Sermon in Rockford 12.12.2010

In the middle of my heart I will praise thee, for all of you I bring my crown of thee.

And as we sang about John the Baptist, who was one of those mighty, powerful forerunners to whom God gave an important task to prepare the way for him, there is also another way that God talks to us, and that is through his word, the written word of God.

And so one of the texts that has been set aside for this Sunday speaks of God's word, and it's found in 2 Peter 1:19-21. And we hear these words in Jesus' name. We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts.

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation, but the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men, as God spake, as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Amen. What does Peter mean when he speaks about a more sure word, a prophecy? Right before this, he spoke every word, a prophecy, that he heard, and that was a strange, very strange happening, because he speaks of what happened in the Mount of Transfiguration, when he and two other disciples followed Jesus to the mountain, and they saw Jesus in his heavenly glory.

And more than that, they heard God speak from heaven. If you think about that, I think it is something so mighty that one would never forget it. Something that we might even feel tempted to boast about. That I have seen something which hardly anybody has seen. There were only three living believers that saw it.

And now, he still, after all this, says that we have also a more sure word of prophecy. So this, what he experienced, what he saw and heard, was impressive. It's something that, oh, hardly anybody has experienced. But still, he says that the word of God, meaning Bible, is a more sure word of prophecy.

Think about that. And we can see it. We can hear it. We can read it. We can study it. And we can hear it being preached about. So this is the value of God's word. That even a straight message from God, short message, to Peter is not as much valued as this abundance of God's word that we can find in the Bible.

This world has become so wise that they have lost almost all their trust in God's word. And I think it looks pretty much like in Jesus' time. There were two spiritual groups that had the power. That was Pharisees and Sadducees.

And Sadducees were basically those people who were in the highest places in the society. They were learned, educated people who had lots of authority, lots of wisdom, in important places. They were so high that they did not even believe in the resurrection.

It seems that the higher man reaches by their own abilities, the less important the word of God seems to them. They couldn't believe hardly anything, those Sadducees. They only, I guess, believed what they could understand. What they could see, grasp, and understand. That's what they trusted.

If I would believe only that which I can understand, that wouldn't be very much. And I've thought oftentimes of those Bible persons, believing persons to whom God or whom God set into very strange positions of life.

Think about Noah. When the word of God happened unto him and he started building an ark, a huge ship onto the dry land. Do you think that he understood it fully? I don't think so. It may be that during the process it opened unto him a little bit more.

But, and of course when it was finished and the animals started coming in, he was able to see when the mocking of people grew to the highest intensity he was able to see and experience something that uplifted him, encouraged him. And I think he needed it very much.

But when it opened unto him was when the destruction fell unto those who didn't believe. Then he understood why he had worked and upon what he had believed.

Do you think Abraham understood when God said to him, take your son twelve-year-old Isaac whom you love and kill him and burn him upon the stony altar for me as a sacrifice? Do you think the father understood why? I don't think so.

He had to take this step only based on faith. Simple, childlike, I would dare to say blind trust. And this is something that this world seems to hate. They ridicule believers of their trust. Why do you trust? Why do you accept? Why do you just follow?

In a way I understand it based on their situation. They don't have the Holy Spirit. All that they see and understand comes through their carnal human temporal understanding and senses. They don't have anything else.

And as we have learned there have been many false teachers, sect leaders who have led their followers into perdition. So if we look from that perspective I think it's kind of understandable.

But now we come to our text where Peter says we have also a more sure word, a prophecy. We are not to follow people. We are to follow Christ.

How can anyone follow Christ? Where is Christ? Where is Jesus? We have a more sure word of prophecy. We have the word of God. And that word of God says where Christ is.

I think even the little boys and girls can say where Jesus is. Can you? What did Jesus say? Where will he be? Until the last day of his world. He said with you. Who you? His own.

So if somebody wants to find Christ he must find the kingdom of God. He must find those people who believe on him, on Christ, who follow and take the word of God seriously. Their teachers must be judged or searched through the word of God.

The Bible says the one who preaches, may he preach like the words of God. It is scary to come to preach. It's never easy. It is never easy to come without a sermon. I don't have a written sermon, God. It is good that way. But it's scary.

But on the other hand it is not. Because God is faithful and he serves us. God is God.

If there is someone listening who is not a believer, the person might think that does this man think that he's God? No, I don't think so. I know very well that I am a sinful, a weak person.

But this text speaks so beautifully and simply how God affects people. How God serves his people. How God gives words.

Let us read from here. Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

So this is how Bible came unto being. It did not come by the will of man. Peter who wrote this letter did not decide that now I'll sit down and read a portion of the Bible. God moved him. He's mine. God stirred up his spirit and gave him the words.

It's true that Peter wrote it. It's true that he was a man, a person of his time. He had the culture of his time. He had the knowledge of his time. He was not a super man. He was a sinful man.

But the key is the Holy Spirit. That is the matter. We should not concentrate into Peter, but to God. God reveals himself and works through three different persons as we in our simple human way explain it. Three persons. God is one, but he works in three forms.

And this form of the Holy Spirit is, I would say, the most difficult to understand or to believe. And what makes it so difficult to believe is that God dwells in man.

And what makes that difficult to believe, because there is another dweller, and that's sin. And that makes it, if I was sinless, if you were sinless, wouldn't it be so much easier to believe that yes, God dwells in me.

But as we are sinners, what does it mean that we are sinners? It means that we fall into sin. When? Every day. Not every now and then. Sin lives in us. Inside me.

There are two powers. There is a power of God. There is a will of God. There is that new portion who wants to be obedient to God's will, who wants to follow God, who wants to take heed of God's word, and who does not want to fall into sin.

And then there is another power, that is a total opposite, who loves sin, who does not want to fight against sin, but wants to live in sin.

And therefore, a believing person is a walking battlefield. There is a battle going on all the time.

And those unbelieving people who say that your faith is too easy, that you just lift up your hand and have all your sins forgiven, and you sin all six days and go to the church on Sundays and have your sins forgiven, that's too easy for you.

They don't know how much a believer fights against sin, how much we are troubled for our weakness, because we fall into sin every day, that's for sure. And we need to take care of our matters, not only on Sundays, but every day.

And it's so difficult, and it's so tiring, and sometimes it feels like we become hopeless, and the enemy is quick to preach that yeah, you won't make it there, you are a sinner, and that's true, we are sinners, but we will make it, because there is the Holy Spirit.

God dwells in us, God has not left us alone, but he helps us.

The Holy Spirit, there are many words in Bible about the nature of the Holy Spirit. One is its comforter. The Holy Spirit comforts us when we feel our sinfulness and wretchedness.

The Holy Spirit reminds, yes, that's true, but you are a child of God, and God is full of love towards you, and God wants to forgive you.

God has promised to help you, to encourage you, to strengthen you, to guide you, and to lead you. God has promised to take you all the way to heaven.

That's what the Holy Spirit teaches in our hearts. And the Holy Spirit is what makes God's Word alive.

So, the Word that I'm preaching is a living Word, not because of me, but because of Christ, because of the Holy Spirit, because of the triune God. The Holy Spirit makes the Word a living Word.

And that makes the Word a living Word to you, too. When you listen in a bench, God may open unto you more than He opens unto me.

It is good and wise, when you sit in the bench, to pray that God would open His Word unto you. That God would, through His Spirit, make the Word living in your heart and mind.

God is so, that is how the Bible came into being, through the Word of the Holy Ghost.

Now, in this world, we sometimes hear that the people say, people from outside, they say that we don't understand your preaching, to us, that's foolishness. It doesn't make sense.

And then they say that yes, and you say that you don't understand because you don't have a Holy Spirit, so I don't have hope. And they are right.

A person cannot understand without the Holy Spirit. It is impossible to repent so that one would first understand and then accept the invitation into God's kingdom. It's impossible.

No one can understand without the Holy Spirit.

How would you explain to an unbelieving person what is the Holy Spirit to you? Wouldn't it be difficult? But if you would speak of that with another believer, it's easy because we share the Spirit. You don't have to explain it. You feel it. You know it.

And the Bible says that the Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.

I have every now and then been exposed to the question that do you think that I'm a believer? Do you keep me? Do you hold me as a believer? Oh, how sad question it is.

Because a believer doesn't feel that need to ask it, to make the question. Oh, I know that we oftentimes doubt even to that much that we doubt that am I any longer a child of God?

There may be someone here in these services who came with those doubts that am I a believer any longer?

But when we are being preached and forgiven the forgiveness of all our sins, the Holy Spirit answers in our hearts that yes, I am a child of God.

I am a weak sinful person and would not merit eternal life based on my works. But I am a child of God and that is because of God. Because of the blessing of God. Because of the forgiveness of God. Because of what God has prepared and made on my behalf.

So when we speak of the Holy Spirit, we in a way we speak of the very core of what is to be a child of God and the very core of what is God's kingdom like.

Sometimes we feel it strongly. And aren't they heavenly feelings? When you feel that yes, these answers to my spirit.

And the God, through his spirit, this Holy Spirit comforts you, encourages you, uplifts you. And you don't only know it, but you can feel it. They are heavenly feelings.

No wonder why it is so good to be in heaven. When the other drawer has been taken away from our persons, sin has been taken away.

And there is only God's spirit left. The spirit of love. The spirit of truth. That is the utter nature of the Holy Spirit. It is the spirit of truth. It teaches the truth.

And as Jesus said, the truth shall make you free.

And now, this word of God is being described with one more picture. And it says here, whereunto ye do well, that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place.

God's word is like a light, like a candle. Have you ever been in a totally dark place? Have you been once in a mine, deep underground, and that was pitch dark?

It's amazing how much one single candle shows. Do you see that we have three candles going? You may see a little bit of those two front most, but the real one has gone so deep that you barely see it.

Now, when there is so much light, sun is shining so brightly, if the sun would go off, and all lights would go off, oh, how brightly these three candles would shine.

It's amazing how much light there is compared to full darkness.

And now, I would say that this word of God is like a little lamp. Why so? It has the potential of a sun. It's so bright.

But we are so small and our understanding is so small. We are so carnal. We are so bound to this time.

You remember when Jesus spoke of the leaven of Pharisees, the disciples thought that Jesus is rebuking why you didn't take any bread with you. And Jesus was talking of the leaven of the Pharisees.

We are so temporal. So that's why the light, which is God's light and brighter than the sun, it shines in us like a little lamp or a little candle, a flickering candle.

But remember that it shows far in total darkness.

So don't wonder why the unbelieving world around you recognizes that you are a believer. Don't wonder. We are different. We are holy.

The word of God says that be holy as God is holy. And holy doesn't mean better than others. Holy does not mean sinless. Holy means separate. Separate from others. Different.

Spirit. And this is the work of God's spirit. The Holy Spirit. It separates us from this world.

And ye do well that you take heed of the word of God.

May God open unto us the mystery of faith. That we would clearly see where Jesus is. Where are his all? What is God's kingdom? And what is grace? And that we would also see what is sin.

That we would find the difference between good and evil. May God teach us in that.

And dear brothers and sisters, the Holy Ghost, one of the most important tasks or natures of the Holy Spirit is it sanctifies you. God through Holy Spirit sanctifies his own.

So, and that happens through God's word, through the word of forgiveness of sins.

So, again, uplift your heart. Stop and uplift your heart and believe your sins forgiven. In Jesus' name and precious blood.

And that word makes you holy. That sanctifies you. That wipes away and washes away all sin. All kinds of sin what we have fallen into.

And you can freely believe and enjoy of the freedom amongst God's children in God's kingdom.

Remain believing, dear brothers and sisters. Can I also believe my sins forgiven? I so much want to believe together with you. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Let us join into the benediction. The Lord bless us and keep us. The Lord make his face shine upon us and be gracious unto us.

The Lord lift up his countenance upon us and give us peace. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.