The Prophetic Word Made Sure | Sermon 10/17/2021

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The title of the sermon today is The Prophetic Word Made Sure.

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We're going to be in the 2nd Epistle of Peter. 2

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Peter 1. Please turn there with me in your Bibles. 2

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Peter 1. Starting in 2

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Peter 1, verses 19 -21. These are the words of the

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Lord, brothers and sisters. So we have the prophetic word made more sure to which you do well to pay attention, as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.

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But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation.

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For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the

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Holy Spirit spoke from God. These are the words of the Lord. Let's pray.

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Father, we pray that You would bless the service, that You would bless the message, Lord. Help me to be a vessel and an instrument,

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Lord, that Your message would come, Father. Lord, let it be a helpful message,

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Lord. Lord, let it be clear and let me speak truth, O God. Let no error proceed from this pulpit.

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And so, Lord, please dwell with us now as we proclaim the Word. And illuminate it to Your people.

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Help us, God, to not leave here unchanged, but to grow closer to You and in our walk with Christ.

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I pray this in His name, Amen. Last week as we continued our series in sola

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Scriptura, we saw in the second epistle to Timothy that the Apostle Paul established we are to continue in the things that we have learned from those who practice orthodoxy, whether it be teachers or our family.

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We are to continue in the things that we have learned from the sacred writings of Scripture, it said.

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And we are to retain and continue in these things because all Scripture, it said, is

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God -breathed. Theanoustos is the Greek word. They are the words from His very mouth.

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And this makes them profitable to train us in righteousness and equip us as blood -bought believers in Christ.

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And now we'll be taking a look at 2 Peter, which in some ways is similar to Paul's second epistle to Timothy, but it provides us what

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I would say a different angle at which to gaze at biblical inspiration.

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This letter has been determined to be written by Peter. I know that sounds like, of course, duh, it's called 2

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Peter. And verse one clearly states it, but early on, it was among a few of the

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New Testament books, small books, that for a while didn't get recognized as part of the canon until a bit later.

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In fact, Peter has never referred to himself as Simeon Peter. And some of your translations might have that or it might have a little subscript and it'll tell you in earlier manuscripts it says

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Simeon. He's always been called Peter, Simon Peter, or even Cephas, but Simeon is closer to the

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Hebrew version. Not a big deal though. Along with some language and stylistic differences from his first epistle, again, his authorship was at first disputed, but we understand that like in other

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New Testament letters, sometimes Paul and Peter in this case used secretaries or scribes to write down what they were giving them.

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In fact, we believe that the author of the book of Hebrews, even though it's anonymous, we believe that that was

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Paul during a sermon and that was possibly written by Luke, the physician, who followed

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Paul as a close associate. And so in the same way, Peter would have used a secretary here, a scribe to write on his behalf, and they would be introducing in a way their own kind of vocabulary and style.

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With that, we believe the greetings that Peter is indeed writing to the

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Asia Minor churches, just as in his first letter. It would have been written just before his death, sometime near AD 65 to 68 before the fall of Jerusalem.

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And as for the location of his writings, we don't know what exactly it is.

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It doesn't tell us where it is. But his first letter, he wrote it from Rome.

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He wrote it from Rome. And so we believe that that is where he was at the time of this letter, not to mention tradition has it that he would be martyred in Rome under the persecution of Nero, okay?

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And so that fits well because Peter, as Paul did, knew that his time to leave the world was soon coming to an end, okay?

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It says in chapter one, verse 13 through 15, I consider it right, as long as I am in this earthly dwelling to stir you up by way of reminder, knowing that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent, as also our

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Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. And I will also be diligent that at the time of my departure, you will be able to call these things to mind.

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So Peter is recognizing that he's towards the end of his life. He's writing to them to encourage them and to warn them of these things in his letter.

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And so this letter is filled with great theology of the word and a very high Christology study of Christ.

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In fact, in verse one of chapter one, it contains one of the clearest teachings of the divinity of Christ, the deity of Christ, when

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Peter says, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

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Right there, Peter calls Jesus Theos. Theos, which is typically only used in reference to God the

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Father. Theos is used here for Jesus. And so that's definitely one to remember when talking and witnessing to those in false religions who say that Jesus is not

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God. That's one to remember. 2 Peter 1 .1. Chapter two is one of the largest discourses on false prophets and teachers.

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He says, if God didn't spare the angels, or save the wicked in Noah's days, or the immoral men of Sodom and Gomorrah, then how could these types of men escape

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God's judgment that's coming? That's in 2 Peter 2. And finally, in chapter three, besides giving the churches a warning of false brethren who will come after his death, he states the main reason for his letter is this.

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This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of our

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Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles. In other words, remember the holy scriptures.

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Remember God's word that contains the prophets and the law, as well as the teaching of Christ through his apostles.

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And that's what we'll do now. And so before we get into the meat of the verses, verses 19 through 21, let's take a look at verses 16 through 18.

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It reads in 16, For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our

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Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the

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Father, such an utterance as this was made to him by the majestic glory. This is my beloved son with whom

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I am well pleased. And we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain.

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He says, they did not follow cleverly devised tales. They have followed something that is true, something that is certain, something that you can actually touch, right?

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Because think about it, how do you labor for so many years with so much boldness and courage if what you were following was fake?

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If what you were following was a lie, how could you persevere through the persecution and the beatings and the imprisonment if all it was was a fanciful tale made up?

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They couldn't do that. They saw truth in the flesh. They saw

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Jesus Christ. He says, we made known to you his power and coming.

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Peter walked with Christ in his earthly ministry. He saw Jesus heal people by the word of his mouth.

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Jesus declared the centurion's servant to be healed. And at that moment, the servant was healed.

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He saw, Peter saw Jesus approach a demon possessed man who was cutting himself and prowled around the tombs.

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The man spoke and said his name was Legion, revealing a multitude of demons occupied this man's body.

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And they begged Jesus for mercy to let them go into the herd of swine nearby.

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And that's the kind of commanding power that Christ has. He says, the demons say, don't torment us before the time.

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They have to ask Jesus what they're allowed to do. That's power.

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Jesus shouts, Lazarus, come forth. And a man wrapped in burial cloths comes out with bandages.

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He proceeds out of the tomb and is as whole as ever before. Peter saw it all out of his own eyes.

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The power to undo works of the fall on a body, the power over the spiritual realm and fallen angels and the power over death.

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Hundreds of movies with characters have been looking in these movies for immortality.

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They're looking to escape the clutches of death, the Holy Grail, stuff like that. And with a few words,

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Jesus Christ accomplishes what they can't. Peter says, but we were eyewitnesses to his majesty.

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He's saying beyond this, beyond this, we saw something else. We saw something else.

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Verses 17 and 18. For when he received honor and glory from God the

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Father, such an utterance as this was made to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved

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Son with whom I am well pleased. And we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain.

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Some of you may recognize what Peter is recounting here. This is from the

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Mount of Transfiguration, which is from Matthew 17, Mark 9 or Luke 9.

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All three synoptic Gospels have the account. Jesus took Peter, John and James, those closest to him, and he took them up on a high mountain.

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Jesus was immediately, it says, transfigured. His unveiled glory and majesty was shown to them for the first time.

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It says his face shone like the sun and his garments were as white as light and they were shining.

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They saw the glory of our God, Jesus Christ. This is much like the version of Jesus, actually, that we see in the

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Revelation chapters 1 and 19. The only thing Peter can think of is we need to offer

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Jesus worship. He says, Lord, if you wish it, I will build a tabernacle for you here, right now.

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But then something unexpectedly happens as Peter is talking. It says, while he was speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them and behold, a voice came out of the cloud and said, this is my beloved

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Son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him. And when the disciples heard this, it says they fell face down to the ground and they were terrified.

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In our letter here, Peter calls it the majestic glory. The majestic glory.

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God the Father appears in a bright white cloud, which is a reminder all the way back to the days of the

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Israelites wandering in the wilderness when the glory of God was veiled in a pillar of cloud by day and then a pillar of fire by night.

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The fire and the cloud veiled the Shekinah glory of God. Otherwise, they'd be instantly killed.

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If God had unveiled His full glory, they'd be instantly killed because He is so perfect and holy.

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And the utterance was likely as powerful and commanding as thunder. It made the apostles absolutely terrified.

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The Father endorses the Son in a way here. He says, this is the Son of my love, my beloved.

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In that, God defines the divinity of Jesus that He is not just merely a man, that He is

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God in the flesh. He shows that they are one. They are of the same mind.

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He is well pleased with Jesus and all that Jesus has had to say. And then the command that is now proclaimed around the world, listen to Him.

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That command still stands today. God, the Father from heaven says, listen to my

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Son, Jesus Christ. And we proclaim that to all people. Listen to Christ.

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Listen to my beloved Son. Listen to and obey His commands. Peter was an eyewitness to all of this.

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No doubt something he will never forget and we see why he mentions it. Again here, right in 2

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Peter. But he says essentially to the churches, we were eyewitnesses to Jesus's earthly ministry.

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We saw that we walked with Jesus. More than this, he goes on, we saw Jesus transfigured in glory and authorized by the

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Father on the holy mountain. But there's something that takes this even further.

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There's something that goes beyond just those two things. Verse 19.

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Verse 19 of chapter one, it says, so we have the prophetic word made more sure.

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We have the prophetic word, the logos made more sure in the Greek. Babayoteron, the word more reliable, unshifting, something firm to grasp onto.

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We have a word that has always been an anchor. And what is that if it's not simply walking with Jesus in His earthly ministry or being a witness to His transfiguration?

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Something only he and two others got to see. The word made more certain is all that we see in verses 19 through 21.

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That the Scriptures are from God and that they have always promised a Messiah. They have prescribed what the

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Messiah will do, what He will accomplish, how He will suffer, how

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He will defeat the effects of the fall and works of the devil, crushing Satan's head while being crucified on the cross.

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The prophecies of Scripture reveal the Messiah's kingship and lordship that after His triumph, when

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He said it is finished, He had been given all authority and an everlasting kingdom that is never to fade away.

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Peter's seen a lot, but he points us to Scripture for the authority behind His eyewitness.

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And likely not realizing that the historical eyewitness and His letters would soon be recognized with the rest of the prophetic word.

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The Greek rendering could actually be more fully confirmed or guaranteed.

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His account is essentially parallel with the word of God. What he relays here, what he saw on the

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Mount of Transfiguration is parallel now with the word. The apostolic testimony of the

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New Testament confirms the prophetic word of the old.

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So what Peter is doing is establishing the fullness of the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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And he says we are to pay attention to it. We are to pay attention to this revelation.

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How close are we to pay attention to it? Let me illustrate it like this.

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Have you ever been camping before in a forest or a secluded spot? I'm sure some of you have.

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I grew up in Southern California in Phoenix and my dad was like kind of a surfer guy and he never took us camping or anything at all.

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But once I got married, we went with the church and we went camping and we're out in the middle of nowhere in Northern Arizona and just pine country.

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And you could see the stars so clearly. It's just glorious, God's creation. And so if you've been camping like that, you will know it just gets pitch black at night.

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It just gets completely pitch black. We were tent camping. And of course, if one of my girls got to go to the restroom and walk 20 yards, it's like you're going every time with them.

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We gotta go. Oh man, we gotta go to bed. Instead of I gotta go to the bathroom.

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So you unzip the tent and you walk out and it's just pitch black outside.

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And I'd grab my bright lantern. And as I clung to the lantern, they clung to me behind me as we try to get to a spot for the bathroom in this pitch black pitch blackness.

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Some of you know what I'm talking about. And it was so dark that the light from the lantern would pierce through everything.

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It cut the darkness with its radiance. And that is how we are to pay attention to this truth.

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Like as if it's a lamp and we're clinging to this truth like a light that is in front of us.

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That is what Peter is talking about here. Like as if you were in a place that is pitch black as dark as can be, all you have is a lamp shining in front of you to guide your next steps.

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Psalm 119, 105 puts it this way. The psalmist says, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

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More than that, who is the word? Jesus Christ. Who is the light of the world? Jesus Christ.

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So in a way we are saying, Jesus, you are like a lamp to my feet. Jesus, you guide my path.

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That's what we're saying. Moving on it says, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.

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Until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts. That sounds beautiful.

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What is Peter saying here? These words actually hark in our minds back to Luke chapter one, when

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John the Baptist's father Zacharias was mute. He was mute. And after John was born, it says

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Zacharias' tongue was loosed and he started to praise God. Then the

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Lord put a magnificent prophecy in Zacharias' lips. So definitely go back and read this whole prophecy in Luke chapter one.

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Check that out. But I'm gonna read what Zacharias says in verses 78 and 79.

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It says this, because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the sunrise from on high will visit us to shine upon those who sit in darkness in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace.

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The sunrise from on high will visit us. And that sunrise is

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Jesus. He will be incarnate. He will visit His people. He will be Emmanuel, God, with us.

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Just like Peter's word, the day that dawns is the sunrise from on high.

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When the day dawns and over the Wasatch Mountains, the sun creeps up and rises over those mountains.

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The day dawns. The sunrise comes. And Jesus is the sunrise.

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It's as sure as day. Christ has come. Peter finishes that beautiful sentence with, and the morning star rises in your hearts.

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You know what's really interesting? Very interesting. Check this out.

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Even Satan is called the morning star in Isaiah chapter 14, verse 22.

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And Jesus confirms it in Luke 10, when Jesus says, and I saw

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Satan fall like lightning from the heavens to the ground. Jesus says that.

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He's called the morning star. Satan is also called a lion. A lion prowling around, seeking those whom he may devour.

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But Christ is called the lion. Christ is the true lion.

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He is the lion of Judah. He is the kingly lion, the royal lion, majestic.

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Is Satan and Jesus opposites on the same level? Not even close.

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Not even in the same category. Not even close. Jesus is the

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Creator. John 1, Colossians 1, all things have been created through Him, by Him, and for Him.

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And Satan, Lucifer, is just a fallen angel. He's a creature. Not even close.

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And so, just as the lion, there is a radical difference in the star titles.

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The star titles, morning star. Revelation 22, verse 16 defines that difference best when it says, this is

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Jesus, I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things for the churches.

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I am the root and descendant of David, the bright and morning star.

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Jesus says He is the bright morning star. The better, the authentic one with bright light.

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Satan is of the darkness. Satan is the father of lies. Satan, it says, masquerades around like an angel of light, a deceiver from the beginning.

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He is a fraud seeking always to be God. He can only produce weak copycat tactics.

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Weak copycat tactics. He's not even close. Jesus is the bright and morning star that arises in the hearts of men and women.

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Now, is this simply about Jesus coming into the world as the light and He will finally defeat darkness at the consummation of all things?

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Is that what it's talking about? I don't think it's just talking about that. More than that, this is about a light that illumines the heart.

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The Holy Spirit illumines our hearts, our minds, and we are given eyes to see.

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And we wonder how we could have ever missed it, right? You ever thought that now as a believer?

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You're like, how could I have ever missed it before? Like a star shining in the sky.

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And someone goes, don't you see it? I can't see it. What are you talking about? It's right there.

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Don't you see it? And then finally, God opens your eyes and you lock your eyes on the brightest star in the sky you've ever seen in your life.

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And you go, how could I have missed this? How could I have missed this?

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Glorious, this is the bright and brilliant, the brightest star I've ever seen.

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Amen. Paul puts it this way in his letter to the Ephesians. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you will know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance and the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe.

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And so may the star who is Christ bring light to the eyes of all people's hearts.

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That's our hope. Go down to verse 20. It says, but know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation.

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This verse has had its disputes over the centuries. Roman Catholics have used this verse to say, see, you need the

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Roman church, you need the Pope to tell you what the correct interpretation is. And they warned

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Martin Luther as he translated the Bible into German for the common man, that it would bring tons of wickedness and distortion.

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Has that happened since? In many ways, it has happened, but just like Luther understood then and we understand now, the simple gospel displayed in this very word can be often understandable to a child.

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We run more risk withholding truth from men and women and not holding fallible men accountable to the infallible

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Word than we do making it accessible to every man, woman, and child.

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We run more risk. Why do you think in China and North Korea, they try not to only keep missionaries out, but they try to keep

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Bibles out. They'll like drone cases of Bibles into North Korea.

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Why do you think they're trying to keep that from happening? That Word, this Word is powerful. This inspired word,

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Theonistos, God -breathed Word brings life. It can open the eyes of the heart, it says.

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Some say we need the Christian community to help with interpretations. And God may use that, but it may be that just as God gives the

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Word by the Spirit, He grants understanding, He grants the interpretation by His Spirit.

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We need the Holy Spirit to illuminate the Scriptures to us so that we can understand what they mean.

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Even in my own life before Christ saved me, I would try to read the Bible or listen to it on an audio version and it was such an arduous and tedious task.

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I just could not get it. What are these words? They were like nonsense to me. I know that sounds blasphemous, but they were.

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They were like nonsense to me. The wisdom of God, as Corinthians says, is truly foolishness to the perishing man.

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And yet with all that said about interpretations, I don't think verse 20 is really talking about interpretation at all according to Correct Existence of Jesus.

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I think there's some application there, but I don't think it's really talking about that. Let me tell you,

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I think it's actually talking much more about origin. Like Paul's letter to Timothy.

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Scripture isn't a matter of a prophet's opinion, but from the very mouth of God.

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Interpretation or private interpretation is misleading here. Peter is not concerned about hermeneutics or exegesis and interpreting it correctly.

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It is about origin, source. It is about the basis of Scripture's authority.

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The prophetic testimony in Scripture comes from God. And this would actually follow well with Peter's warning about false teaching where according to 3 .16

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it says that these men twist the meaning of Paul's letters along with the rest of Scripture.

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And so, you're like, but it says interpretation. Let me clarify.

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The Greek rendering for interpretation could be stated like this. No prophecy of Scripture comes from one's own unloosing.

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One's own unloosing. That's the Greek word. It's much like what I said with Zacharias. He was mute, and then the

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Lord took away that muteness and it says his tongue was loosed. So that means speaking.

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Speaking, okay? This shows Peter's concern is more about source.

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In other words, no Scripture of the Old Testament was unloosed by the human writers themselves.

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Well then, what is the source? We already talked about it. We understand verse 20 better by the reading of verse 21.

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It says, For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the

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Holy Spirit spoke from God. Never was a prophecy or Scripture given by a human in the ultimate sense.

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The Greek word for was ever is so strong, it is saying never ever.

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Never was there ever or ever will there be a prophecy made by an act of human will.

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That's how strong it is. The will as in what one wishes to happen or come about by one's own actions.

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That's will. When Jesus prays to the Father, He says your kingdom come, your will be done.

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That is the same use of will right here. It was God's desire.

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It was God's own actions from His own being and mouth that brought forth

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His prophetic word. Dr. James White puts it this way, while men are speaking, they are doing so under the power and direction of the

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Holy Spirit, so that the result of this divine miracle is, as Paul put it, God breathed.

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It is not the men themselves who are inspired, but the Scriptures, which is the result of this divine initiative in Revelation.

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And it complements the sermon from last week so well, 2 Timothy 3 .16,

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all Scripture is spoken by God. And so how does this word come to us?

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This is what I was talking about at the beginning. We see 2 Timothy and 2 Peter both talk about source and origin, but 2

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Peter provides us now the other angle. A look at the mode of delivery.

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Mode of delivery. How was this God -breathed word given? It says, but men moved by the

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Holy Spirit spoke from God. And so I'm actually gonna borrow an analogy from the late

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Dr. R .C. Sproul, in regards to this text, moved by the Holy Spirit.

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Spirit is, of course, pneuma. Pneuma can be translated breath or even wind.

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And the biblical writers in this way are like a ship out at the open sea and there's nothing there.

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They're just on the water on this ship. And without wind in the sails of the ship, it remains inert and motionless.

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Only when the sails are filled with something external to itself, does it then move.

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Even so, this analogy isn't perfect because we understand that the rudder and the angle of the sails and where the ship goes is all

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God's doing. It's all external to itself. And yet, what's happening here is not robotic.

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It's not robotic. This is not automatic writing. This isn't occultic.

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This isn't automatic writing. At one Mormon general conference, a speaker said that the magic stone in the hat that Joseph Smith dictated the

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Book of Mormon to Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, or Martin Harris, that stone, he says, read,

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I think he pulled out his smartphone if I remember correctly, and he said that stone read like a text message to Joseph Smith with his head in the hat and the magic stone.

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And apparently, on that stone were the words God wanted Joseph Smith to record.

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I know that's the Book of Mormon and that's not the Bible, but I want you to see the substantial disparity between the two.

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God does not even dictate like that where just magic words come up and then they copy them down real quick before they go away.

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That's not what we see in the Word of God here. They are carried along.

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It says by the Holy Spirit. And of course, this occurred in a variety of ways. We see in the

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Word historical narratives in which God moved men like Moses to record the historical record and words of God in what's called the

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Pentateuch, which are the first five books of the Bible. We see history. We see the narratives.

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We see the stories and we love them. And then we get to Leviticus and genealogies and numbers and measurements and we go, well,

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I guess I'll start this in January again, all over. But we have that.

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We see in the major and minor prophets that God would speak directly to the prophet and told him to write down words.

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And he does that and he tells them to even do it maybe audibly to warn the people. This, of course, produced prophecies with things that said, thus saith the

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Lord. That's where we hear that. You have the Psalms which have a literary form in poetry and yet God carried the

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Psalmist along to put truth in them regarding his creation, his being, and even prophecies of the coming

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Messiah of Jesus Christ. Psalm 2, Psalm 22, Psalm 23, Psalm 72,

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Psalm 110, all those. And by God's spirit,

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Solomon wrote the wisdom literature we know today as the Proverbs. In addition to that, the majority of the

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New Testament canon is made up of letters from various apostles and disciples of Christ.

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The purpose of these letters largely deal with cases of church discipline and sin and also especially the warning of false teachers, no doubt.

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And in those letters of correction come also high theology, high theology of Christ, salvation, sin, and the last days, eschatology, which are typically, the

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New Testament letters are kind of like commentary and expositions of the truth concealed in the

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Old Testament now revealed in the New. The men who God carried along by the

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Holy Spirit were shepherds, fishermen, priests, physicians, tent makers, and prophets, a variety of men.

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Some wrote in Hebrew, some wrote in Aramaic. Most of the New Testament is in what's called

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Koine Greek, that's common Greek, common Greek of the day. All had varying levels of education, right?

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In the book of Acts, they say that Peter, John, and James, these are unlearned men, these are uneducated men.

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Where did they get this message? They had differing vocabularies and unique literary styles.

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I used to get in trouble in school for run -on sentences, and yet sometimes the apostle

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Paul has a run -on sentence for like 15 verses. It just goes on and on, it's like,

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Paul, come on, man, didn't you go to school? He did, he said it under Gamaliel.

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And yet through all the human elements, the text says not one of the words they wrote was of their own human will.

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All of it was from God and through God. And so we have such a variety of writers, but a unity in message, a unity in message.

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And so, you might think I'm ending there, I'm not, strap in, no, I'm just kidding.

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We have one last part to this, and I wanna put some legs on this for you guys.

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I showed you last week how to apply 2 Timothy 3 in the training of righteousness and equipping of Christians.

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But I wanna finish up our time talking about the canon of Scripture. And of course, the canon is not typically something that makes everyone sit on the edge of their seat going,

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I want more, tell me about the canon. But I hope it excites you guys, I think it's important to have an apologetic for this.

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So as Christians, we say wholeheartedly that we believe the Bible is God's word. Yeah, that's

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God's word. We've heard our pastor say, it's inerrant, it's inerrant. It's infallible, it's infallible.

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We repeat these things, we believe it. God's word is God's word, but when it comes to questions on how it was formed, we so often can't articulate a response.

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Why are the 66 books that we have in our Bibles in our Bibles? Why have other things been left out?

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Why did some things have slower attestation? We need an apologetic, as I said.

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Because when your atheist cousin this Thanksgiving asks you about maybe the Gnostic Gospels, like the

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Gospel of Thomas, and why it wasn't included in the canon, what would you say?

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You might go with history and go, well, that wasn't until like centuries after the apostles anyways.

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You might go that route. You might go somewhere else. But we have to have an answer. When you're witnessing to your

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Mormon neighbors and they make a claim that the canon was formed by men at the

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Council of Nicaea, how do you respond? Just to be clear, Nicaea has nothing to do with the formation of Scripture.

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This won't be a comprehensive thing, but I just wanna give you a few things to lock onto regarding the canon, then we'll wrap up the night and take communion.

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Canon is a measuring rod. It is like a fixed ruler, so to speak.

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And so the canon of Scripture is the complete and fixed extent of what books are

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God's. These books are God's and what are not, what are outside of this.

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This is the ruler. It goes no further. And so that is canon.

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What we need to understand is that there was no process of determining or selecting what was in the canon.

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There wasn't. The key word is recognition. Not determining, not selecting, it was recognition.

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What was recognized to already be canon. And compared to the New Testament, the

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Old Testament has had much less controversy over recognition of its canonical status.

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Hebrew scholars and later even early Christians had discovered the canon of the

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Tanakh, the Old Testament, as we know today. There wasn't as much of an issue there. And yet the

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Apocrypha, you might have heard of the Apocrypha from Roman Catholics, that did not make it into the canon.

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It does have some historical truths to it. It does have some moral relevancy to the

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Old Testament, but it lacked divine qualities. The Apocrypha is not in the

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Old Testament. That has like the Maccabees and stuff like that. Good history, just not Scripture. Jesus, of course, was the supreme authority over the

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Old Testament canon as he calls it God's Word in Matthew 5. When he references, he says the law and the prophets, they're

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God's Word, boom. Jesus is the authority over the Old Testament. But the 27 books in the

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New Testament were a bit more of a challenge than the old. We see even in the

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New Testament, the writers had started to recognize the inspiration of other New Testament writers' words.

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What do I mean? For instance, in 1 Timothy 5, verse 18, Paul makes reference to Deuteronomy 25, and then he references to Luke 10, putting them on the same level of authority and authenticity, the gospel according to Luke and Deuteronomy.

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Paul says they're on the same level. He makes that connection. Paul considered

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Luke's gospel as Scripture. We already kind of touched on it briefly earlier.

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Here in our letter, we're studying 2 Peter 3, 15 and 16. Peter says, just as our beloved brother

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Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort as they do the rest of the

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Scriptures to their own destruction. So Peter's even recognizing here that Paul's written to you guys, to the

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Asia Minor churches in what would be modern day Turkey. There was Galatia, Cappadocia, all that area.

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Ephesus would have been there as well. Paul's written to you guys as well. And even Peter admits,

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Paul's got hard things to understand, which is kind of humorous when you think about it.

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When you read Romans or Galatians, there can be some hard truths in there. So even Peter sympathizes with us as we study

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Paul's letters. But here Peter puts also Paul's letters on the same level of inspiration as quote, the rest of Scriptures.

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Essentially, there are four main criteria that the early church fathers used to recognize, not select, what books were inspired for the

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New Testament. These were the early church fathers. They said, one, the book must have apostolic authorship or approval.

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For instance, when Luke wrote, he wasn't an apostle, but he was a close associate of Paul.

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Luke followed Paul on all his missionary journeys.

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So either apostolic authorship or approval. Two, the teachings must agree with Scripture and apostolic teaching.

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In other words, they must be of sound orthodoxy. Some books were forgeries that Paul even warns about circulating with his name.

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And in 2 Thessalonians, Paul says, there's letters going around that have my name on it.

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Don't listen to them. They were forgeries. And so forgeries are immediately rejected, not to be in the canon.

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And they almost always deviate from Christ's teachings. Remember last week,

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I talked about the law of non -contradiction. Three, the book must be accepted by the body of Christ at large.

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And so I want to make something clear because I think this is so very important for us to understand with canon.

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This is a very delicate subject. The book must be accepted by the body of Christ at large.

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Let me let you understand what that means. This is not like they had all the books of the

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New Testament spread out on a table in the 300's or in the 4th century.

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Excuse me. This is not like they had all 27 books spread out on a table and they played eeny, meeny, miny, moe or they looked at the criteria and they made a choice and there was some books that were there in addition to the 27 and then they picked them out.

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That's not what I'm saying. When I give this information, I want you to understand that very early on, these letters in the

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New Testament, these Gospels had already been circulating throughout the Mediterranean area.

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Already through the Roman Empire. They were already being read. They were being copied. You know, the letter to the

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Ephesians was being copied and then they sent it to Colossae and then those in Thessalonica would receive their letter and oh my gosh, this is glorious.

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This is Scripture. And so by the time that even these centuries rolled around, all these letters, all these books in the

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New Testament were already widely accepted and understood and recognized to be

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Scripture even before we got to this point. I want you to understand that it's not like Scriptures, books on a table and then they're picking and ordering it.

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That's not what occurred here. Okay? Number four, the book must have marks of divine inspiration and authority.

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Is there a witness of the Holy Spirit? Again, we must understand the sovereignty and work of God behind the canon.

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It was His choosing. Just as He moved men along by the Holy Spirit to write

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His words, so they were moved by the Spirit in recognizing the books of the canon.

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There are many who try to say we must define canonization by a historical or natural approach.

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The problem is if you approach a supernatural thing like God's Word with a natural perspective, you will get natural results.

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You will get natural results. And that's just it. Whoever says they can approach the canon of Scripture with neutrality like liberal theologians or those who are professors in state colleges and they do these

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Christianity classes and they have curriculum with Bart Ehrman. Look him up sometime.

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Just complete error. But he studies the New Testament. And when they say they can approach the

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Scripture, the canon with neutrality, they're kidding themselves. They're kidding themselves. Everyone has a worldview that acts as a lens in which they view the canon.

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As I said, these are spiritual and supernatural books and we ought to approach them theologically. Dr. White calls the canon an artifact of revelation.

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You see, there are two types of canon. There's only one canon, okay, but there are philosophically two types.

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There is the ontological canon, the canon that is known to God, because all that is theanoustos, all that is

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God -breathed, has been determined from all eternity. Consider it like this.

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If I myself were to write several books and maybe even never having published them yet, and there was a misunderstanding on if I had written more books than the few that I had written.

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By the way, I have no books. I've written no books. If I, though, hypothetically had these books and people were confused about if there was more to them,

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I would be the one who would understand what my canon is. I would know, as the author, what books are in my canon and what books aren't in my canon.

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And that's the same way with God. He has perfect knowledge of what books are His and are in His canon.

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The canon as He knows it isn't broken by what we don't know about it. In other words, even when it was not yet complete in our eyes, it was already formed.

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The Scriptures are self -attesting, self -authenticating. If anyone or anything authenticated it by appealing to their own authority, that person or thing would have a higher authority than that of the

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Scriptures. There is no higher authority, my friends. It is the Word of God. And therefore, one cannot authenticate the canon without appealing to the canon itself.

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So there is canon as God knows it, and there's the process of the canon in the

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Old Testament and the New Testament as writers penned the words of God over a millennium, even when they didn't know it.

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And then there's canon as officially recognized and church unity was reached regarding it.

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And that unity, complete unity, was reached in the late 300s. And I almost don't even want to throw dates out there because, again,

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I want you to understand that the canon was established before the foundations of the world.

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It is God's Word. And so, understand it would have taken time for letters to circulate in their region.

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It's not like our instantaneous information of today. But, you know, it's amazing, as early as the 100s, the majority of the canon, minus like four books, was already being recognized.

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These are God's words. So when I say not officially until the 300s, the majority of it was in the 100s.

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And so, as Christians, we need to approach the canon, not historically, not naturally, but presuppositionally, theologically, in other words.

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All, as Christians, we operate in the biblical worldview and this canon was determined by God and known to Him before they were even penned.

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And so, when someone brings up the Gospel of Thomas or what's called the Gospel of Peter, ask them if they've even read it.

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And we're wrapping up, we're wrapping up. Ask them if they've even read it when someone says, have you seen this?

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This totally destroys your worldview about the canon. It's like, have you even read them?

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Read them. Now, there are books that were rejected from the canon that were really good, like the

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Didache, Shepherd of Hermas, or the Epistle of Barnabas, but they were rejected. Still orthodox and helpful, but they did not make it.

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They just did not have the authority of the Scriptures. The Gnostic Gospels are completely untrue.

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They're riddled with heresy. And sometimes all you have to do is read one of these

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Gospels with someone and that'll do the trick. The Gospel of Peter, I'll just say real quick, the

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Gospel of Peter, that's, by the way, don't get confused because you're hearing the name Peter. The Gospel of Peter is not in Scripture.

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It is not the Bible at all. Listen to what happens in the

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Gospel of Peter. It says that, it gives the account of the resurrection.

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It says that the tomb opened up and three men walked out of the tomb. It says two of the men were leading one, and the two in the front, it says that they were as tall as the clouds.

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It says that literally, they're as tall as the clouds. And it says Jesus followed after them.

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And it says that He was taller than the clouds. So apparently

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Jesus is as tall as a skyscraper in the Gospel of Peter. And then, this is what's crazy, is after these three leave the tomb, the cross apparently has legs and it says the cross walks out after Jesus.

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And then a voice from heaven says, have you spoke to those who need to hear it or something like that?

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I'm sorry. And it says the cross spoke and said, yeah. The cross spoke.

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So the cross walked after, cross walked. The cross walked after them and then the cross spoke.

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And so apparently Jesus got to keep it even after He was crucified. It's just absurd.

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So again, if anyone ever brings up one of these Gnostic Gospels, be like, have you ever even read it?

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I think in the Gospel of Thomas, it says that Jesus was playing tricks and being disobedient to His mother and things like that.

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That might be another one. But again, this is just to help you to understand the canon when these things come up.

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So all in all, brothers and sisters, remember, we can trust God's Word. He's preserved

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His Word. He says heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.

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God's Word stands secure. We can trust God in every aspect of the origin, delivery, and preservation of His Word.

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Peter walked with Christ on the earth. He saw Him transfigured and approved by the Father, but we haven't.

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We haven't seen the things that Peter has seen. We haven't seen these with our own eyes, but we believe them.

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We believe them. We believe them by faith because we have the prophetic Word made more sure, more certain, because we have all of the accounts of Jesus' earthly ministry, crucifixion, burial, resurrection, and ascension in this

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Word of God. We have the account of the unveiling glory of Jesus Christ on the mountain.

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We have all the prophecies and shadows and types and words of Jesus throughout the whole of Scripture.

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And it is a lamp to our feet because the bright and morning star has risen in our hearts, illuminating that which was dark and dead.

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Just as these men were carried along by the Holy Spirit in writing these words, we believe these words because we're carried along by the

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Holy Spirit. Amen. Let's pray. Father, please bless the message that went out.

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Again, Lord, I pray that it would glorify You. And I pray, Lord, that it would be beneficial to Your people.

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We can laugh at some of these false gospels, Lord, and see how silly they are,

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Lord, but we can also, Lord, look to Your true Word and understand that it was never altered by men.

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It was never ordered by men. It was never spoken through men.

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But God, Your Word has always come from You. You are the source.

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All Scripture is God -breathed, even when You used a variety of men to accomplish the mode of delivery.

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So, Lord, please encourage us with this message. Please bless