Divine Revelation: Why People Hate A God Who Speaks - 2 Peter 1:19-21 Series

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Introduction: Two Worlds

Well, it’s 2026. The future has finally arrived—a whole new world! Actually, two worlds. We live in one, secular people live in the other. And only one of the two worlds is real. It’s like that movie The Truman Show where the main character lived his whole life on a movie set, but he thought it was the real world.

Now, if you ask an atheist, he might say the real world is one where there is no God, and the fake, imaginary, movie set world is one where there is a God. They think the difference between our worldview and theirs is all about God’s existence. But that’s not really the issue.

Atheism, Agnosticism, and Anti-theism

Have you ever noticed how well atheists and agnostics and anti-theists all get along with each other? You’d think the people who say there is no God and the agnostics who say maybe there is a God would be natural enemies because they’re making opposite claims. But they’re not enemies. They’re allies. When I get online and express my worldview, they all join forces and argue against me, and their arguments all sound the same. You can’t tell which ones are anti-theists and which ones are agnostics—they’re like peas in a pod.

Why is that? Why are they all on the same side despite the fact that they have opposite beliefs about God’s existence? It’s because despite the labels they use for themselves, it’s not the existence of God that bothers them. What they all hate is the existence of a God who communicates. It’s not about whether there’s such a thing as God; it’s about whether there’s such a thing as God’s Word. They’re fine with a god, as long as he’s silent.

The reason all those people are living in the same world is that the implications for life if there is no God are identical to the implications for life if there is a silent God. The way you live your life is no different.

But a world in which God has spoken is a totally different world. That changes everything

Above All

And the reason I bring all that up is to explain the first two words of 2 Peter 1:20. We’re going verse by verse through 2 Peter and we’ve arrived at the final paragraph of ch.1 which begins with these two words:

2 Peter 1:20 Above all[1] …

He says, “Above all …” and then goes on to talk about the fact that God has spoken. How he spoke, where he spoke, what is his Word, what isn’t his Word, what to do with his Word. The questions surrounding God’s communication to mankind stands above all.

Our World vs. Theirs

And if you doubt that, just compare the two worlds—the one where God has spoken versus a world where God is silent.

In a world where no one above man has spoken, the final word on everything is what people say. Think of how empty that is. The only purpose of your life is what you dream up. So if you get depressed one day and feel like your life has no purpose, then it really has no purpose. If you feel worthless, then you are worthless. There is no reality higher than your judgment. Objectively, outside of your own feelings, human life has no more meaning than a glob of slime at the bottom of a garbage dumpster.

But in a world where God has spoken, meaning comes from what God says. If God delights in you, you have value regardless of how you feel. If God says the greatest command is to love, then that means you can accomplish the most meaningful and important action possible—you can give your life immense meaning simply by loving God and loving others.

In their world, love is nothing. When you tell your spouse, “I love you,” all you’re saying is “Sweetheart, my brain is having some hormone surges and I’m responding with some evolved behavioral patterns that are likely to help my offspring survive. Don’t you feel special?”

In their world, the wonder and beauty and magnificence of the creation points nowhere. In our world, we look up at the night sky and hear the heavens declaring the glory of God and the skies proclaiming the work of his hands. They look up and see nothing special at all—just a giant mess. Richard Dawkins wrote, “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”[2] They can’t see anything in this creation other than the wreckage of a big explosion. There is no glory in their world—nothing transcendent. All those feelings of awe and wonder and inspiration, they say, “Oh yeah that’s nothing. Just chemicals in your brain.