From the bustling neighborhoods of Cambodia to quiet moments of revelation, this episode captures the powerful impact of our global ministry. We share inspiring stories of individuals who have found faith and transformation through simple yet profound teachings. Meanwhile, Dr. J. Vernon McGee guides our exploration into 1 John 5, unveiling the essence of eternal life —a treasure grounded not in rituals or affiliations but in possessing Christ Himself. Prepare to reflect on your personal journey as we close with the timeless truth: ‘He that hath the Son hath life.’
The foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith.
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome to Through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee. I’m Steve Schwetz, and today we’ll learn about the importance of the familiar verse, He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life. But first, here’s more from Dr. McGee on God’s attributes. Last time we studied the first one, God is love. Let’s conclude that now.
SPEAKER 01 :
Now, love explains, I think today, why God created this universe and this earth and man. Have you ever stopped to wonder, well, why in the world did God create all of this vast universe? What was the point of it, you see? Why would he do that? Couldn’t he got along without doing that? You ever wonder why? Well, if God is love, then he cannot exist in the splendor and the loneliness of isolation. He created man. He created man to love him, a man to have fellowship with him. That’s the reason that he visited Adam every afternoon in the Garden of Eden for fellowship. And then that man turned his back on God and ran away from him with the woman. I tell you that man’s been running away from God ever since. This idea today that man is searching for God. It’s the other way around. God is searching for man. And so we see that God created man, a creature. God says he loved him. God so loved the world. And then the love of God tells something else. It tells out the free will of man. It explains the free will of man. The free will of man has taken a beating in the past few years. The election of God has held center stage. There are little groups all over this country today that are sitting around saying, God has elected certain ones. He’s going to save them. We won’t have to do anything except enjoy ourselves. And they’ve all become little self-admiration societies. Now, I’m a Calvinist, but I’m not a hyper-Calvinist. Unless man is free to love, then he is a robot or a zombie and nothing else. There is a spontaneity about love. There is a free choice. Either human or divine love, there must be a free choice. And I’m not talking now about sex at all. When you met your wife, you fell in love with her. Did you fall in love with her with your head? Did you marry her for her money? Did you marry her for some advantage? Her father was president of the bank and you hope to be president someday. I have a notion that you fell in love with her and it was from the heart. It was a free choice that you made. It was spontaneous. Now, there is a motive for love that’s found in the heart. And that is the only place you can find it. We are told we love him. Because he first loved us. God loved us. And if you become a child of God, then you want to love him because he’s done so much for you. I have to thank him every day for the fact that he’s who he is and what he’s done for me. And then I have to tell him I love him. I don’t show it always, but I sure do. God made us free to love him. If not, my friend, it’s not even love at all. And then there’s something else that the love of God explains. It explains the providence of God. Now, if God was not love, he could have created the universe, wound it up like an eight-day clock and walked off and left it. He could have made it like a motor that’s under the hood of your car. When’s the last time you had the hood up and looked at the motor, told a motor that you loved it? My friend, may I say you get in the car, turn on the starter, and away you go, and you forget all about it. That’s what man would be. Man would be a robot or a zombie and nothing else. This universe would be careening through space without purpose or direction. But you see, there’s the providence of God. Now, providence comes from the same stem as provide, and it means God will provide. And theologically means the direction of God that he gives to everything animate, inanimate, good and evil. Oh, this is wonderful when we’re dealing with these things.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, God is still working in places and ways that Dr. McGee would never have imagined. Isn’t that right, Greg?
SPEAKER 02 :
It is, and it’s so enjoyable for us. I was going to say fun, but it is fun. We can almost spin a globe like the old days and just put our finger down and say, what’s God doing through our humble efforts in this country? Today we want to talk about Cambodia.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yep. And it’s a language, the Khmer language, that like so many of these programs have really now a generation. I actually Googled this. A generation in today’s terminology is 25 to 30 years. We went into the Khmer language in 2001. So we’re almost a generation of faithfully proclaiming the gospel and discipling people through radio primarily in the Khmer language in Cambodia.
SPEAKER 02 :
And this is a country I’ve been to a number of times. I’ve been to see the killing fields. I’ve been to something called the Tulsling. It was a prison that was an elementary school where they tortured people that had glasses. If you had glasses during the Khmer Rouge, they thought you meant you could read, you had education. Two million people were wiped out during that awful period. period of history. And so what you just pointed out is important. We’ve been ministering through that generation into the new generation. And praise God, we have some encouraging stories to share.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, here’s the first one. It’s from a listener named Banak, who catches the Bible bus in the language of Khmer. I had heard about the Bible for many years, but I didn’t fully understand it. One day, and this is unique again, we mentioned this before, I found you on Facebook and listened. As the host explained the scriptures in a simple and clear way, I began to understand more about God’s word and how it applies to my life. Now I listen regularly and study along with it. My faith has grown so much and I have seen positive changes in my life.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s why we’re on all these different platforms, Steve. Now, here’s Srainith, who says this.
SPEAKER 04 :
Such an encouragement. So we’re going to pray right now as we begin, but I just would encourage our listeners to pray for those in the Khmer language in Cambodia. Difficult place to live, probably a difficult place to be a Christian in many situations. You can pray for them. So let’s do that now. Heavenly Father. We do pray for the Khmer language and those people in Cambodia that have come to Christ. We pray that you’d continue to grow them in part through listening to Through the Bible, but also reading your word directly. Pray that you would bless the ministry there, that you would bless our study in 1 John as we turn there now. In Jesus’ name, amen. We’re off to 1 John 5 on Through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.
SPEAKER 01 :
Now, friends, I want to come back to where we left off last time. chapter 5, and we probably should read again in verse 6. It says, “…this is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ, not by water only, but by water and blood, and it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is true.” Now, we mentioned last time that this is definitely a reference by John to that which he alone records in the 19th chapter of the gospel of John. And I want to turn to that. But when the soldier came to him, we’re told, verse 33, I’m reading now of John 19. But when they came to Jesus, they saw that he was dead already. They break not his legs. But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side and forthwith came there out blood and water.” Now, John emphasizes that, and he comes back and says, I noted this, that there came out both blood and water, and he’s making reference to it. He says he came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ. And he says not by water only, but by water and blood, and it’s the Spirit that beareth witness because the Spirit is truth. Now, we believe that the water speaks of the Word of God as applied by the Spirit of God. The Word and the Spirit go together. And then we have verse 7. And may I say that it looks as if we have three more witnesses added here that are in heaven. And I read verse 7. For there are three that by record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. And these three are one. Now, that verse actually is not in the better manuscripts. I have here the verse scholarly. presentation presented by the late Dr. A.T. Robertson, who was, I think, one of the greatest Greek scholars that ever lived. And I heard him lecture when I was a student in seminary, and he Probably knew more Greek than anybody that has lived in our generation. He lectured on the epistle to the Romans. And he got up the first day to lecture. And he had a great big sheaf of notes there on Romans. And he didn’t even look up at the student body. He just was straightening out those notes there. And then he looked up and said, I don’t see how the apostle Paul ever wrote the epistle to the Romans without my notes. And of course, everybody roared at that. Well, he was a great Greek scholar, and he makes the statement that verse 7 is not in the better manuscripts. and that it was probably put in there by some scribe in the margin, and that you must remember that the Bible at first was handwritten. It was not printed. It was not until Gutenberg invented the printing press, and the first book printed was the Bible, but that was a long ways off from John and his day. So that some scribe evidently put what we have as verse 7 in the margin, and then later on another scribe would come along and include it in the text. Now, there’s nothing wrong with it. The only thing is, I think we need to recognize it’s not in the better manuscripts. And if we want to be scholarly and if we today want to be accurate and be able to defend the verbal plenary inspiration of the Bible, we need to know these things. And therefore, since it doesn’t add anything to the text at all, it was probably just put in the margin there. My feeling is that we should just bypass it and come to verse 8. and consider it. In other words, there are not six witnesses that are presented here, and the three in heaven would do us very little good down here on earth. It’s the three witnesses on earth that we are concerned about, because the three witnesses in heaven would not have very much bearing on us today, but the three on earth have a direct bearing. And that’s the point that I’m trying to emphasize. Now, will you notice verse 8? And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit and the water and the blood. And these three agree in one. Now, what is the agreement that they have here? Well, they agree in one purpose, that is, of presenting Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world because he shed his blood upon Calvary. and paid the penalty for our sins. Therefore, he says here that there are three that bear witness on earth, and those three are right here, right now, friends. The Holy Spirit will take the Word of God and apply it to your heart. Now, many of you are listening to this Sometime after I made the tape, I believe that the Holy Spirit is here leading right now. When you hear this, the Holy Spirit will be there to take his word and apply it to your heart. He bears record, if you please, and he is a witness. And his witness is that you might come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, the Spirit and the water. Now, how are you going to find out? Well, through the Word of God. You see, the blood of Christ delivers us from the penalty of sin. The Word of God delivers us from the defilement of sin in the world today. Now, that’s my reason for being here. I guess a fellow with a one-track mind, all I emphasize on the radio and all I ever emphasize in my ministry has been the Word of God. In other words, I just have one tune that I play. I just have one message that I give. And I hope it doesn’t become too monotonous. But friends, it’s the Word of God is the only thing that can clean up your life, even as a believer. And it’s the only thing that will keep it clean. And that’s something that’s important. Now, we are living in a day when a great deal of attention is given to that. In fact, too much attention, I guess, that if you don’t use a certain miracle bar of soap, or certain make of soap, you probably will be out of it. You may even lose your job. And certainly all your friends are going to desert you. But if you’ll use a certain brand and it’s a miracle substance, it will just clean you up and clean your clothes up and just clean up everything. It will clean up everything except what’s on the inside of you and won’t clean that up. Only the word of God and the only miracle cleansing thing that’s in the world today is the word of God. And it can clean you up. And that’s the reason we emphasize the word of God. It can save you. Born again, not by corruptible seed, but by incorruptible word of God that liveth and abideth forever. For it presents Christ who shed his blood for your sins and my sins. That’s important. That’s what Easter’s all about, that he died for our sins. He was raised for our justification. The word of God can keep you clean down here. Now, you can spray with every kind of a spray deodorant there is. You can rub it on. You can pour it on. And you can buy it in the giant economy size and put it in your swimming pool and jump in. And my friends, it won’t clean you on the inside. Only the Word of God can keep you clean today. And that is the thing that he’s emphasizing here. These three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the Spirit uses the water of the Word and applies the blood for our salvation. And these three all agree in one. That is, they want to get you saved and keep you saved. Verse 9, if we receive the witness of man, the witness of God is greater, for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son. Now, we have reached a credibility gap today. I don’t know about you, but many folk I talk to have reached a credibility gap between themselves and the news media and the politicians and all that are on television today. I’ll be very candid with you that there are certain news commentators I won’t listen to any longer. I refuse to. I know that they are doing nothing in the world but giving propaganda, that they are not giving facts. and that everything they give is biased and distorted and twisted for a liberal position. And apparently, they’re willing actually to misinform people. They’re willing to withhold facts. And today, I’ve got to the place, maybe you’ve come to it, that it doesn’t make any difference about the politicians, who they are or what party they belong to. I’ve had no confidence. Now, we are in a place today where it’s difficult to receive the witness of man. But the interesting thing is, John Q. Public swallows it hook, line, and sinker. And you can tell by the different polls that are taken, a man’s influence or his popularity is determined by what the news media says about him. And that is true of any person. And the biggest frauds in the world can be built up. And Hollywood, of course, did this for years. Well, if we receive the witness of man, and most people do, they’re taken in by it. If it’s set over TV or if it is put into print, they believe it. Now, my friends, there are many people today that will believe what they read and what they hear, but they won’t receive the witness of God, but the witness of God’s greater friends. For this is the witness of God, which he hath testified of his Son. And God is not giving out. news on every subject today. His news is good news, and it’s about his son that died for us on the cross. That’s the message. Now he says here in verse 10, he that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. Now, if you have trusted Christ as your Savior, the Holy Spirit indwells you, and he testifies that these things are true. That is one of the great encouragement of radio, is that many people that have not seen me, and that, I guess, is a good thing, they have the Holy Spirit dwelling within them. And they hear the Word of God and they accept it because the Spirit bears witness that they are hearing the Word of God. And that makes it quite wonderful. That’s the greatest encouragement in preaching or teaching the Word of God, either from the pulpit or from radio or television or wherever it might be. “‘He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself.'” He that believeth not God, what does he do? He’s made him a liar. When you don’t believe God, friend, you add to your other sins, you make him a liar. God says, trust Christ and I’ll save you. You say, well, I don’t need to trust Christ. God says, you’re a liar. I didn’t say it. God says, you’re a liar. When you say that you don’t need to trust Christ. Now, will you notice you make him a liar? Because he believeth not the record that God gave of his son. Now, what is the record? Well, John’s going to tell us. And this is the record. Now, what is the record? Well, here it is. That God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his son. Now, that is eternal life. I have Christ. Now, it boils down to this one point. And if you want to get the gospel in a nutshell, and whenever you’re listening to this, this is the simplest test that can be made. Listen to this. He that hath the Son hath life. Now, I didn’t say he that belongs to the church. I’m a Baptist. I’m a Methodist. I’m a Presbyterian. I’m a Nazarene. Belong to the church of God. I don’t care what church you belong to. That doesn’t mean you’re saved. Somebody says, well, what does it mean to be saved? He that hath the Son hath life. The question is, do you have Christ? Is he your Savior? Are you trusting him in such a way that if God would even say to you, you must have something else. You’d turn and walk away because you’d say to him, I only trusted Christ as my Savior. My friend, if you haven’t come to that point, you just haven’t come anywhere at all. Because to be saved means you trust Christ. And it means you have Christ as your Savior. He that hath the Son hath life. He’s our lifeboat. He’s our lifeline. He’s our only hope. We’re lost without him. And if we have him, we have life. And he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. Now, friends, can you make it any clearer than that? Let’s forget about religion. Let’s forget about this churchianity today. Let’s forget about all this gimmickry that’s going on today, taking little courses and going through little rituals and all that sort of thing. Forget about it, my friends. The important thing is, do you have Christ? Is he your savior? And that’s the reason he’s emphasized the fact that he’s the son of God. I want to say to you, he’s wonderful. He’s God manifest in the flesh. He’s the only one that could save us. He’s absolutely unique. And I don’t like the word unique, but he is. He’s unique. There’s nothing like him. He’s the only begotten son of God. He died upon the cross because he alone could pay the penalty of your sin. And he rose again and he’s living right this moment at God’s right hand for us. He’s the living Christ. Do you have him today as your Savior? That’s the only question you need answer. If you have him, you have life. You’re saved. That’s the record. Do you believe God or don’t you believe God? If you don’t believe him, you make him a liar. Oh, my friend. John has got this down right where you can get it. You can’t miss this. The only thing right now that’ll keep you from coming to Christ is the sin in your life that you don’t want to give up. That’s the only thing in the world. That’s the decision that you make. And I leave it right there today. Until next time, may God richly bless you, my beloved.
SPEAKER 04 :
Next time, we’re going to conclude our study in 1 John. Now, you can listen with our app or at ttb.org, or just call us at 1-865-BIBLE if we can be of any help. I’m Steve Schwetz, and as always, I’m going to save a seat on the Bible bus just for you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Sin had left the prince unsaved. He washed it white as snow.
SPEAKER 04 :
We’re grateful for the faithful and generous support of Through the Bible’s partners, whom God uses to take the whole word to the whole world.
