Introduction: Hello and welcome to this teaching
from Pastor Skip Heitzig of Calvary Albuquerque. As these messages are shared worldwide our
prayer is that God uses them to grow believers in the knowledge of his Word. If this message
shines his truth into your life, tell us. Email us at mystory@calvaryabq.org. And if
you'd like to support this ministry financially, you can give online securely at calvaryabq.org/giving.
In this series that Skip's called Rock Solid we reach new heights in our faith as we work
our way through the book of Second Peter. We can know that what we believe is actually
true and Skip explains how in this message called "Is It True? How Can I Know?" We invite
you to open your Bible and follow along in Second Peter, chapter 1, as Skip begins in
verse 16. Skip Heitzig: Second Peter, chapter 1. Do
you ever walk by those tabloids in the grocery store? And do you ever think when you go by
them, "I really need to get one of them so that I can determine the accurate truth of
what's going on in my world"? You never think those thoughts, do you? And the reason is
because of what they promise. Here's some headlines: "Alien Mummy Goes on Rampage."
[laughter] That's why you just sort of skip over that stuff, I trust. Or here's a headline:
"Woman Gives Birth to Two-Year-Old Baby---Walks and Talks in Three Days." Another headlines
from one of these magazines, this is my favorite: "Vegan Vampire Attacks Trees." [laughter]
And, finally: "Eve Was a Space Alien." But let me ask you how do you know those things
are not true? You would answer, "Well, they don't fit into
human history. They don't fit into human experience. These things are not verifiable." So now we're
dealing with what is true and what is not true. And according to a survey taken some
time ago, a question was asked: "Is there such a thing as absolute truth?" I want you
to just think about that question. "Is there such a thing as absolute truth?" Only 28 percent
of the people in this survey, only 28 percent said, "Yes, there is such a thing as absolute
truth." Now that doesn't bother me as much as what I'm about to tell you: Only 23 percent
of Christians in this survey or those who claim to be believers, only 23 percent said
there is such a thing as absolute truth. What that means is that over 75 percent of
Christ followers or those who purport to be Christ followers are saying---they're saying
that nothing can be known for certain. "There is no absolute truth." So I would ask them
or you, if you fall into the category: What do you do with the claims of Christ? Those
are pretty absolute claims. But that is part of the prevailing culture today. You know,
people are saying, "How can anyone lay claim to having a corner on the market when it comes
to truth? After all, we all have our own values, we all have our own life experiences." And
so there's a significant group of people who will say, "There is no such thing as absolute
truth." But did you listen to my statement? It's self-contradictory. How can you absolutely say, "There is no absolute
truth," when you just made a statement that is an absolute statement? But that aside,
we won't get into that. We're dealing with what is called "epistemology"; that is, a
section of study that deals with truth: How do we know if something is true? What's the
theory of knowledge? What constitutes justifiable belief? When are the methods of acquiring
knowledge and how do we validate those facts that produce knowledge? You see, the Bible
makes truth claims, and some of those claims are---well, pretty absolute. Here's one: Jesus
said, "I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father except through
me." But how can you know it's really true? How can you know if the message we have received
is really true? Well, Peter addresses that thinking in Second
Peter, chapter 1, beginning in the sixteenth verse he writes: "For we did not follow cunningly
devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,
but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honor and
glory when such a voice came to him from the Excellent Glory: 'This is my beloved Son,
in whom I am well pleased.' And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were
with him on the holy mountain. And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do
well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning
star rises in your hearts; knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private
interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke
as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." Allow me to remind you the setting of this
letter: persecution was at an all-time high, Christians were losing their jobs, they were
being arrested, they were being killed. Some of them were being beheaded; others were being
impaled on sticks by Caesar himself. And so Peter writes here toward the end of his life
to a group of believers who are in that kind of a situation and he tells them that there
are certain things they should know. "In this situation that you are living in, there are
certain things you need to know." In fact, that word "know" or "knowledge" is one of
the key words of Second Peter. It appears sixteen times in the letter. Look at just
a sampling of what we have seen so far. Verse 2, "Grace and peace be multiplied to you in
the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord." Verse 5, "But also for this very reason, giving
all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control."
Down in verse 8, "For if these things are yours and abound, you will neither be barren
nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." Now it's important for them
to know certain things because there were---and you'll get it next time when we're in the
next chapter---but Peter will address false prophets, false teachers that come into the
church. And there were several different kinds, but one kind were called the Gnostics. Gnostics,
you've heard the term, these were people in the know. They claimed to know what others
didn't know. They were initiated in special knowledge.
And these Gnostics, among other things, denied the claims of Christ and denied the coming
of Christ, and Peter speaks about that. They were bringing fables and denying the truth.
So Peter counteracts those false teachings by saying three things: "I know this is true
because of what I've seen, I know this is true because of what I've heard, and I know
this is true because of what I've read." "Because of what I've seen, what I've heard, and what
I've read." Those are the three lines of evidence that he gives. But we're going to boil them
down into two categories, two categories only. How do we know something is true? Well, personal
experience is one, matched with scriptural evidence; personal experience, scriptural
evidence. Personal experience, that's subjective. That's what I experience. Scriptural evidence, that's objective. That's
outside my domain of experience. Both of these are addressed by Peter. Let's begin with the
personal. Verse 16, "We did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the
power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitness of his majesty." The word
"fables" could be translated "myths." That's the word that is used in Greek, muthos. Muthos
or myths was always used in the New Testament in a negative or derogatory sense. And it
usually referred to pagan mythology, which if you've had any background in at all, if
you've ever read, say, the Greek myths, you know that these are bizarre, ridiculous tales
without any real historical significance. For example, the story of Prometheus who gave
fire as a gift to mankind. Zeus found out about it, was so jealous he had Prometheus
chained to a rock in the Adriatic Sea and had vultures peck out his liver. Or the story
of Pandora who opened up her little vile, her vessel, and all the evils in the world
jumped out. Or the story of Medusa who originally had golden hair and fell in love with Poseidon,
and so Athena cursed her and in where the hair once grew that was golden, snakes came
out---all these crazy, nonhistorical fables or myths. Stories in the Bible, however, are
based on historical places, actual people, and certain dates and dates are often given.
In other words, they are events that are verifiable events. Peter appeals to personal experience. First of all, what he saw. He says, "We were
eyewitnesses of his majesty." "I saw this with my own eyes," he said. And what is-what
is he referring to here? The transfiguration of Jesus Christ on that mountain, "the holy
mount," as he calls it. It was one of the highlights in Peter's life. Jesus was transformed
before his very eyes. In that experience Peter saw the face of Jesus glowing like the sun
and his garments in dazzling white, and then two men from the past showed up, Moses and
Elijah speaking with Jesus. And Peter was overwhelmed by what he saw. And whenever Peter
got overwhelmed, it wasn't good, because Peter would start talking. And Peter said this;
now listen to how profound this is. He says---miraculous thing happens and he goes, "It's good that
we are here." You wonder why Jesus didn't say, "Duh." And
then Peter said, "Let's build three, I don't know, condos: one for you, one for Moses,
and one for Elijah." And as those words were still hanging in his mouth, God the Father
interrupted him, saying, "This is my beloved Son, listen to him." It was quite-quite a
wonderful experience? But Peter was an eyewitness, and in a court of law eyewitnesses are crucial.
And they're asked this question: "What did you see?" And they're cross-examined: "How
do you know that's exactly what you saw?" Peter said, "I was there. I saw this. And
what I saw was a preview of coming attractions. I saw the trailer to the coming movie." In
other words, what Peter saw was a preview of the second coming. I want you to notice what he says: "We didn't
follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and the"---what?---"coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitness of his majesty." That word "coming" is important.
It's the Greek word parousia. It is almost always used to refer to second coming of Christ.
It means literally the arrival or the actual presence. Now, do you remember that the Lord
Jesus made his disciples a promise? He said to them, "There are some of you who are standing
here who will not taste death until they see the coming kingdom in glory." And all the
disciples heard that and must have said something like this: "Huh? What? What are you talking
about?" They didn't know what he was talking about
until a few days later when Jesus took a few of them up on top of a mountain and this transfiguration
happened. And Peter saw Jesus in resurrected glory, a preview of that, and in second-coming
power and glory. By the way, when Jesus does come back again, Revelation 19, as the King
of Kings and Lord of Lords, and after that a new city, the heavenly Jerusalem comes out
of heaven towards the earth, do you remember how it's described? It said, "The city had
no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God illuminated it." And then it says why: "For
the Lamb"---that's Christ---"the Lamb is its light." Peter said, "I was there and I saw
this preview of those coming attractions. I saw that on the holy mountain. I know it's
true because of what I saw personally." Sometimes I'll meet somebody who has an encounter,
supernatural encounter, or they claim to have a supernatural encounter: "I saw Jesus." Of
course, not all of them I can believe all of. People say, "I picked up an angel hitchhiking
on the freeway." I've had several of those stories. And, "I saw Jesus in a tortilla."
There's several things that you've heard of. But I do believe---that aside---I do believe
that God can and does speak to people supernaturally by those kinds of things, especially in a
restricted country. I have heard and read hundreds and hundreds of testimonies of Muslims
in restrictive Islamic countries who've had Jesus appear to them in a dream and they were
converted because of it. One who was an Iranian radical Muslim became disillusioned with Islam. And as he was disillusioned, in the peak of
that disillusionment, Jesus appeared to him in a dream and eventually he gave his life
to Christ. Another by the name of Achmed, instead of having a beautiful vision of Jesus,
kept having recurrent nightmares of judgment. This so shook him that he found an Arabic
Bible and read it in secret. Why in secret? Because they would kill him had they found
it. And so he read about Jesus and what he said and the miracles that he performed, and
he was so impressed and drawn to Jesus that he gave his life to Christ. So Peter said,
"I was an eyewitness. I saw this miraculous transfiguration happen before my eyes." Personal
experience: "That's what I saw." But notice he also says, "This is what I heard." Verse 17, "For he [Jesus] received from God
the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to him from the heavenly glory: 'This
is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' " Now you know God the Father said that twice
in Jesus' ministry, right? Once at the baptism and once here at the transfiguration. "And
we heard"---notice this---"we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with him
on the holy mountain." So now we understand that the vision that he saw was accompanied
by a sound track. He heard a voice. God spoke. Now, this is written in the emphatic and it
could better be translated: "We ourselves heard this voice and others did not." Now
somebody will read or hear this and go, "Oh, hearing voices, are we, Peter? First of all,
you saw some crazy things, now you're hearing some crazy things." And Peter would say, "Oh, no. Not just me,
but me and James and John---all three of us together saw the same thing and heard the
same thing at the same time. And, by the way, Jesus was there. Oh, and also, let's count
Moses and Elijah." There's a whole group. And the more you have who see and hear the
same thing, the chances of fabrication are greatly diminished. And why is this important?
Because people who are unknowing will accuse New Testament writers of hallucinations: "Oh,
they heard voices," or "They were so predisposed to this, they thought they saw a resurrection
or they thought they saw a vision." But that defies everything we know today about hallucinations.
Experts in the field will say that individuals can get a hallucination, groups cannot. If a group sees the same thing and hears the
same thing, that's no longer classified as a hallucination. There's something happening
that needs to be accounted for. And, by the way, they will say typically there are certain
profiles of individuals, high-strung individuals, imaginative individuals, those are the kind
of people that hallucinate. That does not fit the profile of Peter, James, and John.
So Peter is saying, "I, along with two of my other buddies, we were eyewitness to this
glorious apparition. It was a trailer to the real event; and that is, the second coming.
And it's something we saw and it's something we heard." Have you ever paused to think what
it would have been like to be an apostle, to just be hanging around Jesus, living with
him for three, three and a half years? And just watching him and hearing him, it's
now starting to dawn of you who this guy is you're following around. At first he was just
this rabbi who said some really cool stuff. But now he's walking on water, now he's raising
dead people, now he's doing this miracle and that miracle, and you're astonished at who
you're following. John wrote about that in First John, chapter 1. This is what he said:
"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our
eyes, which we have looked at and our hands they have touched---this we proclaim concerning
the Word of life. The life appeared; and we have seen it and we testify to it, and we
proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us." "We are eyewitness. We saw his works. We heard
his words. We saw withered limbs healed, dead people get up. We heard Sermon on the Mount.
We heard the sermon in the upper room. We heard parables. We heard his words. We saw
his works. We had the personal experience with him." The only problem with personal
experiences is that they are personal experiences. They're subjective. They're your own. And
somebody could well say, "Well, that's your experience with truth. My personal experience
with truth is far different than yours. You say you've seen and you say you've heard---you
know, people see and hear things all the time. Experience itself is not valid." And that
would be true. Let's say somebody stood before you and said
this: "Ladies and gentlemen, I have a message for you. I have smeared rotten bananas all
over my head, and my life has changed. I now have peace. I have joy. I have love in my
heart. I now talk like a monkey. I've been changed." The first question you ought to
ask---I know what the first thought would be that would go through your mind. You'd
think, "Guy's absolutely nuts!" But the first question you ought to ask is: "Are there any
others throughout history who have also smeared rotten bananas on their head and their lives
were changed and they had peace and love and joy and talked like a monkey?" Because if we can find throughout history
this constant stream of individuals who've had the like experience of that person who
gave the testimony, we may be on to something and we might want to invest in bananas in
the next few years. But perhaps not, maybe this is an isolated case. So we look at the
apostles of Jesus, and beyond the apostles, those throughout church history who've had
the similar experience of inviting Christ into their lives, and their lives being radically
changed and experiencing peace and joy and love. All of the disciples were radically
changed. And one of the strongest evidences for the gospel is that every one of those
apostles, except for Judas, went to a martyr's death because of what they testified that
they saw and heard. "This is what we saw. This is what we heard.
This is what we know. Our lives were changed." But Peter doesn't end with that, and it would
be inappropriate to end with that. If we were just to say, "We know it's true because I've
experienced it, I've seen it, I've heard it." It wouldn't be enough, and Peter knows that,
and so he writes about second line of evidence, which is scriptural evidence. Verse 19, notice,
"And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that
shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts."
You see what he's doing? They haven't seen what we has seen. They haven't heard when
he has heard. But they have the Scripture. And he says, "You do well to take heed [to
that]; knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation,
for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved
by the Holy Spirit." "I know it's true because of what I've seen, I know it's true because
of what I've heard, but now I know it's true because of what I've read," spiritual evidence.
The Bible is confirming. "We have the prophetic word confirmed," he said. I love the King
James, the old King James: "We have a more sure word of prophecy." "I know it's true
because of what I've seen and heard, but I really know it's true and more certain than
my own personal experience is what the Bible says. The Bible predicts the second coming
of Christ. So if you don't believe me, read your Bible." As you read the Bible, you find case after
case after case of fulfilled prophecy. Now I'm not going to give you a study on prophecy
this morning. We've done that in the past. But when you have a book where you find a
prediction that God's people would be in slavery in Egypt for 400 years, and then it happened;
and in the same book it's predicted that these people will eventually be in a seventy-year
captivity in Babylon, and it happened; and you have prophecy after prophecy of what the
Messiah, Jesus Christ, would do, and he fulfills them; you may want to think twice about that
book and not just relegate it to another holy book. Example: in Isaiah 45 it is predicted
that the temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed a hundred years before the actual event. In the same chapter, Isaiah 45, it is predicted
that Cyrus the king would rebuild the temple before Cyrus was ever born. He wasn't even
a twinkle in his daddy's eye. He wouldn't come on the scene for another 160 years, but
his name was written by the prophet Isaiah. And yet today in America four out of ten Americans
believe that the Bible was written, its entirety, decades after the death and resurrection of
Christ, which is not true, and it could be shown to be true. But they actually believe
it was all written decades after his death and resurrection. What those four out of ten
Americans need is a good study in fulfilled Bible prophecy. And I have had wonderful,
lengthy conversations with people about this, and I have yet to meet someone who honestly
considers the evidence for this and rejects the Scripture. Because somebody will say, "Oh, but there's
many books that purport to be the Word of God." You're right. There's about twenty-five
books right now in the world that claim to be God's very word. Of those twenty-five books,
you know what they're all lacking? Fulfilled prophecy. And the Bible has that in spades.
A few years ago National Inquirer put out an interesting article, speaking of tabloid
magazines. But the article was interesting. It was called "Modern-Day Prophets." And they
asked movie stars, sports figures, and politicians to make predictions of what would happen,
not in six or sixty years, but in the next six months. That's pretty safe. "Give us a
prediction of what will happen in six months." They made sixty-one predictions in total. Venture a guess, what would you say, they
were half right? Maybe a third of what they predicted was right? Not a single thing they
predicted happen. They flunked completely---zero on the test. Now, Peter will admit that experience
is not valid by itself, but when you combine it with Scripture, now it's objective and
verifiable. "I know what I saw, I know what I heard, but I also know what I read, and
that what I saw and what I heard was predicted by the prophets." So the Bible is confirming.
He also wants you to know the Bible is enlightening, for notice what he calls it. Verse 19, "We
have prophetic word confirmed [or a more sure word of prophecy], which you do well to heed
as a light that shines in a dark place." I don't know how you're reacting of the news
of the last few weeks and months. I wonder if it's getting to you. It is to a lot of
Americans. Attack after attack, almost daily, guys with hatchets in New York attacking police
officers in the name of their religion. It's happening in Canada. And it's almost like
you can't keep up with that news. Diseases like Ebola that are happening, and people
are being shaken. Well, you need to know that some of these events, likewise, were taking
place in that time. And Peter writes to his audience and says, "You have in such a dark
world---you have a light. You have like a flashlight. Yes, you're shaken, but you're
not shaken like people who don't understand this stuff. We know what the Bible predicts
is coming. We have a dependable light in a dark world, and it's Scripture." Psalm 119:105, David says, "Your word is a
lamp to my feet and it's a light to my path." When Jesus began his ministry, the prophet
Isaiah was quoted by Matthew: "The people who sat in darkness, they have seen a great
light." "You do well," says Peter, "to take heed to Scripture, because it's like a lamp,
a lantern that lightens the darkened room." You'll notice that he says, "Until the day
dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts." What is he speaking of "until the day dawns"?
He must be speaking about what he has been speaking about---the second coming of Christ.
One day Jesus will come, and when he comes all spiritual darkness, social darkness, political
darkness, moral darkness will give way to a bright day. What's interesting is he says,
"Until the---and the morning star rises in your hearts." "The morning star," the Greek word is phósphoros,
phosphorous. It was a technical term for the planet Venus, which was that bright light
just before the dawn. You can tell the dawn---the day was about to begin when you would see
that planet, when you'd see that star. "And the morning star rises in your hearts." Look
at the last two verses and we'll close here. The Bible is unerring, besides confirming
and enlightening, it's unerring. Peter writes, "knowing"---he loves that word---"knowing
this first, that no prophecy of scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy
never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy
Spirit." This is one of the two most important New Testament verses on divine inspiration,
the other is Second Timothy 3:16. You know it. "All Scripture is given by. . . "---I
thought you knew it." All scripture is given by. . . inspiration of God and is profitable."
You need to be reading a little more. [laughter] "All scripture is given by inspiration," theopneustos.
It's God-breathed. It's God-breathed. But this one says, "They were moved by the Holy
Spirit." Now, there's a word I want you to notice in the text. That's why I hope you
bring a Bible. Look at verse 21. Look at the word "interpretation." "No prophecy of Scripture
is of any private interpretation." That's an unfortunate translation, because when you
read it, or you hear it, it makes you think of understanding the Bible. Right? I'm reading
what is written and I have an interpretation, I have an understanding of what is written. And it's an unfortunate translation because
cultic groups will come along and say, "No. You really can't understand the Bible. We,
the leadership, need to explain it all to you. And I know you think it means that, but
it really means that." So the word "Interpretation" in the Greek language refers to the origin.
That's why the New Living Translation puts it this way: "No prophecy ever came from the
prophets themselves." It's speaking about the origin of the text. It not like, you know,
David or Paul was sitting around one day going, "You know, I kind of want to write about that,"
or, "I have an idea . . . ." It's not like it originated from them, though God used them.
Now This is very good text for Bible inspiration, because it says, "Holy men of God spoke as
they were"---what?---"moved by the Holy Spirit." That's a nautical term. That's a sailing term
of sails going up and the ship being carried along where the wind determines it will go.
So the biblical authors hoisted their sails and the Spirit or the breath of God filled
those sailed and carried them to the destination God wanted, using the individual style of
the author, the personality of the author. That's why John writes different than Paul
and you notice those differences. But the destination, what was written, was under the
control of the Holy Spirit. This is important, because if you try to explain inspiration
to a person---we say," Well, the Bible was inspired." What you don't mean is that it's
a mechanical inspiration. It's not like Paul's in the corner and God's saying, "Now take
this down as I dictate it to you." That would be mechanical inspiration. I don't
believe that. Nor do I believe in what's call "concept inspiration," that God gave them
the general concepts, the general idea. Like Paul, "I'll give you the general idea, Paul,
about love." And so Paul goes, "You know, I'm going to write myself, my own thoughts,
First Corinthians 13." That's concept inspiration. Nor do we believe in "natural inspiration."
You might go to a concert or you might see an artist and you say, "Oh, oh that artist,
he's so inspired." Well, there is a level of natural inspiration that great artist or
great musicians have. But that's not what we mean by this. We mean is yes these biblical
authors had their own styles, their own personalities. But when they hoisted their sails and the
breath of God took over, they were carried along so that the destination or the text,
the result in text is indeed the very Word of God. We believe that is God can create
the heavens and the earth, certainly that's not a big task for him. Okay, when you add
human experience to divine revelation, now you have a powerful combination. If you just
have what I saw and what I heard apart from what the Bible says, you just have a subjective
set of experiences. You can argue that with anybody else, but you won't get very far.
If you just have the divine text, but you've never experienced it, so what? But you put
them both together, you've truth set on fire. So I conclude with this: H. P. Barker said,
"I was looking out my window and I looked at the garden, I saw three things. First,
I saw a butterfly that was beautiful and would alight upon a flower and then flutter to another
and to another, only for a second or two and then move on. It would touch as many blossoms
as it could, but derived absolutely no benefit from it. But, second, there came a botanist
into the garden. The botanist had a big notebook under his arm and a big magnifying glass.
And the botanist would lean over a certain flower and he would look for a long time and
he would write notes in his notebook. And he was there for hours writing notes, and
then he closed them, stuck them under his arm, tucked his magnifying glass in his pocket
and walked away. "The third thing I noticed was a bee, just
a little bee. But the bee would alight upon a flower and would sink deep down into the
flower and extract all the nectar and pollen that it could. It went in empty every time
and it came out full." And the author says, "Which are you?" When it comes to Scripture,
which are you? Are you like the butterfly, you flip from this Bible study to this Bible
study, from this church to that church? I've asked people, "What church do you go to?"
"Oh, I go to all of them." And it's like, "I get a little here and I get a little there.
And especially I like the kind where there's just a big pep talk and I can smile a lot
when I go and leave. The lighter the better." Or are you like the botanist? Oh, no, no.
You're into deep study and you want to take all these notes. And you get out the magnifying
glass and you search and all the original stuff and you take more notes, and then you
leave forgetting what you just wrote on the paper. Or are you like the bee? You go in
empty and you come out full, and it's fuel for your life, it's pollen for your existence,
it's nourishment to your soul, and they are truths that you live by. You decide which
one you are. Father, we thank you for the words of Peter, this fisherman whose life
was changed. And he knew what it was to have eyewitness testimony. And his eyewitness testimony
was the same as that of the others who saw the transfiguration, and like the other apostles
who lived and heard and saw the life of the Lord Jesus. But he also realized that eyewitness testimony
by itself is just personal experience, but when matched up with the objective truths
of prophetic Scripture, it is a very powerful and compelling case that should convince any
thinking person that there is more to this Jesus than him just being some guy who existed
and good things were said about him and done by him. He's far more man that. Lord, I pray
that we would have the hunger to dig deep, not just to dig deep, and not just to understand
truth, but to understand and relate to the God of truth in a living relationship, a love
relationship with you, the living God. It's in Jesus' name we ask, amen. Closing: Because of our personal experiences
and the prophetic Word that God has given to us, we know that our faith is real. How
has God made his truth evident to you? Let us know. E-mail mystory@calvaryabq.org. And
just a reminder: you can give financially to this work at calvaryabq.org/giving. Thank
you for listening to this message from Skip Heitzig of Calvary Albuquerque.
