I Saw and Heard • 2 Peter 1:16-21
41:06 Teaching begins
Notes
To others it might seem unimportant to enter a kingdom that hasn’t been established yet. But Peter says, it will be established. Enter into it now.
Peter has been entering the kingdom for about thirty years. He is about to enter more fully into the kingdom because he is about to die. Yet he is more concerned for his readers than himself. He wants to make sure that at any time they can remind themselves who they are, what they are to seek. They have Peter’s example.
But is this kingdom true? Or is it a fairytale? Narnia is a fun place, but you can’t get there because it doesn’t exist. Why enter a kingdom that doesn’t exist?
Here Peter gives his witness: I saw Jesus, I heard God, Jesus confirms the prophetic word to be more sure.
Peter is about to seal his testimony with his life. We’re reading in 2 Peter 1 from verse 16.
1. Peter says, we didn’t make up clever myths about Jesus.
A. A myth is a story involving beings that don’t exist, like fairies, goblins, and gods. A fable is a legendary story of supernatural happenings.
B. A myth uses symbols to explain why something is, like how did the world get to be? You have creation myths, that the heavens and the earth had sex, and the earth produced the Titans, superhuman gods with different attributes. Then the Titans gave birth to the Olympian gods, who also have their attributes. The gods stand for different ideas, like lightning, thunder, ocean, sky, sun. These are seen as divine. Ancient cultures have their myths explaining about the gods and how they deal with men.
C. Myths were made by men. They come from men and therefore they can be played around with. They’re not consistent. Writers will take the myths are vary them, restructure them for their purposes.
D. This is because myths are not real. They did not come from the gods. Even Greeks and Romans were embarrassed at how crude and sexual the myths were. Men don’t believe them because they know men wrote them. There’s no proof, there’s nothing that can be verified. A lot of the myths were written to entertain. Marvel Universe.
2. Why isn’t the Bible a myth? Because it is rooted in history.
A. Other religions are not rooted in history. Ultimately it doesn’t matter if Buddha or Confucius were real persons or not. Or if Krishna ever came to the earth. There’s no historical connection. You follow the teachings. They are separated from the persons and from history.
B. People try to put Christianity with all the other religions. They separate the person from the teaching and say it’s not important that Jesus existed historically. We have the teachings and that’s enough. It doesn’t matter if Jesus really existed or not. Have you ever heard somebody say that?
C. That’s wrong, because Christianity is historical. The teachings of Christianity are that the Son of God was born into the world during the reign of Augustus Caesar. He grew up sinless and ministered during the reigns of Tiberius Caesar and Herod Antipas, while Pontius Pilate was procurator of Judea. On Passover 33 A.D. He died for the sins of the world. Three days later He rose again from the dead. All the doctrines are based on Jesus’ historical birth, death, and resurrection.
D. Jesus’ teachings don’t save anyone, and they can’t save anyone. Only His death for your sins saves you. If He didn’t exist historically there is no forgiveness, no salvation. The teachings are useless and a lie if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead.
E. The whole Bible is rooted in history. None of the history in the Bible has ever been disproven. Sir William Ramsay set out to disprove Luke’s picture of first-century Asia Minor and the ethnic groups and countries described there. He thought he could disprove the New Testament if he could prove that Luke was inaccurate in his details. It shook him to find that Luke was right every time. Ramsay became a Christian because he realised if even the smallest incidental details were correct, it showed careful regard for the truth. The big truth is that Jesus is the Messiah of God.
F. So Peter affirms that neither he nor the other apostles made anything up.
1. There was no plot among the disciples to make a new religion. There was no scheme to make money with an attractive new religion. There was no profit to be made from Jesus for the first 300 years.
2. During those centuries Christianity suffered ten major persecutions by the Roman Empire. It got you prison, beatings, or death. Every apostle died because they testified that Jesus rose from the dead.
3. If they agreed to lie, everyone of them died for something they knew wasn’t true. Will you really give your life for a lie?
4. These men and women could face trial and death because they knew that Jesus rose from the dead, and that they also would rise from the dead.
3. Far from making anything up, says Peter, we heard the voice of God.
A. Now, they heard and saw everything that Jesus spoke and did. They heard all of Jesus’ sermons that He preached many times. They saw Him heal incurable diseases, heal blindness and deafness. He raised people from the dead. He stopped a storm, told it to be quiet, and the storm obeyed Him. He fed over 5,000 people with five bread rolls and two fish. They picked up twelve baskets full of bread pieces and the crowd could not eat one more bite.
B. Now of all the incidents Peter could point to, this is remarkable because
1. Jesus prophesied that he would see this. Six days before this Jesus said, Matthew 16:28 “Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”
2. Peter saw the kingdom that all of us are to be entering into. He saw Jesus transfigured with power, shining with light, Moses and Elijah with Him. They died centuries ago, yet here they are, alive and talking with Jesus.
3. They heard the voice of God speaking to Jesus, bringing Jesus glory and honour. God the Father calls the Lord Jesus His beloved Son.
4. Peter, James, and John were terrified. Especially as a bright cloud envelopes them and the voice of God comes out of the cloud: “Listen to Him!”
5. Any symbolism here? Any fairies? Any magic charms like a ring? Any “They all lived happily ever after” ending? It ends with Jesus telling the disciples, don’t tell this to anyone until after the Son of Man is raised from the dead. That doesn’t entertain. It’s hard to fathom what Jesus means. But it’s not a myth or a fable.
C. Peter was an eyewitness. That means he saw and heard and could tell to others what he saw and heard.
D. In 1 Corinthians 15:5-8 Paul gives a list of people who saw Jesus raised from the dead: He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.
E. These men did not make up a fake religion. They heard and saw Jesus. That’s their testimony.
4. Prophecy is God’s way of verifying His message.
A. The message is: Jesus is the Messiah, the Saviour, and the Lord over all. He is God’s king to rule the earth. The kingdom of God is coming. Jesus will judge the living and the dead. He will rule forever and destroy His enemies.
B. How do we know that it’s God speaking, and not some crazy men making it all up?
C. Verse 20, knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation. The meaning doesn’t come from man as a source.
D. God speaks that which only God could know: the future.
1. First He makes a holy man. I know that more modern translations have just “men” but the idea is the same. See, all men are sinners from birth. God has to first make a man holy in order to be His spokesman. He takes a live coal and touches Isaiah’s lips. Now your sin is taken away. In every case God purifies and rules over a man or woman for His service only. If God didn’t do that, there could be no prophecy.
2. God communicates prophecy by His Holy Spirit. He comes upon a person to communicate what God is speaking. The word of the Lord came to... that’s the formula.
3. The Holy Spirit causes His words to be written down. God makes detailed promises about what He is going to do.
4. The fulfilment comes centuries later. It would be impossible for someone to know the future in such detail. Only God who is outside time and is sovereign could know the future and have it written down.
E. This method is unique. No other religion has prophecy, period. Anyone who “tries” it finds out it’s impossible. That’s why there is no prophecy in any religion. Only the Judeo-Christian revelation has prophecy.
5. All the words spoken by God are valuable. What Jesus has done is confirm that it indeed is spoken by God.
A. Now, all the words of God are sure. There was no danger of any prophecies being weak. But they are promises. The point is they must be fulfilled.
B. Jesus came and fulfilled prophecy. Not just one or two here and there. I have here Josh McDowell’s book, Evidence That Demands a Verdict. It details over 60 major prophecies about the Messiah that Jesus fulfilled.
1. On page 166 he begins listing 29 prophecies from the Old Testament spoken over a 500-year period, from 1000-500 B.C. Jesus fulfilled those 29 prophecies in a 24-hour period.
2. On page 174 McDowell answers an objection that Jesus could have planned to fulfil prophesies and make Himself look like the Messiah. There he gives seven prophecies that were completely out of Jesus’ control.
a. His place of birth (Micah 5:2)
b. The time of His birth (Daniel 9:25, Genesis 49:10)
c. The manner of His birth—virgin birth (Isaiah 7:14)
d. His betrayal (Psalm 41:9)
e. The manner of His death (Psalm 22:16)
f. People’s reactions (mocking, spitting, staring, etc. Psalm 22)
g. Piercing ( Psalm 22:16, Zechariah 12:10)
h. Burial (Isaiah 53:9) with a rich man in His death
3. He quotes Peter Stoner’s book Science Speaks. Dr. Stoner and a class of university students worked out the math. The chance that anyone could fulfil these eight prophecies by accident would be 1 in 10 to the 17th power. Cover Texas with silver dollars two feet deep. That’s 268,596 square miles, almost three times the size of United Kingdom at 93,628 sq. mi. Mark one silver dollar, throw it somewhere in Texas. Blindfold a guy. Let him wander through Texas. He gets one chance to choose a silver dollar. Did he get it right?
4. If someone fulfilled 48 prophecies by accident it would be a chance of 1 in 10 to the 157 power. Fill the universe with electrons. Mark one. Let a guy go all over the universe, let him pick one. Did he get it right?
5. Someone once counted over 300 prophecies of Jesus’ first coming that He fulfilled.
C. There are more prophecies to be fulfilled about Jesus’ second coming. Those prophecies are more sure because we have seen the fulfilment of so much prophecy already. What are the chances that Jesus will not come again into this world historically? Zero. Nil.
6. So what?
A. Here in the Bible you hear God speaking. You can learn the voice of God. The Holy Spirit is right there when you pick up a Bible. He makes the words speak to you.
B. Don’t let the devil bar you from hearing God’s voice: “None of this is real. It’s a myth, a fable, it happened a long time ago, none of it is true.”
C. Peter says, I saw this, I heard it. Now, he says, I died for it. So did Paul, James, the other apostles. All through the history of the church, people have testified with their lives: this is true.
D. Until Jesus comes for us we hold on to the truth. That truth makes you a holy person. No other way makes you holy.
E. The day is coming, and the morning star will arise in our hearts. This is Peter’s prophecy right here.
1. In Revelation 22:16 Jesus says I am the morning star.
2. Imagine when Jesus dawns in your heart. The light comes up in you. Glory, power, immortality, purity. That’s the fulness of our salvation, the redemption of our bodies. We will be revealed with Jesus in glory.
E. This voice of God is the light in a dark place that is going to keep you on the right path. You do well to pay attention to that prophetic word.
Let’s pray.