It is wonderful that the Bible contains such great promises, but how can we know that it is actually true? Our reading from 2 Peter helps us with this question.
Peter is nearing the end of his life (1:14) as he writes his second letter, he also knows that there will be false teachers (2:1), and so he wants to make sure Christians have the truth about Jesus. Peter is the source of Mark’s gospel. When Peter says that he will make every effort so that after his departure they will able to recall the events of Jesus’ life, he’s talking about Mark’s gospel. Peter told Mark everything, warts and all! It is amazing that Peter was willing to tell of all his failures, but that’s because his concern is for Jesus’ glory and not his own.
Well how can we trust what Peter told Mark? He tells us first of all that he was an eye and ear witness. Peter says we did not follow cleverly devised myths (1:16), but we were eye witnesses, we saw Jesus with our own eyes. The event he is talking about in particular is the transfiguration (recorded in Mark 9).
There’s lots we don’t remember seeing, but when you see something out of the ordinary, you remember it. I still remember the hurricane of 1987, well I slept through the whole thing, but I remember seeing the aftermath when I woke up! Peter says he saw the glory of Jesus, and not only did he see, he heard, he heard with his own ears a voice from heaven declaring about Jesus “this is my beloved Son.” You’re not going to forget something like that. You’re also not going to make up something that is no benefit to you! Peter and the other apostles all suffered, most of them were put to death from proclaiming Jesus’ death and resurrection. You would not die for a lie.
But, that’s not all! Peter says, they weren’t only eye and ear witnesses to Jesus’ majesty. They also have the fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecies written hundreds of years earlier. I remember Michael Fish, the weather forecaster confidently predicting that there would not be a hurricane, he was wrong! But Peter says, Jesus perfectly fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies.
In his book “Evidence that demands a verdict” Josh McDowell says that if we took just 8 of the prophecies, namely 1. Born at Bethlehem, 2. A messenger would announce his arrival, 3. He would enter Jerusalem on a donkey, 4. He would be betrayed by a friend, 5. He would be sold for 30 pieces of silver, 6. The money thrown into the temple by Judas and field bought with it, 7. That he was silent before his accusers, 8. That he would be crucified.
The probability of those 8 being fulfilled by one man would be 1 in 10 to the power 17! To help understand this, it would be like covering France in 2 Euro coins, 2 foot deep, marking one of these coins, sending a blind man to travel as far as he wishes, and to pick up one coin. For the OT prophets to write these 8 promises and to be fulfilled in one man is the same as this blindman picking the one marked coin! And Jesus fulfilled far more than just 8 prophecies!
How could such prophecies be so accurate? Well, Peter tells us that Scripture has two authors, it’s fully written down by people, and it is fully inspired by God. Those people were driven along by the Holy Spirit, just like a boat is driven along by the wind. That’s how these prophecies could have said what was going to happen hundreds of years later.
We can trust God’s Word because it is written by eye witnesses who, just like the prophets in the Old Testament were filled with the Holy Spirit. Since that is the case, not only does that mean we can trust God’s Word, but we should also pay careful attention to it (1:19).
Light and Momentary Troubles 
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