BY GREG CRUM
“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 shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:” II Peter 1:17-19
Here in the first chapter of 2 Peter we read of Peter’s recollection of a spectacular supernatural event that he experienced firsthand along with a couple of his closest friends. He references a “voice” and of being with Jesus “in the holy mount.” What was he talking about here? Who’s voice? And what made this mountain holy? The answers to those questions are found in Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 17 in particular. It’s there we read of Jesus’ “transfiguration” and of his meeting with Moses and Elijah before his crucifixion.
In summation, Jesus’ physical appearance was altered before them in such a way that “his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.” (Matthew 17:2) What’s more, all of a sudden two of the most famous men of Jewish ancestry show up and Peter, James, and John see men long dead with their natural eyes. If that wasn’t enough to stun those three Hebrew men, the grand finale involved God Himself speaking from Heaven, telling them to listen to Jesus, because He was His beloved Son. Wow, wow, and triple wow! What an experience, right?
Friends, we could all wish to have times with God like this, and perhaps we should, but when Peter referenced this experience and remembered what he audibly heard God say, he called something else a “more sure word of prophecy.” What? “More sure” than hearing God audibly with your natural ears? Evidently. Okay then, what is “more sure” than that? 2 Peter 1:20 is the answer, “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.” What is “more sure” than any spectacular supernatural experience we, or any other human, can have? The Scriptures! The cannon of writing that the early church believed to be God inspired as “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” (2 Peter 1:21) Why is this “more sure”? Because it is time-tested and thoroughly proven, and thus foundation and filter worthy!
Brothers and sisters, coming from someone who has grown up in the Pentecostal way, I will readily admit that supernatural, spectacular experiences of the God kind are great, and should be desired (I Corinthians 12:31), but historically these experiences are often misinterpreted and even more often misapplied. We see this so much today. YouTube and Facebook “prophets” tell us what they’ve seen, what they’ve heard, or what they’ve dreamed.
Now, I’m not saying they didn’t, and these experiences may even be from the Lord. Too often though, our knowledge is a mile long but our understanding only an inch deep, and we tend to see things through the lens of our own context (the age we live in and our current culture) and not God’s. We see things a certain way because it fits what we’ve been taught or what we want to happen and we are rarely open for it to be any other way. Because of these things we desperately need a filter for our experiences with God.
That’s where the Bible (once again) proves to be so important for us today. It is the “more sure” foundation and filter for our understanding of God and of the experiences that we should be having with Him on a regular basis. The time-tested and early church approved eyewitness accounts of the actions and words of Jesus. The writings of Paul. The Old Testament Scriptures that Jesus testified were the words of God. These are the truths that we can build our faith upon. Experiences are great, go have them. Hear from God, because He still speaks to men and women today. See miraculous things with your natural eyes. It’s God’s desire for us. But always remember to filter what you see and hear through the sieve of God’s already established Word—Genesis through Revelation!
Greg Crum is the pastor of Calvary Temple in Lovely.