Light In Dark Places

We have been the recipients of some extraordinarily good news. And, you know, I'm not here to build up the messenger. I've appreciated his faithfulness in ministering the Word of God to us. And if you've appreciated it, then let him know. All right? I think that would be a good thing.

Let me let you in on a secret, at least for some of us pastors. It's this. You preach and you work and, you know, on days you say, you know, I'm wondering if I'm actually accomplishing anything, right? And so, frankly, you know, I can say to my brother and my friend here, I think God's used him to accomplish much, even in my own heart. but you let him know too, okay?

It would be an encouragement to him as we send him home. So Heath's going to come minister the word now, and in another hour we'll hear him again, and then our conference is over. And we'll be glad for how the Lord has ministered to us. So Heath, brother. This is a disorienting weekend, for me because so far every time before I get up, Tim comes up and says something nice about me.

I can't wait to see what you say the next session. I'm on the edge of my seat. We're running out of things though, I'll tell you. So I got to preach tomorrow morning and tomorrow night at First Baptist and I think I'm going to sit there and I'm going to be confused if Tim doesn't walk up and say something else. Is it my turn? Do I go?

He also delivered coffee to the room I'm staying it in his house yesterday. So I was saying to Lauren, I'm like, Lauren, I'm not even married to Tim. And he's bringing coffee right up to the bedroom. Like what gives? So, uh, so if I'm back next week, I'll just have missed you. All right.

Second Peter chapter one verses 16 to 21. Second Peter chapter 1 verses 16 to 21 As I said at the beginning of our times together so far Tim when he asked me to come he said I could talk about anything I wanted There are a few go-to topics for me, and one of them is the scriptures. I am so thankful for the gift of the Bible, and I think that one of the great needs for Christians is to grow in our gratitude for this gift that the Lord has given us in his word.

And so I wanted to just look at some texts that help us honor and love and appreciate the gift we have in the word of God. Next hour, I'm going to come at you kind of out of left field on one of those texts, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. this is definitely not out of left field. This is in fact, you know, you just have those passages in your life that you just can't get away from.

In some ways they seem definitive to you. 2 Peter chapter 1 is that way with me. I've spent as much time thinking about the whole chapter, not just this section, but the whole chapter is probably any other section of scripture. and in this section that we're kind of zooming in on here the last section of the chapter is it's it's one of the quintessential and classic passages on the doctrine of scripture and it has been a classic passage in my own life as I have grown in Christ and and tried to be a servant of the word and in second Peter chapter 1 verse 16 to 21 this is what God says.

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 he 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 So we have the prophetic word made more sure to which you will 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 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.

Let's pray. Father, we do want to ask that you would take your truth and plant it in our hearts, and that you would shape and fashion us for your glory. Father, this is your word. It is perfect. We need to have you, through your word, sit in judgment on us. We don't need to sit in judgment on your word.

And so I just pray that you would place us underneath your truth and make us different than we were when we came in. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. So this is actually a passage, in some ways, about historical events. A historical event that has happened and a historical event that has not yet happened. And so it's a passage that gets us thinking about history.

And one thing to think about is, and one thing that I actually think about a lot is, I love history. I'm fascinated by it. And I have a short list of historical events that I wish I could have been a witness of. To say it a little bit differently, and I'll ask you this. If you could go back in time and with your own eyes see any historical event, what would it be?

There's a long list of contenders. One of the historical events on my short list is the Normandy invasion. Now, I'd want to be in a safe spot. I'm not sure exactly where that would be. But still, this remains the largest seaborne invasion in human history. And the whole event fascinates me.

The massive amount of manpower that was required the massive amount of organization the massive amount of secrecy the stakes involved I mean with these people on these boats and those boats are going to open up, and literally the future of the Western world is at stake. And I just would, I would love to just see a glimpse or two of it with my own eyes. That's on the short list.

There are other events. but I've decided that if it were possible, if there was like some time machine and I could go back in time and see anything with my own eyes, the event, and I've been told that this is a little bit creepy as I've talked about it. Like my kids, when I first told them, this is one of our conversations at dinner, what would you say? And then it's my turn and I tell them and the kids are like, oh shoot.

Do you know what it is? Wouldn't it be funny if I passed out right now? What was it? We didn't get to hear. I've built it up. No, but I think a lot of you would agree.

I would love to be sitting in the corner of the borrowed tomb on Easter Sunday morning. Like, it makes my heart flutter just a little bit even to think about it. But I'm telling you, that would have to be something to see the first breath go into those lungs. So that's my list. I don't expect that I'm ever going to get to do that. And that's sort of the point.

This is a passage about historical events. One historical event that has not happened and one historical event that has. As Christians, we believe really astounding things, really astounding things. We believe overwhelming things. We believe glorious things. We believe mind-blowing things.

We believe that Jesus Christ, in an amazing event, in an amazing moment of history discussed in this passage, that Jesus, who was born of a woman, born of a virgin, and lives life as a human being, walking around in the dirt with a cloak on and sandals, and if you bumped into him in the street, you would have seen a normal, ordinary, garden-variety man by all appearances. We believe that that human being... On top of a mountain with witnesses present began to stream glorious light out of his body as the normal, humble accouterments of humanity were stripped away and you got to see the revealed, resplendent glory of the Son of God and a glory cloud forms over top of him and light shines down out of the heavens and the voice of God the Father. anoints with approval this man.

It's talked about in verse 17, when he 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 if you're a person who's not inclined to believe this kind of stuff, you could go, really? Do you really believe that happened? Do you really believe a normal human being on top of a mountain started shining out light and the voice of God screamed from the heavens his approval that this is his son that he loves and you should honor him and listen to him and all the rest?

Do you believe that? And the answer is, if you're a Christian, Well, yeah, actually, we do believe that. And if you think that's pretty tough, it actually is going to get a little worse for you. Because we believe he died and came back, and we believe that guy is actually coming back on a big horse with a sword out of his mouth. So, you know, it's going to get harder to swallow as you go if you're stumbling over that.

That actually gets to the future event. You've got this historical event that this humble Christ was revealed in glory to a few followers on the Mount of Transfiguration. But then there's a historical event talked about here that hasn't happened yet. And it is the coming of Jesus Christ, his second coming. He came the first time and he came the second time.

And this passage alludes to that. And we will talk about that in due course. But we are right now right here in LaRue in 2021 we standing in between these two historical events The one that is recorded history and the one that is not yet recorded history because it hasn happened yet But they're real, they're true, but it places before us how we could know they are true.

How do you know that these events are believable? and the way we know these events are believable is in so many ways so many ways the same way we know other events are believable so I could talk about an event that is now recorded history it's an event that is controversial it is an event that has already happened and we could say that I don't know, just to pick an uncontroversial one, Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. That's an event of recorded history. Some people think it's true.

Some people don't. But we got the letterhead at the White House changed, and so we'll see. But that's recorded history. And then there are other future events that we could talk about. Those future events are harder because we don't yet have the eyewitness testimony, but we can say things. We can portend future events and we can say that, hey, we're going to go on summer vacation this year.

Or we can say that we can talk about what the weather is going to be tomorrow. We can say I'm supposed to get on an airplane here this afternoon. And we talk about those things and we have confidence in those things because we have reason to believe from credible authorities that they will happen. So we and the point is we have to listen to people about these things whether it happened in the past or whether there's something coming in the future we have to listen to people we need eyewitnesses or people who who would purport to be eyewitnesses when the event happens and that's what we have here in these verses.

These verses tell us that these historical events, the ones that have happened and the ones that haven't, we can rely on them because of eyewitness testimony. In verse 16 it says, We did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Peter is a little bit self-conscious that you not think that all of this stuff virgin births and transfigurations and resurrections that you not think that this is just made up fairy tales This is not mythology.

He wants you to know, there's apparently the word on the street that this stuff was made up. And the apostle wants you to know that this is not true. He says, that's not the way it was. At the end of verse 16, he says, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. He says, as he goes on in verse 18, we ourselves, he's talking about the Mount of Transfiguration and the light and the glory and the voice of God.

And he says in verse 18, we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain. Now, here's the thing. People look back at the biblical text and they say, well, nobody believes that stuff anymore. Rudolph Bultmann famously said, anybody who uses an electric razor knows you can't believe this stuff. Well, here's what Peter's saying.

Nobody believed it then either. They were just as accustomed to the miraculous in the ancient world as we are now. There was just as much disbelief in the ancient world as there is now. that's the whole reason for Peter's argument. People didn't believe it then. And what Peter does is breathtaking. Peter wanted to be seen to be a fool just as much as you do.

Peter, which is not very much, Peter wanted to be respected and understood and appreciated just as much as you do, which is probably a good bit. And he did not do what you would do when you make up a story. You ever seen one of your kids make up a story? We've had a few of our kids try to take mythology out for a spin in our house. Well, you wouldn't believe what Jake did.

Jake went up to his mother and he started screaming bad words at her. Okay, now listen, and I know a lot of things. I don't know anybody who'd scream bad words at Jake's mom. I'm sure not Jake. You start to push a little bit, and you know what happens. When it's a lie, what do they all do?

They run for the hills. They back off. Well, maybe not exactly. Well, maybe not just like that. When you telling a lie that completely unbelievable and the pressure gets brought to bear you back off Peter a grown man reasonable just like you and I in the face of people who are going really Really Nobody who catches a fish with a line on the Sea of Galilee believes that this is what happens.

And Peter says, well, guess what, guys? I was there. I saw it. He ups the ante. He raises the stakes. He says, I was there, and it wasn't just me.

It was others. We heard the voice. We were with him on the mountain. He runs by the opportunity to go, I was just horsing around with you. You didn't believe that, do you? I didn't mean that light really came out.

I just mean he's like a really wise person, and it was like light came out of him. He doesn't do that. He sticks to his guns. He writes it down. He goes on the record. He holds himself accountable.

This is the way it is. It actually sounds like the next book over, 1 John 1, verses 1 to 3. What was from the beginning what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, and what we've looked at and touched with our hands concerning the word of life. the life was manifested and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the father and has 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 is with the father and with the son jesus christ the apostles are self-conscious that people are going to blow this off.

They're self-conscious that people might say, nobody thinks that stuff happens. And the reason nobody thinks that stuff can't happen is because it can't happen. But the apostles say, you know what, it can happen. And guess what? We were there. We're there.

And it wasn't just me. It was several of us. I sometimes wonder if one of the things they weren't thinking about was the event in John chapter 20, where even one of Jesus's original 12 didn't buy this stuff. He's known to history as Doubting Thomas. It's a little bit of an unfortunate moniker because he didn't stay doubting for very long. But you remember Jesus is crucified and he is resurrected and seen by hundreds of witnesses, including the authors of the letters that we're looking at here. and the disciples So now what they come and tell Thomas and Thomas said what Rudolph Boltman said and he said what a lot of other fishermen said in the first century and he said what a lot of people in LaRue say today.

He said in Aramaic, yeah right, I don't believe it. And Thomas who'd been with this guy and heard the predictions and heard the teaching and had an up close look as anybody you can imagine said, let me tell you what. when I see the man with my eyeballs. When I see the nail marks, and I tell you what, let me put my finger in his side, and that's when I'll believe it.

And what Thomas was saying is prove it. Prove it. And then Thomas, man, Jesus showed up. Jesus walked into the room. Then in John chapter 20, verse 27, Jesus says, Thomas, reach here with your finger. See my hands.

And reach here your hand and put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing. And Thomas answered and said to him, my Lord and my God. John who records this letter for us and who writes about the eyewitness testimony in first John and Peter who was there and writes about eyewitness testimony it's not lost on them that people don't believe this stuff but they doubled down they were eyewitnesses we believe it because it's true we we don't just like to embrace a fun little story that has a deeper spiritual meaning we believe it because it's true and we know it's true because people saw it people heard it people touched it we uh we've never met any of these eyewitnesses you never met peter or john or matthew and i haven't either we only have their eyewitness testimony because they wrote it down They wrote it down, and they wrote it down in the context of the Christian scriptures, including the Old Testament and the New Testament.

And this is a text of scripture that says these historical events the ones that have happened and the ones that have not they are true and we know they true because of eyewitness testimony And what you need to do is, as we've written this stuff down, you need to pay attention to it. He says you need to pay attention to it as to a lamp shining in a dark place. Verse 19 says, we have the prophetic word more sure to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place.

We need to treat this book like a lamp shining in a dark place. It sounds like another passage that is familiar to you. Psalm 119, 105. it says your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. That is, that's a passage that is often overlooked for its significance. We memorize it, we write songs to it, and it sounds nice, but it's a passage that is incredibly profound.

In the passage, path is a reference, it's poetic language, to the life that you're living. And feet is poetic language for the decisions that you make as you live this life, the trials that you go through. And so your life is characterized as feet walking down a path. and you're trying to make your way. And the assumption behind the text is that it is hard.

It's hard to do that. Have you ever tried to make your way someplace in the pitch black and it's unfamiliar to you? You've never been down this road before and you don't know what difficulties lie in your path. Even if it's straight, sometimes that can even be more disoriented because you're trying to find where it's going to change directions or change height.

If you've ever tried to do that, it's really hard work. It's dangerous work. You can die doing that. I read a story of a man who stumbled to his death off a cliff in an area where I grew up in Kentucky, just stumbling around in the dark The picture of Psalm 119 105 is that life is a dark and a dangerous place And just like stumbling around in the dark in the woods where there's no light, that's how it is to live your life.

It's dark. It's dangerous. But the Bible, in Psalm 119, 105, and in 2 Peter 1, verse 19, the Bible is described as a light. You're trying to make it through life. You don't know where you're going. You don't know which way is up.

But when you open up this book and pay attention to it, pay attention to it, it is just like turning a flashlight on on a dark path in the woods. this is actually a way of saying that you can't live your life without paying attention to the scriptures your life will make no sense without the word of god it's why i said in our time together uh last night that your life is just going to be so hard when you avoid scripture it's like i said the uh the night before that that whatever is happening in your life wherever you are in your walk with christ you need more of the bible because you have not yet mastered the parts of your life you have not experienced you don't know the troubles that you're walking into and you need light for this path called life it's it's why i said uh pastor tim asked last night during the testimony in the q a what was the hardest part uh while you were executive director of ACBC. And there's a couple of different answers to that. But one of them was, I really can't believe that there are serious people who make serious arguments that the Bible is not a sufficient guide for life.

I just can't believe it. I can't believe, and here's the deal, the argument is I had a professor in seminary and he would draw a bell curve on the board. you draw a bell curve on the board and he would say this bell curve represents the utility of scripture for counseling problems in the middle of the bell curve the great big middle that's where you've got all the sorts of common problems my wife and I are having a disagreement I got anxiety because I afraid I going to lose my job The kids are being a little bit disobedient My older kids have questions about the faith. Those big mainstream problems, the Bible's good enough for that.

But over here on the margins, that's where you get real extreme problems. That's where I'm so sad I'm thinking of killing myself. that's where my son looks at pornography six hours a night he can't even get out of bed in the morning that's where my daughter is addicted to painkillers these kinds of extreme problems this professor of mine said the bible is not sufficient for that and never claims to be and when you need that when you got those kinds of problems that's when you need professional help. And when they say professional, they always mean secularly trained, secularly licensed people who don't believe the Bible and don't use it.

There's all sorts of things to say about that. But the main thing you got to say about it is that it undermines scripture. It undermines the whole thing, but we're just talking about for a few minutes, Psalm 119, 105 and 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 19. And if that argument is true, what Psalm 119, 105 says is that your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path when the problems are small.

If the problems are small, open up the Bible and we'll flick a little bit of light on that little bit of darkness. But if the problems are great big, the light from the Bible isn't good enough for you. I am horrified. I'm trying to, and this is the part where I start getting into trouble, so God help me. But I'm just horrified that there would be a Christian who would argue that the Bible's fine for small problems, but not effective for large problems. that is an argument that is foreign to Christians for 2,000 years it started gaining steam about 70 years ago in the United States of America it's unheard of in the history of the church what was Charles Spurgeon doing in his dark nights of the soul in the time in history before western secular help was available?

Well, he was using the Bible. He was using the light to his feet and the lamp to his path. What was Augustine using 1,700 years before the scientific method and 1,500 years or whatever it was before the scientific revolution began. What was he doing? He was overwhelmed with lust. Well, the word of God was a lamp unto his feet and a light unto his path.

It is the opposite of what this text teaches to believe that the Bible is good for small problems. It says you need to pay attention. It says we have the prophetic word more sure to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place. You've got to obsess over this thing. I'm not going out in the woods without that light. I don't know what's out there.

I don't know what rocks there are to trip over or what cliffs there are to fall off of. I'm not going to move forward in my life without the scriptures. I'm not doing that. That's crazy. And when you believe that, it inspires confidence in the Bible and it inspires you to pay attention to it. And when you think, well, who needs that?

For the big problems, we need big stuff, and that's not the Bible. You'll drift away from the Bible so fast, you won't believe it. So we pay attention to this lamp and to this light because the darkness is here. And he tells us how long we need to pay attention to it. He says, you'll do well to pay attention to it as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your heart.

You need to pay attention to the Bible and the light that it provides until it is unnecessary, until you don't need that light from the Bible anymore. And he tells us when it becomes unnecessary and he doesn't say that the necessity of scripture is not based on how big or bad or serious the problems are. The necessity of scripture is tied to a moment in history.

It when the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts What is that Well Revelation chapter 22 verse 16 tells us what it is I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star. The morning star rises in your hearts when Jesus Christ comes back in power and in glory. and that is the future historical event that hasn't happened yet.

So we're in this moment between historical realities when Jesus' glory has been revealed for a moment to a few and when Jesus' glory will be revealed forever to everyone. And in that middle period, we desperately pay attention to the Word of God. We desperately pay attention to it or we're going to trip up and fall off a cliff and not know how to make it through this thing called life.

We pay attention to the Bible in this dark world as a lamp until Jesus comes back and the shining light of his glory takes away all darkness forever. We do that, and we can do it with confidence because we can trust these eyewitnesses. Now, I made a big thing at the beginning that, hey, we can know these historical events happened because there are eyewitnesses.

But it's possible, right, to have eyewitnesses that don't tell the truth. It's possible to have eyewitnesses that are not credible. And so how do we know that we can pay attention to these eyewitnesses and trust them? If we're going to believe crazy kinds of things, we better be sure that the eyewitnesses are credible. one time I was reading a book about the resurrection in bed one night before bed, and I read this paragraph that was just this stunning description of the resurrection of Jesus.

And I was really gripped by it, and I said, hey, Lauren, listen to this. And I read her the paragraph about Jesus not being dead anymore but being alive. He said it more poetically than that. It was really gripping. And she listened, and I put my finger in the book, and I closed it, I looked over and I said, do you believe that? I mean, do you really believe that?

And she said yeah I really believe that And I said okay good And I just went right back to reading Because every now and then it good to just take a beat like okay really Like, we really believe Jesus was really, really dead. And then we really, really believe that on Easter Sunday morning, he really, really came back to life. Not swooning, not drugged, not a fake out, but like his heart stopped beating, his lungs stopped breathing, his eyes stopped blinking for three days and then on Easter Sunday morning they popped open as like bones that had been frozen with rigor mortis swing off the slab and walk out of the tomb like that's that's what Christianity teaches and it's good every now and then to go okay really really dead guy now really really alive do I believe that if you're going to believe it you need to trust the eyewitnesses of these of these events why do we believe it well we believe it because of the kinds of eyewitnesses they are look at verse 20 but know this first of all so we just got told you pay attention to the bible as to a lamp shining in a dark place it's written by people who are our witnesses of this majestic glory and remain witnesses of this future glorious event if you're gonna do that know this first of all it's really important peter says here you gotta you gotta clue in here 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. This is as clear a text as any in scripture about the mechanism for how scripture came to be. The word that theologians use to describe it is accommodation or accommodationism. That is, the text of scripture has two authors, a divine author and a human author.

The human authors are people you know, Moses and David and Paul and Peter and John and all the rest And the divine author is God himself And the reason for the language of accommodation or accommodationism is because God the Father God the Spirit God the Son work in such a way that they use the human authors as their instruments and they accommodate all of their idiosyncrasies, they accommodate all of their weaknesses, they accommodate all of their imperfections, all of their emphases, and they preserve all of that from error so that what you have is a document written by the Apostle Paul that sounds like the Apostle Paul. And he can legitimately say, I, Paul, write to you. But it is also a document that comes from God.

And the illustration that he uses is that men were moved by God as they spoke from the Holy Spirit. You can think of what happens when you pick up a pen. You can pick up a pen and you can write out anything you want. But whatever pen you pick up, it's going to have that imprint. If you pick up a blue pen, it's going to be blue writing. If you pick up a felt pen, it's going to be felt tip writing.

If you pick up a fountain pen, it's going to come from a fountain pen. It will have the unique character of the instrument, but it will be guided and steered by the ultimate author. This is what he says. Paul is moved by the Holy Spirit. Peter is moved by the Holy Spirit. Moses is moved by the Holy Spirit.

So every time you open up the word of God, which we talked about that last night, you have the real word of God, but you also have the real word of the individual human authors who were preserved and protected from error so that what they wrote is what God wanted them to write. And so we can trust these eyewitnesses because they are not eyewitnesses standing alone but they are eyewitnesses reporting with the power of the spirit and here's where things get really important because verse 19 coming back to that the apostle peter's saying hey look uh you can trust that this has It's not myth. It's not tall tales.

We were witnesses. We were there. And if you say what I said at the beginning, maybe on your list, maybe it's a little too freaky to be in the tomb with a dead guy. But maybe you'd be like, you know, the Mount of Transfiguration, that wouldn't be a half bad place to be. I'd pick that. And if I could see that, then I would really have no doubts.

I would really, like, wow, if I could see with my own eyes. But that's actually not what the Apostle Peter says. The Apostle Peter says, after talking about that in verse 19, he says, So we have the prophetic word made more sure. Do you know what that says? it says you can have more confidence that the transfiguration happened because you just read peter telling you in the bible than if you were on the mount of transfiguration in the first place that's what that says it says the less privileged position in history is to be on the mount of transfiguration or in the tomb or on the sea of Galilee when the man walks on the water that is a less privileged place to be than to be right here in Leroux in 2021 reading about it in the Bible because when you read about it in the Bible you have it more sure than your own eyeballs why because Peter is an eyewitness and that's good that counts for something we're thankful he makes a big deal out of it but that the beginning of the argument and not the end of the argument He says we were there but he says we wrote it down Peter was there but he could have been disoriented He could have been in a trance.

He could have been confused. He could have, in his memory, exaggerated things a little bit. He could have made too much out of it. But when Peter picked up his quill pen and wrote down at his desk, and the Holy Spirit inspired him. Peter stopped being a lone eyewitness and the Holy Spirit himself became an eyewitness in addition to Peter. So we have the prophetic word made more sure because when you open up your Bible, you have God himself, every time you read it, testifying to these events and you can be certain that they happened.

And if you won't believe the Bible when the Bible says it, because the Bible makes us more sure, you won't believe your own eyes when you see it either it's it's fascinating if you go back to john chapter 20 and jesus says reach here with your finger and see my hands and reach here your hand and put it into my side and do not be unbelieving but believing and thomas answered and said to him my lord and my god it interesting already up to that point the the son of god says look here I am big fella touch me and see I not a figment of your imagination But he doesn't stop there. He doesn't stop with the presentation of evidence. He goes deeper than that.

And he says, don't be unbelieving, but be believing. He doesn't say, don't be unpersuaded, be persuaded. He doesn't say, don't reject the proof, embrace the proof. He talks about belief. He talks about what a hard heart does. He talks about what a sinful, deceived, unbelieving heart does.

Look, here's the evidence, but don't be unbelieving, be believing. And Thomas is believing. He says in verse 28, my Lord and my God. He's crossed the line. And then Jesus says in verse 29, because you have seen me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see and yet believed. you know he's talking about he's talking about you he's talking about all of the millions of people right on up down to today who didn't see jesus with their eyes and didn't touch him with their hands but you believe him because you read about it in the scripture you believe him because the holy spirit who wrote these words worked in your heart to take away your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh You believe it because the prophetic word is more sure than if you seen it yourself And so the funny little exercise at the beginning, what would you go back and see?

You don't need to go through all that. God gave you a better gift. All you got to do is open up the Bible and read what it says. It'll be better than if you were there in the first place. Let's pray. Father in heaven, what a gift in your word.

What a gift to know the truth of scripture. What a gift to know that you have given us a privilege that John didn't have, that Peter didn't have. And that is to receive their eyewitness testimony as they speak from you. father if we're going to believe we're going to believe you or we won't believe at all we're never going to believe our eyes and our ears and so i pray that you would work in our hearts and change them so that we would have hearts not that disbelieve but hearts that believe hearts that trust in you and hearts that run to the scriptures as the place where we can know the truth and have it more sure than if we saw it ourselves.

We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.