In this episode, we untangle the complexities of worldly temptations and the challenges they present to believers. Dr. McGee unpacks the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, paralleling these with the trials faced by Jesus. In a world bent on rebellion against divine principles, believers are encouraged to stand apart, resisting the alluring calls of a transient world. As we scaffold our understanding of the Antichrist, we uncover his subtle yet profoundly impactful role in history and future prophecy.
The foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith.
SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome to Through the Bible, a five-year journey through the whole Word of God. Our teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee, leads us as we travel this time through the book of 1 John 2. Now, as Dr. McGee has told us, 1 John has one of the most succinct and clear summaries of what it means to be a Christian. Whether you know Jesus Christ as your Savior or you haven’t yet met him, these studies will make it very clear to you what this life of following Jesus is all about. But before we begin, here’s an introduction by Dr. McGee with some foundational teaching on how to live the Christian life.
SPEAKER 01 :
Now, God saves us by grace. And that’s his work for us. God does not ask you to work for your salvation. He has done that work for you. He asks you to accept it. And that means that you accept it by faith, just like you’d accept any other gift. Now, that’s his work for us. But living the Christian life is still by grace. A great many people think it means if you become a Christian, you begin to grit your teeth and pull yourself up by the bootstraps but it’s still his work now in us. You see, salvation is his work for us, and living the Christian life, or if you want the theological term, sanctification, it’s his work in us. His work for us saves us. His work in us is the Christian life. Now, God today is not hurling thunderbolts from Mount Sinai. He’s a loving Lord besieging us, that are his children, to let him continue his work in us. They began it by sending the Lord Jesus to die for us. And that’s the reason that in the epistle, like that great epistle to the Romans, they’re not commandments given. When Paul gets to that practical section in the 12th chapter, he says there in a very definite way, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, I beseech you, he said. I don’t command you. I’m begging you. I’m pleading with you to yield yourselves. Now, yielding yourself are to present yourself to God. That means that you’re going to let him do something for you. You’re not going to be doing it yourself. And when we come to the marvelous epistle to the Philippians, why we find that, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, not commanded. You just permit God, permit the Holy Spirit to work in your heart and in your life. And in 1 John here, we haven’t got to it yet, he’s going to talk a great deal about abiding, abiding. And abiding is staying in the right place, by the way. Let me put it like this. You cannot live the Christian life. And furthermore, God never asks you to. The thing is, he wants to live it through you. He wants you to yield. You and I can’t live up to his standard. And if the Spirit of God right now is not using this message and making it real to folk, well, I’m just spinning my wheels. Because I’ve learned long ago that McGee really has nothing to say or nothing to give. Just sort of an average human being. Sometimes wonder whether I’m average or not. But only the Spirit of God can make the Word of God real and living to you. Only the Spirit of God can enable you. That’s the reason that I’m so after these how-to books and the quick fix. It doesn’t come that way. It’s to let God do this in you. That’ll save your marriage. That’ll make a better home, a better life, a better business, make a better Christian out of you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Let’s pray. Father, thank you for your grace and your mercy that saves us and that by your grace we can live lives that please you. May your spirit make clear the truths contained in your word. In Jesus’ name, amen. We’re off to 1 John 2 as we go through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.
SPEAKER 01 :
Now, friends, we come back to this rather important section of 1 John, where the children of God are told to love the Lord Jesus and to love God, and they are told to love one another. But they are told, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. That is, this world system today, with all of its politics, And I think with all of its education, with all of that which is godless, and we are living in a godless world today that’s in rebellion against God. This contemporary culture and civilization today is anti-God. And a child of God ought not to love it. Now, we’re in the world, but we’re not of the world. And we have to move into the business world, many of us. Many of us have to move into even a social realm. But we don’t have to be part of that social realm. He says, if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. In other words, a child of God today, as Paul was caught up in this, he said, I’ve discovered in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. And what I would not do, I’m doing it. Because he found out there’s no power in the new nature. And he says, what I want to do, the new nature wants to do. That old nature balks at it. And that old nature backslides and will not do that thing. So that there is a real conflict that will go on in the heart of the Christian as long as he’s in the world with that old nature. Because that old nature is geared to this world in which we live. It’s meshed. in to the program of the world. Now he says all that’s in the world. And here are the three things that are in the world. The lust of the flesh. There’s so many things that appeal to the flesh. And it’s the same temptation that Satan brought to Eve, that the tree was good for food. If you were hungry, it was a good place to eat, by the way. And one of the things that’s condemned in Scripture, of course, is gluttony. And there are other sins of the flesh that’s over-emphasized today on sex, both in the church and out of the church. I think that is quite obvious today. Now, the very interesting thing is, this is the same kind of temptation that Satan brought to the Lord Jesus. You remember he said to him, you’ve been fasting for 40 days. You’re hungry because you’re a man as well as God. Now, he says, why don’t you turn the stones into bread? Now, he could have done it. The difference between the Lord Jesus Christ and myself is if I could turn stones into bread, I suspect I’d be doing that. But he didn’t because of the fact that he was being tested in that same area. And you and I are being tested today in that area also. The desires of the flesh. It’s not that we are not being tested. We are. And there’s no sin in being tested in this area at all. There’s nothing wrong in looking in a window and seeing delicious food. But the thing that would be wrong if you became a glutton The same thing would apply to that of sex. It will apply to any realm of the flesh to satisfy the desires of the flesh. And then he said the lust of the eyes. Now, he saw that the tree was good to look at. And you remember, Satan showed the Lord Jesus Christ all the kingdoms of this world. Let me tell you, they’re very attractive. And today there is a godless philosophy that’s trying to get control of the world. And there will come a day when an Antichrist will arise. We’re going to talk about him in this particular chapter here. In fact, in the next verse or two, we’ll be talking about Antichrist. He’s coming to rule this world for Satan. And this is an attractive world that you and I live in with all of its display, with all of its pageant, with all of its human glory, and all of that is attached to it. And then the pride of life. Now, what is the pride of life? Well, Eve saw that the tree was to be desired to make one wise. You know, today, a great many people like to pride themselves on their family. I come from a very old family, and they pride themselves upon the fact they belong to a certain race. I think that there are several races that are very proud of that. That was the appeal Hitler made to the German people, of course. And it’s appeal, I think, to any race today, and I don’t care what race it is. But actually, that is a pride of life. It is that which makes you feel superior to somebody else. And it’s in religion today. I meet some saints. They feel like they’re super-duper saints. They feel like, as one man said to me, he said, Maya, I’m for your Bible study. In fact, he’s given to our program to help get it out. He says, I just know a lot of people that listen to it and they need it. But he very frankly told me, he says, I don’t listen to it. And the point was, he didn’t need it. He felt like he just had arrived. He was a very mature saint. And that, of course, proves that he’s very immature when he even talks like that. She saw it was to be desired to make one wise. Now, you remember that Satan took the Lord Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple. Just cast yourself down, and there will be a great many people there to see it. They would witness this. It was probably during a feast time. And you cast yourself down, and believe me, you will demonstrate that you are superior. Lord Jesus never performed a miracle. in order to demonstrate that. May I say to you that these are the three appeals that are made to you and me today. And it leads to the most distorted view of life that anyone can possibly have. When we make our tummy our goal in life, or when we attempt to make beauty as the goal of life, or we attempt to make that even which is religious, the goal of life, those things become deadly. And they are of the world. And we’re told that we’re not to love these things because God does not love them. And he intends to destroy this world system. He’s made that very clear. Now he explains the reason. Verse 17, “…the world passeth away, and the lust of it. But he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.” I think of two things in this connection. I always enjoy going to England and visiting. Well, I like to go down to the Tower, the London Tower. I enjoy that. I enjoy going visiting the castles like Tewksbury Castle, Warwick Castle. I like to go to Hampton Court and Windsor and Canterbury. I enjoy going to these places because most of us have ancestors that came from over there. But I want to tell you that these folk that were our ancestors, they were a bloody, brutal, and vain and worldly people. And all you have to do is go into Hampton Court and see how Henry VIII took it away from Cardinal Woolsey. He’s the one that built it. Old Cardinal Woolsey, when he died, he said, if I’d only served my God like I served my king, I wouldn’t be here today. Wouldn’t have been in the situation he was in. And Henry VIII, my, how he could eat. And when he got tired of a wife, he just sent her to the tower and they beheaded her. And he had several of them. But go and look at all of that today. The world passeth away. And many of us today, I look back at when I was a young man, and I wish somehow or another I could reach back there and claim some of those days and some of the strength that I had then and use it for God, which I did not do at that day. The world’s passing away. And then I like to go and look at other places, go to the tower. What a story is told there, bloodshed, but also of the pride of life and the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eye. Oh, how beautiful Windsor and Hampton Court were, the flowers that even the arrangement was made by Rand, the wonderful architect that built St. Paul’s. May I say to you, there is a glory that belongs to all of that, but you know it’s already passed away, and England is just a third-rate power today in the world, and it may not even be a third-rate power at all. All of that and the lust of it. Where is the lust of Henry VIII today? Well, in one of those tombs over there. And just think of all the glory that’s buried in Westminster. All of that has passed away. But he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. Why don’t you work at something today, friends, that’s permanent, something that has stability about it, Something that’s going to last for a long time. This is a tremendous section that we’re in. And now he introduces another sensational subject. And he says again in verse 18 here, he says, Little children, it is the last time. Little children. Here we have again this expression. And little children, it’s the last time. And the word that’s translated little children here is just a little different from the word that’s translated little children back in verse 12. There it was a term of affection and implies all that are born into God’s family, God’s little born ones, little barns as the Scottish term is, all his dear children. But these dear children, as we’ve seen, are of different degrees of spiritual experience. And they’re divided into three classes. Fathers at the top, they’re young men and they’re little babies. Now he’s talking here to the little babies again. These are the little babies. They haven’t grown up yet. They’re passing through this world. And the chances are they’ve been tripped up by one of these three things that caused Christians to be tripped up. Now he says, little children, it’s the last time. You and I are living, actually, in the last days here on the earth. It’s been the last time for a long time. This is the age in which he’s calling out a people to his name. And you could say at any time during this period, now is the acceptable time. Today, if you’ll hear his voice. Why that? Why the urgency about salvation? Because, friend, you might not be here tomorrow. I might not be on this radio tomorrow. It just might be we won’t be around. So it’s important for me to give out the word. It’s important for you to hear the word. Now we have brought before us here Antichrist. Listen to him. Little children, it’s the last time. And as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now are there many Antichrists. by which we know that it is the last time. Now, many Antichrists had already appeared, but there is coming the Antichrist. Now, what do you mean by Antichrist? And I think that this word has been misunderstood. And as a result, the person who’s coming is misunderstood. And I’m going to run ahead here for just a few moments to look at this. Antichrist is made up of two words, a preposition, anti, and also Christ. Here, it’s very important to see that anti has two meanings. It can mean against. Anti, we think of it as meaning against something. I’m anti something. Well, that means I’m against something. And then anti can also mean instead of. It can be a substitute, therefore. It can be a very good substitute or just a subterfuge for something. It means in place of, an imitation of. So the question arises, is Antichrist a false Christ or is he an enemy of Christ? Where is the emphasis placed? Now, here in 1 John, and there are several references to it, and I can only deal with this one today. We’ll come to the others. In fact, next time we’ll be coming to one down in the 22nd verse. But here I read again, little children, it’s the last time. And as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now are there many Antichrists by which we know that it is the last time. Now, the only thing that we can arrive at from this statement is that there is going to be an Antichrist, but already in his day, that is John’s day, there were many Antichrists. Now, what was the thing that identified an Antichrist? Well, it was one who denied the deity of Christ, and that’s the primary definition of Antichrist that we have in 1 John, because we’ll pick that up when we get down to verse 22. And I think probably I’ll run a little farther ahead and say this. That that is the emphasis here. But you will recall that the Lord Jesus said, many shall come in my name saying, I am Christ. Antichrist instead of Christ. They’ll claim to be Christ. Now, I personally believe that there are going to be two persons at the end of the age that will fulfill both of these types. There will be, and Scripture presents it that way. In the 13th chapter of Revelation, and I’m running ahead now, you have a beast, a wild beast that comes out of the sea, and Satan is the one that calls him forward. That is the political ruler, and he is definitely against Christ. Now, there’s a second beast. He comes out of the land, and he appears to be a lamb, but he’s a wolf, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He pretends to be Christ, who is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. He will be a religious ruler. The political ruler is coming out of the Gentile world, the former Roman Empire. And the religious ruler will come out of the nation Israel. They wouldn’t accept him as their Messiah unless they did. So that you have actually two that fulfill this term Antichrist. And he’s coming, probably ought to say they’re coming at the end of the age. And both of them can be called Antichrist. One against Christ and the other instead of Christ. Now, I’ve run ahead. When we get to these passages, I’ll develop them further. But I must keep on here. Now, verse 19, “…they went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us. But they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” Now, John says the way that you can tell whether one is a child of God is the fact that eventually that man will show his true colors and he will leave the assembly of God. He’ll withdraw from the Christians, from a body of believers, and he’ll go right back into the world. Now, we saw in 2 Peter the parable of the prodigal pig. You see, not only did a son get down in the pig pen, but a little pig, according to Peter, got washed. He says a sow that was washed. That little girl pig that went up to the father’s house became very religious, got all cleaned up with, you know, a pink bow around her neck and her teeth were washed with Pepsodent. Well, she didn’t like the father’s house because she’s a pig. And the little pig one day said, I’m going, I’m going to rise and go to my father, my old man. And he was down in a big loblolly of mud. And the little old pig went home, and when he saw the old man, just made a squeal and took a leap and landed in the mud right by the side of him. Why? Because it’s a pig. They went out from us because they were not of us. You think that’s a harsh, cruel statement, but it happens to be a true statement today. Oh, there are many that make professions of being Christian, but they’re not really Christians, friends. Now, we’re going to see that in detail next time. Until then, may God richly bless you, my beloved.
SPEAKER 02 :
God says, there is none righteous, no, not one. And the punishment of sin is death. And that’s the bad news. But the good news is that God wants to save you from eternal punishment. God sent his son, Jesus, to willingly take your place on the cross. He died for you, and he died for me. Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. You can read that for yourself. It’s John 11, verses 25 and 26. And it’s also just how Dr. McGee describes how you can know God in his pamphlet, The Inside Story. You can read or even download this handout for yourself at ttb.org. Just click on How Can I Know God? Or if you prefer to receive it in the mail, email your request to biblebus at ttb.org or call 1-800-65-BIBLE. And if you know God, but maybe you’re looking for a Bible study resource that will deepen your personal study of God’s Word, well, we’ve got plenty of stuff to help you out, including free downloads of more than 100 of Dr. McGee’s booklets. No matter what you’re interested in studying, check out the list and download one or two or more anytime over at ttb.org. Or if we can help you find something that you’re looking for, call us at 1-800-65-BIBLE. I’m Steve Schwetz, hoping you’ll meet me back here as the Bible bus comes around your corner. Until then, may God bless you as you walk with Him.
SPEAKER 1 :
We’ll meet you back here next time. In fact, we’re going to do this together, Lord willing, till Jesus comes again.
