Join us as we delve into the teachings from 1 John and witness testimonials of global believers living faithfully under challenging conditions. We hear remarkable stories about individuals, such as Waksuma and Benji, who despite facing personal loss, exhibit tremendous faith and initiative in spreading the Word. As we unpack Dr. J. Vernon McGee’s expositions, this episode emphasizes the significance of divine communion, the promise of eternal life, and the call to avoid spiritual pride.
The foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith.
SPEAKER 02 :
Give top priority to the matter of knowing Christ. That’s Dr. J. Vernon McGee’s sound advice in this study on Through the Bible. He says, make it your passion and your priority to know Jesus. I hope that’s on top of our list of what we do today and every day, whether we’ve just begun this journey of faith, walking with the Lord, or whether we’ve known the Lord for decades. We’re in 1 John in our five-year journey through the whole word of God. And according to Dr. McGee, it’s a book that we should read carefully and often. It’s the Apostle John’s firsthand account of the greatest life in all of history. After all, John walked side by side with our Lord Jesus and observed him up close and personal. Well, we may not have that same privilege to physically share a meal with or embrace Jesus like John did, at least not this side of heaven. But if you’ve been living a life of faith of any length of time, surely you’ve encountered people in your life whose godly examples of faithfulness have blessed you, encouraged you, as well as challenged you to grow in your faith. Or people whose stories of walking with the Lord make them witnesses to you of God’s goodness, his power to deliver from sin, or maybe the ability to change the trajectory of a life. Well, Dr. McGee frequently talked about men who mentored him or inspired him. He knew the value of having a godly witness. And we’ve experienced that too, haven’t we, Greg?
SPEAKER 03 :
I think it may be one of the greatest privileges of what you and I and others in this ministry get to do, and that is just to know some of God’s choicest servants around the world. And I think you and I have talked about this. It really is humbling when you encounter people that have incredible faith and that sacrifice, but they love the Lord, and we learn so much from them.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, I think of one man in particular who I met in this last year on my trip to Ethiopia. You know, when I first started, the halls of Through the Bible were lined with pictures of the producers and the languages, and I would pray for them. You know, I see this little, you know, often blurry picture and, you know, not really knowing the person and having the opportunity to meet Waksuma in Ethiopia. And I’ve talked about it before, how he came to the Lord because of the ministry of Through the Bible. Yeah. And then… Fast forward, I’ll just briefly summarize. He goes to college, graduates with a journalism degree, starts looking for a job, ends up sitting down for a reading of a program that he would be the voice of. And it turns out it’s through the Bible in a Romo in a Romo. And he heard it shortwave in English in English and got saved as a result of that. And that’s enough of its own story. But just fast forward now, he’s a man in his 50s, and he is heading up our home group movement in Ethiopia. And I had the privilege, and I mean privilege, to go to Ethiopia and sit through three days of teaching at a training conference. It wasn’t all pastors, but mostly pastors who originally were supposed to be about 25 or 30. We had over double that. And watching Waksuma teach, translating from English to Oromo and Amharic, Yes, simultaneously with all of those people. That’s that’s the second big thing. And then for them to put on the board how many home groups they want to have, you know, 2000 and something. Yeah. And thinking, oh, my friend, you’re just there’s no way me of little faith. I was quiet. And then for you to go back and find out its mission accomplished. Six months later. Exactly. And growing more. It is such a blessing to be around other believers like that who are so excited, live in a difficult place. He lost his wife to what is in the U.S. a highly treatable cancer, thyroid cancer. And yet he’s now a dad raising a son alone. And yet he’s having such a great impact for the gospel.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, he is one of many people around the world that we’ve been humbled to know. I’m also, while we’re thinking about Africa, God has been working through a man named Benji. I’m not going to use his last name for now. But, you know, Steve, in ministry, it’s easy to talk about vision and wanting to do things. But then there are people that just move mountains and get things done.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, and Benji. Benji’s a doer.
SPEAKER 03 :
And Benji’s a doer. In the last two years, we were just having lunch today with our friend Ray Allery, who oversees our ministry in Africa. And he told us that through Benji’s hard work and passion for the Bible, we’re now on 70 FM stations that we were not on before.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. Now, in a lot of part of the world, it doesn’t make sense to be doing radio to that extent. But when you take the lack of infrastructure in Africa and the amount of money that we’re paying, which is almost nothing for these radios.
SPEAKER 03 :
stations it’s incredible and he the stations will air through the bible at least twice a day sometimes three times a day so it’s men like that and so many more that are humbling us and and moving us to take the whole word to the whole yeah such an encouragement greg why don’t you pray for us as we begin Father, we are humbled to meet some of your great servants, and we want to pray for them right now, for Waxuma, for Benji, for so many others that we could name who are serving you faithfully and with passion and joy. We pray that their example would inspire us to serve you in a way that pleases you. Help us now as we study your word. In Jesus’ name, amen.
SPEAKER 02 :
Turn to 1 John 2 as we go through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.
SPEAKER 01 :
Now, friends, we come today to the 23rd verse of the second chapter of 1 John. Now, he has already told us that he’s identified Antichrist for us. Antichrist is the one that denies the Father and the Son. And now he makes it clear in verse 23 here, that you can’t deny one without denying the other. Because you see, the deity of Christ is essential for your salvation and mine. Because if he’s not God, then the man that died on the cross 1,900 years ago cannot be your Savior and mine. In fact, he couldn’t be his own Savior, because none of us as human beings can die for the other. But it was necessary for God to become a man in order that you and I might have redemption. Therefore, he says in verse 23, “…whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father. He that confesseth the Son hath the Father also.” So that you can see that when you say that you believe in God and deny the deity of Christ, you really don’t believe in God. Certainly not the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible is the one who sent his son into the world to die for our sins. And he is God. And since he’s God… He alone was the one that could make a satisfactory sacrifice to God for our sins. Because had he been anything else, he himself would have been a sinner. Now, whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father. He that confesseth the Son hath the Father also. And we need to emphasize that because of the very fact of the importance of it. Now, let me move down to verse 24. Let that therefore abide in you which ye have heard from the beginning. In other words, the beginning in John goes back to the incarnation of Christ. Now, John said to those, that which you’ve heard from the beginning, that which you heard concerning his incarnation, and that’s in the gospel of John, that which you heard concerning his life, And that which you heard concerning his death, that which you’ve heard concerning his resurrection, let that therefore abide in you, which you’ve heard from the beginning. If that which you have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son and in the Father. Now, it is essential, therefore, to have a faith, a living faith, that rests in the one who came into this earth 1,900 years ago. As John said, the Word became flesh. And, well, here among us, and the Word was made flesh. How tremendous that is. And no one hath seen God at any time. The only begotten Son that’s in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him, exegeted him. He’s led him out where now we can know about God because God has become a man. And that’s the only way you and I could know about him. We know now about God. We can know him. And the important thing, in fact, in this whole section here, is communion with the Father. and with the Son. The emphasis here is not so much having life in Christ through faith in him, but it’s now having communion and enjoying that fellowship with him that is so essential. Now, let me move on here. Verse 25, and this is the promise. that he hath promised us even eternal life. Now, this is a very important verse here because the next verse joins with it. These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you. In other words, there were those that were now coming along, beginning to deny the Father and the Son, beginning to deny that the Lord Jesus Christ was who he claimed to be. And they were seducing some of those that were professors. And now John says, the thing that you must hold on to is this, that he promised you eternal life if you put your faith in Christ. Now, he says, you don’t need to add anything to that. You don’t need what the Gnostics were teaching. They pretended to have super duper knowledge that they knew a little bit more than anyone else. And I’m afraid today that there’s a real danger, actually, in a great many people that are going to so many Bible classes. There’s a danger of becoming a super duper saint. A lady said to me the other day, and I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t appreciate it very much because I know her husband so well, and he’s a wonderful Christian. Now, she’s been going to Bible classes, and they’ve been fine. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not criticizing them. But she was adopting a very superior attitude toward her husband, and she knew more than he knew, and that she was really the one that could teach him. And very frankly… I don’t think she could. I think that he’s a very intelligent man and he’s not able to be in as many Bible classes as she is. But what he hears. He takes it down and it has an effect upon his life. So that there’s a real danger of present-day Gnosticism of professing to have a super knowledge and maybe a super experience and that you become a super-duper saint. And there’s no one just quiet in your class. And that’s a dangerous position to come to because if you come into a knowledge of Christ, and you begin to grow in grace and in the knowledge of him, you will have the same experience that John the Baptist had. John the Baptist said, he must increase. I must decrease. And I believe that if any man is honest when he studies the Word of God, and I’m getting ready to make a confession to you, and I hope you won’t let this out. We’re not going to tell anybody except just you folk, and I hope we can just keep it in the family. And it’s this. The thing that in one sense is a little disturbing to me In my study of the Word of God is that it doesn’t reveal how much I know. It reveals how much I don’t know and how woefully ignorant I am. I think back over my ministry and things that I’m studying now, and I’m studying the Bible now as I never have in my entire life. But things I thought I knew when I graduated from seminary, well, I practically knew it all then. There was very little that I thought I needed to learn after that. But very frankly, I thought there were certain things I knew at that time. Well, I’m coming today to find out I didn’t know them at all. I thought I did, but I didn’t know them at all. And the vast field of knowledge today for the child of God, and it behooves us, friends, to make this matter of coming to know Christ. through his word, make it a serious business and give it top priority in our lives. That’s the thing that’s all important. And that’s all that John is really saying here. He says, I don’t want you to become a super-duper saint. I want you to rest upon these things. Now he’s moving into the area where he’s going to say to them very definitely. that you know him as your Savior, hold on to that. But now you want to have communion with him and the Father and have fellowship with him and the Father and with other believers. Now, notice as he moves on. But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you, but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. Now, the important thing to note here is this, that He’s not saying we do not need teachers. We do need teachers. Or else Paul was certainly wrong in Ephesians when he made the statement that God has given to the church certain men that are gifted, some to teach, some that are evangelists, and some that are shepherds that can minister and counsel folk. And he’s given these to the church to build up the body of believers. And I think that’s important. I think we all need to sit under good teachers. As I look back over my life, I thank God for the godly men that have crossed my pathway. And they are the ones that are responsible, actually, for me being in the ministry. I have above right now this Ampex machine, which is making this tape. I have the pictures of four men. And I keep them right before me all the time. These are four men that when you put them together and their influence on me, it’s the reason that I entered the ministry. These men that affected my life. Now, you don’t know these men, but I’m going to give you their name. The first man is a man by the name of Joe Boyd in Nashville, Tennessee. He was a layman. When no one else seemed interested, and a young fellow who wanted to study for the ministry, this man got interested. And he’s actually the man that did the footwork of making it possible for me to have a job, to go to college, for me to get a loan to go to college and seminary. And he followed my ministry, and I was his pastor for three years. And he was a wonderful man. I thank God for him. And next to him is the pastor there. And I followed him, Dr. A.S. Allen. He’s one of those unsung preachers that you don’t hear about today. But he was one of the greatest preachers I ever listened to. Then next to him is Dr. Louis Spare-Chafer, the founder and president, first president of Dallas Theological Seminary. And my, when I heard him, that’s what turned me on. I said, this is the thing I want. And then next to him is probably the brainiest man that I think I ever met, Dr. Albert Dudley, a man that had great influence upon the turn that I took in the ministry to become an expository preacher and not to get up and give little sermonettes to Christianettes as a preacherette. But I thank God for him and for all these men so that John is not saying these are not essential. But he’s saying something here that’s important for God’s children today. But the anointing which ye have received. Now, we’ve seen that before when we were talking back about the unction of the Holy One, the unction of the Holy Spirit, the anointing of the Holy Spirit. And that’s one of his ministries, that the Holy Spirit is the teacher. He’s able to guide us into all truth. The Lord Jesus, the great teacher, he says, I’m going to send you the real teacher, the Holy Spirit. When he’s come, he’ll lead you and guide you into all truth. That is, all that you will be able to contain and all that I’m able to contain. Now, there ought to come a day when you and I can stand on our two feet as far as the Word of God is concerned and give a reason, as Peter says, for the hope that is in us. We ought to be able to do that. And there is a grave danger in this, and I want to say this rather carefully. I know people, and I’ve known them now for periods of 30 years, And they have been going to Bible classes, and they’ve been studying the Bible, but they never get anywhere. And they are the ones that bring Bible teaching into disrepute. Because I meet some of these people, I’ve seen them at Bible conferences in the summertime. I’ve seen them for 30 years. And they are today right where they were 30 years ago. As Paul said to a young preacher, Timothy, silly women laden with sins, ever learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth. They don’t seem quite to arrive, but they’re always got their Bible and they’re always writing a few little notes down. But they come up to you at a summer conference over a year ago where I was speaking. I had a woman that came up to me and I do declare that she asked me the same question 25 years ago at the same conference. and had a notebook there, and she’s still taking it down. Ever learning, but never coming. In other words, we ought to get to the place where the Spirit of God is our teacher. How many of you, when you study the Word of God, ask the Spirit of God to teach you and to lead you? And if you don’t understand it the first time, get down on your knees and say, Lord, I missed the point. I don’t understand this. Make it real to me. I want this to be real to me. Now, friends, that’s important. That’s what he’s saying here. The anointing which you have received abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you. Now, there’s certain things the Spirit of God can make very real to you, teaching you of all things, and is truth and is no lie. And that’s the reason that the Lord Jesus could say that when the Antichrist does finally come, that he would deceive the very elect if it were possible. But it’s never possible to deceive the elect. Antichrist will not deceive the elect that are left on the earth at that time. And today, the Antichrist will not deceive. I know a couple, they were just saved and they got in a liberal church. And when I finally met them, why, this is the thing that they said to me. They said, look, we worked our way down Wilshire Boulevard, going from church to church till we got to your place. And we knew we were not hearing the truth of God, but we couldn’t put our finger on it. We knew it was wrong, but we didn’t know how it was wrong. They were just new converts. And I think God’s little children are going to follow the pattern the Lord Jesus said, “‘My sheep hear my voice.'” And they’re not going to follow a false shepherd. They hear his voice. And the Spirit of God can be a teacher. That’s a great comfort today, friends. And we need to test every teacher by that. It’d be well if you tested me by that. Ask the Holy Spirit. Is this thing that McGee’s teaching, is that the truth of God? Make it real to my heart, too. I want to know whether it’s true or not. And this is very important. Now, verse 28. And now, little children, and here we go again, dear little barns, little born ones, and now, little children, abide in him, that when he shall appear, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming. Now, this is for fellowship. Again, I want to repeat that. To abide in him is to live in fellowship with With the Lord Jesus. That’s what it means to abide in him. It means to have communion with him. Now he says, abide in him. Now when he appears, you can have confidence. There are a great many people who are talking about the coming of Christ and get rather excited about it. But it’s sure going to be embarrassing for them. They won’t have any confidence. There’ll be a shame before him at his appearing. Why? Well, because of their lies. The Lord Jesus says, behold, I come quickly and my reward is with me. And they’re going to look around for their reward and find out they haven’t got any. As Paul, you remember, said, they’re going to be saved so as by fire. But what their works will be consumed by fire because they’re made of wood, hay, and stubble. It’s very important today to have a life that commends the gospel. And what John is saying here, he’s saying actually the same thing that Peter told us, that false doctrine and false living go together. And true doctrine and true living go together. And every now and then you hear one of these cult leaders, and he’s in trouble. He’s guilty of adultery, or he’s guilty of taking money that doesn’t belong to him, or guilty of beating some person out of money that he should not. Why? False doctrine, friends, leads to false living. True doctrine leads to true living. And there’s nothing that will affect your life like the knowledge that you’re going to stand in the presence of Christ and give an account of our works. Every believer will stand before the judgment seat of Christ. And Paul says we’ll be judged according to our works. And salvation’s already been settled because we’re his children in his presence. And it’s not a question of whether you saved or lost. It’s a question of whether you’re going to get a reward or not or any recognition or not. And there’ll be some there that won’t get any recognition. And Paul could say, no, in the terror of the Lord, we persuade man. The rapture is not going to be such a thrilling event, friends, for a great many believers because of the lives they live down here. Now, he says here, this verse 29, the last verse, if ye know that he is righteous, ye know that everyone that doeth righteousness is born of him. That’s the final proof. That is the litmus paper that is put in to tell whether it’s the acid or base. And it’ll sure tell every time. The Word of God is the real test. So until next time, may God richly bless you, my beloved.
SPEAKER 02 :
If we can help you find a resource by Dr. McGee that deepens your study of God’s Word, just call us, 1-800-65-BIBLE is the number, or go to our website, ttb.org. And remember, you can always write, Box 7100, Pasadena, California, 91109. In Canada, Box 25325, London, Ontario, N6C 6B1. I’m Steve Schwetz, so grateful for another day in God’s Word with you. Through the Bible is a five-year study of God’s entire word, and together we discover God’s purposes in history and our lives, found only when we believe in Jesus Christ. Do you know him yet?
