Join host Steve Schwetz and teacher Dr. J. Vernon McGee on a deep dive into the compact yet profound letter of 2 John. We explore the solid foundations of faith, as rooted in historical certainty, and discuss the vital importance of walking in love as a demonstration of one’s Christian faith. Furthermore, Dr. McGee offers insights into recognizing deceivers who deny the deity of Christ and advises on the careful discernment needed in spiritual hospitality and investments. Discover how staying true to the doctrine of Christ ensures spiritual fulfillment and unity with God.
The foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith.
SPEAKER 03 :
An online poll once asked, what’s the most attractive word in the English language? Can you guess the answer? You know it for sure if you’ve been on the Bible bus this week as we’ve traveled through the New Testament book of 2 John. Welcome to Through the Bible with our teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee. I’m Steve Schwetz, your host, and according to this poll, the most attractive word in the English language is love. That’s no surprise to Bible students who have spent time in the letters of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John. It was John’s favorite word, but don’t think of it as a sentimental sloppy version of love. John tells us about God’s love and the love being modeled by his people. This love comes to mind when we read this letter from Ruth who listens in Athens, New York. I’ve been on the Bible bus for many years, Ruth says. I’ve always enjoyed listening to the letters you read from all the different countries where Through the Bible is heard. Last year, I joined the World Prayer Team. I was sincere in wanting to pray together for people around the world, but I also was using it as a project with my granddaughter, who is being homeschooled in the second grade. I thought it would be a good world geography exercise. She finds the country on a big map. I read her the email summary, and then we pray together on the phone for the people in that country. What has surprised me is that my attention will return to that country in other moments through the day, and I find myself praying again. I listen for that country in the world news. I have fallen in love with people I’ll someday meet in heaven. Thank you for stirring my family’s passion to share the good news of Jesus Christ with those from every tribe and nation on earth. Well, what a great example of love and truth walking together. If you’d like to join our World Prayer Team, you’ll find our daily prayer prompts in our app or visit ttb.org forward slash pray to sign up for our email list. Now, Dr. McGee has background to the letter of 2 John to share with us. Let’s listen now.
SPEAKER 01 :
Now, we saw last time that the gospel was certain historical facts. It was the death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they are the two great pillars that the church rests upon, the death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it doesn’t mean just believing in them as a historical fact, as you’d believe that Caesar crossed the Rubicon or some other historical fact. It means our relationship to them, and our relationship to them is one of trust, that we believe that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. And we find that this word trust is a better word than our word faith. However, they are used interchangeably in the Scripture. The Old Testament word was trust. And, for instance, it says in 2 Psalms, blessed are all they who put their trust in him. That word is used 152 times in the Old Testament, and it’s the same as the word believe in or into in the New Testament. And it’s not only used there, but it’s used in such a beautiful way in the little book of Ruth, the second chapter, verse 12. And it’s Boaz talking to Ruth. He says, the Lord recompense thy work. and a full reward be given thee by the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust. In other words, she has the rest of redemption. She now trusts God, and that is the basis of her salvation. And she was a foreigner, actually, and an outcast. And yet, that is something that was entirely true of her. Now, the condition of man that made all of this necessary is our subject right now. Was it necessary for Christ to die? Was the sin of man as bad as that? Was man as bad as required the death of Christ? Or was that just sort of an overkill? Was man doomed to eternal separation from God? Had sin brought him into the eternal night? Well, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him might not perish but have everlasting life. And that verse has it all there, by the way. Now, it was Paul who said in 1 Timothy 1, 15, he says, this is a faithful saying, worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I’m chief. And that devastates the theory of that many of the psychological preachers have today, that we’re to think well of ourselves. Paul never did get to the place where he ever thought that he was never a sinner. His background was that of a sinner, and yet when you read the story of all the things he had, you come to the conclusion that this man had religion, but he was not saved.
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Let’s pray. Father, speak to us through your living and active word. Correct our thinking and comfort us in our sorrows. And then teach us your truth. Help us to love one another. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. Here’s our final study in 2 John on Through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.
SPEAKER 01 :
Now, friends, we continue on in this very brief epistle, but it’s a very important little epistle. And now John, who’s emphasized the fact that we are to walk according to the commandments of Christ and the proof that you’re a child of God is that you walk in love. And that means love for the brethren. But he now utters the warning, many deceivers have come into the world. You and I are walking through an asphalt jungle. And on one side of this jungle, there is liberalism, the left side, those who deny the deity of Christ. And then on the other side, there is that jungle in which there is the swamp infested with reptiles that are poisonous. Those that, though they profess to be fundamental, they have no love for the brethren. And he says that the way you’re going to tell a child of God is whosoever doeth not righteousness is not a god, neither he that loveth not his brother. And these are the two manifestations. But now we are to beware of those who are not believers, that these deceivers deny the deity of Christ. And I don’t care what you say. John is saying that if you deny the deity of Christ, you’re not a Christian. Now, you may be religious, but you’re not a Christian. Let’s understand that after all, Christians are those that were followers of Christ. Those that believed in him. And friends, you can’t be a follower of Christ unless you believe in his virgin birth, unless you believe in the deity of Christ, in his miraculous life and miraculous works, and his work of redemption upon the cross. It’s impossible to do that. Now, in verse 9, he goes on in this vein here, the same vein that he’d been talking about. Now, he says this, that if you were taken in By one of these deceivers, it does not mean you lose your salvation. It means that you lose any reward. And every believer ought to be working for a reward, to be able to hear him say, someday well done, thou good and faithful servant. And Paul, at the end of his life, was able to say, I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. Henceforth is laid up for me a crown of righteousness. And he knew he would receive a reward at the end of his life. Now, during his life, he wasn’t sure of it. He said that he didn’t want to be disapproved when he came into the presence of Christ. Therefore, it will behoove you and me to be very careful not to be taken in. Now he says in verse 9, whosoever transgresseth. Now this word transgress is a very interesting word in the Greek. It’s proagon. Agon means to go and pro means before. It means to go before or to go ahead. And actually, it means here not so much transgress as to go farther than is right. And that is the meaning that Thayer in his Greek lexicon gives to it. Go farther than is right. Whosoever goes farther than is right, that is, goes to some extremes. That was the thing the Gnostics claimed. In fact, the word Gnostic means knowledge. They claimed to have a little more knowledge than anyone else, that they had something that made them super dupers. And there are a lot of saints. I say a lot. There are few that I’ve met today are in that category. They feel like they have something that you don’t have. I get a letter every now and then from some person that tells me that I’m lacking and I recognize I am. But the point is, I just don’t feel like they’re the one to tell me because they tell it from the viewpoint they’ve got it and I don’t have it. Now, that could well be true, by the way. But my feeling is they’ve gone farther than is right. They feel like they are super duper and they manifest no love for the brethren. Now, that is the thing that characterizes them. I always think of the little story that I’ve told it before about Bishop Moore of the old Southern Methodist Church. He was at a conference in my Southland. There were a group of people that were known when I was a boy as holy rollers. I’ve attended several of their meetings when I was a boy and a young fella just for the entertainment, actually, to watch them roll. And they actually rolled. And yet they preached the gospel, and many of them were really believers. And Bishop Moore was at this conference of Methodist preachers, and one of these young country preachers came up to Bishop Moore and said to him, says, Bishop Moore, do you think the Holy Rollers will go to heaven? He says they will if they don’t run past the place. Well, that is the condition, it seems to me, of what John is saying here. Whosoever goes farther than his right becomes an extremist and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God. You see, they graduate from this. I was reading just some time ago about several theologians in the East, together with several pastors that met together, and they felt that they had arrived now at the place where where they did not need to answer the fundamentalists on the question of the virgin birth or the deity of Christ or whether Christ died for his sins. They feel like they’ve graduated from that. They have now become highly intellectual, totally sanctified, and they have reached the summum bonum of life. They are now up at the apex, and they look down upon all the rest of us poor folk who believe in the deity of Christ and that he died for our sins. You see, to my judgment, they have transgressed and they abide not in the doctrine of Christ and And they have not God. No wonder they came to the conclusion that God’s dead. He wasn’t dead. They were. That was the problem. Dead in trespasses and sins. And he that abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. Now, you today abiding in the doctrine of Christ, You have God the Father, and you have God the Son, and you have access to God through the Son today. We have access to God through Christ by his marvelous infinite grace today if we abide in the doctrine of Christ. Now, that word abide here means actually to remain. This is a permanent arrangement. And that is another criticism that sometimes has been made. Someone was telling me this, that they asked a liberal preacher in Los Angeles several years ago what he thought about me, this liberal preacher. And he’s an outstanding man, a very fine man in many ways. I’ve always respected him because he’s one of the few honest liberals that I’ve met. He just came out and said he didn’t believe practically nothing. And he stuck by his guns. I just didn’t feel he should be in the ministry. You know, it’s sort of like a man selling full of brushes and he doesn’t have any brushes to sell. And so that was the position I thought of this man. And the man said this. He said concerning McGee, he says, I respect McGee and his viewpoint. He says it’s old fashioned. And the thing is, he hasn’t changed it in years. He hasn’t apparently grown a bit. Well, may I say to you, that’s about the nicest compliment the man could have returned to me because he said, I haven’t changed. And I intend for it to be that way. You see, that’s what he’s saying here, that he that abideth in the doctrine of Christ remains in it. It doesn’t change. He hath both the Father and the Son. Now, this is very important to see. Now we come to that which is strong. And I want to say to you, here is strong language. And you won’t find anything stronger than this. Verse 10. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him Godspeed. Now, friends, I can’t think of anything stronger than that. Now, let’s get the background again. John is writing to the elect lady. We believe that it’s not only a person, an outstanding woman in the church who was noted for her hospitality. Apparently, a woman of means, and she could entertain guests lavishly, and she was very generous. And apparently, some of these Gnostics came by, and she entertained them. Then she was under conviction about it, and she wrote John. What should she do in a case like that? Should she entertain them? Then she turned them away and she felt badly about that. What should she have done? What should really be her attitude toward an apostate, toward these heretics, toward those who denied the deity of Christ, but pretended to be a follower of Christ? Should she entertain them in her home? Now, let’s get some more background to understand what actually John is saying here. In the early church, There were no Howard Johnson motels or holiday inns or Hilton hotels or Ramada inns in the Roman Empire. In other words, these little inns were pretty bare places to stay. Actually, an inn was not a place where you even got a bed. You had to bring your own bed with you, and all you did was rent a space to put down your little mat or little pad that you had, and you slept on that. Maybe people sleeping on both sides of you and at the head and down at the foot all around. And that was the method in that day of traveling. So the homes of believers were always open in the early church to traveling evangelists and traveling Bible teachers of that day. And they were always traveling. entertained in a home. When they’d arrive in a town, there would be some home that would entertain them. Remember, Paul stayed in the home of Aquila and Priscilla over in Corinth when he arrived there. That was the method in the early church. It was the method that others practiced also, to entertain in the home. Now, that was a general practice of the day. And I can remember as a boy that when we had a preacher that came to our little town in West Texas, my dad was not a believer, but my mother would invite the preacher to come for dinner. and sometimes to spend the night. My dad never liked that, I can tell you that. He didn’t care to have him for dinner, and he didn’t care to have him spend the night. But we were poor folk. He didn’t get too lavish entertainment. He’d always get a fried chicken, and my mother really knew how to fry chicken. So that was always something that was practiced in that day. And in our little town, Even up to this day, the Holiday Inn hasn’t even got there yet, or the Ramada, or Howard Johnson. In fact, they just don’t have a motel there of any kind or description. So that in our day, the preacher was entertained in the home. Now today, my recommendation to you is to entertain him in a motel or a hotel. That would be the proper way to do it today. and not in a home because we’ve moved into a day the average minister needs a great deal of privacy for study and prayer. And he can’t get that when he’s entertained in a home. However, there are a few homes across this country I’ve always enjoyed going in because I made myself at home, and I could feel at home in those homes. They just let me do what I wanted to do, and it was a joy to be there. But now this woman apparently was that type of a woman. And her question is, what about these that come? Now, John lays it on the line. If there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him Godspeed. May I say to you very candidly today that John is going to say something else that ought to alert every one of you listening to this program today. For he that biddeth him Godspeed is partaker of his evil deeds. If you entertain him, if you support him, you are a partner with him in this sort of thing. And that, my friend, is the reason that you ought to investigate everything that you give to as a Christian. Because if you are giving to the wrong thing, God considers you a partner to that sort of thing. You remember the Lord Jesus gave a parable in this connection, and he didn’t mind speaking about this sort of thing. He told about that man that was working for another, and he was going to be fired. And so he wanted to take care of himself. And so he called in. You remember the creditors gave them a discount. They’d pay their bill, and they were glad to do it. And so he did that so that after he was fired, he would be able to appeal to them for help because he had helped them. Now, that was crooked. Our Lord didn’t say it was right. In fact, he made it clear it was wrong because he said that the children of this world They’re clever out yonder in this business world today. And there’s many a man trying to make a fast buck today. And a businessman told me not long ago, it’s a case in Southern California of dog eat dog. And therefore, if the man in the world is wise about the way he invests his money, and the way he uses his money. What about you, Christian friend? Are you moved by some sentimental story, some deathbed story, and you give because of that? Or a picture of a few orphans and these pictures of little children in foreign countries. Do you know that your money is going there? Are you motivated today by sentiment? If you are a partner today, In those things that deny the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ and all that he is and all that he stands for and all that he did for us today, if you are supporting that sort of thing, you are a partner in it. God will hold you responsible for it. Therefore, he says that the children of this world are wiser than we are. And we ought to be smart. We ought to get smart. And we ought to wise up to this sort of thing today and not be taken in by this thing in the way of charity has become a big racket. And it’s one of the biggest rackets that there is. taking up money for this thing, that thing. And that’s the reason I always mention that I never yet have started running an orphan’s home for stray cats in the Aleutian Island. In fact, I don’t know whether there are any cats up there or not. But I know this, that that’s not my business. My business is giving out the word of God today. And that’s all it is. And this is what John said. I didn’t say this. Now will you notice? He’s going to conclude now, verse 12 and 13, having many things to write unto you, I would not write with paper and ink. Well, he wrote a pretty small letter, if you ask me, but I trust to come unto you and speak face to face that your joy may be full. In other words, John says, I can tell it better than I can write it. And David, you remember, said that. David says, my tongue is a pen of a ready writer. David, when he began to write that wonderful 45th Psalm of praise to Christ, he just said, I wish I could tell it to you. I could say it better than I can write. That’s the reason I love radio today is I can say it. And I can say it lots better than I can write it. Now, he says, the children of thy elect sister greet thee. Amen. Apparently, there was a sister of this elect lady, or it was a sister church sending greetings to this lady and to the local church there. This is a tremendous little letter, friends, and this is something that ought to alert every believer today. Until next time, may God richly bless you, my beloved.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s the conclusion of our study of 2 John. Next time, we begin our study of 3 John. Dr. McGee used to describe this time of the year as those long, hot summer days when not too many folks are writing. But you know, that’s not necessarily true. And we’re encouraged with every email, every letter, every social media post or phone call that we get. So let me remind you, we’re here to help you find resources that you need. So just drop a note in the feedback section of our app. Find us online at ttb.org or call 1-800-65-BIBLE. Or you can always write to Box 7100, Pasadena, California, 91109. In Canada, Box 25325, London, Ontario, N6C, 6B1. And when you contact us, you know we’d love to hear how the Lord is using the study of His Word in your life. Also, as you know, this ministry is prayerfully and financially supported by those who benefit from our studies. And we’re so grateful for those who pray and faithfully, fervently, with a heart for God’s work in their hearts and in others’ lives around the world. We’re also grateful for those who invest in this ministry so God’s word can go deep and wide around the globe. So if you’d like to partner with us, call 1-800-65-BIBLE or visit ttb.org. I’m Steve Schwartz, so grateful for your company, as together we make our way through the Bible.
SPEAKER 02 :
All to Him I owe. Sin had left the prison safe. He washed it white as snow.
SPEAKER 03 :
Today’s study with Dr. J. Vernon McGee is brought to you by Through the Bible, and it’s made possible by the generous prayer and financial investments from listeners like you on the Bible bus all around the world.
