2 Peter, 1:16-21

Okay, 2 Peter chapter 1, verses 16-21. It kind of gives some preparatory notes here. The main theme of Peter's last message, from here on by last message, I mean the whole book of 2 Peter, right, is discernment. He is turning a corner. Remember previously he laid out things, you've been given everything. by his divine power for life and godliness.

And he's turning a corner here where he's setting the stage for dealing with discernment with some minor notes, and certainly there's a powerful upstroke in 2 Peter 3.18, but grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Nonetheless, he's going to, as a main theme, be talking about discernment.

Now, why is discernment important? Why does discernment matter? Spiritual discernment? So that you know the truth, alright? And why does that matter? Okay, yeah, we need to know the truth because then we're set free from the old man. Yes? Without the truth, you're hopeless. Okay? Yeah. You're alright. Okay.

We notice here, he's setting the stage in these verses here this morning for the false teachers here. He doesn't go directly into the character of the false teachers. He starts with the character of the truth. How are you going to know whether this is true or false unless you know the character of the truth?

So that's what he's going to do. He's going to lay out what is the character of the truth, and then you've got the measuring stick to measure everything else. Does this square up with scripture? Right? So that's what he's going to do here. And that's why he's setting the stage in the way that he does. He doesn't just go, you know, here's how you need to live and immediately jump into false teachers.

He says, Here is the character of God's Word. Here is the character of the truth. That's the standard by which you will know the true from the false. So the two points here we have are the assurance of truth and reality from apostolic witnesses, that's our first few verses, verses 16-18, and the assurance of truth and reality from Old Testament prophets, verses 19-21. So that's the pattern. Let's read 2 Peter 1, 16-18.

For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when we received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to him by the majestic glory. This is my beloved 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."

Okay, so here's Peter. He includes himself among these witnesses. Notice what pronouns he used there. We, okay? He didn't say those guys, okay? Those guyses. None of that. No, he says we. And so he lays that out there in that sense. And so he's making reference here to the apostles' testimony.

And he, just right at the outset, puts it in sharp contrast to the myths, to the stories, and to the fables. Now, think about what some of these myths are. What kind of myths were around during Peter's day? What kind of cleverly devised fables? What kind of tales were around in his day? Yeah, Jesus as a created being was one of them that was out there, and so there was that.

What else? What other kind of myths were out there? Cleverly devised tales. What about the Greeks? Did the Greeks have myths? Yeah, the Greeks had myths that they had come up with. And the truth is, a lot of the cultures in the Roman Empire, and even to the east, had a number of myths. The Romans had theirs, the Egyptians had theirs, and the Egyptian religion was still prominent in the eastern part of the Mediterranean.

You also had, in addition to those, you also had the Jews have their own myths. Isn't that interesting? The Jews, here they had the Old Testament scripture, on top of that they developed additional mythologies. They came up with other names of angels, aside from what scripture reveals. They came up with not just those, they also came up with other stories.

One of them we brought up recently is, for example, they said that if you're a descendant of Abraham, you're not going to hell. As a matter of fact, their myth was that Abraham sat at the gate of hell to make sure that no Jew ever went in. That was one of their myths. And so people would come up with various stories and accounts, and he was saying, we didn't follow any of that, and we're not cooking up something.

He says, we're telling you exactly what we saw. So to give an idea, here's how the apostles and their associates wrote. Here's Luke chapter 1 verses 1 through 4. And as much as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught. Does it sound like Luke is into sloppy? Not so much, does it?

He says, I checked it out. We're talking eyewitnesses. The exact truth. He is very much interested in reality and precision, isn't he? telling you precisely the way it went. Here's 1 John, and John, by the way, is one of the three apostles who personally witnessed this incident we're seeing here in 2 Peter, what's sometimes called the Mount of Transfiguration. And here's the way John describes it.

What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands concerning the word of life, and the life was manifested. And we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us. What we have seen and heard, we proclaim to you also so that you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed, our fellowship was with the Father and with the Son, Jesus Christ.

John's not into making stuff up either, is he? He is very much talking here not about, you know, I kind of sort of had this dream, or I had this little vision, and you know, it seems to be about this way, or you know, none of that. He says, this is precisely what I have seen and heard, and he even uses this word testify. Okay? Testifying, with a legal sense. What's that? Yes. Yeah. I saw it. We've seen it.

Isn't this the same, the we, the mutual testimony that Peter just talked about? Right. And that's one thing, is you will find the apostles, and you'll see it repeatedly, and we'll see it shortly in the early chapters of Acts. They made reference not to just, here's Peter standing here by himself.

Hey, I saw this, and believe me, because I remember it and all that. Frequently, we. We, and those who saw it are here today. That kind of multiple reference where there was an appeal to the many witnesses right here. You need two or three? Hey, we got that beat. How about a dozen? Alright, let's take a look at the second page here.

Here we got examples from Acts. Here is Acts chapter 2. This is the day of Pentecost. Peter is speaking to Jews who have come for the Pentecost events there in Jerusalem. And he is testifying on the opening day of the church, if you will, Acts 2, verse 32. Jesus God raised up again to which we are all witnesses You see that pattern again. We all okay our witnesses Acts 3 13 through 15 the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob the God of our fathers has glorified his servant Jesus the one whom you delivered oh boy that feels good and disowned in the presence of Pilate and when he had decided to release him, but you disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, but put to death the Prince of Life, the one whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses." Same pattern, isn't it?

And when he says we, it wasn't like, you know, I'm here and there's nobody else around, but you can see him if you want to. Yeah, I guess there were others around who had seen, but there were plenty right there. Right there. Same pattern, and I won't read the whole thing, but just jump to it in chapter 10. This is when Peter is speaking to those in Cornelius' household over on the Mediterranean coast, and he's speaking to those who are Gentiles. But notice he speaks the same way.

We are witnesses of all the things he did. Both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. At the bottom of that passage there, "...but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God, that is, to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead." Multiple witnesses, testimony. They keep talking, and it's not just Peter. We, we, we. You doubt it? You can talk to them. Multiple people. We've all seen it. We'll all tell you the same story.

Chapter 13, here he is speaking among the churches that we're studying in the main service, the churches in Galatia, right? How does he end? Verse 31, For many days he appeared to those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, the very ones who are now his witnesses to the people. There's Paul speaking. What does Paul say in 1 Corinthians chapter 15?

He appeared to 500 plus others. So 500 plus is the number and multiple appearances. Now this line we take now from the second Peter passage, but when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. Peter was describing an event here that is also described in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, which was a powerful display of Christ's majesty in his first coming.

So now we have this supplement. Take a look at this last page here. It's the one-page supplement. Here are the four major Mount of Transfiguration accounts. We also have a brief reference to it in the Gospel of John. We beheld His glory. but explicit reference to this Mount of Transfiguration account.

And just to give you a sense of what that looks like, here's a map of the area that includes Israel. And we're going to take a look at the top part of that. All right, so here's the top or northern part of what is Israel. And Mount Tabor and Mount Hermon, which admittedly are some distance apart, but on Israel scale, not that far, those are the two places where it's thought that might be one of those two locations. Mount Tabor looks like this. So you see a couple of shots of the mountain itself and then one from the mountain down on the adjacent plain. And here is Mount Hermon, which is a fair amount higher and actually has some skiing available on it. So it might have been either one of those. But let's read through the Matthew account, just simply to get some kind of background there.

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, his brother, and led them up on a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his garments became as white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with them. Peter said to Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will make three tabernacles here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him. When the disciples heard this, they fell face down on the ground and were terrified. And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, Go up and do not be afraid. And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone."

This is the event that is recorded in the first three Gospels and by Peter, here in 2 Peter, and also made brief reference to in the Gospel of John chapter 1. It says, we beheld his glory. Okay, now taking a look at this 2 Peter passage again here. This is, we're on top of page 3, okay? And we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain. So here's the first three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The report of this event has told them by the three who were witnesses to these events, including Peter, one of the witnesses there.

By the time Peter had written this letter, John was still alive and would be for a few more decades. So think about it. Here's Peter saying we, and John was still around. James, the brother of John, was put to death with a sword less than two decades after these events. This is recorded for us in Acts chapter 12. So Peter, James, and John were the ones up there. By the time of the writing of this letter, John had been put to death with a sword, excuse me, James had been put to death with a sword.

Peter and John were still around and remaining. Peter, however, realizes, as we mentioned last week, some of the language indicates that he realizes his life is coming to a close. He talks about the time of his departure. Now, we have here a section, a look farther back, a look nearby, and a look farther forward. Let's step through that.

You can see a few parallels between a Mount of Transfiguration event and that in Exodus 24. What am I making reference to there in Exodus 24? What happened in Exodus 24? Here's where Moses was up on the mountain, and so there's some similarities there. There are also a number of differences. They both involve a mountain and Moses.

The father also gave similar testimony regarding a son when Christ was baptized by John the Baptist. Let's take a look here, Matthew 3, 16 and 17. After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on him. And behold, a voice out of the heavens said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

You can see that the Apostle John was granted views of the glorified Lord once again in passages of the Revelation, even in chapter 1. And then again in chapter 5, and in the very last few chapters as well. From chapter 4 on, that is in Revelation, the appearances of Christ to which John was a witness remain even yet future in our own time.

Isn't that interesting? John was given not only this Mount of Transfiguration event that three of the Gospels record very directly and Peter just made reference to, but John was given beyond that the privilege of seeing time that we ourselves count in our future yet to take place. Kind of amazing. All right, let's look at the next part.

We've been through one part where there's the apostles' testimony, and Peter's telling you, we didn't just make stuff up. We saw the Lord's glory, and we are very much witnesses of these things. Not just, you know, we all made this up together, but we are witnesses of these things. We testify to their truth.

Here in 2 Peter 1, 19-21, Now it's going to shift into the Old Testament prophets. Let me read that. 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 rises in your hearts. But know this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

Alright, so now, what's the meaning of this phrase, so we have the prophetic word made more sure? A lot of folks have discussed, you know, what does that mean? You're not sure about it, but you are now, or you weren't sure and now you're more sure? What is that talking about here?

Peter seems to be saying this, that in addition to the witness to Christ's majesty and deity and holiness contained in what was becoming, because remember the New Testament wasn't done yet, what was becoming the New Testament by the hand of the apostles and their associates. Now why do we say the New Testament is by the hand of the apostles and their associates? Is that it?

We've got Mark. He's not directly one of the apostles, but he is one of the associates. As a matter of fact, we see here in Peter's writings that Mark was with him. And tradition has it that Peter was an associate of Mark as Mark wrote this. Another one would be Luke. We made reference to Luke. Luke appears to have been a Gentile physician, doctor, Dr. Luke. and wrote over a quarter of the New Testament between the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts.

So we have those who are associates. For those books for which the apostles themselves do not take direct authority, there is an associate related to each of those. Now we have these Old Testament prophets. They serve to further confirm and establish the certainty of the total revelation and testimony of the Word of God. These two testimonies are radically in conflict, right?

No, they are in great harmony, and that's a part of what Peter is putting together here. Let's look at the top of page 4. After telling the believers that they would do well to pay attention to the Old Testament prophets, here's how Peter pictures the testimony of the Old Testament prophets concerning Christ in the world and in the lives of the believers in the rest of verse 19.

Point one, as to a lamp shining in a dark place. Two, until the day dawns. And three, and the morning star rises in your hearts. So God's word here is a continuing testimony in the Old Testament and the New, provides a light into the world that remains in spiritual darkness. The world remains in darkness, not us. Let's take a look at this. This is a chart that you're going to see in this morning's message, but I've added something to it to help explain something we're doing here.

The way that the New Testament authors wrote, they wrote about this age, as we see in Galatians, this present evil age. They wrote about this age, and they wrote about the age to come. The next age. They wrote in those terms. We have the present age, and then the next age.

The present evil age is from the time of the fall, the time of Adam's fall into sin, until the time of the Lord's coming. Again, and so they looked, and here's some examples of how that's done out of Matthew, Ephesians and Galatians. You have this present evil age is the age of darkness. And you have the age to come is the time of light.

So, and that was the way that they wrote and talked. They talked about we're in this time, this present evil age, this time of spiritual darkness, and we have this time of light coming. And you'll frequently see that referred to. And interestingly, Paul writes and he says, we are children of light. And makes reference to that. This time of the Lord's coming to reign is a time of light.

We see in this passage reference to the morning star. Let me see here. Some of the pictures might be a little hard to see. The morning star is a star that shows up when? Early. It shows up while it's still dark. At that time, it's the brightest star in the sky. As the sun begins to lighten the sky, the other stars begin to disappear. But as the dawn comes closer and closer, you can still see the morning star. And so you see that from here. Let's see if I can get some other shots. Here's one where you can start to see a little bit of dawn coming and then here's the morning star showing up.

Yes. It's actually Venus? Yes, thank you. It's actually the planet Venus. Here is one you can, boy I kissed the lighting, it's a little tough to see it. The one in the top left is taken from Niagara Falls, looking over American Falls. It's from the Blue Ridge Mountains on the upper right. The one over on the bottom left is Vienna, Austria. And then the one over here is from an observatory in Germany. And here is one, I don't know where it's from. but it also shows a little sliver moon there. And that's the character of the morning star, is that as the dawn begins, all the other stars start to fade, but you can still see the morning star. Now, why would Christ be pictured as a morning star? Why would Christ be pictured as a morning star? It's coming in the rapture. Ah, okay. Now, let's Let's put that on the shelf for a minute. You're on to something here, but let's step our way into it.

Let's think about when does the morning star show up? As a beginning of a new day, but what's it like when the morning star is first showing up? It's still dark. Ah, the darkness is still there, and yet here is this brightest of lights. as the day dawns, still visible. And so there is an early indication of the Lord's second coming. An early indication of the Lord's second coming.

So really what is the morning star? It says in Revelation that Christ himself is the morning star. He is the one who shines while it's still dark. And that shining is an early indication of the light that's coming. And so here we have a picture in the Morning Star of the Lord's coming. What's the first indication of the Lord's coming? What's going to be the first indication of the Lord's second coming? The rapture, when the Lord comes for the church. Yes, and that's what that's the point here the Morning Star arises in your hearts there this is one of several references in the New Testament to a Morning Star and You're right Doug.

Let's take a look at some of these passages here Revelation 226 through 28 is one of the messages to the one of the seven churches He overcomes and he who keeps my deeds until the end to him I'll give authority over the nations and he shall rule them with a rod of iron. This is Christ and As the vessels of the potter are broken to pieces.

That's in Psalm chapter 2 by the way. As I also have received authority from my father, and I will give him the morning star. Well, give him the morning star. What does that mean? Revelation 22 16. Here's the definition. I, Jesus, have seen my angel to testify to you these things for the churches. I am the root and descendant of David.

I put in there in brackets, Ego Emi. What's Ego Emi sound for besides some sort of breakfast? Huh? I am, right? It's the Greek. Yeah, yeah. He is ego eimi, the I am. In the Greek Old Testament, in Exodus chapter 3, the Lord is speaking to Moses, and Moses says, who should I say has sent me? The Lord's answer, same in the Greek Old Testament, same as what you see here. Ego eimi, I am. So you could say, I, being in fact deity, am the root and descendant of David, the bright morning star, Christ himself. He will give himself. And then we have the same perspective about the present night and the coming day in Paul, Romans 13, 12. The night is almost gone, the day is near. This darkness. The Lord is coming, he's telling us.

Now, he says in 2 Peter here, but know this first of all. So what is he doing? He told his readers that they were to keep the principle he was about to spell out as first in priority. That's what the first of all is telling you about. First in priority. The principle wasn't to be forgotten or reduced, but kept central. in the reader's mind.

This word translated no, gnosko, in the view of the context, indicates the mindset that believers are to continue having with regard to prophetic passages. How about that? The passages in the Old Testament, he says, keep them in mind. And here's what he says about them. That no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation. So that means nobody can interpret scripture, right? Can't interpret scripture? I have no idea what it says.

Right? Is that what he means? No. I see heads shaking. Yes? No? Okay. Alright. He is setting the stage, and I think we keep this in mind, he is setting the stage for the false teachers and talking about, you know, warning about the false teachers. So what's he trying to tell them here? He's trying to tell them, the false teachers cannot come to you and say, I know what this really says, and you've got to believe me, because I know. And if you believe me, and you listen to what I say, and I'll tell you what this means, nobody else knows, then you and I will know, and that's the way we're going to tell how this is true, right?

But it's our secret. Right? No. He is countering that. He says, people aren't going to come up and have some kind of private, you know, hey, I know, you know, and if I tell you, then you'll know, but it's our secret, right? No, he's warning against that because that's exactly what they're going to do. What do we have frequently in the various groups that come up? It's somebody that says, hey, I know, rather than an understanding objectively. What does this say? How do we know what scripture says? It's not private. It's not, I know and you don't, okay? It's none of this stuff. It's not exclusive.

It's what does scripture say? And we look at it as the Holy Spirit inspired it and as the author intended. And we look for that meaning. Not secret meanings. not meanings pronounced by some authority, somebody who says they know. But what does the scripture say? That's our bottom line there. All right, let's take a look at page five.

For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. Did the prophets of the Old Testament write the books that they claim to write? We studied Isaiah for a little better than a year, right? Isaiah write that?

Yeah. So what's he saying here? Is he denying that these Old Testament prophets wrote what they wrote? What's he saying? It wasn't their personal knowledge. Yeah, he's saying it was not something that they cooked up. They didn't decide, hey, you know, I think I'll write something here. And I'll put this down. And, you know, that'll be that'll be my declaration. Because, you know, I'm the one that knows. No, what he says here is the Holy Spirit moved or carried along The word there means to carry along those who spoke prophetically in the scriptures. They spoke and wrote words as human beings. They wrote words as they understood them, and they spoke as human beings. But, it wasn't an act of their own will, but it was instead the Lord's inspiration. We have a couple of passages that give us some insight as to how the authors of the Bible wrote.

There are about 40 authors of all of scripture, with some exceptions. A great many of them were Jewish. Written over a period of time of about 1500 years. That's from the time of Moses into the last author of the New Testament, the Apostle John. So with 40 authors over 1,500 years, he says the Holy Spirit is the one who made it come about.

And the two ways that he says what we've just seen here, the Holy Spirit carried along these authors. The other thing that we have here is in 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17. For all scripture is inspired by God. The Greek word there means God-breathed. Isn't that something? Here's Peter writing. We'll study in the next time we have together about Paul writing. But they didn't just sit down and say, I think I'll write something. They spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. They spoke God-breathed words. God-breathed words.

Isn't that something? The Holy Spirit then, who indwells every believer, that's a message we get from several passages, we reference here Romans, 1 Corinthians, and 2 Timothy, has been involved by divine purpose in the writing, preservation, interpretation, and application of scripture all the way to the appropriation of those truths in our lives. The Holy Spirit is involved. Isn't that something? When they originally wrote, the Holy Spirit inspired them and carried them along.

The preservation of Scripture. We can go through the historical accounts over the centuries of those who wanted to destroy Scripture. On penalty of death, get rid of this thing. No, it didn't work. Scripture was preserved for our benefit by the Holy Spirit's work. Even to the point of our understanding the truth of Scripture. The Holy Spirit's work. Then even to the point of how is it applied to our lives. The Holy Spirit's work. Isn't that something? All the way from the ink going on the paper to how you and I live. Day by day. Later on we're going to see in Galatians.

Walk by the Spirit and you will not satisfy the desires of the flesh. The everyday living is even the Holy Spirit's working. Now, in spite of the personal nature of the Holy Spirit's authoring of scripture through that, prophets, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in each believer, the fact that the Holy Spirit is the same author behind all the scripture, and that each believer in the church has the same Holy Spirit, the interpretation of the scripture is objective in nature, not one of personal manipulation, human persuasion, and human use of power. One of the things that I try to say at least twice a year is don't believe anything I tell you. Check it out for yourself. And they've told me that I've already used up my quota for this year.

But anyway, why is that important? It's because I am not the source of the truth. I do not dictate the truth. I happen to have a place of teaching the truth. But, as I somewhat jokingly tell you, spend at least 80 hours a week checking me out. Because scripture is not to be dictated as, this is what scripture says and believe me and you're not allowed to question it. No. Instead, the truth is objectively laid out. Because it is God's intent that we know the truth from scripture itself. Scripture is the authority. Scripture is what's powerful.

Hebrews 4.12, alive and powerful, touching the innermost part of our being, the division between soul and spirit. Exceedingly powerful by God's intent. And while I have the privilege of teaching, it's not my place or anyone else's to dictate to you what the Bible says. It should be something that's verified. So you know what you're going to be doing for 80 hours next week, right? Okay. Just to make sure. From our church's doctrinal statement, we have a couple of these points here.

We believe that all the authors of scripture of the entire Old and New Testaments wrote by the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We call that verbal inspiration. God breathing the words. Those books are completely inerrant and infallible in the original writings. They are the final authority for faith and practice and the means through which believers behold Christ. We behold Christ and therefore are changed from glory to glory. And it's Brad's going to be privileged to tell us that, but grow in the grace and knowledge, and by the way, that's an imperative. How about that? But he's already given us a powerful clue, because in 1 Peter, what did he say?

It is by God's Word that you grow. By God's Word. So it isn't anything mystical, and it is not something where we just put in a whole bunch of effort and then we grow. But the growth means is clear. God's Word, we behold and are changed from glory to glory. The next part, we have dispensational interpretation. We believe that scriptures should be interpreted according to its grammatical and historical context. And remember before, we said the original writings. That's one of the reasons why we don't just turn into a bunch of Greek geeks and Hebrew scholars.

But we do take a look at what did the original author intend? where we have some important indications. Example, we talked about inspired. I said the original word means God breathed. God breathed. It gives you a sense of what do you mean by that? We do look to the original languages. We also look at the historical context and even historical sequence.

Including that God who does not change, deals in a different manner with the Gentile nations, the people of Israel, and the God-created body of heavenly saints called the Church. We believe that all who are saved of all time are saved entirely by faith in Christ, either looking forward or looking back to the cross. All saved by faith. And that we take from the Word of God itself, which is the reason for all these scripture quotes here.

Okay, we've covered a lot of ground. Thoughts, questions, exasperations? Yes. Yes. Well, let's take a look at it. A study to show yourself approved. So here's my subjective personal response. a workman unto the Lord. Rightly dividing. So there's a right and a wrong. Not just a, I say it's right, or I think this is right, or this is my personal impression, or something of that sort. But there is a rightly and wrongly dividing the word of truth. And let me explain that.

That word divided is a word that was used, I can think of a couple of ways that it was used. That word for rightly divided is a word that was used by tent makers, and who's Paul? A tent maker, right? By tent makers, they would cut the pieces right according to the pattern line, so when they put the tent together, you didn't have flaps or gaps. So that would be one use of rightly divided.

Notice, when you look at scripture, you want to look at it accurately. So that when everything comes together, it all fits as one whole. And that's really an important thing. We have 1,500 years separating the authors of Scripture. We have 40 different people writing, and yet the Holy Spirit carried along and inspired all of Scripture from beginning to end. And understanding it is a matter of taking a look at it, studying it, because there is a right and a wrong. There is a rightly dividing. is, how do I cut this so that all the parts come together?

That word for rightly dividing was also used by the road engineers, and of course Rome had lots of roads, enough roads to go two times around the globe, over 50,000 miles of hand-built road. And so the Roman road engineers would talk about cutting a road.

What happens if you cut the road too deep? You've got a lot of work and a bunch of dirt left over, right? And everywhere you go from the road is up. If you put it too high, you've got lots and lots of fill and you have all these guys spending all their time putting in lots of fill.

They had to cut it right, cut it straight in order to get a good design for the road and end up with a good structure for the road and not excess of cut and fill. Put things in a place where you'd have the road good and solid because it had to last for centuries.

That's the way they designed the road, and we're still using some of those roads, by the way. Some of them, they just said, hey, this is great, and they just put paving over the top of it just to kind of give a smooth surface. Still use the same road. But it's that same rightly dividing work that was used by the Roman road engineers. Get that road in the right place at the right grade, cutting it just right.

So that would be one example of looking directly at God's Word and reading it and observing the truth objectively. Another way, and Paul says in that same letter, is to pass on exactly what you've heard, pass it on to the next person. So that the truth is something that can be handed off from one person to the next.

Exactly. With precision. There's a precision to it, not just a, I felt this way, how'd you feel? How do you feel about this? Yes. Yes. Yes. Debbie's asking a question about human beings and the millennium, so let's step quickly through it. I'll do it verbally here. Okay? That's all right. Let's do it.

We are now in the time that is the Church. From the day of Pentecost until the time the Lord comes for His Church, that's the time we're in now. This world is still in darkness, isn't it? The minds of the unbelievers are blinded. So now, the Lord comes for His Church.

The saved will all be taken out at the beginning of this time that is called the Tribulation, the seven-year period of time, only the unsaved will enter the Tribulation period. So everybody entering that will be unsaved initially. Then as you go through that period of time of the Tribulation, that seven-year period of time, only the saved will continue on. The unsaved will all be taken out. All taken out. Only those who are saved will enter and populate the earth during the millennium. Only the saved. So isn't that interesting? The tribulation period starts with only the unsaved on planet earth. And the time at the end of the tribulation period, the beginning of the Lord's reign, the millennium, will be entirely those who are saved. And it will be those who populate the earth. Now, who will come back with the Lord? It will be angels, it will be Gentile and Jewish saints of Old Testament times, it will be ourselves, the church, and it will be tribulation saints, all returning with Christ in resurrected bodies.

And that's why the description is coming with the clouds. Such a great mass that it looks like clouds in appearance. Think about this. What will happen is there will be human beings, bodies like ours, populating the millennium. Christ will be reigning upon the earth.

And remember, there are three enemies of the Christian, right? The world, the flesh, and the devil. Christ will reign and will be over the government, so you will not have the world. The devil will be bound for a thousand years. That's Revelation chapter 20, right? So you will have, of those three enemies, only the flesh still residing in human beings who are of this kind of flesh.

Not those who are resurrected, but those who are living through the end of the tribulation period, populating the millennium. Those will still have this in nature. And that will be the time of light. Now, we talk about time of light, we're not quite done because what happens, this present heavens and earth ends, right? There's a new heavens and earth, how will that be lit? Christ himself is the light and will be the light. So the ultimate expression of the time of light will be in the new heavens and the new earth where Christ himself is the light.

Not even day or night anymore. No darkness. It's all rest because there is no time of rest necessary. It is all rest. Pardon? No tardiness. Oh, I thought you said tardiness and we're on a lake. Yes, no tardiness. Maybe no tardiness. I guess if you have eternity, you're not tardy. Okay, yeah, if you're there, you're not tardy. All right. It'd be nobody's alarm going off. No sleeping through alarms.

Any other thoughts, comments? Well, it's interesting. It's the morning star and the evening star. And that's the place that Venus has. It's interesting. I don't see reference to the evening star that I recall in scripture. If that were there, I suppose you could look upon it as that's his first coming. But that would be speculation because I don't see it there.

So. Yes. Sunset and evening star and one clear call for me. Ah, OK. Yeah, the scripture passage would be, okay, I'd have to look for that one. Yeah. Other thoughts, questions? That morning when we lived up in the mountains by Bailey, you could see it, like, by the time it'd get really dark at night, there it is. It's not exactly morning, but it's there. Yeah. One of the reasons why they call it the Morning Star is most of the time while it's up there you're not seeing it until morning.

Let's pray. Lord we thank you for time in your word. We thank you for the foundation that Peter has set. A foundation of the Apostles testimony. Mutual testimony to the truth. foundation of the Old Testament prophets that underscores and causes us to be even further assured of the truth of what you have laid out. And we thank you for that. We thank you for the testimony of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and your empowerment by the Holy Spirit for the daily life for us to live. And we thank you for the hope that we have in your coming. In Jesus' name, Amen.