Sunday Morning, December 29, 2019 AM

The Word of God as Gift and Judgment in Jeremiah 36

Know our frame, that we are but enjoying the blessings of Christian fellowship and community,.

Basking in the light of Christ, but they themselves are stone-cold in their hearts, and need your life in them. So here we are, Father. We're here to hear from Your Word about Your Son. We ask for the power of the Holy Spirit that You would take Your truth, take Your Word in, straight to our hearts, cutting deep, making the changes that You want to see.

Lord, we are utterly dependent upon You for this, so at the end of all things, You utterly get all the glory. Salvation belongs to You and to the Lamb who is on the throne. We give You the praise now, and we know we will give You the praise then.

For this time, Father, supply our needs, strengthen us in our weaknesses. Lord, we believe, help our unbelief. We say all these things, and we ask for these things, looking only to Christ, the One with whom You are well-pleased.

I invite you to open your Bibles to Jeremiah chapter 36. Jeremiah 36, and we'll be looking at verses 1 through 8 this morning. As always, I intend to preach the whole passage, and then I don't. So I'm trying to preempt that by saying from the outset, yes, this is part one.

I'm not going to spring that on you later, that there's a part two or three. I'm going to say it right up front. This is part one, and we're going to consider a story in Jeremiah 36 that has to do with the Word of God, how the Word of God is a gift, a gift to us as His creatures.

And then this story focuses in on what happens next. That God gives His Word in such a specific and good way, but then what happens next? Do we receive it, or do we reject it? And what's the fallout, or what's the outcome of how we respond to the gift of God's Word?

Jeremiah 36 is another look back at what is going on with Judah as a nation. A few chapters ago, we left off with the armies of Babylon surrounding the city.

Of Jerusalem.

They had done all they needed to do to conquer the city except actually conquering it. They had taken out all of the cities around them, all of the fortified cities surrounding Jerusalem. They had eliminated those.

They had cut off all chance of anybody coming to their rescue. There was an aborted attempt by the Egyptians to come help, but that was put to rest. And now it's just nothing left but just waiting for the demise, just waiting for the end.

Jeremiah is waiting for the end in prison. He's in jail. He was put in under guard, under house arrest by the royal guard because they got tired of his preaching. He kept on saying things like, the Babylonians are going to conquer us all and destroy everything, and there is no escape.

And you may imagine that that's a very unpopular thing to say over and over again, and it might have wounded the professional pride of the soldiers who were guarding the city. What do you mean? What are you saying about us?

And again, him saying this over and over again about the king, Zedekiah, you will soon no longer reign. And even though you'll try to escape, it won't work out, and you'll be humiliated. Well, that's not a very popular thing to say to the king.

And so, Jeremiah is placed under house arrest. Interestingly enough, people are still coming to Jeremiah, including the king, to find out, well, what does God have to say about our situation? And Jeremiah keeps telling him the same thing over and over again.

But it seems better now that the voice of the prophet of God is neatly contained within a box, right? I mean, I can go and listen to it if I want to, and if I don't want to, then I don't have to, right?

As long as the preaching of the word of God is contained in a box and not out in the public square, who cares, right? That's why founders in our nation, one of the things they did get right, freedom of religion, not freedom of worship.

It wasn't freedom of worship, you can do whatever you want inside your concrete box, freedom of religion, so that the scriptures may be proclaimed and practiced and pressed upon all the people in the nation in the public square.

Right?

And that's the key. Now, that's what causes the problems. And so, Jeremiah has been placed into his concrete box where he can still preach and pray and do his worship thing, but under constraints so that nobody will get too upset.

What are they afraid of? What are they tired of? What is so wearisome to them? The authority of the word of God. That's what's so grating upon their consciences, so offensive to their sensibilities, is that some foreign authority is being constantly put over and against them saying, you must conform to this.

You must change your ways. You, in and of yourself, even together as a culture, cannot decide what is true and false and what is right and wrong, but there is an external authority to you straight from the God who has made you, and you must submit to that.

And that's what they're upset about. And that's what this story is about. Because after we learn that the Babylonians are up against the wall and Jeremiah is in prison and all is about to fall, then God has for us in the writings of Jeremiah, in the preaching of Jeremiah, several stories, several opportunities to look back and see how it was that they got into this situation.

I mean, we'd be wondering that, shouldn't we? I mean, we're faced with the awful, awful tension of what's about to happen. And you can read in the book of Lamentations just how awful it was when the Babylonians got through and all of the chaos and the disaster and the carnage that came after it.

But how did they get to that place? How did the people of God, how did the treasured people of God, even the tribe of Judah, centered around the holy city in which was the temple, in which was the Ark of the Covenant, the life of the people of God?

How is it that it has come to this? And so there's several looks back now. This is the way it was five years ago or 15 years ago, even 20 years ago, before the fall of Jerusalem. Look at all the things that have been going on.

Look how patient God was with his people. Look how time and again he sent his prophet Jeremiah and gave them opportunity after opportunity to repent, to hear his word. And look how creative he was in pointing at this illustration or that illustration and bringing the focus of the people to his word.

How patient, how long-suffering, what a good God is this God who has now brought this judgment upon this people. That's what we're looking at. In the previous chapter, we looked at the opportunity of the Rechabites, the family that followed the instructions of their forefather Jehonadab.

And they were put forth before the people as an example. You know, here is this family that follows the instructions of their patriarch who's been long dead now, 200 years, but you won't listen to me as I'm speaking to you directly through the prophet even now.

An example set before them so they could take stock of their ways and repent. And here's another example, another story that we are given in Jeremiah 36. So I'm going to read for us Jeremiah 36, 1 through 8, and I'll take the time to summarize the rest of the chapter so we get the idea where it's all heading.

But would you please stand with me as I read these eight verses, the word of the Lord. These are the words of our King and Savior, Jesus Christ, through his prophet, Jeremiah. In the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, take a scroll and write on it all the words which I have spoken to you concerning Israel and concerning Judah and concerning all the nations from the day I first spoke to you from the days of Josiah even to this day.

Perhaps the house of Judah will hear all the calamity which I plan to bring on them in order that every man will turn from his evil way, that I will forgive their iniquity and their sin. Then Jeremiah called Baruch, the son of Neriah, and Baruch wrote on a scroll the dictation of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord which he had spoken to him.

Jeremiah commanded Baruch, saying, I am restricted. I cannot go into the house of the Lord. So you go and read from the scroll which you have written at my dictation, the words of the Lord to the people in the Lord's house on a fast day.

And also you shall read them to all the people of Judah who come from their cities. Perhaps their supplication will come before the Lord and everyone will turn from his evil.

Way.

For great is the anger and the wrath that the Lord has pronounced against this people. Baruch, the son of Neriah, did according to all that Jeremiah the prophet commanded him, reading from the book the words of the Lord in the Lord's house.

And this is the Lord's word. You can be seated. You know the saying, seeing is believing. Well, fearing begins with hearing. Fearing begins with hearing. You know what it's like to be woken up in the middle of the night by a sound.

What was that? Sometimes you think, oh, it couldn't be anything too bad. I'll try to go back to sleep. But then you spend a long time thinking about whether or not. And you keep on listening for anything else.

Sounds get our attention and cause us to fear. It's an involuntary thing. You hear a siren. You hear tires screech. You hear screams. You hear shots. Hey, that gets your attention. That gets your blood pumping.

Fearing begins with hearing. Not always, though. We don't always fear every single sound that we come across, do we? If a beggar comes up to me and tries to tell me something, I'm not going to be as in tune with what he's saying than if a police officer comes up to me to tell me something, right?

One of those two men, they're both made in the image of God. But one of those two men is endowed with authority. And when the guy endowed with authority begins to speak, I just naturally give him more attention.

I put more stock in the things that he is saying to me. If someone shows up and demands to enter your house and they're, say, a police officer or some sort of officer of the law, and they demand to come into your house and go through your belongings, check out your civil war drawer, you say, well, do you have a warrant,.

Right?

Do you have written authority to do that? You're looking for verbal authority. And if he does, then you're going to pay close attention and scrutinize that information, aren't you, right? You're going to pay very close attention to it.

If someone gives you a subpoena or a judge has something to do with your life and he issues a ruling, there is going to be some close attention, some scrutiny to that written.

Authority.

That's just natural, isn't it? So, how unnatural is it for us to not care what God has said? How absolutely reverse of the matter is it for us to not really care all that much what God has said, indeed, his written authority?

The difference between the fool and the God-fearer has to do with how the person deals with the Word of God. You can tell the difference between a fool and someone who fears God by the way they deal with the Word of God.

And we need to know the difference. Do we know the difference between a fool and someone who fears God? What's wrong with being a fool? Well, Judah was playing the fool. The people of Judah were being incredibly foolish, not listening to the Word of God.

And how is it that they ended up in the situation they were in, great disaster upon their nation, upon their city, upon all their people? How is it that they came to that end? Because they were fools.

Better to meet a bear robbed of her cubs than a fool in his folly. The fool says in his heart, there is no God. The fool is wise in his own eyes and you can't tell him a thing. At the culmination of the list in Romans 3 of what it means for man to be utterly depraved and no good in and of himself, the capstone of that description, as Paul is quoting various passages from the Psalms and so on, that the capstone is, and there is no fear of God before their eyes.

Well, we don't want to be fools. We want to fear God. We should want to fear God. Why should we fear God? Well, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Only fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Proverbs 9 says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That's where everything begins. You want to know what is real, what is true, how things actually operate in the world, to give an account of your reasoning, to be able to speak clearly, to know, and to have wisdom and to operate in the way in which the world is designed.

Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And it's absolutely no mistake that all the treasures of knowledge and wisdom are hid in Christ. So we don't want to be fools.

We want to be God-fearers. And fearing God begins with hearing, hearing his word. I was reading just, I was reading a book this week. And so someone said, challenging times, challenging times. Perhaps we ought to return to the worship of God, the Father Almighty, and stop chumming around with our sky buddy.

The answer to all the woes in the world comes back to this, the fear of the Lord. Fear of the Lord. Do we fear God? And Jeremiah 36 gives us the opportunity to consider just whether or not we fear the Lord, as we look at whether or not Judah fears the Lord.

And it all has to do with the word of God. How do we relate to the word of God? Even as Adam and Eve, everything in their life hinged on what they did with the word of God. So also in the life of Israel, everything hinged on what they did with the word of God.

So it is with us as followers of Christ as a church, everything hinges on what we do with the word of God. Do we fear God or not? So I'll talk about the inscripturation of the word. And I invented a term there.

Other people invented it before me. It's just not officially recognized. Spellcheck hates it. I'm using that instead of the traditional inspiration of the word, because that term is widely misunderstood.

Just how is it that God's word ended up in a book? That's what we want to talk about. How is it that God's word ends up written down for us in a book? Jeremiah 36 helps us think about that. Verses 1 through 8 helps us to think about how God gave us his word and why.

How God gave us his word and why. I want us to notice, first of all, the divine author. The divine author. I've read through chapter 36 several times, not least of which trying to trace the pattern of who said what to who and when, which is a very fun project to do.

How many times did the word of God get written down and then transferred by reading and or by summarizing and preaching in Jeremiah 36? Many, many times over. The transmission of the word of God is paramount in this chapter.

But as we read through 12 times in this chapter, we are told who the author of the words are. Who's the author of the text? Who's the author of the word?

It's the Lord. It's the Lord.

Seven times in the first eight verses, we're told it's the Lord's words that were given to Jeremiah that were written down on a scroll being dictated to Baruch and then read to the people. It is the Lord's words.

We know who the author is when it comes to the scriptures. God's name is listed as the author, as the editor. He authored the foreword. He authored the preface. He authored the introduction, the contents, the conclusion, and the epilogue.

He's the author. It is God's word because these words came from God. And because that's the case, everything else that we say about the word of God follows from that. If indeed it is God's word, then no wonder the psalmist said what he said in Psalm 19 about the word of God, how he praised it as higher and more perfect and to be more greatly desired than the way that God has revealed himself in the book of nature, which is a great book.

It's very thick, and there's lots to read about in the book of nature, the book of creation. Lots to praise God about in the book of creation. But scripture, which is a smaller book, is far better. Notice what the psalmist says.

Psalm 19, verse 7,. The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true. They are righteous altogether. Because these are God's words, they are perfect, sure, right, pure, clean, and true.

Why?

Because of the author. Because of who wrote the scriptures, the Holy Bible. And everything else follows. We hear in 2 Timothy 3 .16 that all scripture is inspired by God, breathed out by God. Inspiration is an interesting take.

The more technical term would be expiration. It was exhaled. All the scripture is exhaled by God and profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God would be adequately equipped for every good work.

So all of scripture is breathed out by God. And that's why it's good to tell us what's true, where we're wrong, how to get right, and how to live God's way. Because we're made in His image. And so His word, the word of God is made for those who are made in the image of God.

So everything else follows about the scriptures, the things that we faithfully say, that have been handed down to us by our faithful forefathers. And in acknowledgement of the scripture's testimony of itself, that it is God-breathed, that it is inspired, that this word is without error, that it is inerrant, that it cannot fail.

It is infallible, that it has all the authority of God, that is authoritative for every aspect of our life, that it is a clear word. Please hold on to that. This is the thing that's being targeted.

It's a clear word.

It's not only meant for an elect few who have certain training in Eastern thought. And therefore, it's not for you. Don't buy that garbage. God is a perfect communicator, an everlasting God. And He has given us a clear word in the Holy Spirit by whom we would know what He means in His text.

And it's sufficient for all of our faith and practice. Do we need to know how to worship God? If we live here or live halfway across the world, scripture tells us how we worship God, how to live together as the people of God.

Everything else, everything follows about what we say about the word of God from this that is God's word. And notice the form of God's word. What God spoke to His prophet is God's word. What God's prophet dictated to the scribe, that was God's word.

What was written down on the scroll, that's God's word. What was read aloud to the people, that's God's word. How is that? Because He's the author. Notice the term author and authority. What's the authority of the word of God?

It goes back to the author of the word of God, who is God Himself. Notice what happened in the text. And this happens a lot in Jeremiah. Verse 1, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying, take a scroll, write down what I have said to you.

The word of God shows up. The word of God shows up and encounters Jeremiah personally and says, remember all those other things that I came to you and said? Well, I want you to write it down now on a scroll.

The word of God shows up and says, you're going to go and say, how many times has this happened in Jeremiah? The word of God shows up, comes to Jeremiah and says, I want you to go to the temple courts or I want you to go out by the dung gate.

And I want you to go preach this word. I want you to say to the people, thus saith the Lord. Do we see that it's the word of the Lord who brings the words of the Lord? That we have, that the word who became flesh and dwelt among us, the word who is the only mediator between God and man, not only in terms of salvation, but also in terms of revelation.

The only mediator between God and man, who is the word who became flesh, who is at the right hand of the father, even now that he's the author of the scriptures. I'm not kidding. And I'm not putting on airs when I want us to stand for the reading of God's word.

These are the words of our King, Savior, Jesus Christ. He has spoken to us through his prophets, through those who were anointed, whether they be prophets, priests, kings, or apostles, whoever they were, those whom he spoke through.

These are his words, the words of our King. And so that's why we stand to give him honor when we read it together in our corporate worship. Divine author, a divine author. Well, if we don't want to be a fool, we should listen to what God has said.

We should pay attention to what he said. Take it very seriously. Why would we fear a police officer who gives us our speeding ticket more than we fear the King of the universe who has given us his word?

Jeremiah, Baruch, and the Human Agents of Scripture

A divine author and a human agent. A divine author and a human agent. Notice how God uses these human agents. Jeremiah as a human author, Baruch as a human scribe. Then Jeremiah called Baruch, verse 4, the son of Neriah.

Baruch had a high position in the life of Jerusalem and Judah. He was highly respected by other scribes, other officials. A very educated man as a scribe. And Jeremiah called him, said, you must come do this work for me.

And Baruch wrote on the scroll at the dictation of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord which he had spoken to him. So the Lord had spoken words to Jeremiah, and Jeremiah dictated those words to Baruch who wrote them down upon a scroll.

Jeremiah commanded Baruch saying, I am restricted. I cannot go into the house of the Lord. Why not? Well, last time he tried that, they almost killed him. I've been outlawed from the house of the Lord.

I can't go there and preach. You know, it's a sad state of affairs when the preaching of the word of God is not allowed in the house of worship. It's a sad state of affairs, isn't it? So you go and read from the scroll which you have written at my dictation, the word of the Lord to the people in the Lord's house on a fast day.

And also you shall read them to all the people of Judah who come from their cities. I want us to consider the human agent involved. First of all, Jeremiah is a prophet. He has a holy calling. He has a holy calling.

God came to him and encountered and confronted Jeremiah when he was very young and said, you're going to be my prophet and you're going to go say what I want you to say. Jeremiah tried to try to complain and tried to get out of it.

And God said, no, I've had you picked up for a long time before you were born. So God gets the last word in like that all the time. But in Jeremiah chapter 1 verses 5 through 10, he says, God says to Jeremiah, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.

Before you were even formed, before you were even conceived, I knew you. Meaning I loved you. I set my love on you. I chose you. I knew everything about you. You're just the guy I want. And before you were born, I consecrated you.

I've anointed you. I've set you apart. I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. Jeremiah grew up in Anathoth, a Levitical city, a place where priests grew up. God says, I've consecrated you to something else, to be a prophet.

Then I said, alas, Lord God, behold, I do not know how to speak because I am a youth. Look at the human agent that God picked. He picked somebody who can't speak. He did that before, didn't he? He got Moses.

Come on, stutter mumble, let's go. You're my servant. And so he picks out Jeremiah.

He's too young.

He can't speak well. But that's the one that God decides to use. But the Lord said to me, do not say I'm a youth because everywhere I send you, you shall go. And all that I command you, you shall speak.

Do not be afraid of them for I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord. The Lord stretched out his hand. Now watch this. The Lord stretched out his hand.

Who is this?

Who shows himself in bodily form before the incarnation? Isn't it Christ? Stretches out his hand. He touched my mouth. The Lord said to me, behold, I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have appointed you this day over the nations and over the kingdoms to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.

This is no angel, folks. This is the Lord of the universe saying, I'm giving you authority to preach my word to all the nations over whom I am God. So a human agent, but he has a holy calling, a holy calling.

As a prophet, this pattern has been completed in Christ. This is a past pattern. The way as Hebrews 1 through 2 reminds us that God in past times, he spoke in the prophets in many portions and in many ways.

But in these last days, he has spoken to us in his son, whom he made the heir of all things, through whom he also, he created the world. And this pattern of revelation is fulfilled and completed in Christ.

Well, this holy calling is upon this human agent, but isn't he time bound? I mean, he only writes about stuff that concerns the Jews and only the group of Jews who died. Most of them died in the assault of Babylon.

So who really cares about what happened in the early 500s BC? I mean, the stuff he talks about and the way he talks, he's writing on a scroll, so you know he's outdated. He's talking to Baruch about reading this aloud to people on a fast day.

There's no mass email or mass text. Obviously, this is outdated. It has nothing to do with us, right? There is a historical context, but it's not time bound. It's time related. It's not time bound. It's time related.

We cannot take up the humanity of the scriptures, the fact that human agents that were chosen by God truly wrote down and authored the scriptures. We can't take the humanity of scriptures and pit it over and against as if in conflict with the divine authorship of the scriptures, because God is the one who wrote it, and God is eternal.

It's an eternal word. But there is a time context here, isn't there? In the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying. It's a pivotal year.

We read about it in Jeremiah 25. It was the year that the clock started ticking for the 70 years of Babylon. And they would be there for 70 years through three reigns of three different kings. And then Babylon's time would be ended with the onslaught of the Medes and the Persians.

But it was the fourth year of King Jehoiakim when Jeremiah came preaching and saying, not only to King Jehoiakim, but also to all the representatives of the other nation states who had gathered there in Jerusalem and said to them all, God is raising up King Nebuchadnezzar.

All these lands are now his. When he shows up, you submit to him. And if you don't, here's all the awful things that are going to happen to you. Another very popular message from Jeremiah. But notice in the text that in verse 9, it wasn't until the fifth year.

It wasn't until the fifth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month that the words were read. It took that long to write down everything that Jeremiah had to say. It took that long to compile and get enough material for the scrolls.

It took that long to put it all together and then to wait for the perfect moment, a fast.

Day.

Something terrible must have happened. And I think that thing was in 2 Kings 24, 1. You can look it up on your own. But something terrible happens in the nation. And then all the people gather together and they fast because something bad happened.

And so they come together to mourn and to say, what went wrong? Maybe God is upset with us. And then so Jeremiah says, wait until a moment like that when you have maximum exposure for the word of God to the way the whole country is listening, the whole society is listening, and then read to them these words of the Lord.

It's a good idea. He's trying to obey what God had told him to do. So this is the best way to do it. So there's a historical context, but there's also a human condition. When we encounter Jeremiah as he gets real personal some time to time in the book, we find him to be fearful sometimes, don't we?

Fearful about what is going to happen to him, what people are going to say, how they're going to oppose him. We find him to be fearful and therefore we can see that he doesn't trust God enough. Jeremiah himself doesn't fear the Lord all the time more than he fears man.

Jeremiah is a sinner. He's a sinner. He makes mistakes. He doesn't do everything the way he's supposed to. We also find that he's often frustrated and the things that he says about his own history, the things he says about the nation, the thing he says about God are often out of perspective and not the correct understanding of the sovereignty of God and the goodness of God.

So we find that Jeremiah, as he gets personal in the book, he's a sinner. He gets things wrong. So then the question comes, how does God bring about divine authorship without error, without failing that is everlasting, authoritative, insufficient?

How does he bring about that kind of divine authorship, which is perfect through human agency, which is imperfect? This has been a critical question in the last 200 years. And many, many shades of heresy have been put forth to try to answer this question in a way that will make literature professors happy, which of course, that's what we're called to do, right?

We're called to take the gospel to all the literature professors for approval and make.

Them happy.

How does God do this? Well, thankfully, we just had Christmas and we thought about the incarnation of the word, haven't we? The incarnation of the word in which Christ is fully God and fully man. And his divinity does not make his humanity other than fully human.

And his humanity does not make his divinity other than fully divine. He is as much God as God is God. And he is as much man as man is man. And he is the supreme revelation of God. What about not the incarnation of the word, but the inscripturation of the word?

How is it done? A divine author and a human author. Does the humanity of the text in any way take away from the divinity of the author, the divine origin, the divine perfection, the divine truth in the text?

Is there something about the human authors that somehow trumps the divine origin of the scriptures to make it full of errors and problems that we can safely ignore, depending on what the winds of the culture are saying currently?

No, not at all. And the divinity of the authorship of the text, that it comes from God himself, doesn't mean that every single book in the Bible is written in the same tone, by the same personalities, or with the exact same set of vocabulary, or even in the same language.

But it's a very human text. And Paul's writing style is different than Peter's writing style, isn't it? But to have the two together is no problem for people who believe in Jesus. No problem at all. Because if we believe in the incarnation of the word, what problem could we possibly have with believing in the inscripturation of the word?

No problem at all. Especially since the testimony of Scripture itself is sufficient to tell us what we're supposed to believe about that. First Peter chapter 1, verses 10 through 12, as to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, the prophets who prophesied of the grace who would come to you, like Jeremiah, made careful searches and inquiries as to that salvation that they promised would be revealed in full.

Seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. So, the Holy Spirit, as we will see in the next passage, is bearing these prophets along, holy men moved by the Holy Spirit.

But it is Christ Himself through the Holy Spirit who is prophesying about Himself, how He's going to come, what's going to happen. Verse 12, it was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you in these things which now have been announced to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

And then 2 Peter 1 verses 19 -21, so we have the prophetic word made more sure. More sure than what? More sure, notice the previous three verses, more sure, more certain, more clear than the encounter of the three disciples with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration.

We cannot name another spiritual experience of followers of Jesus Christ that is a greater spiritual experience than being in His presence of the Shekinah glory of God comes through Him, the Shekinah glory cloud comes down and you hear a word from God the Father saying, this is my beloved Son with whom I am well, please listen to Him.