The Prophetic Message

Series: Everything We Need

July 10, 2016 | Taylor Rutland
Passage: 2 Peter 1:16-21

As we continue in 2 Peter this morning, I am reminded of my father who today is celebrating his 60th birthday. We will be joining him along with the rest of my family later on this evening to celebrate his 60 years of life. So even though many of you in this room do not know him, say a special prayer for my father today. I don’t know of a man who loves teaching the Word of God and loves the local church more than my father. This text this morning begins to discuss the issue of prophecy. More specifically, how can we know what is true in terms of prophecy. In other words, when a preacher, teacher, person etc. says they have a word from God concerning a certain issue can we believe it or not? Remember, 2 Peter is written to teach the church to help them combat false teachers that enter and tried to distort the truth. The distortion of Biblical truth by false teachers is just as common today as it was in the time of 2 Peter. I think often times when we think of false teachers we view them as the wicked, evil people, but the reality is that there have always been false teachers who in their own minds think they are teaching the right thing. That is what can be so scary about false teachers. They can sound right, look right, speak right, but yet when you compare it to what the Bible actually says they are DEAD wrong. So if we know that false teachers and prophets exist then knowing what the word of God actually says becomes vital. We don’t just encourage people to read the word of God to make us feel good, but we also read it because it is the standard by which we measure all teaching and preaching. Pastor David, myself, and any other preacher that steps up on this platform is NOT the final authority. We expect you and want you to take what we say and go back to God’s word and make sure it aligns with Scripture. And this is what Peter is teaching his audience here. Here are some assumptions I am bringing to the table this morning before we dive into God’s word. 1) God’s word is important to you. 2) You believe that the Bible is inspired by God and vitally important for faith and practice.

3) Some of you are not sure where you stand with this book, I am not naïve to think that everyone sitting here just accepts this book and the claims that it makes about Jesus. I will never satisfy every question people have in this room concerning the Bible, but I think this text provides us some crucial information that will help us. So as we navigate this text, ask yourself this question throughout, “What does this text teach us about the authority and usefulness of God’s word?” More specifically, the teachings and life of Jesus.

 

Eyewitness Testimony is Crucial:  

"…we were eyewitnesses of his majesty…"

           

Peter’s primary concern is showing his audience that Jesus’ would return. False teachers were questioning whether or not Jesus would return, and Peter is dead set on convincing his audience that He will in fact return.

The early church staked many of its claims about Jesus on the fact that there were eye witnesses who could vouch for his teaching and ministry. This is no different than our present day court system. One of the most reliable forms of testimony is an eye witness testimony, and when it comes to the teachings about Jesus in the New Testament this is no different. After all, the Gospel accounts are based on eye witness testimony.

They were not based on cleverly devised myths, which the term we find for myth here in the New Testament always carries with it a negative connotation. Many of the false teachers were claiming that the second coming of Christ was flat out made up by the apostles. So Peter is telling his audience here that this is something that he just heard about and decided to go along with it. He saw it with his own eyes, and because Peter saw it with his own eyes you can believe what he is saying about it.

The event that Peter is discussing here is the transfiguration. When he along with James and John were taken to the mountain. Why the transfiguration though? Why does Peter discuss this instead of the resurrection of Christ?

There are a couple of reasons for this:

  • Christian tradition connected Jesus’ transfiguration with the return of Christ.
  • At the transfiguration Jesus’ was transformed in appearance, but only Peter, James and John saw it. But at the second coming his majestic and hidden nature will be revealed to all the world.

 If Peter and the other disciples were making this information up, why would they continue to risk their lives spreading the message of Jesus. If you follow this to its logical conclusion, you arrive at one of two options either

  • Peter and the early followers of Christ are in fact sincere in what they teach about Jesus or
  • They are insane.

Let’s take this one step further regarding Jesus’ divinity. Look at what the great author C.S. Lewis said about Jesus.

  • "I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God."

Remember your entire New Testament canon is based on the idea of eye witness testimony. Apostolic witness is vital to the canon. When the early church was deciding what to include and what to exclude if it could not be traced back to an apostle. So when Peter writes here that “we were eyewitnesses of his majesty” this carries with it great power. Peter is saying, believe what I tell you, not what others tell you because I witnessed it with my own two eyes.

 

What the Bible Says Matters:  

"And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you 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 hearts,"

Some modern day statistics that I think will interest you. 1 in 4 said its been over a year since they read a book. So at the outset we have to admit that we don’t just have a biblical literacy problem in America we have a literacy problem period.

45% of those who regularly attend church read the Bible more than once a week. 1 in 5 churchgoers say they never read the Bible.

So when Peter uses the term “prophetic word” what is he talking about? There is some debate over exactly what Peter means by this phrase, but it is safe to say that he is talking about Old Testament prophecies about the kingdom of God established at the return of Christ.

Notice the use of the phrase “more full confirmed” that Peter uses here. What Peter is saying here is that because of the Transfiguration of Christ, what you have read about in the prophets is more fully confirmed. In other words, when Jesus arrives on the scene suddenly all of the Old Testament prophecies concerning him can be more fully understood. There is now a true Christological understanding of Old Testament prophecies that involve Jesus.

Peter urges his audience to cling to the “prophetic word” until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. The day dawns is a phrase used to describe the day that Christ will return. So what Peter is saying here is that there never will be a time when the Word of God loses its value or significance. This is huge. In a time where the Bible is considered by many to be ancient and outdated, Peter is telling us here that it has value until Christ returns.

More specifically, Peter is saying that the Old Testament has value until Christ returns. Now I know it is easier to understand the New Testament, and Jesus is the main figure of the New Testament so we often tend to spend more of our time in it, but I want you to know that the Old Testament has vital significance for your life. Don’t neglect it for the sake of the New Testament. The meta-narrative of scripture is throughout the Old and New Testament.

  • Have you seen the replica Noah’s ark that has been created in Williamstown, KY. It stands at 510 feet long, 85 feet wide, and 51 feet high. Cost over $100 million dollars to build. The leader of this organization is claiming that the ark was built to show that the stories of the Bible are in fact true. I imagine it’s possible that some people will be persuaded through this outreach, but the reality is while Noah is an important part of the Bible, its not what’s most important. Secondly, remember that the Holy Spirit has to be working in a person’s heart for the Scriptures to come alive.

 

Beware What People Say About the Bible:

"knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation."

 

Now I realize that a large part of our study of the Bible comes from what other people say about it. Commentaries written by people, small group literature is written by people, Pastor David, myself, and other teachers and leaders exposit on the Bible, however, when what a person says about the Bible doesn’t actually line up with what the Bible says don’t believe it.

  • “A person walks up to you and says the Holy Spirit is really leading me to do this” or “I had a vision from the Lord to do this” if it does not align with the truth of the scripture than don’t believe what that person is saying.

Peter is reminding his audience here that no prophecy of scripture can just come out of thin air. Don’t believe people who create their own interpretation of Scripture out of thin air. The Holy Spirit will not lead someone to do something that is not in line with what the Bible teaches.

The Bible was pretty much accepted by all at face value until the time of the Enlightenment. This is when people began to really question the claims found in the Bible, and this is when the supernatural element and the validity of the text began to waiver. Today many Old and New Testament scholars that teach at universities study the text for its literary qualities without believing it has any significance on a spiritual level.

Traditionally when reading the Biblical text scholars would take the Bible in its original context and then apply the text to modern day, but now what many are doing is reading the text and then applying their own meaning to it. This is what scholars call reader response criticism, that is a person reads the text and places their own meaning on what the text is saying. That is NOT how we are to read Scripture. The Bible was written at a specific time, for a specific purpose, and has a specific context. Much of the confusion regarding the Bible is because people don’t know how to read it properly.

Let me be very careful here in making sure you understand that there is no secret or hidden knowledge only made available to a select few when it comes to understanding the Bible. We believe wholeheartedly that the Bible is written in such a way that its teachings are able to be understood by all who will read it seeking God’s help and being willing to follow it.

           

The Bible is Not Just Another Document:

"For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit."

The Bible is full of different genres. Poetry, narrative, apocalyptic, and gospels. So in that regard it does have elements of other literary documents, but what those other documents are missing is inspiration.

I don’t mean inspiration in the sense of worldly inspiration We all have moments of inspiration where we are moved to do great things. I am talking about breathed by God inspiration.

Now they are different theories regarding the composition of the Biblical text. Some believe in what we call the dictation theory of inspiration. That is the human authors did nothing more than write down exactly word for word what the Spirit of God told them, however, this is not a great way to understand inspiration. Instead it is a human and divine relationship, God prepared specific human beings, through birth, environment, etc. to communicate his word.

I believe this can be best seen in our four different Gospel accounts. In Mark’s Gospel and John’s Gospel we find very simple Greek, but in Matthew and Luke we find more polished Greek. The stories that the authors choose to emphasize are also different. Birth narratives in Matthew and Luke, but none in Mark and John. So just this small amount of information lets us know that each human author was choosing to emphasize different themes. To deny the human element is wrong, but to deny the divine element is wrong as well. It is an interplay between the two.

Conclusion:

So we have to ask ourselves this question this morning? How important is the Bible to you? Is it just a book that gives us moral advice on how to live a better life? Does it simply give us the teaching of Jesus and the rest is just not that important? OR do we believe in it to the extent that we will lay down our lives for what it says, and give our money to insure that the Bible will continue to be translated in languages all around the world? Here are some stats on where we stand in terms of Bible translations. These are 2015 stats: 1,300 languages have access to the New Testament and some portion of Scripture in their language. More than 550 languages have the complete translated Bible. 7,000 languages are known to be in use today. Up to 180 million people need bible translation to begin in their language. Just under 2300 languages across 130 countries have active translation and linguistic development work happening right now. And the saddest statistic 1,800 languages still need a Bible translation project to begin. We cannot be luke-warm about the Bible. We must be whole heartedly committed to studying it, memorizing it, meditating on it, and sharing it with others.

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