In this riveting episode, Dr. J. Vernon McGee delves into the complexities of faith as he addresses a range of listener questions. We begin with an exploration of why contemporary Orthodox Jews might feel the need to reestablish sacrificial rituals, tracing this sentiment back to ancient scriptural mandates. As the discussion unfolds, listeners are brought into a heartfelt dissection of family devotional practices, where Dr. McGee clarifies his stance on the hurried nature of modern spirituality and the true essence of the family altar.
It’s become popular to do family devotionals just before going to bed or in the morning before everyone leaves on their own way. Stay with us to find out what Dr. J. Vernon McGee thinks about these devotionals and more. How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faithfulness. You’re listening to the question and answer program of the Through the Bible Radio Network. Our Bible teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee, answered the many questions of his listeners for over 30 years, and they’ve been recorded and preserved for future generations of believers like you and me to grow in their faith. Our first question today comes from a listener in Warwick, Rhode Island. She writes, the Old Testament requires the Jews to make an animal sacrifice. So if they don’t accept Christ as the final sacrifice, why are they not making sacrifices today?
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Well, I think very candidly that the Orthodox Jew today believes that they should have a sacrifice. Now, that’s one reason they want the temple area where the Mosque of Omar stands. Very candidly, you see, Israel’s made the statement they’ll not give up Jerusalem. Jerusalem for the Orthodox Jew is the place of sacrifice. That’s what they were told in the Old Testament. And I have also been informed that if they can’t get that, they may open up in the other part of Jerusalem a place for sacrifice. And I think the day will come when they’re going to reinstitute the sacrificial system in Jerusalem. I know they will if they get the place where the Mosque of Omar is, and as long as there’s much Arab money around, as there is oil money, they’re not going to get that place. But nevertheless, the day will come when they will, and sacrifices will be reinstituted there. And you also must remember that the Early church was 100% Jewish. If you had been in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost and a Gentile, I think you’d have been pretty much out. I don’t think you would have been included that day at all. That was an entirely Jewish occasion. And the thing that was so remarkable about it was actually not the coming of the Holy Spirit, although that was a great central fact. But the great thing was that from that moment on, bloody sacrifices that God had commanded now became sinful. That’s what the writer to the Hebrews said, that no more sacrifice for sin, no more. Christ has died for our sins. And at that time, a great company of Jews turned to Christ and the early church. was largely a Jewish church. Even as it spread out into the Roman Empire, you see, Paul went from synagogue to synagogue. That was the springboard in which he began to preach the gospel. And in certain parts of the world today, There are great companies of Jews that are Christians, and there are more Jews that are Christians than you and I are willing to recognize also. Very few have turned to Christ in Israel, but a great company are, I think, right here in Los Angeles, for that matter. Some of them are not out in the open because, very frankly, it would affect them a great deal. I know you will criticize them and say they ought to take a stand, and I do too, but there were a great many that were secret believers in Elijah’s day, and Elijah said he alone was left, and God says, you just think you are. There’s a great company up here hiding out, and God defended them of all things. He defended those that were hiding out, and I think there are a great many hiding out today that are God’s own, but they don’t come out, and I know they ought to, but they don’t. And that’s just the way that life is. Now, I believe that until they turn to Christ, that they will believe, the Orthodox Jew will believe in the sacrifice. Now, the Reformed, of course, I do not think that he’s interested in that at all. He’s like the liberal Protestant who’s not interested in the sacrifice of Jesus either and rejects it.
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Having misunderstood Dr. McGee, this listener in Broken Bow, Nebraska writes this question. I was amazed and disappointed when you spent an entire program talking against family devotional time. Would you criticize a family reading the Bible together for a few minutes and praying together?
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May I say to you that I think you’re wrong on two counts. I don’t think I spent the entire time on the family devotions. And second, you misunderstood my thought, my meaning, my purpose in it all. I did not criticize a family reading the Bible together. I did not do that at all. What I did criticize is modern devotions in the average family. Now it may be that way up there in Broken Bow, Nebraska, that especially when there’s a lot of snow on the ground, that you have plenty of time for devotions, and if you do, thank God for it, because the method that is used goes something like this. The family at the breakfast table. Dad is in a hurry to get to work. Mom is going to be left there, but she’s got a lot to do. And Suze is getting ready for school, and so is Willie. And they sit there and listen to, actually, most of the places I’ve been, it’s only two or three verses of Scripture. And it’s done very hurriedly. There is a very brief prayer and out they shoot and go. Now, I say that that is not treating the Word of God fairly. It is not, I think, honoring to the Lord to treat His Word like that and call that family devotion. That is the place that I was aiming my gun was to that type of thing that passes for family devotions. Now, the other side of the coin is those that have it in the evening. And I don’t think that that is honoring to the Lord either. To have one foot in bed and the other foot on the floor and in your pajamas and you read two or three verses of Scripture and you get to bed and actually instead of meditating on them, you try to get to sleep because that’s the reason you go to bed. And very frankly, you can’t study any other subject today like that. Can you imagine studying higher mathematics or philosophy or some other subject that requires a great deal of thought. And I personally think that the Word of God will not only take all the mental acumen that you have to understand it, but you need the Holy Spirit to guide you and lead you in the truth. And they move through it so fast, the Holy Spirit, man, I tell you, if He happened to come in a little late, He missed it because it was so brief to begin with and actually quite meaningless now that is the thing that i’m after now where you say a family gathers together reads the bible and has prayer that is not modern devotions that’s the family altar and the family altar, I’m for it 100%. But deliver me from modern devotions that are held today because they are treating the Bible in a very light way. The thing is that there’s no shortcut, there’s no easy method of studying the Word of God. It’s like any other book on the human side. You can’t expect the Holy Spirit to help out lazy Christians. He’s just not going to do it. Now, I personally believe that when family devotions, if you want to call them that, the family altar, It’s made a serious sort of thing, an integral part of the family, something that’s like the three meals. You don’t miss any of them, and you don’t miss it. And that’s another thing I discovered. Well, this morning we don’t have time for it, or tonight I’m sleeping. We don’t have time for it. Well, believe me, friends, that’s not the way to handle the Word of God. Now, that’s the thing that I’m opposed to. And I really thought I made myself clear to folk that when I say what I do about the family devotions, I’m not talking about that which is a serious thing that in the past was called the family altar. And that, my friend, was a very wonderful thing. I wish we could get back to that and get away with this hurried sort of thing. I tell you, two-minute eggs and instant coffee and devotions today can really be done in a hurry. And it sends you out with indigestion into the world and a lack of knowledge of the Word of God or any encouragement at all.
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During one of Dr. McGee’s studies through the book of Genesis, he mentioned the practice of water divining or water witching. At that time, he explained that he didn’t know much about it. So this listener wrote in with an explanation of the process. Here now is Dr. McGee with the listener’s response.
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Now this party has written me a letter and he says that I mentioned this subject and I welcome information about it, but I believe I really should share the knowledge I have of it. May I please do this by giving you the following quote from a Logos book called Angels of Light and then gives me the page. This is radiesthesia. Now, I’m reading this now, and this may be helpful to a great many of you folk out there that listen to the program and you’ve wondered about water witching. I know I have. It says, “…divining for such things as water, oil, and minerals, using a dowsing rod or pendulum, is an ancient occult practice known the world over, having its roots in heathenism and is condemned in the Scripture, Hosea 4.12 and Deuteronomy 18.10, as inspired and controlled by the spirit of fornication and unclean spirits. Martin Luther charged, and rightly so, that the practice violated the First Commandment. A recent geological survey on water dowsing, often called water witching, stated that there were an estimated 25,000 water dowsers in the United States alone. The actual number of non-professional dowsers is much higher. It is practiced by water engineers in many localities to locate water pipes. by plumbers to determine sewer lines, by well drillers to find water sources, by mining engineers to locate minerals or oil, and by the Marine Corps in Vietnam to locate hidden mines, tunnels, and booby traps along jungle trails. May I inject this that I think today that’s electronic equipment that’s used and it’s certainly more satisfactory and it certainly is scientific. Now, let me continue reading what this man has here. He says, “…the common form of dousing for water is by use of a forked stick such as a hazel or willow twig. Other objects are also employed such as coat hangers, wires, keys on a chain hanging from a Bible, and brass welding rods. Some persons with this occult ability are able to use the pendulum successfully also Such things are used in the manner of a pendulum as a small ball or pear-shaped object hanging from a string or chain, a needle, key, or ring on a string or thread. The pendulum or dowsing rod is used to divine for gold. for silver, for oil, water, minerals, buried treasure, missing persons, and many other things by holding the pendulum rod over a map of the area in question until the divine instrument reacts in a certain manner at the correct location.” And this party goes on and I’ll not read any more of how many ways in which this thing is used and how popular it is today. And I frankly did not realize that at all. I guess it’s because we haven’t been drilling wells for a long time and sort of got out of the practice. But again, may I say to you, judging from what this man has written to us, this thing is definitely satanic and is certainly not of the Lord and it has no scientific basis whatsoever.
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From a listener in Tucson, Arizona, comes this question. What is your opinion on persisting in prayer for lost souls?
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May I say to you that I think that you actually ought to be led and guided in your own mind and heart by the Lord about praying for the lost because you want to pray in a way that’s going to be effective and you want to pray thinking the Lord’s thoughts after Him. If I may inject a personal illustration, I prayed for my sister, I think, for at least 25 years. I would send her my books and she would not read them, she’d return them. But I always noticed they’d been opened and wrapped up again. She actually accepted them but returned them. And I thought some of them almost immediately. Well, anyway, I really got discouraged and I must confess that I became very careless in praying for her. I really took her off the prayer list that I had and so I had the privilege one night in Atlanta, Georgia, when they took me back from a speaking engagement and she and her husband had come and I heard the confession of both of them that night as they accepted Christ as their Savior. I really pinned them down that night and I was amazed and rebuked myself for having actually almost quit praying for her. So I would not know how to tell you how long. I would say that probably we ought never give up praying for a lost soul. I would say that ought to probably be the rule, although I certainly did not follow it.
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The same listener has a second question. He says, I don’t understand why God used a brass serpent as a symbol of Christ when a serpent is so often referred to in connection with Satan. Could you please explain?
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All of that makes it very likely and very apropos that the serpent was chosen. And I’m turning now to Numbers 21.8 in order that we might have this scripture right before us. Numbers 21.8, and I’ll read that in your hearing. And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole and it shall come to pass that everyone that’s bitten when he looketh upon it shall live. Well, as you’ve indicated, the serpent is identified with Satan. In fact, at the very beginning, Satan used the serpent. And probably not like he is today, but the serpent actually comes to represent sin. You’re right about that. I can’t think of a worse creature being used. And that brazen serpent is a figure of Christ on the cross who died for us. Now, the reason that that is an apt and appropriate picture and a type of Christ is because Paul makes it very clear. Paul says, he was made sin for us who knew no sin. Christ on the cross was made sin, not just in some academic way or just in some symbolic way. He was made Vernon McGee on the cross, a sinner. My sin became His sin. He was made sin for us. He bore a judgment death upon the cross because He was made sin for us. God would have been very unjust to have put Him to death if He was innocent. But He was made sin for us. He was made a serpent for us. He was made the brazen serpent. Bra speaks of judgment. And God judged sin in the person of Christ on the cross. He alone could bear our sin. I hope that I make that clear to you because that’s so important and that’s one of the great figures of Christ in the Old Testament is that brazen serpent. not because it looks like him or acts like him, but because Christ was made sin for us, the one who knew no sin. That’s very, very important to see.
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Today’s final question comes to us from a listener in Meadow, Texas. She writes, When the Jews rejected Jesus, what gospel was turned away from the Jew and turned toward the Gentile?
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May I say to you that it’s the gospel of the grace of God. You see, they were under law in the Old Testament. And in that law, when they broke it, and they did break it, as all of us do. We all are guilty of being lawbreakers. It was a ministry of condemnation. They brought a sacrifice that did point to Christ. And now when Christ came, there’s no need anymore to bring a sacrifice because He has died once for all. He’s appeared once in the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Now, instead of going through a ritual, God now offers the gospel of the grace of God. And that was rejected by the Jew as a nation at the time that Christ was here upon the earth. Now, Paul has a very interesting comment on this that you’ll find in the ninth chapter of Romans where he quotes many prophecies that relate to the salvation of Gentiles. You see, you and I today have the thing backwards. We wonder about God saving the Jew. Well, in the beginning The Jew wondered whether God was going to save the Gentile or not, because He called Abraham aside, made for him a nation, prepared that nation, and brought Christ into the world. And from their viewpoint, was God going to save the Gentile? Now, I want to read this passage, Romans 9, verse 25. It’s a little difficult passage, but a very important passage. Verse 25, Romans 9, And he said also in Hosea, I will call them my people which were not my people, and her beloved which was not beloved. And it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there shall they be called the children of the living God. Isaiah also cried concerning Israel, though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved. For he will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth. And as Isaiah said before, except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodom and been made like unto Gomorrah. What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith.” But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore, because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law, for they stumbled at that stumbling stone. As it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. Here’s a stone that you can… stumble on it, but you can also fall on it in faith, that stone is Christ, and be saved. Now they stumbled at the coming of Christ. They did not come to Him by faith for salvation to attain a righteousness which for over a thousand years they had tried to attain by keeping the law, you see. Now God has another way of attaining righteousness. That’s by faith. That’s the gospel that they’ve turned away from and the gospel that many today are turning from.
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We hope today’s program brought you new insight and understanding of the Word of God. If you’d like to know more about many of these subjects or others, then contact us for our resource catalog, which lists many of Dr. McGee’s books, booklets, and CDs that we make available to our listeners. You know, an excellent place to start if you have questions about faith and life is to get Dr. McGee’s paperback book, Questions and Answers, Biblical Answers to Your Questions About Faith and Life. You’ll find it in our online bookstore. Now, the Bible Bus continues to roll through the pages of Scripture each week on the Through the Bible radio program, heard Monday through Friday on this station and the Internet with our Bible teacher, Dr. J. Verna McGee. So be sure to join us with your Bible open and your mind alert. Notes and outlines are available as a free download online or through our monthly mailings in a printed booklet format. To ask for a resource catalog to be placed on our mailing list or to order any of the products, just give us a call at 1-800-65-BIBLE Monday through Thursday from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. Pacific Time. If you have internet access, shop our online bookstore and access the free downloads page at www.ttb.org. For those who prefer to write, send your letters to Questions and Answers. For those in the U.S., Box 7-100, Pasadena, California, 91109. In Canada, Box 25-325. London, Ontario, N6C 6B1. With God’s grace, we pray that He will answer all your questions and solve all your problems. This program has been brought to you by the faithful friends and supporters of Through the Bible Radio Network.
