go. As I mentioned, no, the apostles did not die defending a fairy tale, and Peter says that the scripture is trustworthy, that is our Bible, and many people to this day set aside the word of God in favor of untrustworthy experiences. Well, I felt it. Well, that's fine if you felt it, but if it contradicts the scripture, you felt something from hell, not from heaven. Come on, figure it out.
And yet, they don't seem to do it. It's a very dangerous practice to claim visions and voices that can originate from the satanic world. We learn from Eve that Satan has a voice, and he uses it, and he just wants somebody gullible enough to believe him.
He said, what is your defense? The scripture. If it is in the Bible, we don't need a new prophecy. If it's not in the Bible, we don't want it, because it's sufficient for us.
The counterfeits are very good at being counterfeits, but if you know what the real thing is, you will identify it with the more sure word. One of the arguments against Christ is, well, just put it this way, if God can create man, I think he can sustain his word. If he can sustain creation, I think he can protect his word. If God can tell the future and can do miracles, I think he can also protect his word. I think God can give us an authentic word. You say, well, what about these additions to the scripture from scribes? If they're consistent, believe it or not, if they're consistent, if they agree with what's already spoken, it is God allowed, because what we don't have are those that contradict. The Bible is difficult, and the stack of perplexing questions has shrunk drastically over the centuries, and it's still, there aren't many left, maybe one or two.
Would you do well to heed? Well, sin, of course, presses on us to degrade our high Christian beliefs. Sin presses on us to compromise our intentions to follow Christ, so we're ready for that, we understand it.
That's why we have an advocate with the Father, but the Bible heeded brings spiritual results, if not externally, internally. Stephen, in the sermon that was to die for, they killed him in the midst of his sermon. Acts chapter 7, he says about the Jews who were disobedient, he says, you received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it. That infuriated them.
That's the kind of speech that was inflammatory enough to cause them to pounce on him and take his human life. He says here, Peter does in verse 19, as a light that shines in the dark places, of course, this is the sunrise of Christ coming up so that we can know who Christ is, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your heart. That morning star is phosphorus in the Greek, from where we get our English word, phosphorus, it means light bearer. Malachi 4, 2 is quoted, he quotes that, you can reference Revelation 20 to 16. And we are out of the dark when we come to Christ. Verse 20, knowing this first, no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation.
Well, because of time, I'd like to hammer this, but I'll just make a few, about two or three hundred points and then we'll be on. No private interpretation. The first meaning is that it's not man-made.
It does not come from men. The context is made clear in verse 21, where he says it right out. Also, no one owns the truth, it doesn't originate with men, that's my point. Now, prophecy is not limited to telling the future. Biblical prophecy has to do with communication from the throne of God to human beings, essentially. And it comes in various forms, direct prophecy, predictive prophecy, exhortation. When you sing songs, it's a form of prophecy under the umbrella of definitions in Scripture. So, if you hear people have prophesied, but they were just singing in the Bible, that's an example. So, no prophecy of Scripture now, no giving forth the words of private interpretation.
Men did not untie it and distribute it. It was given to men by God, and he distributed it through men. Colossians 1, 26, and 27 speaks about us needing to know the will of God through his word. I say that because Romanism has taught, taken this verse and distorted it to mean you can't read the Scripture.
Yeah, they do that a lot. In other words, when Paul says, be diligent to show yourself approved unto God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, that doesn't mean anything to them, or man should not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. That means something to believers. It does not mean something to unbelievers. Verse 21, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
So, again, not man-made. Man picked men to bring us his will, his precepts, that is rules for living and rules for getting to heaven. Holy men. Holy does not mean that we are perfected. The writers say David, for example, we know David wasn't perfect, Moses was not perfect, yet God used these men and so many others. When David sinned, Nathan confronted him. This is direct prophecy.
This is when the speaker is blocking out everything else and singling you out and said, this is for you and no one else. And so it is from the throne of God. That's a key point. So David said to Nathan, I have sinned against Yahweh, and Nathan said to David, now here's the prophetic moment, the Lord has also put away your sin, you shall not die. Well, he was guilty of two capital crimes, adultery and murder, and God, through the prophets, said, David, God is waiving the penalty on you. That is direct prophecy. You say to the New Testament church, well, do we have such rights?
Sometimes. Matthew 18, would you bind on heaven? He says, listen, I am throwing you into the wolf's den, and you're just going to have to be led by the Spirit according to the word.
There are parameters on that. That's all we have time for on today's edition of Cross Reference Radio. You've been listening to Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia as he teaches through the book of 2 Peter. If you'd like to listen to more messages from this series, or if you'd like more information about this program, please visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast so you'll never have to miss a program. Just search for Cross Reference Radio in iTunes, Google Play Music, or your favorite podcast app. What a great way to keep God's Word with you wherever you go. We hope you'll tune in again next time as Pastor Rick continues studying through the scriptures right here on Cross Reference Radio.
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