27th September 2023

27th September 2023


Pray (ACts)


Read - 2 Peter 2:12-21


Message Alan Burke 


11th September 2001, can you remember what you were doing or what you were doing? Or 15 August 1998, maybe the 31st of August 1997 or the 9th November 1989? I can remember where I was and what I was doing on each of those dates I doubt I will ever forget. The day the Twin Towers were attacked, the day of the Omagh bomb, the day Diana died and the fall of the Berlin Wall are engrained into my memory there may be many more that you have engrained into yours even before I was born, while they are engrained into my memory it is fair to say that in each instance my memory is fuzzy, there are bits I can remember and there are bits I can’t, our memories are like that. If we could go back to witness as Peter the transfiguration it would be something that we imagine we’d never forget but Peter saw the Old Testament the prophetic word of Scripture is a more certain proof than even the spectacular experience of witnessing the Transfiguration.


He then goes on to say in v20-21 ’20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation.21 For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.’


This is one of the key passages in helping us understand how the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the word of God. If we were to compose a poem, a narrative or a historical account, what ever it would be it is our minds that would be at work, as we compose that piece but what we are being told here is that God is the source and ultimate Author of Scripture. Though written by human authors, did not come about by the prophets own interpretation, but by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Jesus himself understood this when speaking of Psalm 110, where he said “David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit”. David well that is stating the obvious but the addition of speaking by the Holy Spirit teaches us not only about this psalm but of all of Scripture, it is inspired by the Holy Spirit. 


The word of God, the scriptures that we have before us is an inspired book, it is inspired by God, Timothy puts it as breathed out by him (2 Tim 3:14-17). God used human authors and worked in them by the Holy Spirit, God used them to communicate his revelation they spoke as they were carried along but the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21). While each book of scripture is distinctive, those who wrote them were carried by the Holy Spirit and their individual personality and writing styles were used by God to communicate to us his revealed will, both authoritative and unified in its teaching.


The origin of all of scripture is God not man, as God carried along, as God breathed his word though those who wrote. How we do not know but we can be assured that what we have is not “cleverly invented stories” by man as Peter has already asserted. (2 Pe 1:16). God’s word is truth, it is the infallible word of God. This matters, how we live in response to it matters because we live in an age that is going to find truth harder and harder to know. Yet for us our final authority as believers is the word of God, his truth that he has given us, in that we have a purpose for why were created, we know that life is not void of meaning, we know the value of life and the necessity of caring for the widow and the orphan, the elderly and the vulnerable. God has given us his word as a lens in which we can live for in order to live a life as God intended we must look at life through the lens of his word and it is his word that we should want more and more off, we who’ll want worship to be filled with it, to be saturate with it as well as our every day lives for it is our only rule in faith and obedience to our God.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q57 Which is the fourth commandment?
The fourth commandment is, Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day, and hallowed it. (Exod. 20:8–11)
​