In his second epistle chapter
1 and verse 16 Peter tells us plainly that we have not followed
cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power
and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ but were eyewitnesses
of his majesty For he received from God the
Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him
from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I
am well pleased. And this voice which came from
heaven we heard when we were with him in the Holy Mount. We
have also a more sure word of prophecy, Whereunto ye do well
that ye take heed. as unto a light that shines in
a dark place, until the day dawn and the day star arise in your
hearts. Know in 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. We have not followed cunningly
devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. But perhaps to you, as to many
in this day, in a day and an age, which trumpets the so-called
knowledge of science, and the advance of technology,
and the increase in wisdom and knowledge of man. Perhaps to
you, the Gospel, and the Bible, and the message of Jesus Christ,
and the declaration that Christ is the very Son of God, and that
he came into this world to die for sinners and having died he
rose the third day from the grave and ascended into glory from
whence he preaches the gospel as light which shines into a
dark world. Perhaps that message to you is but fables. cunningly devised
fables, myths, legends, something which people from a former age
and generation, not as advanced and wise as yours, trusted in, but to you nevertheless, fables. the gospel just fables to you,
a myth, a story from the history books which is subject to change,
to elaboration, to inaccuracy, to exaggeration. Well it wasn't
to Peter and it wasn't to Peter because
Peter was there and he heard, and he saw, and he recorded and
declared and preached what he saw, knowing the truth of it. We have not followed cunningly
devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. He saw. He saw Christ. He heard this man. He saw his
miracles. He saw when Christ went into
the mount and was transfigured and a voice from heaven boomed
forth and declared, this is my beloved son in whom I am well
pleased. He saw. And he preached and declared
what he saw. as we do today who preach and
declare what we too have seen and what we too know of Jesus
Christ and his salvation. Now you may say well I wasn't
there when Peter was there and Peter's just a name in a book
written 2,000 years ago And to me even what Peter declared
is but a myth, a fable. But the reality is that there
are people alive today, witnesses as Peter was a witness to his
generation, there are those alive today who can witness to you
as a truth that we also do not follow cunningly devised fables. But we have seen and we know
that there is a creator and we have seen and we know that that
creator, that God sent his son the Lord Jesus Christ into this
world and we have seen and we do know his gospel, his voice,
his message, his word, we know his life. We know he's risen
from the dead, not just because the book says it, not because
we have a book written 2000 years ago which we find persuasive
mentally, but because God has taken what that book says and
made it a reality to us. We know he's God. We know he
died, we know he's alive and we know the power of his gospel. We have not followed cunningly
devised fables. Science falsely so-called today
may pour scorn on the reality declared in this book. It may
pour scorn on the reality that this world was created and that
this world is sustained by God. But that scorn is but a fable
and a myth that comes from the mouths of those that declare
it. And you follow those fables and those myths that they declare
at your peril. because the evidence all around
you does not support the claim that there is no God and does
not support the claim that this world, this universe came out
of nothing by an inexplicable big bang which was caused by
nothing and science and the evidence
in this world does not prove the idea the theory
that creatures that man evolved over millions of years through
a chaotic process when in reality all the evidence around us shows
that things grow worse and more chaotic as time goes by and demonstrate
that if man was ever to be, then someone created him. and the reality is that even
your own understanding and conscience with which you are made witnesses
and cries out to you inwardly that there is a God and there
is a creator and there is a reality to the truth in the word of God
which you simply suppress and ignore and refuse disbelief. As Paul made known
and made clear in the Roman epistle he states, that which may be
known of God is manifest in them, in all men, in all women, in
you, for God have showed it unto them. God has shown you that
he exists through his creation. For the invisible things of him
from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood
by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead,
so that they and you are without excuse. The very world around
you the creation, the world, the universe, the planet spinning
around the sun, life itself, your body, the human eye, the
lungs, the breathing of the air, the beating of the heart which
you don't control, the difference in the creatures in the different
realms within this world, the mammals, the birds, the fish,
the diversity of creation all point clearly evidentially with
undeniable proof to their maker and the fools of men who through
their science falsely so-called profess themselves to be wise
but became fools as Paul says have taken this diversity, have
taken this evidence which points to God and have used it to come
to conclusions which are absurd and foolish and by which they
have told a lie so many times. that the fools who follow them
have been deceived by it, because there are many, many, many, perhaps
you too, who have followed their cunningly devised fables, their
myths, their folly. Paul goes on. They and you are
without excuse, because that when they knew God, they glorified
him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in
their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing
themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory
of the uncorruptible God into an image made like the corruptible
man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. They
fell down and worshipped the creation. Now man through generations
has worshipped created things. All different races, all different
tribes have bowed down and made religions in which they have
worshipped all sorts of idols, all sorts of created things.
They bowed down and worshipped the sun. They bowed down and
worshipped various animals. They make gods fashioned after
men. and today they create with their
technology wonderful scientific tools and gadgets which amaze
and which wonder like magicians that bring out their magic tricks
and the people gather in their audiences to listen to the preacher
appointed by the technology companies to bring out the latest trick
and to wow them as they bow down like religious zealots in worship
of that which man has created. Isn't that the case? Isn't that what you today, oh
21st century geniuses do? You bow down to the creations
of man and say this is reality. In the same way that those that
you call fools from a previous age bowed down and worshipped
carved idols. There's no difference. Who changed the truth of God
into a lie and worshipped and served the creature more than
the creator. is blessed forever amen. And
this is why God gave them up to vile affections as he's given
this generation up to vile affections for even their women did change
their natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise
also the men leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their
lust one toward another as they all do today, men with men working
that which is unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompense
of their error which was meat. they did it then they do it now
and the result is in verse 28 that even as they did not like
to retain God in their knowledge God gave them over to a reprobate
mind to do those things which are not convenient. Why do you
think and act and do as you do? Because God has given you up
The God that made you, the God that sustained you, the God that
you have rejected and rebelled against and ridiculed and scorned
and claimed to be but a myth and a legend and a fable has
said unto you in your rebellion, very well then, I will leave
you to your folly. Go and burn in your lust one
for another. Go and worship your idols that
you have created with your microchips. Go and worship men and women
and see the folly and the danger which you'll bring upon yourself.
Go and take your pleasure-seeking life. Go and indulge yourself
with your alcohol and your drugs. Go and put yourselves to death. and see where you are. And the one reality which you
will know and which you cannot avoid and which this day and
age tends to bring upon itself faster than it ever should is
the reality of death. You're born, you live, you die. You're born, you live, you die. You're born, you live, you die. And this age, your age, that
indulges its pleasure, puts itself to death sooner than ever before. And when you die, you will stand
before that God that you have said, is but a fable. That God that gave you over to
a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient. You being filled with all unrighteousness,
fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, envy, murder,
debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful,
proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection,
implacable, unmerciful, who know in the judgment of God that they
which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do
the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. That's where
you've got yourself. And one day, you will stand before
that God, who you said was a fable, a legend, and a myth, and you
will answer for why. why you have left his truth,
why you have left the reality that your conscience declares
that this world and yourself are created and sustained by
God, why you have wandered off to follow the cunningly devised
fables of science falsely so-called. To follow the foolish idea that
this world is here from a big bang, from nowhere, from nothing,
with no creator and no force behind it. To follow the foolishness
that this world is full of creatures which just evolved randomly. That this world has no meaning.
That life has no meaning. That there is no purpose to your
being here. You're just an organism on a
planet which happens to be able to sustain life. And you as many
other organisms are born and live one moment and die away
and wither away another day. What does it all mean? It's pointless. It's pointless. And the wisdom of this world
and science can give you no answers for the reasons why you're here. Why are you here? Where have
you come from? Where are you going? What does
it mean? They cannot answer because they're
full of cunningly devised fables. which play a merry tune like
the Pied Piper of Hamelin that you follow along until you're
destroyed. Like lemons which go with the
crowd all bleating away thinking that you are free thinking all
saying the same message till you all jump off the cliff to
your destruction. They're fables. But if you've any sense You will
ask the question, why am I here? What is life? What is the purpose
of my life? What is the meaning of life?
Where am I going? You will, faced with the reality
that you cannot escape, that your life will draw to a conclusion,
that there is such a thing as death, you will wonder and ask,
what then? When your parents die, when your
friends die, when you see this one and that one, move on. You will ask where have they
gone? And instead of denying the existence
of God and then whenever someone dies somehow hoping that maybe
they're in a place called heaven and all is well with them, against
all that you claim to believe, you will in reality begin to
wonder, well where have they gone? And where will I go when
I follow them? And just why am I here? Why is this world as it is? Why are people as they are? Why
do people swear every day taking the name of somebody in history
called Jesus Christ or taking the name of God? Why do they
use those names as swear words and not others? And you'll begin to realize it's
because there's a reality to this. and a reality to the fact
that the fallen heart of man, your heart, rebels against God,
in particular, and rebels against Jesus Christ, in particular,
which is why you, when you are angry, when you are exasperated,
you take their name in vain, and not Muhammad's, and not Buddha's,
and not Julius Caesar's, and not Henry VIII's because they are not some legend
or just some person in history Christ is not just another figure
in history but he is who he said he was he is God which is why
men reject him and hate him because man as a sinner hates God which
is why you hate God, because you love yourself, you love your
own glory, you are proud and a boaster, and you hate the idea
of a God who made you, and unto whom you should bow
down the knee and worship. Cunningly devised fables. Science
has no answer to the real questions of life. It can tell you the
construction of things and the mechanics of things but it cannot
tell you why. blue is the color of the sky,
why green is the color of grass, why people are happy and sad
and sorrowful, why this happens and that happens, why we live
and die, why we are here, why there is a world, where we are
going when we die, why Science has no answer but the
Bible, the gospel, the word of God, the truth has every answer
for every question. We're here because God created
this world. We are his creation. He created
it for his glory. It's in the state it's in because
man following the creation rebelled against God and shook his fist
against his maker and sought his own glory. And the wars and
the famines and the strife and the agony and the violence and
the hatred and all that is evil in this world is because of man's
sin and your sin and your rebellion against God. Why do we die? Because sin, our rebellion brought
in death. and after death we will stand
before that God that makes us and sustains us and answer unto
him. Why did Jesus Christ die upon
a cross? Who is he? Why did he? If he rose again from the dead
why did he rise? Jesus Christ, as the scriptures
declare, is God's Son, whom God sent into this world as a saviour
for those who had rebelled against Him. As a saviour of sinners,
as a saviour of rebels, He sent His Son to suffer and die in
the place of a people who hated Him. And he came as the Son of
God, made man, and walked upon this earth. declaring God's Word
into a fallen world, bringing the light of God into the darkness,
and he went to the cross, a place of execution, that he might deliver
his people from their sins, that he might wash them clean, that
he might take their sin away, that he might cause them to live
forever. that he might conquer that death
which their sin had brought into this world. Why do we die because
of our sin? How will we live because of Christ? Because he conquered sin, because
he conquered death, because he brought in everlasting life.
Where will you go when you die? You will go into everlasting
death if you know not Christ. But if He died for you, if He
took your sin away, if He conquered death for you, if He rose again
from the grave for you, then you will live forever with Him. No myth, no fable, the truth,
and you know it's the truth. If you don't you've got no hope
and nothing to live for. If he did not rise again from
the dead you've got no hope. In but a few years you'll be
dead and that's that. What are you living for? A bit
of pleasure for a few years? That time goes in a blink. Ask anyone older than yourself. Ask your parents, ask your grandparents
how long their life is and it's gone in a moment. The youth of
today are the old men of tomorrow, bang you're gone. If there is
no resurrection from the dead as Paul says, I am of all men
most remiserable and all men will be miserable if there's
no reality to this gospel. There's no meaning to your life.
Like the grass, you rise up one day, you cut down the next, you're
nothing, you're meaningless, you're just another grasshopper
upon this world that comes and goes. And are you going to come and
go following the cunningly devised fables of science falsely so-called? that tells you that you're nothing,
that there is no God, there is no life after death, there is
no meaning. Or perhaps you will. Perhaps
to you the scriptures, the Bible, the gospel are just myths, fables,
legends from a book in history. which is subject to change, to
elaboration, to inaccuracy, to exaggeration. Well, why wouldn't
you? Living in this world, this world
of scorn, of ridicule, of mockery, what else would you think? Growing
up in this day and generation, this day and age, where the media,
where the government, where the populace all mock. What else would you think? You
may have said to the historical fact that there was a nation
of Israel. that that nation once dwelt in
Egypt and once came out of Egypt and dwelt in Canaan you may accept
that some of these things are facts or you may assent to the
fact that there was a person called Jesus and that a religion
called Christianity grew because of him but faced with declarations
in the scriptures that there was a man called Noah who truly
was saved at an ark from a flood which destroyed all the world.
Or face with the reality the fact in the scriptures that Israel
was delivered from Egypt, walking across hundreds of thousands
upon dry land in the midst of the Red Sea when God divided
the waters. Or faced with the account of
Jonah being cast into the waters and swallowed by a whale and
spat out miraculously upon the ground. And faced with the accounts
of Christ and his miracles. And faced with the account that
Christ died and on the third day he rose from the dead. What are these to you? Are they but myths, fables, legend? Naturally speaking, nothing will
make you believe. It's all too amazing for you
to accept. You hear these things and they're
but fables. nothing will make you believe
except the power of God in his gospel and that's the reality
of it nothing could make me believe these things except God himself
took his truth took his gospel and he himself spake it unto
me in power and nothing will make you believe what you reject
as a fable except God himself preach this gospel unto you he
may send the preacher but he must take that preacher's word
and speak them unto your soul you need the power of God in
order to hear and to live because you're blind and you're deaf
and you're dumb and you're without understanding and spiritually
speaking you are dead and the voice of the son of god must
speak unto you that you who are dead should live you need the
power of god that which Paul was speaking of in the very chapter
in Romans from which we've read, I am not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation. It saved him, it made him to
see, just as it saved Peter and made Peter to see and gave Peter
faith. because without faith he was
in darkness. No matter how much religion he
had, no matter how much of the scriptures he had, no matter
how much he might have heard, he could have even heard Jesus
Christ as he did. There were many who lived with
Peter who heard Jesus Christ himself, the Son of God himself,
and they did not believe. because you must hear his voice
in power and that voice must put faith in your heart. Peter
opens that epistle from where we've read. Simon Peter a servant
and an apostle of Jesus Christ to them that have obtained like
precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and
our Savior Jesus Christ. like precious faith he obtained
it and if you obtain from God that faith by that power of that
gospel then all that you reject as a fable will become a truth
to you and all that you previously rested in will seem but fables
Peter goes on, grace and peace be multiplied unto you through
the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord according as his divine
power have given unto us all things that pertain unto life
and godliness. for the knowledge of him that
have called us to glory and virtue whereby are given unto us exceeding
great and precious promises that by these ye might be made partakers
of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the
world through lust. There was a power that took them
from the corruption of this world and made them to see and to know
that God is real and Christ was their Saviour. Have you heard
that power? Have you? For we have not followed
cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power
and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The power This is what
Peter preached. The power and coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ. The gospel. The power of God. And it's what you need to hear
in power. You need to hear God's voice
in that gospel. You need to hear Him saying unto
you of Christ, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Should you hear that voice, you'll
know it's no fable. This is what Peter preached.
And you see you'll only believe when the power of that gospel
breaks through the hardness of your heart and your rebellious
unbelief. And you'll only believe when
Christ actually comes unto you and speaks to you through his
gospel, when he makes himself known unto you. Then, then you'll
believe. Well one day you will hear his
voice and one day you will behold him and one day you will see
him but that day will either be by faith in this world now
through his gospel or it will be the other side of death when
it's too late. You'll know he's real, you'll
know it's no fable, either now in this life, if God is pleased
to open your understanding by the gospel, or you'll know when
it's too late. the other side of death the other
side of the grave when you stand in his presence and when you're
called to answer for all that you've done and said in this
world and all your rejection and all your scoffing and all
your mocking and all your trusting in the foolishness of this world
and the foolish ideas and the foolish claims of the fools that
lead the fools like you astray and what good will it be then
what good will your scientific professors from Oxford and Cambridge
do you then when God says unto you why did you not believe and
why did you say this and that to those that I sent unto you
with my message that you should hear that you should believe
you rejected them you laughed at them you spat upon them you
cast them out and yet I declared the truth which you called a
fable, what will your answer be on that day? Better to answer now. better
to hear that voice now in grace speaking unto you and saying
unto you though you rejected, though you hated me, though you
despised me, though you say I'm a fable I nevertheless loved
you from before the foundation of the world I nevertheless loved
you before you were born I nevertheless loved you when you hated me when
you were wretched in your sin and rebellion and I went to the
cross and suffered and died for you though you hated me because
I loved you and I took your sin upon me and I drank the cup of
God's wrath against it and I set you free and I will make you
to be righteous because I shed my blood to wash you because
I love you Better to hear that voice. Have you? Have you? If you don't then you
who sit in darkness, blind, will remain in darkness. Yet we know
that when Christ was born it was said that those who sat in
darkness have seen a great light. And Peter speaks of seeing that
light. He was in darkness. Whereunto
ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth
in a dark place. I make known unto you the power
and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ because I've seen his
majesty. We were eyewitnesses of his majesty. This is why we're sure of what
we say. We were in darkness like you,
but we've seen a great light. We've seen Christ. We've heard
his voice, we know it's the truth, we know it's reality, and we
know that all the nonsense of this world which tries to bury
it and obscure it is just a deceit and a lie. This is why we're
so sure. We don't follow mere reports. We don't simply trust in a book
called the Bible. We haven't just got the book,
the account, or the accounts of other people. But the very
God that the Bible speaks of, the very Jesus Christ that it
declares, is the very God, the very Christ who's spoken unto
us. whom we have seen when He put
faith in our hearts and our eyes were opened to behold Him. We
know He's God and we preach Him unto you and we implore you to
turn away from darkness, to flee from the wrath to come, to turn
your back away from walking backwards unto death and to listen because
Christ has come into this world to save sinners and he has shone
his light in the darkness and we are eyewitnesses of it, we've
seen him, we know him, we've heard him. He is a saviour of
sinners and he can save even the hardest heart, even you We
don't follow tales or legends. We are not followers of cunningly
devised fables. But we are eyewitnesses of his
majesty. We preach what we know and we
know because we've seen and we've seen it by faith. that's not
some natural intellectual faith that we've worked up that's something
God put in his heart in our hearts when he caused us to be born
again to see he opened our eyes he put understanding within and
he made us see which we once never saw. If all we had was
the written account if all we had was the word of others then
yes perhaps You might say that we have followed fables. You
might say we're clutching on with hope to myths. But that's
not all we have. The reality is that no one truly
believes with just that alone. But we believe when God opens
our eyes. until then we are set against
it in unbelief but when he opens our eyes we know, we know that
God has worked in us, we know that he loves us, we know that
Christ's blood has washed us clean, we know that he's our
savior and that is why we believe because he's shown us his majesty. The majesty of the Son of God,
the majesty, oh what a sight, His majesty, His glory, the glory
of a King, the glory of the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. The glory of the one who rose
from the dead, the one who took sin away, who blotted it out,
the one who conquered sin, who conquered death, who conquered
hell, the one who died for others, for his people, the one who came
to save his people from their sins. There's his glory in his
redeeming salvation of his own. Redemption is His glory and we've
seen it, we've beheld the cross, we've beheld Christ crucified,
we've beheld our Saviour taking our sins away and we know they're
gone. and we know that He's risen again
and we know that we've risen with Him, we've beheld His glory
and we've beheld Him ascending and sitting down on the right
hand of God the Father, we know He's the King of kings, we've
seen His majesty and we know that He rules over all, He rules
over this world, we know He's sovereign and we know our salvation
is all. from Him, all of God. We were going another way and
He came to us in His gospel and He spoke and He delivered us
and He turned us and He saved us and you can be going another
way but should you hear this gospel, should you hear His voice,
should you know His grace, then you will know that there is a
God and there is a Saviour. and he has saved you because
then you will know that the power and the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ is what delivered you, delivered you from the cunningly
devised fables, the legends and the myths of the world around
you which would lead you unto destruction. Oh where will you
go with the multitudes into the pit of hell and destruction,
following the folly of those that are blind? Or will you hear
the testimony of the eyewitnesses of Jesus Christ, those who beheld
his majesty, his glory, and those who heard the voice of God say
of his Son, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. This is my beloved Son in whom
I am well pleased. Amen.