Thanks again, Mark, for leading us this morning, and Jake and Sarah, appreciate that. Good morning to everyone. Good morning. I see the trees are turning red on the way down. I always like driving across Jay this time of year because it's so pretty coming to church. Seems to me they're changing in different order or something, though. They're very red and everything else. I thought the pop will... Anyway, it's nice to look at.

We're continuing our study this morning in 2 Peter chapter one, and this has been a full chapter for us so far with tremendous meaning and practical application concerning the Christian life. Peter has taught us about who we are, what we have in Christ, the nature of our salvation. He wants us to know and understand our salvation in Christ, and he's exhorted us to live in light of these great truths. 

God and regeneration, the saving work that he has done in us by his grace and power, Peter says, has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, that we have become partakers of the divine nature, and he says that we are to be continually renewing our minds to these truths and affirming them, believing what God says to be true and depending on him to produce holiness through our lives. 

Well, last week we saw Peter's life mission and even his intent after his death to continually remind the believers of these things. He spent his life after Pentecost preaching, teaching, encouraging the believers concerning their great salvation, and he wrote his epistles as part of the word of God revealed to us for us to have and to hold and to study even all these many years after his death. 

In our text today, he wants to affirm that truth which he has left for us along with the entire word of God revealed to us in the pages of the Bible. He wants us to know to be confident concerning this book that it is indeed the word of God. 

I was thinking about that earlier this week. When you think about your life in this world, your desire to be holy, to live in consistency with who you are and the will of God for your life, when you think about the daily struggles, the trials, the troubles, the emotions, the relationships that you have, the many and varied trials that come upon a person living in this cursed world, and as you deal with the sin that still lives in you, the fact that you are incarcerated in this flesh, still awaiting full and final deliverance from sin and from this world and glorification, what is it that you know for sure? What is it that you have as a solid, true resource for perseverance, for holiness, for fruitfulness in this life on the earth? What can you put your confidence in that you know is true and real? 

As I thought about this, the answer is clear. There's only one source that is absolutely, unquestionably true, and it's not CNN. It's not Fox. It's not science. It's not academia, nor the experts of this world. All of these things are absolutely fallible because they are controlled by fallible men. I can't fully trust anything in this world. I can't even trust myself and my own thoughts and my own wisdom and my own opinions because so often I am wrong. I think the wrong thoughts. I believe things that are untrue. I make mistakes and have my own biases and desires that influence my understanding. 

So what do we have? What can we know? Peter tells us this morning in our text, we have a more sure word. We have a prophetic word confirmed. We have the word of God. And Peter wants us to know that we can trust God, the God who cannot lie, that we can come back to these letters of the New Testament, the prophets of the old, and we can know with certainty that here is where we can find the truth, where we can be renewed in our minds to discern good and evil, truth and error, and discern false teachers who preach lies and draw men away. 

Dr. John Whitcomb used to always say, God only wrote one book. And this book is the source of all truth, the only source of truth that we can trust, that we can know, that we can go to, and see if what men say is true or false, that is living and active and powerful to sanctify, to produce holiness and worship and righteous living and a witness in this world, and to comfort and to encourage and to give us hope with the promises that are yet to come. 

It's the only place we can find understanding of where we come from, of God's plan and purpose for our lives, why he saved us, his intent for us here and now, and the truth of what is to come. This book answers the great questions of life, of pain and suffering, of meaning and purpose, of hope and joy. 

This book is about Jesus, and Jesus is life, the abundant life now and for eternity. We've seen already that it is Peter's full intent that we have these things to hold, to guard for ourselves. And in our text today, we see that he also wants us to know that we can trust these words, that we can know that these are the very words of God given to us, that we might know him, and knowing him, we might have eternal life. 

Let's look at our text together in 2 Peter 1 at verse 16. Peter says, “For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 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. And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain. And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which 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. Knowing this first, that no prophecy of scripture is of any private interpretation for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.”

Well, I've given you five points on your outlines this morning. First, eyewitnesses. Second, the testimony of God. Third, the prophetic word confirmed. Fourth, it's God's word. And fifth, your word is truth. 

Well, first in our text, we see eyewitnesses, verse 16 again. “We did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.” The phrase cunningly devised fables is interesting. The source of such fables is men. Men cunningly, artfully craft or design fables, stories, myths for the purpose of deception and control. 

It may be Peter has in mind the mythology of the pagan religions of his time, such as the Greeks and the Romans had, where the gods came down and they had the characteristics of sinful men, gods crafted after our own sinful natures. Paul speaks of this in Romans one. He says, “Professing to be wise, they became fools and they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness and the lusts of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever and ever. Amen.”

In religion, men have created their own gods after the creatures of this earth or after men themselves and their character and nature. These gods and systems created by the minds of men fit and meet their own needs. But in so doing, they have rejected the true God and denied his power. Peter could also have in mind the false teachers who are presently threatening the church and the truth, men such as the pre-Gnostics who had designed incredible systems of thought and religion, crafted fantastic stories denying who Jesus is, what he has done, and inserting another Jesus in his place, or the Jewish rabbis who had allegorized the scriptures into amazing tales. 

Peter's saying, we did not do these types of things. It was not our method nor our source when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. You'll remember the direction of this letter is going in confrontation of the lies the false teachers were teaching and threatening the church with, primarily denying the second coming. And the reason that they deny who he is, what he has done, the reason they want to get rid of his coming is because they don't want to be accountable to him or experience his judgment. They want to live in licentiousness however they want to live and not have to worry about an account. 

So one of the hallmarks of false teachers is denying the second coming of Christ. When you look around this world and see where men have turned to find truth, to find hope, to find meaning, it's a staggering thing to see what men believe, where they put their hope, their trust. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 10 that behind all false religion, behind all human wisdom and philosophy and fanciful creations of men is demonic influence. And we see this, we know this because in all these things, all of these false religions that have come about that men have created, there's a common theme and it's the denial of Jesus in particular who he is or what he has done. 

Think about this in the realm of religion. All the religions of the world deny either who Jesus is or what he has accomplished. Those religions who exist outside of the name of Christ, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, they deny who Jesus is along with the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses; they deny who Jesus is. But even those who name him in the mainline denominations of so-called Christianity, we see that they deny what he has done. They deny that he has accomplished our salvation. They do not believe in the Jesus of the Bible but what Paul calls another Jesus, one who cannot fully save to the uttermost as the author of Hebrews says, who did not accomplish our salvation in his one-time death on the cross. The work is not finished but we must buy our good works, our suffering, our giving, our keeping of the law, contribute to the insufficient work of Christ in order to accomplish our own salvation. 

And the movement today is away from religion altogether. Common today is the worship of man, his wisdom, his knowledge. We have the power and knowledge to save ourselves, to save this world, to solve the problems of man. This is the essence of humanism, of self-worship, the worship of man. I am God and I decide what is true. This is the hedonistic movement of our time where my happiness, my fulfillment is all that matters and it is the cardinal sin of any man to judge me or stand in the way of my own expression of who I am in the pursuit of my own fulfillment. 

These systems from traditional religion to the God within of humanism are the expressions of cunningly devised fables of men. But there's one truth. There is one revelation from God. And Peter wants us to know that this is the only source where we can find truth and we can judge all things. 

This did not come from the mind of man, but was revealed by God himself. And Peter says, we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. In verse 16 again, we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 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. And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain. 

Peter writes, we didn't make these things up from the resources of our minds. The truth of who Jesus is, what he has done, and the power of his coming. These things did not come from the minds of men, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. The word majesty speaks of glory and splendor. It's used of God. Turn over to Matthew 16 with me, please. 

Matthew 16 at verse 27, there at the end of the chapter. Matthew 16, 27 says, “For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” Now look at chapter 17, verse one, and there'll be an explanation of what Jesus is talking about. 

Now after six days, Jesus took Peter, James, and John, his brother, led them up on a high mountain by themselves, and he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light, and behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them talking with him. Then Peter answered and said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, let us make here three tabernacles, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and suddenly a voice came out of the cloud saying, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Hear him,” and when the disciples heard it, they fell on their faces and were greatly afraid, and then it tells us when they looked up, it was only Jesus. 

God says to us, hear him, hear my Son. This is the great account that Peter speaks of in our text. Jesus was metamorphosized, transformed before their eyes. He pulled back his flesh, as it were, and showed them his face, the essence of who He is, His majesty, His glory, His splendor. Those apostles saw the power of His coming, His true character in nature, who Jesus really is; they were eyewitnesses on that mountain. 

And we saw also the testimony of God concerning His Son in this great event. This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. He speaks from heaven, a thunderous voice. 

In Hebrews 1 it says, “God who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds, who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.” 

In the transfiguration on the mount, we see Moses and Elijah appear. They represent the law and the prophets. But in God's testimony, we see that now in this new covenant time, God has chosen to speak to us only through His Son, Jesus. God said hear Him. We are to look to Jesus. We are to see Him, know Him, and we only know Jesus through the word of God. God speaks to us through the living word Jesus whose life and teaching are recorded in the written word. God tells us in His word that it is the revelation that He has given of Himself to us. This is His word. He carried holy men along to write this. He inspired, breathed out this scripture. 

We see this in passages like 2 Timothy 3 where Paul writes, all scripture is given by inspiration of God. And even in our text today where Peter tells us that holy men of God were carried along by the Holy Spirit to write the word of God. We're going to see in 2 Peter 3:16 that Peter calls the writings of Paul scripture. These holy men were carried along by the Holy Spirit to write down the revelation that God intended. 

So we see the witness of the apostles who were on the mount. We see the testimony of God Himself by the voice that came from heaven, by His voice that speaks to us through His written word as well. And so Peter writes this, verse 19, “And so we have the prophetic word confirmed.” The Authorized says we have a more sure word. It's a comparative. The word speaks of stability, trustworthiness. 

And what Peter is saying here is that as amazing as that day on the mount was, that miraculous event where we were eyewitnesses, where God's voice came out of heaven, as sure as all those things testified to the coming of Jesus and His power, we have a more sure word in the scriptures, the prophets, the prophetic word. The idea in the Greek text is this: we have the prophetic word as a surer foundation than even the signs and wonders which we have seen. The meaning is confirmed in the following verses, look at verse 19, “We have the prophetic word confirmed, which 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.” 

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. The scriptures, the Old Testament prophets, they're even more certain than the great and wonderful events of that day on the mountain. 

Have you ever thought about that? So many times we hear people say something like, well, if God would just do a miracle, if God would just show Himself, then people would believe, and some seek such things. I always think of the book of Revelation when I think of that, and you look at those unbelievable events that are going to come upon this earth, and God clearly pouring out His wrath and showing, and they know it's God, they hide themselves from the wrath of the Lamb, and then at the end of every one of those passages it says, and they would not repent. Signs and miracles are not the issue. 

Let me ask you this, would you rather see a miracle, experience a sign, even a vision or the voice of God out of heaven this afternoon after church on your way home, would you rather have a voice from heaven speak to you, or would you rather have the revealed Word of God in the Bible? This Word that God has produced by His Spirit through holy men that He carried along through which He breathed out this great revelation of Himself to us, this Word that you can hold in your hand, and you can read every day, and you can study, and you can see Jesus in, and learn about who He is and what He has done, and renew your mind to His promises, what is better? Signs and wonders and miracles, or the written, revealed Word of God? 

What is more sure? Peter says the Scriptures are a firmer foundation than signs and wonders, even when they are legitimate and from God. It's a most interesting thought because you see, this is God's Word. He cannot lie. He tells us the truth. We can depend on, trust in His Word, this Bible that tells us who God is, who man is, the way to salvation, that gives us the great and precious promises. I'm so thankful that I can go back over and over and over and read these words and meditate on them and believe what God says. These words are so practical for our lives every day and for living in holiness as a witness to this world. 

It would be a difficult thing to imagine to not have the Word of God in this world, to no longer... I mean, we have such access and resources and Bibles all around the house. Just think if you no longer had the Word of God, how difficult it would be to live in this world. 

We've been studying James 1 on Thursday nights for several weeks now; we can't seem to get through chapter 1. This last week we were in verses 13 to 16 where James gives us that great illustration of conception of a child being conceived and born to describe to us how it is that temptation and sin work in us. 

We observed, as we have before in discussing the Christian life and God's means for us to live a holy life, that the battle of the Christian life really occurs in the mind. James says a desire arises, a feeling, an emotion, perhaps a lust, something in us that wants to draw us away. And if we entertain those thoughts, if we rationalize them in our mind and conceive that sin, much as if a child is conceived, then absolutely that sin will be borne out through our members. Sin must be stopped in the mind at the point of temptation. 

And here's the key, the great truth for our application that we must understand, we lose that battle at that point in the mind when we lie, when we lie to ourselves. We win that battle when we reckon the truth, what God says to be true in our minds at that point. The New Testament describes this as letting the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, or walking in the Spirit, or reckoning yourself, or renewing your mind, or taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. And the only way this can be done is with the Word of God. The only way this can be done is with the truth. 

We renew our minds with the truth. Jesus said, “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your Word is truth.” It is the Word of God, my friends, His only revelation of Himself to us that we can hold and look at and study and believe. For example, perhaps I'm tempted by some lust, lust for something in this world. And I would like to entertain that thought, pursue it in my mind, think on it, and maybe even make a plan of action to have it. When this temptation arises, I have a choice at that moment, at that point. What are the lies that I might believe? I deserve this thing. It won't hurt anyone. It's not really that big a deal. 

Let me ask you this, what does God say in His Word? He says you're dead to sin. He says you're a new creation in Christ. He says that it's logical, it's reasonable for you to live in righteousness, to have holiness by the expression out through your members of your inner man. He says that sin is not consistent with who you are or what you want and that it destroys your witness. It's a matter of truth versus lies. What will you believe? Victory is won, sanctification occurs as a process by which we choose to take those thoughts captive to the truths of God's Word and believe Him and ask Him to help us by His life and power in us to do the right thing one moment at a time. 

The only means to holy living, fruit-bearing, is an abiding relationship with Jesus immersed, soaked in the truth of His Word. Only He can live the Christian life and He does that in us and through us, Christ in you, the hope of glory, the power of the Holy Spirit, but He only does this through His Word as we live by faith. It's God's Word and His Word is truth. 

We must judge not only the teaching of men of religions of the world by the Word of God, we must judge our very own thoughts and feelings and emotions by the Word of God. Sometimes that's hard. Sometimes it has great implications in our lives. But we have to be committed to the truth. We have to have a desire to know the truth. We have to understand that it's through the truth that we can be made like Christ and we can be witnesses and we can bring glory to God. And we must live by the truth that He reveals to us through His Word. 

We must be people who speak the truth. God talks a lot in His Word about lying, about the lie, believing the lie, being drawn away by lies. All the way back in Genesis 3 we see the lie. Genesis 3:1, turn to that passage with me, please. Right at the beginning, in the garden, Genesis 3:1 says, “Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, ‘Has God indeed said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden?’” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’” 

Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die, for God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” We see a couple of really important things here right in the beginning at the fall of man. First we see Satan question the Word of God. Has God really said? This is the same lie of every false teacher today. Has God really said? 

Second, we see Eve add to the Word of God. We shall not eat it, nor touch it. God never said that. And third, we see the big lie first told here in the garden by the serpent, you will be like God, knowing good from evil. You will be God. You will be the decider of what is true. 

This is the same hedonistic lie that pervades and rules our culture today. Men have rejected God and His Word and His truth and have made themselves God, the deciders of truth. There's no transcendent power, no God, but each of us are God and we each decide our truth and pursue our pleasures and no one can stand in the way of my truth, my desires, the expression of who I am in the pursuit of my own fulfillment. 

I see it on YouTube. They're out there. They believe that. And we have a tendency, each of us, to want to believe that. Turn over to 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12. It began with a big lie and it's going to end with a big lie. 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12, Paul says, “The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan with all powers, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish. Why do they perish? Because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved. And for this reason, God will send them strong delusion that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” 

You think God is concerned with truth and with lies? He cannot lie, according to Titus 1:2. He is the God of all truth. He keeps His word, He keeps His promises, He keeps His covenants. Listen to Hebrews 6 at verse 17, it says, “Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of the promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath that by two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the presence behind the veil where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” 

He tells us that the lost, the religious men of this world, have exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and thus God has given them over to their sin. Listen to these scriptures written to us, to believers. Colossians 3:9, do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge. Knowledge of what? Knowledge of the truth, according to the image of Him who created him. James 3:14, if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, and demonic. 

1 John 2:21, I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth. Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is anti-Christ who denies the Father and the Son. Verse 27, but the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you, but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it is taught you, you will abide in Him. 

And we see this truth in the promise even of the new heavens and the new earth to come. Revelation 21:27, but there shall by no means enter anything that defiles or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life. There will be no lies. Revelation 22:15, but outside are dogs, and sorcerers, and sexually immoral, and murderers, and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie. 

God is serious about lies and about truth. And He has given us the truth in His Word. God wants us to know the truth. He wants us to love the truth, to abide in the truth, to speak the truth in love. And He wants us to believe the truth, to reckon what He says in His Word to be true, and to live in light of these truths. Don't lie, my brother, my sister. Don't lie. And perhaps most importantly, don't lie to yourself, in your mind. Whatever things are good, whatever things are pure, whatever things are noble, if anything is of good report, think on these things and the God of peace will be with you. 

Set your mind on things above, for you died and your life is hidden with Christ and when He appears, you will also appear with Him in glory. My friends, we have a more sure word, a firm foundation to live by. And we do well, He says, to heed it as a light in a dark place. We live in a dark place. God's Word is a light. We are to heed it until the promise of His coming is no longer a matter of faith, but we shall see Him face to face. He's coming in power to deliver the righteous and to punish the wicked. We're going to see that in the next chapter. It is sure, it is true. 

And Peter's conclusion is, in light of these great truths, what manner of persons ought we to be, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God? Let's close in prayer. 

Father, we thank You, thank You that You've given us Your Word, that You've given us the Holy Spirit to guide us and teach us so that we might know what is true. You've told us what is true. Help us to believe it. Help us to believe You, to trust You. When we don't feel like it's true, our experience has not been consistent with the truth, help us to believe You. And when this world begins to conform us in our thinking, help us to stop and go to Your Word and be renewed in the spirit of our minds that we might think Your thoughts, that we might know Your truth, that we might live and speak the truth for Your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.