Right, we're coming to 2 Peter 1 and to these verses that we have read, and you'll notice in verse 19 this word, a more sure word, a more sure word. And I'm going to be speaking, the title tonight is going to be The Superiority of the Written Word, that it is the prime, superior, and blessed way by which God communicates to His own people. Now, the word sure comes up two times. We've noted that. Verse 10, we are to make our calling and election sure. You're not to go around filled with confusion and filled with that kind of false humility and say, well, I might be a Christian and I might not. I might be going to heaven and I might not. No, God wants you to be sure that the calling of God that is so definite so individual and so personal to your own heart that there's not a shadow of doubt in your soul that I am a child of God, and I'm going home to heaven, and I'm sure of it, and none of this false humility. And say, well, you know, maybe, maybe, and you want just to be modest about it in case you're accused of bragging. Well, brag on, because the Lord says that we are to boast in the cross. of the Lord Jesus, and we have not much else that we can boast about. And so down here in verse 19, Peter goes on to say, but we have a more sure word, and this now is another pillar that we stand upon for our faith. And you can see what Peter's doing. He's laying a great foundation for the battle of faith. And as you turn the page into chapter 2, you will find that the battle is going to begin. He's going to take on the false preachers, the false teachers, and he's going to deal with those who are denying the return of the Lord Jesus, and you'll get that on into chapter 3. They're denying the coming of the Lord Jesus. Verse 3 of chapter 3, knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lusts. And they will use a worldly lifestyle, they will use the lusts of the flesh to become a platform for their message of denial. And it's sordid, it's twisted, it's perverted, and Peter is now laying the foundation in chapter 1 that we can stand against this enemy. Now, as you know, every good general prepares for battle. And Napoleon and Hitler both made the same mistake. They underestimated the severity of the Russian winter. And because of those long distances between that eastern part of Europe and Moscow, and the inner parts of Russia, and the long lines of supply that were needed, and when it came down to minus 40, minus 50 below, normal things didn't function, and they had not prepared for the battle. And here Peter is preparing the way for the battle. You will see in verse 16 of chapter 1 that he said, we have not followed cunningly devised fables. These fables, by the way, in the Greek language is the word we get sophistry. Sophistry. Sophistry is an art of oratory that is more by effect than by reason, and it is all to make the impression It sounds good, it sounds holy, it sounds awesome, but really underneath the principles are rotten, and there is no solid foundation. Now that sophistry, that art of looking for effect, is what many preachers use today. And they use many means to accomplish this. They will use glass pulpits, that's one, because they want to be on a stage, and they want to walk around, and they want to have this appearance of showmanship. And they also want to wear their skinny jeans. That's another technique they use, and that seems to make them more yuppie and appeal to young people. And then the shirt tail is out as well, and that's another message to appeal to a broader mindset of millennials and young people and so on. And many use those effects. And of course, many often do not use book, chapter, and verse. They will use philosophy and art of learning, and they will quote great authors, and they will make an impression of being the scholarly type. And it's very impressive, but it is not preaching the whole counsel of God. And Peter has already appealed for balance in this book, and we looked at those seven things that a Christian needs in his life. And if you have just one of them and you don't have the others, you're off balance. These are the things we're to add to our faith. And you don't need just knowledge. You need knowledge that's also with self-control. And you need self-control that leads to patience, godliness, brotherly kindness. And this is the balance that is needed in the Christian life. And then you also need the Bible. You need the Bible. That's really what Peter is saying here in this verse 19. 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. And then he goes on to speak in verse 20, knowing this verse, that no prophecy of Scripture. I want you to note that word, Scripture, the written, inscripturated Word of God. And that's what Peter's referring to as the more sure Word of prophecy. Now, Scripture there is the word graphe, and it is graphic. and it's visual, and it's permanent on the page, and it's something that will stand the test of time. And so Peter's saying to his readers here, I want you to take your stand upon the written Word of God, and I want you to arm yourself. Let this be your ammunition to deal with these cunningly devised fables. These sophists who are out to make an impression but have no truth. Or the false teachers and the heretics and the mockers that arise. I want you to have the written Word as your ammunition. So tonight, as I say, the subject then is the superiority of the written Word. and simply stated, it's better when it's written. It's better when it's written. Going back to verse 16, it's better than cunningly devised fables. as also in all his epistles—sorry, I'm way back over here—verse 16, we have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Peter did not resort to sophistry. He did not resort to making an impact or an impression by the art of effect. but rather he was interested in the truth. And these cunningly devised fables, they have the charade of something that's wonderful, but they're paper thin, and behind them there is no substance. Now, the Word of God, the Bible, is the objective Word. It is the Word that liveth, and endureth forever. And we do not follow the Barthian principle, where this Bible, while it is a living word, and it's personal and applicable to the individual reader, this Bible does not change from reader to reader. It is not subjectively received. In other words, embedded in the text of scripture is objective truth that has one meaning. And if we are interpreting, handling, and applying that word right, it will have the same message to you and each and every one that is handling this word. Otherwise, it becomes cunning. And Barthianism and the subjective method of handling the Bible is a cunning way of interpreting the Bible. Now, this does not always happen, but sometimes it can happen. If you're ever in a discussion group, and you've got eight or ten people sitting around, and nobody really has done their homework on the passage, no one is the leader or the teacher, and we just read the passage, and then they go around and say, Well, what does that mean to you? And if you go from person to person at the end of that exercise, what do you end up with? Eight or ten different opinions on the same passage of God's Word. And, of course, if there's somebody there that's cunning and got an agenda, they're going to skew that with their own ideas and their own notions to make an impression on people, and all the while they're not faithful to the text at all. And so this word, when it's written, is the objective word. and it has one single message and one meaning. Now, it may have many applications. When I read a passage, and I'm the preacher and pastor, and I've got certain responsibilities in the church, God might use that to direct me to do something tomorrow. I might think of somebody that was in the church tomorrow, and I'd say, they need to get this message. They need to get a copy of that sermon. I will phone them up, and I say, you know, you need to be fortified by the Word. And so, it will move me to take a certain action, if you're a housewife at home and you're caring for the children. It might be a different reaction. It might be, well, I need to spend more time with my children. And so God can take the same passage, the same truth, and He can hammer it out in our individual walks and walks of life in different ways through the same passage. But the objectivity of it, the message of it, is exactly the same—one message with perhaps various applications. Now, in verse 17, You will see that this written word is better than the temporary light of the transfiguration. Peter here in verse 17 is rehearsing what happened on Mount Transfiguration. You can read of this in Matthew 17, when he, Peter, James, and John were in the mount, and the Lord Jesus' body glowed and glistened. And I know of one Bible teacher who said it happened at night, and it had a tremendous impact. And the glory of Christ was revealed there in that mountain. And it had its impression. And Peter never forgot that. And he's now a much older man, and he's thinking about it, and he's saying, we have a more sure word of prophecy, because what happened on that Mount Transfiguration, well, it was temporary. And it happened with a limited number of people, just three witnesses. We saw the glory, and we also heard the voice from heaven, when the Father spoke from heaven. And in light of that event, the written Bible, the more sure word of prophecy, is superior than to an experience like the Mount Transfiguration. Can you get that? We're better off with the Bible in our hands. than an experience like Peter, James, and John on the mount. Verse 18, he goes on to say, "...and this voice which came from heaven we heard." Have you ever heard a voice from heaven that was audible? Have you ever heard a voice that is akin to God speaking from the heaven to you? Some people would say, well, that's what I need. That's what I would pray for. Peter's saying, don't pray for that. You've got something far better. You've got the inscripturated, the written Word that is permanent. It's the Word that will never perish. It liveth and it abideth forever. And when you have it in book, chapter, in verse, in written form, You're blessed indeed. You see, the day that they came down from that mountain, they couldn't take the experience with them. But when you leave this meeting tonight, you can take your Bible home with you. You can use your Bible anytime, anywhere. And you can hold up that Word, and you can say, there's book, chapter, and verse. There's what God has said, and this is what I believe. And therefore, this is a more profitable superior mode of revelation than even a voice from heaven, or even to see the Son of God glorified in His bodily form, and all the sweetness that that did bring to the hearts of Peter, James, and John. And then he talks here in the end of verse 18, when we were with him in the Holy Mount, Now, that Mount Transfiguration is still a tourist attraction today, and if you were there, the guide would happily take you to the Mount Transfiguration, or at least the spot where they say, this is where that event took place. And as a tourist trap, would it do your soul any good? I don't think it should do you any harm, but it won't convert an unsaved person without the work of the Spirit. It won't make you stronger, because you know these things already. You have them in the Word of God. And it's a holy mount, certainly in the sense that it has a significant event, but it won't make you holy if you don't have the Holy Spirit's power in your soul. But you know what will make you holy? Feeding on the Word of God. Because the Word of God, Jesus said, Father, sanctify them through thy Word. Thy Word is truth. And when you get into your Bible, and when you memorize it, and hide it in your heart, it will make you holy. It is therefore superior to any location, superior than a voice from heaven. It is superior to an experience of some glory that shone through the body of Jesus. And I don't belittle those events. They're real, they were true, and Peter was a witness to them. But he goes on to say, verse 19, we have also a more sure word of prophecy. This written, inscripturated word. Secondly, We're moving now on into 19, verse 19. The written Bible is superior because it is a true beacon in a dark world. 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." Now, I think that's the day that Christ comes. When the day star appears and Christ returns, the day star arises in your hearts. We'll either be in heaven or we will be caught up in the air with the Lord at His return when that light comes. But until then, until then, we are walking in a dark world where we need a lamp and we need a light to our souls. We have many questions to answer. And we have many decisions that need to be made. And Peter is emphasizing in this book that we are living in danger, spiritual danger. There's danger in the world and there's danger in the church. False teachers, mockers, those who come up with cunningly devised fables. And they're even in the church. And we need this sure word. to be our lamp, our light, that we might walk with God in the light of His Word. Now, not only do we need the Word, but we need to take heed to it. It says here, you have a more sure word of prophecy, that ye take heed. And there's the problem. We have the Bible. Many have grown up on it. But when it comes to the crossroads of truth and error and issues of compromise, for some reason people don't take their stand on what the Word of God has recorded, and they end up in a dark place. and they end up walking through a dark patch in their life. Maybe that's been your experience. And for some reason, you've set the Bible aside, and you've allowed other things to guide you, and you've been walking through a dark place. And you realize the error of your way, and you need to get back. And you need to have the Word of God to guide every step that you take. and every decision that you make. Ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place. Now the Bible gives us the answers. It tells us of the history of the world. It tells us of the present, how to walk in the world. And it tells us of the future, how things will develop and the Lord shall return. I want to preach those three things tonight. The Bible is given to be a lamp in a dark place, and the Bible has the answers about the past for the present and also the future. The Bible tells us the history of the world. What year is it? If you were to ask that in a university classroom, you just might throw the professor for a loop. Why? Because they don't believe in the year of our Lord. They have changed 2016 to, it used to be the year of our Lord. Now it is no longer. And before Christ is before the common, they call it. And so there is a denial of the very history of Christ who has changed and divided the epochs of the world. The Bible gives us the answers. How old is the world? And we might be back to the issues of the Grand Canyon and the Great Flood and the fossils and all those areas, but we believe in a young earth. This world is not thousands of years old. And when we get into this book of 2 Peter, these things are going to be very important because we're going to be dealing with these mockers that are denying, well, where is the appearance of His coming? All things continue until this day as they were before. They are uniformitarians. Everything's the same today as yesterday and the previous period. There's been no judgments in the world. Of course, they deny Noah's flood. They deny Sodom and Gomorrah. They deny the fall. And they think that this world was always just as it is today. and therefore they deny those things. But the Bible believer, he knows how old the world is. If you were to ask old Archbishop Usher, He would say that the world was created in the year 4004 BC. He gets it right down to the day, the year, right down to the year. But we would certainly take our stand on a young earth. Anybody that believes in a world that's less than 10,000 years, we can stand alongside them and say, you're in the ballpark. You're in the arena that we can stand in. But when you start adding millions and billions, we've got a problem. And you've got a different idea of the history of the world. Who was the first man? Well, the Bible has the answer to that. I remember in a young youth meeting, that question was asked, who was the first man? And the answer went up, Neil Armstrong. And of course, he was the first man on the moon. And this is a world that needs the answers. The history of mankind, the study of anthropology and the origin of man is a very skewed science. And, of course, they want to link all the pieces together of the lower animal world and try and say that man is somehow up there, that he is the higher order of a whole chain of animal species. Will you read Genesis and it will say, after its kind. After its kind, there is no crossover between cats, dogs, sheep, horses, donkeys, monkeys, and humans. Within their own species, they do multiply. And God has set that in order. Where did Israel get its name and its heritage? Well, the Bible is the answer to that. And you read the book of Genesis, and we get all the links of how God started with one man, Abram. And his son was called Isaac, and his son was called Jacob, and Jacob's name was changed to Israel. And now we have a nation, since 1948, in the Middle East, Israel. Hated by everybody. Hated by everybody. a miracle in itself. And we have to stand back and say, God's doing something. We can't even begin to analyze that without the Bible. How did Christianity spread around the world? Well, you could turn to many sources for that, but the Bible does have the answers. And in the early church, they went everywhere preaching the Word. And the Greek language was used to preach it. The Roman roads were built to carry it. And God took this gospel far and wide. And so we sing, Holy Bible, book divine, precious treasure, thou art mine, mine to tell me once I am, mine to teach me what I am. And so the Bible has the answers to the past, it has the answers to the present. Do I need to know how to walk with God tomorrow morning? And what's specific? Eight o'clock. I've got to be on the job. I've got to be at my desk. I've got to make decisions. What's going to be my moral compass? The Ten Commandments. Can't get better than that. It doesn't get simpler than that. And the Word of God will guide us in how to live in the present. The law is the rule of life for the Christian. It's not a ladder to heaven. You can't get saved by keeping laws, but you will walk with God in the light of His law and in His Word. You'll be like the psalmist in Psalm 1 who will delight in his law day and night. God blesses His people when they keep His commandments. Jesus said, if you love Me, keep My commandments. If a man loves Me, he will keep My commandments. My Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him. How do you live a holy life? you keep the commandments. And that deals with the drugs, the alcohol, the teenage pregnancy, the abortion, the divorce, and all those things that stalk our society. Our governments need to be guided by the moral compass of the Word of God. And there lies right and wrong. In the future, the Bible tells us of our future world. And this is the big point that Peter is dealing with in this book. Jesus is coming again. He is coming again. Now these mockers and scoffers are rising up and saying, where is the evidence of his coming? And Peter deals with that a day with God is as a thousand years, or a thousand years is as a day. And with God, do not think that he has changed his mind or that he has forgotten, but he is long-suffering. And the long-suffering of God is not a discredit to God, but it marks his grace and his patience, because in these times he's gathering out his people. And He's building His church and saving them. And so, for all of these reasons, we need a superior Bible. We need a revelation that is sure. Now, I want to move on now to something that's a little more technical. And I ask your forgiveness that I bring this in at this late point, and I'm going to ask you to think hard and to think through these things, because we're getting here into the area of the inspiration of the Bible. When you go on in Peter's passage here, he goes on in verse 20, he says, "'Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. We want to follow along in Peter's own words in these verses. Verses that become so important when we want to know the source of biblical revelation. And here is something that the apostle is sure about. Verse 20, knowing this first. Knowing this first. He's absolutely sure about it. He is not apologizing and he means for his readers to get a handle on this first. Now what is it? He goes on to say in verse 20 that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. Now here is where we have a problem and where we need to really think hard because we need to grasp this point. The word, Greek word behind interpretation is only found once in all of the New Testament. Now that creates a problem for the Bible student. Because if you have one of those irregular terms, it's found just once, you can't compare Scripture with Scripture with it. Many words, you say, well, it's recorded 10 times, and we'll see how it's used nine other times. And if it's consistently used nine times that way, then number 10, I'll use it the same way here. That'll be my guide. But we can't do that in this case, because the word behind interpretation is a single usage in the Greek. This word interpretation doesn't fit here. There's a problem with it. And it would give rise to what the Roman Catholic Church has done. They say to their people, you're not allowed to interpret the Bible for yourself, because the Bible is of no private interpretation. All right, you have the Bible. It's God's Word. It's a miraculous book. You can only read it, but you can't claim to understand it. Now, that's been the position of the Church of Rome for centuries. Well, they used to burn the book. They used to ban people from reading it. And then when they did give it to people, they said, well, you can read it, but you're not allowed to say you understand it. Because it's not of any private interpretation. The church must interpret the book. That was Roman Catholic dogma for generations. And to this day, that would be used, and they would say the other revelations and knowledge of the church is of greater authority, and that authority interprets the Bible. So, the church is first. The Bible serves the church. We say as Protestants, no, sir, the church is built on the Bible. The Bible is first, and we understand the church in light of what the Bible teaches. So what do we do with this word, interpretation? Well, let me give you an alternative word, and let me ask you to do this, that the Scripture is of any private origin, origin. Now you say, well, you're playing with words. You're just doing what these others do. These are cunning methods. On what grounds would I in any way try to turn that word interpretation to the word origin? And my answer is this, the context requires it. And when you're studying the Bible and you run up against a difficulty, the context must be your guide. The immediate context and also the greater context. Now, if you read on into verse 21, you will say that this scripture is of any private interpretation. I say origin, verse 21, for For the prophecy came, not in old time, by the will of man." Now, the will of man simply means the determination of man, or the desire of man, or at man's instigation. The word for means because. And when you read through verse 20 into verse 21, you will see that that word interpretation, well, it is stretched. to say the least. And we need to understand this, that the Word of God is of no private origination. Because, for the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God speak." Now, do you notice that the origin is not about handling and interpreting the Bible? It's the source of the Bible. It's the origination of the Bible. Where did it come from? Who first spoke it when it was written down? The answer is the Holy Ghost. Holy men of God were moved to write by the Holy Ghost. And so, we must here be guided by the context. And the context demands that we understand this as origination. So, it's not of human origin, and it's not of human order. And I go now to this verse. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, But holy men of God spake as they were moved." Men didn't order it. Men didn't say, well now we need something to write. It's time to write. No. They waited for the Holy Ghost to move before they would write. And so man did not originate it, man did not order it. It was the sovereign working operation of God the Holy Spirit. Now notice in that verse 21, the word moved. I would call that the key word. That is the word that really is the action word of that statement. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved." The word moved there means as they were born along or carried along. And so the power, the origination, the organizing of it is the Spirit of God. Man is just being carried along, in a sense passive. He's the passive. He's the one being acted upon in this process of inspiration. And in this work, think of how the prophets wrote and spoke in the Old Testament. Now, I'm not going to go through all these verses. I have a whole series of verses here, but I'm going to give you the categories of the kind of statements that you will find in the Bible. You will find often that they preached, thus saith the Lord. Now, if I was to do that, if I was to come to the pulpit, say, next Sunday, and open my own notebook, don't even have a Bible, I open my own notebook, and I say, thus saith the Lord. Would that be Ian's word, or would that be the Lord's word? If I was truly moved by the Spirit to write, that would be the Lord's word. Thus saith the Lord. Then also we read of prophecies where it's called the burden of the Lord. and they began to speak or write. And so it wasn't man's message at all. It was the message that was conveyed to them by the Lord. We read of Balaam and of King Saul that the Spirit of God came upon him. Now, who's interpreting and who's originating? That's the big issue here. You see, I'm allowed to interpret the Bible, but I'm not allowed to originate it, because this Bible is a finished book. And when you read Revelation 22, those closing verses, 18, 19, you ought to tremble. You're not to add to it. You're not to take away from it. The Bible is a finished book. And the preacher, the pastor, the Bible scholar, whatever you want to call him, he's allowed to handle and preach and explain and expand and interpret the Bible. But I'm not allowed to originate new text, more so-called statements. You see, there's a great difference between interpreting and originating. And you read consistently in the Bible that holy men of God were moved by the Holy Ghost, and they preached in this firm. Thus saith the Lord, the Spirit of God came upon him, the Spirit of God came upon Amasai, the Spirit of God came upon him, and then of David, and the Spirit of God came upon Azariah, the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah. And this is not men interpreting. This is men starting with a blank page. and writing new text right from God. And this, this is God's Word. Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private origination. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man. Man didn't say, well, it's time for a new revelation. No, the Spirit just suddenly moved them, and they spoke. or they wrote. Now, not only that, but if you go back to chapter 1 of 1 Peter, These men who wrote the scriptures, and they were moved to write whatever God was in God's mind, they then wrote out the words, put the pen down, and they looked at what they wrote. And it says here in 1 Peter 1.10, of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto them, searching what? or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ, which was in them, did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow." So they had to study their own writings. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine, there's me sitting in the study, and I'm writing out this new revelation from God, and Beulah comes in, and she has a cup of coffee for me, and she's got one of those oatmeal flakies that she makes. It's one of those, you know, give your husband anything but chocolate. And it's an oatmeal flaky, and she puts the plate down, and she looks over my shoulder and she says, what did you write? Well, it was my writing. God wrote this. What does it mean? I don't know. There's obscure things here, and I don't even know what it is. And there's details in it I can't fully answer. That was how the prophets wrote. And they had to give themselves to a life of study upon the very Scriptures that the Spirit of God moved them, carried them along to write. And once they were written, and they compiled these things together and built them up, they said, well, that Scripture compares with that, and that Scripture compares with that. Well, we know now what God's saying. And maybe when Jeremiah and Isaiah and all these prophets, you add them all together, we can get the picture now. But each single writer wrote words that they didn't even know the full extent of the meaning at that time. This is inspiration. This is the miracle of the Bible. And Peter wants you, before you even start, knowing this first, he says, right here in chapter 1, verse 20, no prophecy of the Scripture. The written Word is of any man's private instigation, origination, and I pointed out the problem we have now with this word, interpretation. It's much more than interpretation. It is the Spirit of God moving and bringing him in to write the actual Word of God. Now, how does this work? In his dictionary, Dr. Alan Kearns Outlines five characteristics of inspiration. Can't preach them now, but I want to give you these five things. Number one, it is immediate. That means the Spirit of God works directly on the mind of the man who's writing. It's immediate. It's unique. And I might say thereby God only wrote one Bible. It's a unique work. It's plenary. It's fully finished. We don't need to add anything at all to the Bible. Now we give our lives to understanding it, explaining it, expounding it, but the Bible's a full and finished book. Number four, it's verbal. It's word for word. It's not just the inspiration of the ideas in the scriptures. That's what some Bibles call the dynamic equivalent. And God just put the idea in their head and they could write it in their own words. No, no. God moved them to write the very words. so we can say the Holy Spirit used that word. Now, the Holy Spirit did not use interpretation, by the way. That's a translation issue. You have to go to the Greek word behind interpretation to understand that problem. And again, the problem arises because it's only used once in all of the New Testament, and all interpreters or translators into another language have to struggle. What do we use? And we end up having that difficulty. But it's verbal. And the fifth thing, it's objective. It's objective. It's God's Word written, fixed, final. And as I come to that Word, I've got to leave my own prejudices, my own biases, my own baggage behind, if I'm going to be honest with the Bible. I must not come to the Bible with an idea and say, did God ever think the way I think? That's not objective. We've got to submit our minds to the written Word. This is called humility, submission, trembling at His Word. And when we come to try and understand it and interpret it, we're not perfect, infallible interpreters, but we believe it is a sure Word. It's a sure Word. And if I don't fully understand how this is going to play out, it will play out in God's sovereign purpose being fulfilled. And I can take my stand upon that Word that it is absolutely sure. Now, what a great foundation. What a great foundation for Peter to get into the hearts and minds of his readers before he starts talks about these false teachers, these heretics, these mockers, and these scoffers of God's Word. They who love the unclean, the love heresy, and love to deny the true things of God. And yes, we can grow. That's why 2 Peter ends up, chapter 318, it talks about growing grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. And it's because we have a sure word, we can grow. And it's all about growing. Growing in faith, growing in confidence, growing in our understanding of God's ways and God's will and how to live for him. This is Peter's burden. And we pray that as we cross over into chapter 2, Lord willing, in the next weeks, that the Lord will help us to use this ammunition, the sure calling, election, and the sure calling of God, then this more sure word. If there's a conflict between what man is saying and what the Word of God is saying, there's only one answer. I take my stand here with God's book. and we'll let this man live or die with his own words, and God will be his judge, but we'll take our stand with the word. This is Bible Christianity. This is Bible religion, and it will build conviction into us and give us, I trust, backbone to stand for God.